Hard Work and Blessing

Proverbs 10:22 The blessing of the Lord gives wealth: hard work makes it no greater.

This is a strange verse.

It seems to be in contrast with verses regarding diligence and slothfulness.

Maybe this refers more to workaholism, or maybe the author was just trying to balance personal effort with God’s blessing

Most of the other translations seem to translate hard work, with sorrow.

This is what the Strongs has to say regarding the hard work or sorrow:

… usually (painful) toil; also a pang (whether of body or mind): - grievous, idol, labor, sorrow.

So this speaks not of reasonable hard work, but of the hard work that causes pain – slogging through the night, or dragging yourself from day to day doing what you hate. So this does not relate to diligence and honest labour and all those things. This relates to the kind of work that wears you out.

When you are having to work like that, to survive, you can know that you are not operating in the blessing of God, and then some major adjustments in your life are called for.