19:4

Notice the parallel parts that contrast in meaning:

4a
Wealth attracts many friends,

4b but a poor man is deserted by his friend.

This proverb contrasts the different effects of wealth and poverty on friendship. Many people will become friends of a rich person because of his wealth. By contrast, even one friend of a poor person will desert him because of his poverty.

19:4a

Wealth attracts many friends: Some other ways to translate this clause are:

Wealth multiplies friends (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
Rich people are always finding new friends (Good News Translation)
-or-
The rich have many friends (Contemporary English Version)

19:4b

but a poor man is deserted by his friend: The word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as is deserted is literally “separates himself from.” This clause means that the friend of a poor man will avoid associating with him and will stop being his friend. Some other ways to translate this clause are:

but the poor are left friendless (New Revised Standard Version)
-or-
but the poor lose all theirs (New Century Version)
-or-
but even the closest friend of the poor person deserts them (New International Version (2011))

© 2012, 2016, 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.