At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
“He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him.”
Proverbs 28:22
There is a snare in wanting to get rich quickly. Wanting to accumulate wealth over the course of forty or fifty years is a normal, healthy, and well-adjusted desire. The person in that position is wanting to do things God’s way, and is cultivating the virtue of patience. Someone who is a short term thinker is someone who is trying to make it all happen now.
The proverb here says that the person who is hasty about getting rich has “an evil eye.” This is a Hebrew idiom for a covetous, envious, or greedy person. It is an eye that is always glancing sideways at what the other fellow has.
Because he is so busy looking at what others have, and which he wants to acquire quickly, he does not look ahead. Because he does not look ahead, he does not see what is coming for him. Poverty is coming for him.
The haste creates more opportunities for mistakes. The haste creates an incentive for the person to cut corners, which in turn causes his partners in business to back away, or to avoid him entirely. In short, the short term gain comes with a long term loss. Penny wise, pound foolish.
The thing he is so hasty to get away from is the very thing that he is causing to hasten toward him. He is hasty to get out of poverty, and is hastening the time when poverty will land on him. To refer to another proverb, that poverty will come on him like an armed thug. Not what he wanted, but when people tried to tell him, tried to warn him, he was too hasty to listen.
