Proverbs 28:3 Meaning A Needy Man Who Oppresses the Poor

Nothing is emptier than a mind in lack that turns to attack another mind in lack. The one who feels robbed of love and then robs his brother of it does not grow full; he only spreads his own poverty wider. Guilt believes it can take from outside what it fears it has lost within, yet every such taking leaves the taker as barren as before.

Think of a rain that should nourish but instead beats the crop flat and washes the ground bare. Attack is like that. It promises supply and delivers famine, because a mind cannot enrich itself by impoverishing another; it can only share the emptiness it already holds.

Poor man: the mind convinced it has been stripped of love, so certain of its own lack that it reaches to take from others Sweeping rain: the storm of projected guilt, which looks like it might feed the ground yet only strips it, leaving the attacker as empty as before