Proverbs 23:21

For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(21) Drowsiness, that follows after such debauches.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

23:19-28 The gracious Saviour who purchased pardon and peace for his people, with all the affection of a tender parent, counsels us to hear and be wise, and is ready to guide our hearts in his way. Here we have an earnest call to young people, to attend to the advice of their godly parents. If the heart be guided, the steps will be guided. Buy the truth, and sell it not; be willing to part with any thing for it. Do not part with it for pleasures, honours, riches, or any thing in this world. The heart is what the great God requires. We must not think to divide the heart between God and the world; he will have all or none. Look to the rule of God's word, the conduct of his providence, and the good examples of his people. Particular cautions are given against sins most destructive to wisdom and grace in the soul. It is really a shame to make a god of the belly. Drunkenness stupifies men, and then all goes to ruin. Licentiousness takes away the heart that should be given to God. Take heed of any approaches toward this sin, it is very hard to retreat from it. It bewitches men to their ruin.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The three forms of evil that destroy reputation and tempt to waste are brought together.

Drowsiness - Specially the drunken sleep, heavy and confused.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

21. drowsiness—the dreamy sleep of the slothful.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Drowsiness; immoderate sleep and idleness, which is a ready a way to poverty as gluttony or drunkenness is.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty,.... They consuming their substance upon their bellies, in eating and drinking; see Proverbs 21:17;

and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags; excessive eating and drinking brings drowsiness on men, unfits them for business, and makes them idle and slothful; and spending all on their bellies, they have nothing for their backs, and are clothed in rags; see Proverbs 24:33.

Geneva Study Bible

For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

21. drowsiness] occasioned by excess of meat and drink. Comp. Luke 21:34.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 21. - Intemperance leads to prodigality, carelessness, and ruin. And drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. The luxury and excess spoken of above lead to drowsiness and inability to work, and poverty follows as the natural result (comp. Proverbs 19:15; Proverbs 24:33, etc.). The Vulgate still harps on the same string as in the previous verse, "Those who waste time in drinking, and who give picnics (dantes symbola), shall be ruined, and semnolence small clothe with rags." The LXX. introduces a new idea which the Hebrew does not warrant, "For every drunkard and whoremonger shall be poor, and every sluggard shall clothe himself with tatters and rags." Proverbs 23:21

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Among the virtues which flow from the fear of God, temperance is made prominent, and the warning against excess is introduced by the general exhortation to wisdom:

19 Hear thou, my son, and become wise,

     And direct thy heart straight forward on the way.

20 And be not among wine-drinkers,

     And among those who devour flesh;

21 For the drunkard and glutton become poor,

     And sleepiness clotheth in rags.

The אתּה, connected with שׁמע, imports that the speaker has to do with the hearer altogether by himself, and that the latter may make an exception to the many who do not hear (cf. Job 33:33; Jeremiah 2:31). Regarding אשּׁר, to make to go straight out, vid., at Proverbs 4:14; the Kal, Proverbs 9:6, and also the Piel, Proverbs 4:14, mean to go straight on, and, generally, to go. The way merely, is the one that is right in contrast to the many byways. Fleischer: "the way sensu eximio, as the Oriental mystics called the way to perfection merely (Arab.) âlaṭryḳ; and him who walked therein, âlsâlak, the walker or wanderer."

(Note: Rashi reads בדרך לבך (walk), in the way of thy heart (which has become wise), and so Heidenheim found it in an old MS; but בדרך is equivalent to בדרך בינה, Proverbs 9:6.)

אל־תּתי ב, as at Proverbs 22:26, the "Words of the Wise," are to be compared in point of style. The degenerate and perverse son is more clearly described, Deuteronomy 21:20, as זולל וסבא. These two characteristics the poet distributes between 20a and 20b. סבא means to drink (whence סבא, drink equals wine, Isaiah 1:22) wine or other intoxicating drinks; Arab. sabâ, vinum potandi causa emere. To the יין here added, בּשׂר in the parallel member corresponds, which consequently is not the fleshly body of the gluttons themselves, but the prepared flesh which they consume at their luxurious banquets. The lxx incorrectly as to the word, but not contrary to the sense, "be no wine-bibber, and stretch not thyself after picknicks (συμβολαῖς), and buying in of flesh (κρεῶν τε ἀγορασμοῖς)," whereby זללי is translated in the sense of the Aram. זבני (Lagarde). זלל denotes, intransitively, to be little valued (whence זולל, opp. יקר, Jeremiah 15:19), transitively to value little, and as such to squander, to lavish prodigally; thus: qui prodigi sunt carnis sibi; למו is dat. commodi. Otherwise Gesenius, Fleischer, Umbreit, and Ewald: qui prodigi sunt carnis suae, who destroy their own body; but the parallelism shows that flesh is meant wherewith they feed themselves, not their own flesh (בּשׂר למו, like חמת־למו, Psalm 58:5), which, i.e., its health, they squander. זולל also, in phrase used in Deuteronomy 21:20 (cf. with Hitzig the formula φάγος καὶ οἰνοπότης, Matthew 11:19), denotes not the dissolute person, as the sensualist, πορνοκόπος (lxx), but the συμβολοκόπος (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion), κρεωβόρος (Venet.), זלל בּסר (Onkelos), i.e., flesh-eater, ravenous person, glutton, in which sense it is rendered here, by the Syr. and Targ., by אסוט (אסיט), i.e., ἄσωτος. Regarding the metaplastic fut. Niph. יוּרשׁ (lxx πτωχεύσει), vid., at Proverbs 20:13, cf. Proverbs 11:25. נוּמה (after the form of בּוּשׁה, דּוּגה, צוּרה) is drowsiness, lethargy, long sleeping, which necessarily follows a life of riot and revelry. Such a slothful person comes to a bit of bread (Proverbs 21:17); and the disinclination and unfitness for work, resulting from night revelry, brings it about that at last he must clothe himself in miserable rags. The rags are called קרע and ῥάκος, from the rending (tearing), Arab. ruk'at, from the patching, mending. Lagarde, more at large, treats of this word here used for rags.