An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning; but the end thereof shall not be blessed.
All Commentaries on Proverbs 20:21 Go To Proverbs 20
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
When these people burn with the desire of being replete with all manner of wealth at once, let them hear what Scripture says: “He that makes haste to be rich, shall not be innocent.” Obviously, a person who strives to increase his resources is not interested in avoiding sin; and being caught after the way of birds, while looking greedily at the bait of earthly things, he does not perceive that he is being strangled in the noose of sin. When these long for the gains of this world and ignore the losses they will suffer in the future life, let them hear what Scripture says: “The inheritance gotten hastily in the beginning, in the end shall be without a blessing.” Indeed, it is this our life from which we take our beginning, that we may come at the end to the lot of the blessed. They, therefore, who hasten to an inheritance in the beginning cut themselves off from the lot of the blessed in the end, because, while desiring increase here through evil cupidity, they become hereafter disinherited of their everlasting patrimony. When they either aim at getting much, or are able to compass all they desired, let them hear what Scripture says: “What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?” Pastoral Care.
