23:21
The reason the son should heed the warning in 23:20 is that such behavior leads to poverty. Notice the parallel parts that are similar in meaning:
21a For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty,
21b and drowsiness will clothe them in rags.
23:21a
For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty: When people eat, drink, and sleep too much, they are not able to work, so they come to poverty. Some other ways to translate this clause are:
for the drunkard and glutton impoverish themselves (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
Those who eat and drink too much become poor. (New Century Version)
will come to poverty: In Hebrew, the verb that the Berean Standard Bible translates as will come to poverty is literally “be dispossessed” or “be impoverished.” It indicates that they lose their possessions and live in poverty.
23:21b
and drowsiness will clothe them in rags: This line is a figure of speech (personification). In this figure of speech, drowsiness is compared to a person who puts ragged clothing on poor people. It means that when people sleep too much, they will have only old, tattered clothes to wear. Some other ways to translate this clause are:
They sleep too much and end up wearing rags. (New Century Version)
-or-
If all you do is eat and sleep, you will soon be wearing rags. (Good News Translation)
drowsiness: The word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as drowsiness refers here to the sleepy feeling that people have after they get drunk or eat too much food.
will clothe them in rags: The expression clothe them in rags describes their poverty more specifically in terms of the clothes that they wear. As a result of their behavior, they will have nothing to wear except rags.
General Comment on 23:21a–b
In some languages, the order of the parallel lines may wrongly imply that drunkards and gluttons first become poor. After that, they sleep and end up wearing ragged clothes.
The correct logical order is that drunkards and gluttons become sleepy. They end up becoming poor and wearing ragged clothes. The Contemporary English Version has reordered the parallel parts to reflect the logical order. It has:
It will make you feel drowsy, and you will end up poor with only rags to wear.
See 23:21a–b (combined/reordered) in the Display for another example of reordering.
© 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.