Wealth and Poverty in the Book of Proverbs

Book excerpt: This is not a sociological study in the technical sense. Its aim is simply to review the internal evidence of a single Old Testament book about attitudes towards what is now universally recognized as one of the most serious problems facing the world today: the unequal distribution of this world's goods. The study shows that there are some fundamental assumptions common to all sections of Proverbs: that wealth, unless acquired by dishonest or unscrupulous means, is a good rather than an evil, and that poverty as a feature of society is an evil which may to some extent be alleviated in particular cases but for which there is no universal cure.