Proverbs 22:26

26 Do not thou be with them that fasten, or bind, their hands, and that proffer themselves to be borrows for debts; (Do not thou be with those who bind their hands, and who offer themselves as pledges for other people's debts;)

Proverbs 22:26 Meaning and Commentary

Proverbs 22:26

Be not thou [one] of them that strike hands
Or "among them" ^F13, of the number of them, that do as they do, give their hand or their bond for others; he surety for them, as it is explained in the following clause; see ( Proverbs 6:1 ) ( 17:18 ) ; [or] of them that are sureties for debts;
contracted by others; that engage for the payment of them, in case the principal fails: and it is much if persons that keep indifferent company, angry and furious men, who are often in broils and quarrels, and spend their time and substance in strife and contention, are not drawn into engagements of this kind.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F13 (b) "inter", Pagninus, Tigurine version, Mercerus, Gejerus, Michaelis.

Proverbs 22:26 In-Context

24 Do not thou be (a) friend to a wrathful man, neither go thou with a wrathful man;

25 lest peradventure thou learn his ways, and take cause of stumbling to thy soul. (lest perhaps thou learn his ways, and bring a cause of stumbling unto thy soul.)

26 Do not thou be with them that fasten, or bind, their hands, and that proffer themselves to be borrows for debts; (Do not thou be with those who bind their hands, and who offer themselves as pledges for other people's debts;)

27 for if he hath not whereof he shall restore, what of cause is, that thou (should) take away (the) covering from (off) thy bed? (for if thou hath not whereof to pay, then they shall even take away thy bed from under thee.)

28 Go thou not over the eld marks, (or the boundary stones,) which thy fathers have set.