Note the paradox. The poor man, of whom one might expect roughness, supplicates; the rich, well nurtured, from whom one might look for courtesy, answers harshly and brusquely.

The poor useth entreaties,.... Or "supplications" (a); he is an humble supplicant to others for favours he asks in a submissive and lowly manner; he does not demand anything, nor prescribe what shall be done for him, but modestly tells his case, and submits it; so such who are poor in spirit are humble supplicants at the throne of grace;
but the rich answereth roughly; being proud and haughty, lifted up with their riches, and in fear of none, they answer others with hard and rough words, especially their inferiors, and particularly the poor. This is not what ought to be, but what commonly is. This verse and Proverbs 18:24 are not in the Arabic version.
(a) "supplicationes", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Mercerus, Michaelis.

Poverty tells men they must not order or demand. And at the throne of God's grace we are all poor, and must use entreaties.

the rich . . . roughly--He is tolerated because rich, implying that the estimate of men by wealth is wrong.

23 The poor uttereth suppliant entreaties;
And the rich answereth rudenesses.
The oriental proverbial poetry furnishes many parallels to this. It delights in the description of the contrast between a suppliant poor man and the proud and avaricious rich man; vid., e.g., Samachschari's Goldene Halsbnder, No. 58. תּחנוּנים, according to its meaning, refers to the Hithpa. התחנּן, misericordiam alicujus pro se imploravit; cf. the old vulgar "barmen," i.e., to seek to move others to Erbarmen [compassion] (רחמים). עזּות, dura, from עז (synon. קשׁה), hard, fast, of bodies, and figuratively of an unbending, hard, haughty disposition, and thence of words of such a nature (Fl.). Both nouns are accus. of the object, as Job 40:27, תחנונים with the parallel רכּות. The proverb expresses a fact of experience as a consolation to the poor to whom, if a rich man insults him, nothing unusual occurs, and as a warning to the rich that he may not permit himself to be divested of humanity by mammon. A hard wedge to a hard clod; but whoever, as the Scripture saith, grindeth the poor by hard stubborn-hearted conduct, and grindeth his bashful face (Isaiah 3:15), challenges unmerciful judgment against himself; for the merciful, only they shall obtain mercy, αὐτοὶ ἐλεηθήσονται (Matthew 5:7).