Biblion Bible Commentary
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Better to Live in the Corner of the Housetop
Proverbs 21:17-31
17 He who loves pleasure will be a poor man. He who loves wine and oil won’t be rich. · WEB
A man would rather sleep on the roof than share the house, and the chapter ends by preparing the horse and giving the victory elsewhere.
The domestic comparison appears twice in this chapter and once more later, which is more attention than the collection gives most subjects. It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop than to share a house with a contentious woman, and then better to dwell in a desert land, than with a contentious and fretful woman. Roofs in that country were flat and used for sleeping in hot weather, so the first is exposure and discomfort. The second is exile.
The sayings should be read for what they name. That is the specific misery of constant conflict in the place a person cannot leave. The book's final portrait of a household is of a woman whose husband trusts her completely and whose children rise up and call her blessed Proverbs 31:11 Proverbs 31:28. What is condemned here is not a woman but a home at war, described from the side of the man who wrote it down.
The run's economics are consistent and unromantic. He who loves pleasure will be a poor man. There is precious treasure and oil in the dwelling of the wise, but a foolish man swallows it up. The wise household has reserves; the foolish one consumes whatever arrives. And the sluggard is given the collection's grimmest line: The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor. He is not described as wanting nothing. He wants, continuously. The wanting is what destroys him, because it is never attached to work.
One verse quietly rebukes the whole idea that force settles matters: A wise man scales the city of the mighty, and brings down the strength of its confidence. The book has already ranked self-control above taking a city Proverbs 16:32. Here wisdom takes the city.
And the chapter ends with a saying that holds preparation and dependence together without weakening either: The horse is prepared for the day of battle; but victory is with Yahweh. The horse is still prepared. Nothing here counsels doing less. What it refuses is the conclusion that the preparation is what decides the day.
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