Proverbs 10:3

The LORD will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish: but he casteth away the substance of the wicked.

The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish - (Psalms 37:25-19.) Not that the righteous are exempted from hungering with want at times. David was hungry (1 Samuel 21:3); so was Paul and the apostles (1 Corinthians 4:11; 2 Corinthians 11:27), and the martyrs (Hebrews 11:37). But if God suffer His people to want temporal things for a time, it is that He may give them better and eternal things in the end. Ordinarily, He who fed Elijah by the ministration of ravens, at the Brook Cherith, does not let His people be without food for the body (1 Kings 17:4).

But he casteth away the substance of the wicked. So the Chaldaic and Syriac, which the contrast to the first clause favours. "Substance" [ hawat (H1942), from haawaah, to be]. But others take it in the sense wrong-doing [from howiy, woe] - i:e., wrongly-gotten wealth (Mercer). (Compare Psalms 52:7, end, margin) Maurer takes it here, and in Micah 7:3, 'the desire,' answering to "the soul," in the first member. The Septuagint, and Arabic take it 'the life.' The English version is best.