What Does Proverbs 10:15 Mean?
The rich man's wealth is his strong city; the shattering of the poor is their poverty.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
The rich man’s wealth is his strong city: the destruction of the poor is their poverty.THE KEY
Wealth becomes a fortress for the rich, while poverty is named as a breaking force for the poor.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to a world where material resources can shelter the rich while poverty exposes the poor to ruin. It names an unequal condition: one person has a strong city, while another faces the destructive force of lack. This describes what poverty does, not anyone’s worth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that poverty is harmless if a person simply changes their attitude: the proverb names poverty as destructive and wealth as a real form of shelter.
THE ROOT
מְחִתַּת
məḥittat
GROWS FROM
חתת
To be shattered, broken, or dismayed.
“shattering” in this verse is məḥittat. The word rendered “destruction” comes from a root of being shattered or dismayed. It gives poverty the force of a breaking condition, not merely an empty purse.
ALSO GROWS
ḥātat: To be shattered, dismayed, or broken in courage.
חָתַת
The verb shows the breaking sense carried by the noun for destruction in this verse.
məḥittāh: Ruin, terror, or dismay.
מְחִתָּה
This related noun holds together collapse and alarm, revealing the full weight of the poor person’s condition.
עֻזּוֹ
ʿuzzō
GROWS FROM
עזז
To be strong or mighty.
“strong city” in this verse is ʿuzzō. The Hebrew says the rich man’s wealth is a city of his strength. The image makes wealth itself part of his fortified capacity, set beside the poor person’s breaking.
ALSO GROWS
ʿōz: Strength or might.
עֹז
This related noun names the force that makes the city a place of protection.
ʿaz: Mighty, fierce, or strong.
עָז
This adjective shows the same root’s forceful quality within the idea of a stronghold.
THE PATTERN
Material resources can form real shelter, while the protection they offer remains finite and unevenly held.
The rich man's wealth is his strong city, and like a wall set high in his own high place.For in the shadow of wisdom, in the shadow of silver. But the remainder of the knowledge of wisdom keeps alive its owners.Charge those who are rich in this age, that they not be lifted high in mind, nor set their hope on uncertain riches, but upon the living God, who holds out to us richly all things to feast on.THE THREAD
The rich man's wealth is his strong city, and like a wall set high in his own high place.This verse repeats the same Hebrew image of wealth as a strong city. It then adds that the high wall is “in his own conceit,” opening the image to both the shelter wealth provides and the limits of trusting it as an invulnerable refuge.
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