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Read the Bible

THE MESSAGE

Proverbs 28:3

The wicked who oppress the poor are like a hailstorm that beats down the harvest.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Oppression;   Poor;   Thompson Chain Reference - Kindness-Cruelty;   Oppression;   Pitiless;   Pitilessness;   Sympathy-Pitilessness;   Unkindness;   The Topic Concordance - Oppression;   Poverty;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Rain;  

Dictionaries:

- Charles Buck Theological Dictionary - Pardon;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Proverbs, Book of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Greek Versions of Ot;   Proverbs, Book of;   Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types - Rain;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Poor;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
A destitute leader who oppresses the pooris like a driving rain that leaves no food.
Hebrew Names Version
A needy man who oppresses the poor Is like a driving rain which leaves no crops.
King James Version
A poor man that oppresseth the poor is like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food.
English Standard Version
A poor man who oppresses the poor is a beating rain that leaves no food.
New American Standard Bible
A poor man who oppresses the helpless Is like a driving rain which leaves no food.
New Century Version
Rulers who mistreat the poor are like a hard rain that destroys the crops.
Amplified Bible
A poor man who oppresses and exploits the lowly Is like a sweeping rain which leaves no food.
World English Bible
A needy man who oppresses the poor Is like a driving rain which leaves no crops.
Geneva Bible (1587)
A poore man, if he oppresse the poore, is like a raging raine, that leaueth no foode.
Legacy Standard Bible
A poor man who oppresses the lowlyIs a driving rain which leaves no food.
Berean Standard Bible
A destitute leader who oppresses the poor is like a driving rain that leaves no food.
Contemporary English Version
When someone poor takes over and mistreats the poor, it's like a heavy rain destroying the crops.
Complete Jewish Bible
A poor man who oppresses the weak is like a downpour that sweeps away all the food.
Darby Translation
A poor man who oppresseth the helpless is a sweeping rain which leaveth no food.
Easy-to-Read Version
A leader who takes advantage of the poor is like a hard rain that destroys the crops.
George Lamsa Translation
A poor man who oppresses the poor is like a sweeping rain which is of no benefit.
Good News Translation
Someone in authority who oppresses poor people is like a driving rain that destroys the crops.
Lexham English Bible
A man who is poor and oppresses the impoverished is a beating rain that leaves no food.
Literal Translation
A poor man that oppresses the weak is like a sweeping rain that leaves no food.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
One poore man oppressinge another by violence, is like a contynuall rayne that destroyeth ye frute.
American Standard Version
A needy man that oppresseth the poor Is like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food.
Bible in Basic English
A man of wealth who is cruel to the poor is like a violent rain causing destruction of food.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
A poor man that oppresseth the weak is like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food.
King James Version (1611)
A poore man that oppresseth the poore, is like a sweeping raine which leaueth no food.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
One poore man oppressing another by violence, is like a raging rayne that destroyeth the fruite.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
As a whip for a horse, and a goad for an ass, so is a rod for a simple nation.
English Revised Version
A needy man that oppresseth the poor is like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
A pore man falsli calengynge pore men, is lijk a grete reyn, wherynne hungur is maad redi.
Update Bible Version
A needy [noble] man that oppresses the poor Is [like] a sweeping rain which leaves no food.
Webster's Bible Translation
A poor man that oppresseth the poor [is like] a sweeping rain which leaveth no food.
New English Translation
A poor person who oppresses the weak is like a driving rain without food.
New King James Version
A poor man who oppresses the poor Is like a driving rain which leaves no food.
New Living Translation
A poor person who oppresses the poor is like a pounding rain that destroys the crops.
New Life Bible
A poor man who makes it hard for the poor is like a heavy rain which leaves no food.
New Revised Standard
A ruler who oppresses the poor is a beating rain that leaves no food.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
A poor man, who oppresseth the helpless, is like a rain beating down, leaving no food.
Douay-Rheims Bible
A poor man that oppresseth the poor, is like a violent shower, which bringeth a famine.
Revised Standard Version
A poor man who oppresses the poor is a beating rain that leaves no food.
Young's Literal Translation
A man -- poor and oppressing the weak, [Is] a sweeping rain, and there is no bread.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
A poor man who oppresses the lowly Is like a driving rain which leaves no food.

Contextual Overview

3 The wicked who oppress the poor are like a hailstorm that beats down the harvest.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

poor man: Matthew 18:28-30

which leaveth no food: Heb. without food

Reciprocal: Leviticus 25:14 - General Judges 6:4 - left no Job 20:10 - His children Job 37:6 - great Proverbs 22:16 - that oppresseth Proverbs 30:14 - to devour Proverbs 30:22 - a servant Ecclesiastes 4:1 - and considered Ecclesiastes 10:17 - when Ezekiel 19:7 - and the land

Cross-References

Genesis 9:1
God blessed Noah and his sons: He said, "Prosper! Reproduce! Fill the Earth! Every living creature—birds, animals, fish—will fall under your spell and be afraid of you. You're responsible for them. All living creatures are yours for food; just as I gave you the plants, now I give you everything else. Except for meat with its lifeblood still in it—don't eat that.
Genesis 28:1
So Isaac called in Jacob and blessed him. Then he ordered him, "Don't take a Caananite wife. Leave at once. Go to Paddan Aram to the family of your mother's father, Bethuel. Get a wife for yourself from the daughters of your uncle Laban.
Genesis 28:6
Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him to Paddan Aram to get a wife there, and while blessing him commanded, "Don't marry a Canaanite woman," and that Jacob had obeyed his parents and gone to Paddan Aram. When Esau realized how deeply his father Isaac disliked the Canaanite women, he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son. This was in addition to the wives he already had.
Genesis 28:18
Jacob was up first thing in the morning. He took the stone he had used for his pillow and stood it up as a memorial pillar and poured oil over it. He christened the place Bethel (God's House). The name of the town had been Luz until then.
Genesis 35:11
God continued, I am The Strong God. Have children! Flourish! A nation—a whole company of nations!— will come from you. Kings will come from your loins; the land I gave Abraham and Isaac I now give to you, and pass it on to your descendants.
Genesis 48:3
Jacob said to Joseph, "The Strong God appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me. He said, ‘I'm going to make you prosperous and numerous, turn you into a congregation of tribes; and I'll turn this land over to your children coming after you as a permanent inheritance.' I'm adopting your two sons who were born to you here in Egypt before I joined you; they have equal status with Reuben and Simeon. But any children born after them are yours; they will come after their brothers in matters of inheritance. I want it this way because, as I was returning from Paddan, your mother Rachel, to my deep sorrow, died as we were on our way through Canaan when we were only a short distance from Ephrath, now called Bethlehem."
Psalms 127:1
A Pilgrim Song of Solomon If God doesn't build the house, the builders only build shacks. If God doesn't guard the city, the night watchman might as well nap. It's useless to rise early and go to bed late, and work your worried fingers to the bone. Don't you know he enjoys giving rest to those he loves?
Revelation 21:22
Everything New I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the first earth, gone the sea. I saw Holy Jerusalem, new-created, descending resplendent out of Heaven, as ready for God as a bride for her husband. I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: "Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They're his people, he's their God. He'll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone." The Enthroned continued, "Look! I'm making everything new. Write it all down—each word dependable and accurate." Then he said, "It's happened. I'm A to Z. I'm the Beginning, I'm the Conclusion. From Water-of-Life Well I give freely to the thirsty. Conquerors inherit all this. I'll be God to them, they'll be sons and daughters to me. But for the rest—the feckless and faithless, degenerates and murderers, sex peddlers and sorcerers, idolaters and all liars—for them it's Lake Fire and Brimstone. Second death!" One of the Seven Angels who had carried the bowls filled with the seven final disasters spoke to me: "Come here. I'll show you the Bride, the Wife of the Lamb." He took me away in the Spirit to an enormous, high mountain and showed me Holy Jerusalem descending out of Heaven from God, resplendent in the bright glory of God. The City shimmered like a precious gem, light-filled, pulsing light. She had a wall majestic and high with twelve gates. At each gate stood an Angel, and on the gates were inscribed the names of the Twelve Tribes of the sons of Israel: three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, three gates on the west. The wall was set on twelve foundations, the names of the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb inscribed on them. The Angel speaking with me had a gold measuring stick to measure the City, its gates, and its wall. The City was laid out in a perfect square. He measured the City with the measuring stick: twelve thousand stadia, its length, width, and height all equal. Using the standard measure, the Angel measured the thickness of its wall: 144 cubits. The wall was jasper, the color of Glory, and the City was pure gold, translucent as glass. The foundations of the City walls were garnished with every precious gem imaginable: the first foundation jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate a single pearl. The main street of the City was pure gold, translucent as glass. But there was no sign of a Temple, for the Lord God—the Sovereign-Strong—and the Lamb are the Temple. The City doesn't need sun or moon for light. God's Glory is its light, the Lamb its lamp! The nations will walk in its light and earth's kings bring in their splendor. Its gates will never be shut by day, and there won't be any night. They'll bring the glory and honor of the nations into the City. Nothing dirty or defiled will get into the City, and no one who defiles or deceives. Only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life will get in.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

A poor man that oppresseth the poor,.... Either one that is poor at the time he oppresses another like himself, either by secret fraud or open injury; from whom the oppressed can get no redress, as sometimes he may and does from a rich man: or rather one that has been poor, but now become rich, and got into some place of authority and profit, who should remember what he had been; and it might be expected that such an one would put on bowels of compassion towards the poor, as knowing what it was to be in indigent circumstances; but if, instead of this, he exercises his authority over the poor in a severe and rigid manner, and oppresses them, and squeezes that little out of them they have: he

[is like] a sweeping rain which leaveth no food: like a violent hasty shower of rain; which, instead of watering the seed, herbs, and plants, and causing them to grow, as moderate rain does, it washes away the very seed sown in the earth, or beats out the ripe corn from the ears, or beats it down, so that it riseth not up again; the effect of which is, there is no bread to the eater, nor seed to the sower, and consequently a famine. The design of the proverb is, to show how unnatural as well as intolerable is the oppression of the poor, by one that has been poor himself; even as it is contrary to the nature and use of rain, which is to fructify, and not to sweep away and destroy; and which when it does, there is no standing against it or diverting it.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

People raise a man of the people, poor like themselves, to power. They find him the worst oppressor of all, plundering them to their last morsels, like the storm-rain which sweeps off the seed-corn instead of bringing fertility.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Proverbs 28:3. A poor man that oppresseth the poor — Our Lord illustrates this proverb most beautifully, by the parable of the two debtors, Matthew 18:23, c. One owed ten thousand talents, was insolvent, begged for time, was forgiven. A fellow servant owed this one a hundred pence: he was insolvent but prayed his fellow servant to give him a little time, and he would pay it all. He would not, took him by the throat, and cast him into prison till he should pay that debt. Here the poor oppressed the poor; and what was the consequence? The oppressing poor was delivered to the tormentors; and the forgiven debt charged to his amount, because he showed no mercy. The comparatively poor are often shockingly uncharitable and unfeeling towards the real poor.

Like a sweeping rain — These are frequent in the East; and sometimes carry flocks, crops, and houses, away with them.


 
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