Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty,.... Sleep is a very great natural blessing; it is a gift of God, what nature requires, and is desirable; it is to be loved, though not immoderately; it is sweet to a man, and what he should be thankful for; yet should not indulge himself in to the neglect of the proper business of life; nor to be used but at the proper time for it; for the eye is made for sight, and not for sleep only, as Aben Ezra observes, connecting the words with the preceding; and therefore should not be kept shut and inattentive to business, which must necessarily end in poverty and want; see Pr 6:9; and so spiritual sleep and slothfulness bring on a spiritual poverty in the souls of men, both as to the exercise of grace and the performance of duty;open thine eyes, [and] thou shall be satisfied with bread; that is, open thine eyes from sleep, awake and keep so, and be sedulous and industrious in the business of thy calling; so shalt thou have a sufficiency of food for thyself and family; see Pr 12:11.
Bible Commentary
Proverbs 20:13
Proverbs 20:13
John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible · John Gill (1697–1771) · Public Domain
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I. GOD THE SOURCE OF ALL GOOD.
1. Of all bodily good. The eye, the ear, with all their wondrous mechanism, with all their rich instrumentality of enjoyment, are from him.
2.…Proverbs 20:13Proverbs 20:13 · Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole BibleNote, 1. Those that indulge themselves in their ease may expect to want
necessaries, which should have been gotten by honest labour.
"Therefore, though thou must sleep (nature requires it), yet love not
sleep,…Proverbs 20:13Proverbs 20:13 · The Pulpit CommentaryLove not sleep lest thou come to poverty (see Proverbs 6:9, etc.). The fate of the sluggard is handled again in Proverbs 23:21, as often before; e.g. Proverbs 12:11; Proverbs 19:15. The LXX; taking שֵׁנָה (shenah),…