Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Proverbs 13:11 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 11. 11Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathereth by labour shall increase.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse uses contrastive parallelism to place “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished” against “he that gathereth by labour shall increase”.
Read It With
- Proverbs 13:7–11
Read Proverbs 13:11 inside Proverbs 13:7–11: it uses contrastive parallelism to place “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished” against “he that gathereth by labour shall increase”. The unit then locates that line within wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power, life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation rather than treating it as a free-standing formula.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Here the saying uses contrastive parallelism to place “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished” against “he that gathereth by labour shall increase”, moving Proverbs 13:7–11 from its opening observation toward its reviewed close.
Follow the Context
- Opening (13:7): the unit opens with “There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing” and develops the line through “there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches”.
- Development (13:7–11): adjacent lines test wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power, life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation through parallelism, contrast, motive, image, or consequence.
- Close (13:11): the unit uses contrastive parallelism to place “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished” against “he that gathereth by labour shall increase”, creating the next supported pause.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that...”
In plain language: wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power
This verse uses contrastive parallelism to place “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished” against “he that gathereth by labour shall increase”.
Why it matters: This wording carries interpretive, pastoral, or misuse risk requiring the full unit and explicit limits.
How certain? strongWhat This Verse Is Not Saying
The saying does not promise prosperity, blame sufferers or poor people, excuse predatory lending, or make wealth proof of divine approval.
What Remains True
Proverbs treats resources as morally consequential but never reduces wealth to virtue or poverty to personal failure. In Proverbs 13:11, that bounded truth is expressed through “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that...,” not through a promise detached from its literary form.
How It Can Shape Life
- Examine how money was obtained, who bears the cost, whether basic needs are met, and how resources can serve justice and durable care. For Proverbs 13:11, preserve the sequence: verse role (uses contrastive parallelism to place “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished” against “he that gathereth by labour shall increase”) -> contextual meaning in Proverbs 13:7–11 -> proportionate truth -> this accountable response.
Teach It Back
Explain Proverbs 13:11's exact role in Proverbs 13:7–11. Distinguish pattern from guarantee, include “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be...,” name one uncertainty, and explicitly reject one harmful use.
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Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Proverbs 13:7–11 — Wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power — There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing:...Sources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
This sentence saying states a context-shaped moral pattern. Its small-cluster boundary and degree of generality remain reviewable; exceptional outcomes do not make the observation meaningless or turn it into a guarantee.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV words, canonical order, paragraph flags, supplied-word markup, and complete unit coverage.
Exact location: Proverbs 13:7–11, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Proverbs
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology used only for the exact unit's lexical, grammatical, parallel, superscription, number-saying, and acrostic questions.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Prov.xml, OSIS 13:7-13:11
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Proverbs with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-attached textual, lexical, grammatical, syntactic, parallelism, and older-English controls for the exact range.
Exact location: NET Bible Proverbs PDF, printed pp. 1115-1118, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 13:7–11
Open source ↗modern critical commentary
Proverbs
K. T. Aitken
Oxford University Press, in The Oxford Bible Commentary, 2001
Supports: Whole-book and collection orientation, local commentary, social-setting proposals, and named interpretation limits.
Exact location: Aitken, ‘Proverbs,’ Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 405-422, subsection covering 13:7–11 and the First Solomonic sentence-saying collection outline
Open source ↗scholarly monograph chapter abstract and metadata
Context in the Sayings Collections
Stuart Weeks
Oxford University Press, in Early Israelite Wisdom, 2000
Supports: Abstract-level control for the dispute over individual-saying, small-cluster, and collection context; no uninspected detailed claim.
Exact location: Weeks, ‘Context in the Sayings Collections,’ Early Israelite Wisdom (2000), official abstract and chapter pp. 20-40; methodological question applied to Proverbs 13:7–11
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access journal article
The situational context of statements concerning poverty and wealth in the Book of Proverbs
G. H. Wittenberg
Scriptura 21, 1987; open archive 2020
Supports: One historical-social account of poverty, wealth, interest, oppression, labor, and differing evaluations within the collection.
Exact location: Wittenberg, ‘Situational context of statements concerning poverty and wealth,’ Scriptura 21, pp. 1-23, especially the sayings and redactional comparison relevant to Proverbs 13:7–11
Open source ↗