If thou hast nothing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under thee?
Parallel translations
- WEB If you don’t have means to pay, why should he take away your bed from under you?
- BSB If you have nothing with which to pay, why should your bed be taken from under you?
- NKJV If you have nothing with which to pay, Why should he take away your bed from under you?
- NASB If you have nothing with which to repay, Why should he take your bed from under you?
- NLT If you can’t pay it, even your bed will be snatched from under you.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
If you cannot pay a debt you guaranteed, you risk losing even your bed.
Overview
This explains the previous warning: reckless surety can strip a person of his most basic possessions. The bed represents the last necessities of life, taken when one cannot cover another's debt. Wisdom counsels foresight in financial commitments, that one not be enslaved by avoidable debt (Prov. 22:7).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 3
- Prov 20:16Take his garment that is surety for a stranger: and take a pledge of him for a strange woman.
- Exod 22:26–27If thou at all take thy neighbour’s raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down:
- 2 Kgs 4:1Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the LORD: and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 22:27 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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