Proverbs 23:4–5
Don't wear yourself out to get rich: wealth grows wings and flies off
Study it word by word4Do not wear yourself out to get rich; from your own understanding desist.
5Will you make your eyes fly to it? It is gone! For it surely makes itself wings; like an eagle it flies to the heavens.
In its context
2and put a knife to your throat if you are a man of appetite.
3Do not crave his delicacies, for they are bread of lies.
…
6Do not eat the bread of the evil of eye, and do not crave his delicacies;
7for as he thinks in his soul, so is he. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.
Its words in the original
- תִּיגַעtiga· grow weary, toil
Grow weary, be tired from effort; also to toil, or to make another weary.
- הַעֲשִׁירhaashir· make rich, become rich
Make rich; grow rich.
- בִּינָתְbinat· understanding
Understanding: the ability to comprehend and to tell one thing from another.
- חֲדָלchadal· cease, stop
Stop doing something, cease; leave off.
- תָעִיףtaif· fly
Fly; also flutter, dart.
- עֵינֶיene· eye
Eye. "In someone's eyes" means "in his opinion"; "find favor in the eyes of" is to please him. Also a spring of water.
- עָשֹׂהaso· do, make
Do, make, in the widest sense: build, produce, carry out, keep (a command), prepare.
- כְנָפַיִםchenafayim· wing
Wing of a bird. Also the edge or corner of something (of a cloak, of the earth).
- נֶשֶׁרnesher· eagle, vulture
Eagle; it may also refer to another large bird of prey, such as the vulture.
- שָּׁמָיִםshamayim· heavens, sky
The heavens: what is above, where the clouds, the sun and the stars are seen; also the dwelling of God. In Hebrew it is always plural. With birds, "the sky".