Don’t eat the food of him who has a stingy eye, and don’t crave his delicacies:
Parallel translations
- KJV Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats:
- BSB Do not eat the bread of a stingy man, and do not crave his delicacies;
- ESV Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy; do not desire his delicacies,
- NKJV Do not eat the bread of a miser, Nor desire his delicacies;
- NASB ¶Do not eat the bread of a selfish person; Or desire his delicacies;
- NLT Don’t eat with people who are stingy; don’t desire their delicacies.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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
Do not accept the hospitality of a stingy, grudging host or crave his fine food.
Overview
The "stingy eye" describes a host who resents what he gives even while offering it. Wisdom discerns the heart behind apparent generosity and refuses food given grudgingly. Scripture instead prizes the cheerful giver whom God loves (2 Cor. 9:7), contrasting genuine generosity with this hollow show.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ps 141:4Don’t incline my heart to any evil thing, to practice deeds of wickedness with men who work iniquity. Don’t let me eat of their delicacies.
- Prov 23:3Don’t be desirous of his dainties, since they are deceitful food.
- Dan 1:8–10But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the king’s dainties, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.
- Deut 15:9Beware that there not be a base thought in your heart, saying, “The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand”; and your eye be evil against your poor brother, and you give him nothing; and he cry to Yahweh against you, and it be sin to you.
- Matt 20:15Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’
- Prov 28:22A stingy man hurries after riches, and doesn’t know that poverty waits for him.
- Prov 22:9He who has a generous eye will be blessed; for he shares his food with the poor.
- Deut 28:56The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye will be evil toward the husband that she loves, toward her son, toward her daughter,
- Mark 7:22covetings, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness.
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 23:6 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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