Commentary - Proverbs 28:22

Bird's-eye view

This proverb is a compact diagnosis of a particular kind of spiritual sickness, along with its inevitable prognosis. The sickness is the frantic pursuit of wealth, and the prognosis is the poverty it ironically produces. The verse identifies the root cause of this self-destructive behavior as having an "evil eye," a biblical idiom for a stingy, covetous, and envious disposition. Such a man is not simply diligent; he is in a hurry. This haste blinds him to the consequences of his actions. He is so fixated on the shortcut, the quick gain, and what his neighbor has, that he fails to see the gaping pit of want that lies directly in his path. The proverb teaches a fundamental law of God's moral universe: the grasping pursuit of riches, which violates the principles of patience, diligence, and contentment, is a self-defeating enterprise. God has wired the world in such a way that this kind of greed eats its own tail.

In the broader context of Proverbs, this verse stands alongside many others that contrast the path of the wise with the path of the fool. The wise man works diligently, trusts in the Lord, is generous, and builds his wealth patiently over time (Prov. 28:20). The fool, driven by an evil eye, tries to circumvent God's ordained process. His haste leads him to cut corners, to engage in foolish schemes, and to alienate others, all of which are pathways to ruin. This is not just practical financial advice; it is deep theology. It reveals that our attitude toward money is a direct reflection of our attitude toward God. A man with an evil eye does not trust in God's provision or timing; he trusts in his own frantic efforts, and the end of that road is always destitution, both materially and spiritually.

Outline

Context In Proverbs

Proverbs 28 is a chapter full of sharp contrasts between the righteous and the wicked, the wise and the foolish. Verse 22 fits neatly into this pattern. It is preceded by warnings against oppressing the poor (v. 8) and is in the immediate vicinity of a verse that provides the positive counterpart: "A faithful man will abound with blessings, But he who makes haste to be rich will not go unpunished" (Prov. 28:20). The "faithful man" is the opposite of the "man with an evil eye." One is patient, diligent, and trusts God's process; the other is hasty, greedy, and trusts in his own schemes. The chapter as a whole deals with issues of justice, integrity in leadership, honesty, and the fear of the Lord. This verse, therefore, is not a standalone financial tip but part of a larger tapestry describing the character of a man who has forsaken God's law and the disastrous real-world consequences that follow from that apostasy.

Key Issues

The Boomerang of Greed

There is a moral architecture to the world that God has established, and it is as real as the law of gravity. Part of that architecture is that certain sins have a built-in boomerang effect. Greed is one of the chiefest of these. The man who desperately wants to get away from poverty, and who makes a mad dash for riches as his escape, is actually hastening the arrival of the very poverty he fears. He is running toward the thing he is trying to escape.

Why does this happen? Because the haste to be rich is fundamentally an act of distrust in God. It is a refusal to do things God's way, which involves patient labor, diligence over time, and generosity toward others. The man in a hurry will inevitably cut corners. He will cheat, or he will get involved in speculative, get-rich-quick schemes. His "evil eye" is not just greedy for his own gain; it is also envious of what others have, and this makes him a poor business partner and an untrustworthy neighbor. People of substance learn to avoid him. His shortcuts lead to dead ends, his schemes collapse, and his lack of integrity isolates him. The poverty that comes upon him is not an arbitrary punishment from the sky; it is the natural harvest of the seeds of haste and greed that he has sown.

Verse by Verse Commentary

22 A man with an evil eye hurries after wealth...

The verse begins by identifying the character of the man and the nature of his activity. The root of his problem is that he has an "evil eye." This is a standard Hebrew idiom, not for some kind of magical curse, but for a stingy, miserly, and covetous heart. The eye is the lamp of the body, and if the eye is bad, the whole body is full of darkness (Matt. 6:23). A man with an evil eye sees the world through a lens of scarcity, envy, and greed. He is never content with what he has because his eye is always glancing sideways at what his neighbor has. This internal disposition of covetousness then manifests itself in his actions. He "hurries" or "hastens" after wealth. The issue is not the desire for wealth itself, which can be a legitimate fruit of diligent labor. The issue is the haste. He is not willing to follow the slow, patient, God-ordained path of sowing and reaping. He wants it all, and he wants it now. This is the man who buys a lottery ticket every week, who falls for every pyramid scheme, who is always looking for the angle, the shortcut, the loophole. His greed has put him into a frantic sprint.

And does not know that want will come upon him.

Here is the tragic blindness of the greedy man. His frantic hurry, his laser focus on the prize he is chasing, makes him utterly oblivious to the cliff he is running toward. He "does not know." He is ignorant of the most basic laws of God's economic order. He thinks his haste will lead him to riches, but God says it is leading him directly to want, or poverty. The very thing he is trying to outrun is what will tackle him from behind. This is a profound spiritual principle. The man who lives with an open hand, the man with a "good eye" who is generous to the poor (Prov. 22:9), is the one who will be blessed and provided for. The man with the evil eye, the clenched fist, who grasps and hoards and schemes, is the one who will find his hands empty in the end. His sin has blinded him to its own consequences. He is a fool, not because he is unintelligent, but because he is morally and spiritually blind. He cannot see the cause-and-effect relationship that God has woven into the fabric of reality.

Application

This proverb is a sharp rebuke to our modern age, which is defined by the glorification of haste and the idolatry of wealth. We are constantly encouraged to want more, faster. The get-rich-quick mentality is not just on late-night television; it is the implicit promise of our entire consumer culture. As Christians, we must see this for the spiritual poison that it is.

The first application is diagnostic. We must examine our own hearts. Do we have a "good eye" or an "evil eye"? A good eye is characterized by contentment, gratitude, and generosity. It sees God's provision everywhere and trusts His timing. An evil eye is characterized by envy, discontent, and stinginess. It sees only what it lacks. If we find the symptoms of an evil eye in ourselves, a constant anxiety about money, an envy of the success of others, a reluctance to be generous, we must confess it as sin and ask God to heal our spiritual vision.

The second application is practical. We must reject the world's definition of success and embrace the slow, faithful, and often unspectacular path of diligence. This means working hard at our callings, saving patiently, avoiding debt, and being generous with the resources God has given us. It means teaching our children the value of a hard day's work rather than the fantasy of instant riches. The faithful man who abounds with blessings is the man who plods. He builds his house brick by brick, not by trying to win the lottery.

Ultimately, the only cure for an evil eye is to fix our eyes on Christ. The gospel frees us from the frantic pursuit of wealth by giving us a treasure that can never be lost. When we know that we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, the baubles of this world lose their luster. Jesus is the man with the ultimate "good eye," who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, so that we by His poverty might become rich (2 Cor. 8:9). He gave everything away at the cross, and in so doing, purchased for us "an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading." When our hearts are secure in that treasure, we are liberated from the tyranny of the evil eye and freed to live with the open-handed generosity that reflects our Father in heaven.