Proverbs 3:27 is part of a cluster of Proverbs. The larger section is 3:21-35 and the subsection is 3:27-32. A literal translation of Hebrew is found in the Geneva Bible, “Withholde not the good from the owners thereof, thogh there be power in thine hand to do it.” Other translations render מִבְּעָלָ֑יו not as “from the owners thereof” but as “those to whom it is due” (NKJV [cf. KJV], RSV, NRSV. ESV, NIV11, NASB, LSB) or “from the one to whom it belongs” (CSB, cf. HCSB).
Matthew Poole understands this to refer to “from those who have any kind of right to it,” and he includes in this a moral right of those who are in need to receive relief from their “real want or misery” (Annotations, 2:219). John Gill likewise observes that “rich men are not so much proprieters of good things as they are God’s almoners or stewards to distribute to the poor,” whom God has deemed the owners of these gifts (Exposition of the Old Testament, 4:350). Van Leeuwen concludes, “Humans have a general claim on certain things that their humanity entitles them to. Life, food, shelter, and dignity are among the most obvious of these things essential to our humanness” (NIB, 55). Garrett broadens the referent to include not only the poor but also “laborers who have earned their pay” and those who have loaned money and deserve to be repaid” (NAC, 84). Kitchen, on the other hand, would narrow the referent to those who are owed wages (Mentor, 90). Schipper also rejects the application to “a needy or poor person” but instead argues the verse “would call for the addressee to remit that which belongs to another person (debts, taxes?) insofar as one is in the position to do so” (Herm., 1:157-58).
Waltke observes that this verse indicates that some people have “a moral claim upon your assistance” (NICOT, 1:267). He draws upon Fox who indicates the “owner” “is one who possesses something by right” even if he “does not currently hold them item” (AB, 1:164). These include the enemy whose donkey has fallen down (Ex. 23:40) or the widow or orphan gleaning in the field (Dt. 24:19), but it does not include “the sluggard (cf. 19:24; 2 Thess. 3:10, 12), the leech (Prov. 30:15), and the pampered servant (29:21)” (NICOT, 1:267). Regarding the former, Fox observes, “Such moral claims and their corresponding duties are essential to the cohesion and sound working of society, perhaps even more so than acts of mercy and kindness” (AB, 1:165).
The final phrase, “when it is in your power to do it” pushes the interpretation away from that which is strictly owed (since debts must be remitted whether one has the money at hand to do so or not) and toward the idea of those with means having obligations to others who are in need. In context, it likely includes employers being generous in their wages, especially toward poor workers. Verse 28 would push in this direction since it parallels commands in the Mosaic law designed to protect poor workers from having their wages withheld. It also fits with Proverbs 3:31 in which the “oppressor” (KJV, NKJV) or “man of violence” (RSV, ESV, NASB, LSB; cf. NIV, CSB, CEB) is not to be envied (presumably for the wealth that his oppression generated).
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