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Pro_13:8 The ransom of a man’s life [are] his riches: but the poor heareth not rebuke.
Ver. 8. The ransom of a man’s life are his riches.] They may help a man out at a dead lift, and get him a release out of captivity, or a lease of his life. "Slay us not," say they, {Jer_41:8} "for we have treasures in the field. So he forebore, and slew them not among their brethren." Some read it thus: ‘The price of a man’s life are his riches.’ It costs him his life that he is rich; as Naboth, and as many Turkish viziers. In the days of Caligula the tyrant, publicum crimen fuit divitem fuisse, {a} it was crime enough to be rich. And in the reign of Henry II of France, many were burned for religion, as was pretended; but indeed to satiate the covetousness of Diana Valentina, the king’s mistress, to whom he had given all the confiscations of goods made in the kingdom for cause of heresy. {b}
But the poor heareth not rebuke.] He escapes many times as not considerable, as not worth a chiding, as under law. In a tragedy there is no place for a poor man but only to dance, as Arian hath observed upon Epictetus.
{a} Dio. in Calig.
{b} Hist. of Council of Trent, 387.