Quick answer
Money functions as a fortress: it absorbs shocks for the rich that fall with full force on the poor. Clear-eyed observation, not endorsement.
Read both lines
This proverb reports how the world runs, with no moral attached to either line. Wealth is a strong city: walls, margin, options, a second harvest in storage. Poverty is itself the poor man's ruin: the same setback a fortress absorbs, a man with no walls takes directly; the car repair that is an annoyance inside the fortress is a catastrophe outside it. But Proverbs does not leave the fortress unexamined. At 18:11 the book repeats the first line and adds a needle: the wall is high "in his own esteem," and 18:10 sets the real stronghold beside the imagined one: "The name of the LORD is a strong tower." The walls are real, and the walls are also lower than they look from inside.
From this side of the cross
The verse tells the truth about money without telling you to build your life on it. There is a tower that does not depend on your net worth, and the righteous run into it, rich and poor on level ground at that door.
Related: Proverbs 18:10–11 · Proverbs 10:2 · Proverbs 19:4
New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. Full copyright information. Scripture provided by API.Bible.
Go Deeper
If this verse has been used to put weight on you that it was never carrying, ask about it directly.