As a companion picture to the wise use of wealth, there runs through Proverbs a series of stern and heavy denunciations of him who clutches riches for their own sake, who plunders the impoverished and feeds upon their misery. Meditation on this hideous side of life can scarce be beneficial to those who themselves suffer for lack of worldly goods, lest it make them over-bitter; but surely every wealthy man to-day should ponder the wisdom of this portion of the “book of wisdom.”

‎In those days when famine was ever close at hand, wealth depended very directly upon the possession of grain, the eastern staff of life, which sometimes, as in Joseph’s day, could be sold at enormous prices to those who, without it, died. So that he who withheld corn was indeed “cursed” of the starving people. “Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivered from death.” “He that is greedy of gain troubled his own house; but he that hateth gifts shall live.” ‎“He that oppresses the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want.”

The Bible and its Story, Volume 7: The Prophets, Isaiah to Ezekiel