Proverbs 12:9
Better is the poor man that provideth for himself, than he that is glorious and wanteth bread.
Open Proverbs 12:9 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Melior est pauper et sufficiens sibi quam gloriosus et indigens pane.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- κρείσσων ἀνὴρ ἐν ἀτιμίᾳ δουλεύων ἑαυτῷ, ἢ τιμὴν ἑαυτῷ περιτιθεὶς καὶ προσδεόμενος ἄρτου.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- ט֣וֹב נִ֭קְלֶה וְעֶ֣בֶד ל֑וֹ מִ֝מְּתַכַּבֵּ֗ד וַחֲסַר לָֽחֶם
Haydock's commentary
Glorious. Or a boaster, (Haydock) as many noblemen are, who are involved in debt, Ecclesiasticus x. 30. (Menochius)
It is better to have a sufficiency, than to be of noble parentage; and starving through a stupid idea, that work would be disgraceful.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV, Chapter XIII. A story of a barber's payments, introduced for the sake of recognizing the devil's illusions
For as you hope that you can save others also, and are eager to return to your country with the hope of greater gain, hear also on this subject a story of Abbot Macarius, very neatly and prettily invented, which he also gave to a man in a tumult of similar desires, to cure him by a most appropriate story. “There was,” said he, “in a certain city a very clever barber, who used to shave everybody for three pence and by getting this poor and wretched sum for his work, out of this same amount used to procure what was required for his daily food, and after having taken all care of his body, used every day to put a hundred pence into his pocket. But while he was diligently amassing this gain, he heard that in a city a long way off each man paid the barber a shilling as his pay. …