Verse Lens · Concise explanation
Proverbs 22:26 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 26. 26Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts”.
Read It With
- Proverbs 22:26–27
Read Proverbs 22:26 with 22:26–27. Read alone, “Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are…” could turn a compressed observation, warning, comparison, or command into a guarantee or complete policy. The full unit establishes: contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts”; by 22:27, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “If thou hast nothing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under thee?”. Together the unit concentrates on wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power within “Sayings of the wise.”
Why This Verse Appears Here
Proverbs 22:26–27 continues “Violence, predation, conflict, and protection — Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious…” by carrying “Wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power — Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them…” within the same sustained discourse, admonition, numbered form, or poem. Within that relationship, this verse contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts”.
What Remains True
Proverbs treats resources as morally consequential but never reduces wealth to virtue or poverty to personal failure. In Proverbs 22:26, that bounded truth is expressed through “Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are…,” 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. Proverbs 22:26 names that responsibility through “Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are…,” so the response must remain accountable to the person, action, comparison, or consequence in this line.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Proverbs 22:26–27 — Wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power — Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them…Sources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? strong
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 22:26–27, 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 22:26-22:27
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. 1148-1152, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 22:26–27
Open source ↗