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Proverbs of Solomon
Proverbs › Chapter 19 › Proverbs 19:15

What Does Proverbs 19:15 Mean?

Laziness casts one into a deep sleep,And an idle person will suffer hunger.Proverbs 19:15 · NKJV

Quick answer

Slack habits deepen into something heavier than habit, and an empty table follows. The verse traces a slide, not a moral category.

Read both lines

The Hebrew word behind "deep sleep" is the same one used for the heavy sleep that fell on Adam and on Abram, so this is not a nap. It is the picture of a man going under, and the verse's insight is that laziness is not static: it sedates. The second line brings the plain consequence, hunger, without decoration. Proverbs uses this verse the way it uses 6:6–11, as a mirror for a person to check himself against.

What it does not mean

Never turn this mirror around and hold it up to someone else who is hungry. The book blocks that move itself at 13:23, which says there is food in the fallow ground of the poor and it is lack of justice that sweeps it away. Both verses are in the same collection and neither cancels the other: laziness can produce poverty, and poverty is very often produced by something else entirely. A verse written to examine yourself becomes an entirely different instrument when aimed at a stranger's circumstances.

Related: Proverbs 13:23 · Proverbs 6:6–11 · Proverbs 19:24 · Proverbs 20:13

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.