Do not overwork to be rich;Because of your own understanding, cease!
Will you set your eyes on that which is not?For riches certainly make themselves wings;They fly away like an eagle toward heaven.
Proverbs 23:4–5 · NKJVPart of Riches Make Themselves Wings, Proverbs 23:4–5.
Quick answer
Do not grind yourself down to get rich, and be smart enough to know when to stop. The command has a reason attached in the next verse: the thing you are exhausting yourself for is a bird. This is wisdom about the futility of wealth-chasing, not a prohibition of work.
Read the whole unit
Read the whole unit
The two verses are one argument: a command (stop overworking for riches) and the reason it is wise (riches leave). The saying does not claim money is evil; it claims money is unstable, and it backs the claim with one of the book's finest images. You look at your wealth, and while you are looking, it sprouts wings. Markets turn, health breaks, thieves come, kings tax, and the eagle is a speck on the horizon. The sages are asking a simple accounting question: how much of your one life should be traded for a thing with feathers?
The command "cease" is aimed at a particular kind of laborer, the one whose own understanding should tell him he long ago passed the point of enough. Proverbs everywhere honors diligent work (10:4); what it refuses to honor is the endless grind that mistakes accumulation for security.
What this verse contributes
the restraint. Knowing when working has become overworking, and stopping on purpose.
The other half
Wealth has wings. Fix your eyes on riches and you are staring at something already lifting off, "that which is not," here and then gone like an eagle. The verse gives the reason for the previous verse's command to cease.
Related: Proverbs 30:8–9 · Proverbs 11:28 · Matthew 6:19–21 · 1 Timothy 6:17
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.