The covetous temper leads not only to dishonesty, but to the "evil eye" of envy; and the temper of grudging, carking care, leads him to poverty.

He that hasteth to be rich,.... As every man that is eagerly desirous of riches is; he would be rich at once (z), and cannot wait with any patience in the ordinary course of means:

hath an evil eye; on the substance of others, to get it, right or wrong; is an evil man, and takes evil methods to be rich (a); see 1 Timothy 6:9; or an envious one; is an envious man; as the Septuagint and Arabic versions; he envies others, as the Vulgate Latin version, the riches of other men; he grudges everything that goes beside himself; and that makes him in haste to be rich, that he may be equal to or superior to others: or he is a sordid, avaricious, illiberal man, that will not part with anything for the relief, for others, and is greedy of everything to amass wealth to himself; an evil eye is opposed to a good or bountiful one, that is, to a man that is liberal and generous, Proverbs 22:9;

and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him; for wealth gotten hastily, and especially wrongfully, diminishes, wastes, and comes to nothing in the end; it sometimes flies away as fast as it comes; it has wings to do the one, as well as the other: this the man in haste to be rich does not consider, or he would have taken another method; since this is not the true way of getting and keeping riches, but of losing them, and coming to want; see Proverbs 13:11.

(z) "Nam dives qui fieri vult, et cito vult fieri", Juvenal. Satyr. 14. v. 176. (a) "Sed quae reverentia legum? quis metus, ant pudor est unquam properantis avari?" Juvenal, ib.

22 The man of an evil eye hasteneth after riches,

     And knoweth not that want shall come upon him.

Hitzig renders 'אישׁ וגו the man of an evil eye as apos. of the subject; but in that case the phrase would have been אישׁ רע עין נבהל להון (cf. e.g., Proverbs 29:1). רע עין (Proverbs 23:6) is the jealous, envious, grudging, and at the same time covetous man. It is certainly possible that an envious man consumes himself in ill-humour without quietness, as Hitzig objects; but as a rule there is connected with envy a passionate endeavour to raise oneself to an equal height of prosperity with the one who is the object of envy; and this zeal, proceeding from an impure motive, makes men blind to the fact that thereby they do not advance, but rather degrade themselves, for no blessing can rest on it; discontentedness loses, with that which God has assigned to us, deservedly also that which it has. The pret. נבחל, the expression of a fact; the part. נבהל, the expression of an habitual characteristic action; the word signifies praeceps (qui praeceps fertur), with the root-idea of one who is unbridled, who is not master of himself (vid., under Psalm 2:5, and above at Proverbs 20:21). The phrase wavers between נבהל (Kimchi, under בהל; and Norzi, after Codd. and old editions) and נבהל (thus, e.g., Cod. Jaman); only at Psalm 30:8 נבהל stands unquestioned. חסר [want] is recognised by Symmachus, Syr., and Jerome. To this, as the authentic reading, cf. its ingenious rendering of Bereschith Rabba, c. 58, to Genesis 23:14. The lxx reads, from 22b, that a חסיד, ἐλεήμων, will finally seize the same riches, according to which Hitzig reads חסד, disgrace, shame (cf. Proverbs 25:10).

He that hasteneth to be rich hath an evil {l} eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him.

(l) Meaning, he that is covetous.

28:22 Evil eye - Is uncharitable to persons in want, and envious to those who get any thing besides him. Poverty - And consequently that he shall need the pity and help of others.

hasteth...: or, hath and evil eye hasteth to be rich

22. (Compare Pr 28:20).

evil eye-in the general sense of Pr 23:6, here more specific for covetousness (compare Pr 22:9; Mt 20:15).

poverty . him-by God's providence.

28:18. Uprightness will give men holy security in the worst times; but the false and dishonest are never safe. 19. Those who are diligent, take the way to live comfortably. 20. The true way to be happy, is to be holy and honest; not to raise an estate suddenly, without regard to right or wrong. 21. Judgment is perverted, when any thing but pure right is considered. 22. He that hastens to be rich, never seriously thinks how quickly God may take his wealth from him, and leave him in poverty. 23. Upon reflection, most will have a better opinion of a faithful reprover than of a soothing flatterer.