Blog - Proverbs 3:28

If you like this blog, then you will like Get Wisdom, Get Understanding which is Pastor Wagner's commentary series on the book of Proverbs which is available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle. Find out more here. For all the blogs in this series, click here: Proverbs Commentary. Proverbs 3:28 "Say not unto thy neighbour, Go, and come again, and to morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee." (Pro 3:28)

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Solomon continues his exhortation which he began in Pro 3:27 concerning the paying of one's debts. If a man has the money or the possessions that he has borrowed from someone, he must return them as soon as he is able. To keep a borrowed item longer than he needs it, or longer than he agreed to keep it, is tantamount to theft. Those who borrow from neighbors with no intention of repaying them are not in good company, for this is the practice of the wicked.

Psa 37:21 - The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again: but the righteous sheweth mercy, and giveth.

The scripture condemns forbearing to pay money owed to someone for even one extra day if we have it in our possession. Debts owed to family members are not exempt from this scriptural requirement. Plenty of parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, brothers, and sisters can attest to the fact that ungodly family members "borrow" money from their kin with no intention of repaying it because it is owed to family. Some people reason that since their family member who loaned them the money is wealthy, they therefore don't need to repay them; but theft is theft no matter how well off the lender may be. We must not show favor or discrimination to either rich or poor.

Lev 19:15 - Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.

There is also another application to the verse under consideration, and that is with respect to an employer who owes an employee compensation for labor performed. If a man owes someone money for work done for him, he should pay him promptly without delay. In the Bible, wages were to be paid daily, and the laborers were not to be told, "Go, and come again, and to morrow I will give..."

Deut 24:14-15 - Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates: 15 At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the LORD, and it be sin unto thee. Mal 3:5 - And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts.

To not pay a man at the time agreed upon for work that he has done is theft which will not go unnoticed by the LORD and will not escape His judgment.

Lev 19:13 - Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning. Jam 5:4 - Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.