Proverbs 14:21
Despising others is sin, but compassion toward the poor brings blessing.
21 He who despises his neighbor sins, but he who has pity on the poor is blessed.
Despising others is sin, but compassion toward the poor brings blessing.
To warn that despising one's neighbor is sin while declaring blessing upon those who show compassion to the poor.
Proverbs 14 presents repeated contrasts between wisdom and folly expressed in speech, conduct, and community life. The immediate context highlights social dynamics surrounding wealth and poverty: the poor are often avoided even by their neighbors, while the rich attract many companions. Against that social reality, this verse gives God’s moral verdict—despising a neighbor is sin—and then names the alternative posture that aligns with wisdom: kindness to the needy. The next verse (14:22) continues the moral contrast pattern by opposing those who devise evil with those who plan good, reinforcing that inward intentions and outward treatment of others are matters of righteousness. Within the broader wisdom collection, this saying functions as covenant-shaped ethics applied to everyday relationships: how one treats the vulnerable reveals the heart’s orientation toward God’s order.
Proverbs functions as Israel’s wisdom instruction for covenant-shaped living in ordinary community life. The proverb assumes a social world where economic status influences relationships, and it speaks into that reality by naming contempt as sin and commending merciful action toward the needy as the path of blessing.
The Fear of the LORD, the Way That Seems Right, and Wisdom for Household, Speech, and Community
Wisdom fears the LORD, discerns the way of life, builds households, speaks truth, shows kindness to the needy, and rejects the self-deceiving path that seems right but ends in death.