Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Proverbs 29:7 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 7. 7The righteous considereth the cause of the poor: but the wicked regardeth not to know it.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse uses contrastive parallelism to place “The righteous considereth the cause of the poor” against “the wicked regardeth not to know it”.
Read It With
- Proverbs 29:4–7
Follow Proverbs 29:4–7, not verse 29:7 alone. This line uses contrastive parallelism to place “The righteous considereth the cause of the poor” against “the wicked regardeth not to know it”, while the complete unit distinguishes a normal moral direction from a guaranteed outcome.
Why This Verse Appears Here
The unit needs this line's exact work: it uses contrastive parallelism to place “The righteous considereth the cause of the poor” against “the wicked regardeth not to know it”. That placement develops justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, kingship, public authority, and accountable rule, speech, listening, truth, and relational consequence while leaving exceptional cases visible.
Follow the Context
- Opening (29:4): the unit uses contrastive parallelism to place “The king by judgment establisheth the land” against “he that receiveth gifts overthroweth it”.
- Development (29:4–7): adjacent lines test justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, kingship, public authority, and accountable rule, speech, listening, truth, and relational consequence through parallelism, contrast, motive, image, or consequence.
- Close (29:7): the unit uses contrastive parallelism to place “The righteous considereth the cause of the poor” against “the wicked regardeth not to know it”, creating the next supported pause.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“The righteous considereth the cause of the poor: but the wicked...”
In plain language: justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation
This verse uses contrastive parallelism to place “The righteous considereth the cause of the poor” against “the wicked regardeth not to know it”.
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 authorize vigilantism, collective blame, discriminatory policing, cruelty, or a claim that one modern institution always speaks for God.
What Remains True
Wisdom requires honest judgment and active regard for people who can be exploited, ignored, or misrepresented. In Proverbs 29:7, that bounded truth is expressed through “The righteous considereth the cause of the poor: but the wicked...,” not through a promise detached from its literary form.
How It Can Shape Life
- Use verifiable evidence, fair procedure, proportionate response, and meaningful access for the person with less power. For Proverbs 29:7, preserve the sequence: verse role (uses contrastive parallelism to place “The righteous considereth the cause of the poor” against “the wicked regardeth not to know it”) -> contextual meaning in Proverbs 29:4–7 -> proportionate truth -> this accountable response.
Teach It Back
Explain Proverbs 29:7's exact role in Proverbs 29:4–7. Distinguish pattern from guarantee, include “The righteous considereth the cause of...,” 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 29:4–7 — Justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation — The king by judgment establisheth the land: but he that...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 29:4–7, 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 29:4-29:7
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. 1175-1178, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 29:4–7
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 29:4–7 and the Solomonic sayings copied by Hezekiah's men 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 29:4–7
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 29:4–7
Open source ↗