Proverbs 20:21
The inheritance gotten hastily in the beginning, in the end shall be without a blessing.
Open Proverbs 20:21 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- hæreditas ad quam festinatur in principio, in novissimo benedictione carebit.
- Septuagint (Swete) shown from Proverbs 20:11
- μερὶς ἐπισπουδαζομένη ἐν πρώτοις ἐν τοῖς τελευταίοις οὐκ εὐλογηθήσεται.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- נַ֭חֲלָה מבחלת בָּרִאשֹׁנָ֑ה וְ֝אַחֲרִיתָ֗הּ לֹ֣א תְבֹרָֽךְ
Haydock's commentary
Blessing. It is morally impossible that they should have been acquired justly, chap. xiii. 11., and xxi. 5.
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 Gregory the Great The Book of Pastoral Rule, How to be admonished are those who give away what is their own, and those who seize what belongs to others
When they are intent on seizing what is not their own, let them hear what is written, Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his! How long doth he heap up against himself thick clay ( Hab. ii. 6 )? For, indeed, for a covetous man to heap up against him thick clay is to pile up earthly gains into a load of sin. When they desire to enlarge greatly the spaces of their habitation, let them hear what is written, Woe unto you that join house to house and lay field to field, even till there be no place left. What, will ye dwell alone in the midst of the earth ( Isai. v. 8 )? As if to say plainly, How far do ye stretch yourselves, ye that cannot bear to have comrades in a common world? Those that are joined to you ye keep down, and ever find some against whom ye may have power to stretch yourselves. …