Proverbs 13:23
God’s world can yield provision for the poor, but injustice often destroys what their labor produces.
23 An abundance of food is in poor people’s fields, but injustice sweeps it away.
God’s world can yield provision for the poor, but injustice often destroys what their labor produces.
To observe that even the land of the poor can produce abundant food, yet injustice can destroy the fruit of their labor.
Proverbs 13 consists of short sayings that contrast wise and foolish ways and their outcomes. In this setting, Proverbs 13:23 addresses economic life and the vulnerability of the poor by using agricultural imagery: a “field” that can produce “food.” The verse functions as a realistic observation rather than a simplistic moral explanation of poverty. It fits Proverbs’ broader concern for righteousness in community life by naming “injustice” as a force that overturns what should have been gained through labor. The surrounding context contains varied topics (inheritance in 13:22; parental discipline in 13:24), showing that the collection moves from one facet of wisdom to another while maintaining covenant-shaped ethics. The proverb’s tension—provision possible, yet produce lost—invites readers to pursue wisdom that includes justice toward the vulnerable.
The proverb assumes an agrarian setting where fields and harvest represent livelihood, and where the poor are especially vulnerable to loss through perverted judgment or exploitation.
Instruction, Speech, Desire, Wealth, and the Way of the Wise
Wisdom receives instruction, guards speech, walks with the wise, handles desire and wealth patiently, and embraces loving discipline, while folly rejects correction and reaps ruin, shame, and hunger.