Proverbs

Proverbs 27:27

Faithful stewardship results in sustaining provision for the household.

Proverbs 27:27 (WEB)

27 There will be plenty of goats’ milk for your food, for your family’s food, and for the nourishment of your servant girls.

Central Idea

Faithful stewardship results in sustaining provision for the household.

Authorial Intent

To demonstrate that faithful stewardship ultimately results in provision sufficient for sustaining the household and those under one's care.

Literary Context

This proverb concludes the short stewardship unit in Proverbs 27:23–27, which urges careful attention to flocks and herds as an alternative to trusting in unstable riches. The sequence moves from knowing the condition of one’s animals (27:23), to remembering the transience of wealth and crowns (27:24), to seasonal rhythms that supply fodder (27:25), to the economic products of livestock (27:26), and finally to the household’s nourishment (27:27). As a closing line, 27:27 emphasizes that wise oversight is oriented toward sustaining life, not merely accumulating assets. The household in view includes more than the nuclear family, extending provision to servants and workers within the domestic economy. The proverb’s plain realism fits Proverbs’ genre: it teaches a general pattern of wisdom under God’s providence rather than an absolute guarantee of prosperity.

Historical Context

The proverb assumes an agrarian household economy where flocks and herds were common measures of livelihood, and where a household could include servants or workers. Goat’s milk functions as a concrete image of regular nourishment that results from attentive care of animals and resources.

Chapter: Proverbs 27

Faithful Friendship, Honest Rebuke, Guarded Praise, Wise Stewardship, and the Testing of the Heart

Wisdom humbly refuses self-boasting, receives faithful rebuke, values honest friendship, guards speech and praise, sharpens others, and gives careful attention to entrusted responsibilities before tomorrow comes.