Journal of the old testament society of south Africa

Abstract

The Masoretic text of Prov 13:23 ( ) highlights the absence of mishpat ( ) as the cause of the poverty of the poor. This article reads Prov 13:23 in conversation with the contemporary conceptualisation of economic poverty. The concept of mishpat ( ) is theorised and hermeneutically applied to the issue of poverty in Africa. The key questions under investigation are: What is mishpat in the text and its context? How should mishpat be read in the African context? How does the biblical understanding of the poor and mishpat inform responses to Africa’s poverty? In this study, the assumptions are that poverty in Africa is the result of both socio-economic and political injustices of the West and Africans themselves. Africans are agents of their own poverty. The study employs a hermeneutical and multidisciplinary approach, drawing examples from the social sciences.