Even though wisdom wants people to adopt her (1:20-33) she is hard to get. The person who wants her has to work hard to obtain her (v. 3). If understanding does not come easily, one should work harder to obtain it.40He or she must start with revelation and study it diligently to obtain spiritual rather than merely academic wisdom. The "fear of the Lord"emphasizes awe, and the "knowledge of God"stresses intimacy.41
"If you want wisdom, you must listen to God attentively (Matt. 13:9), obey Him humbly (John 7:17), ask Him sincerely (James 1:5), and seek Him diligently (Isa. 55:6-7), the way a miner searches for silver and gold.
"Obtaining spiritual wisdom isn't a once-a-week hobby, it is the daily discipline of a lifetime. But in this age of microwave ovens, fast foods, digests, and numerous made easy' books, many people are out of the habit of daily investing time and energy in digging deep into Scripture and learning wisdom from the Lord. Thanks to television, their attention span is brief; thanks to religious entertainment that passes for worship, their spiritual appetite is feeble and spiritual knowledge isn't pleasant to [their] soul' (Prov. 2:10). It's no wonder fewer and fewer people take time to be holy' and more and more people fall prey to the enemies that lurk along the way."42
The searcher for wisdom will find what God gives when he or she searches revelation (v. 6). The knowledge of how to live comes with the knowledge of God (v. 7). The success in view is correct behavior (vv. 7-9). Lovers of wisdom are godly (v. 8, Heb. hasidim, loyal sons of the covenant).
This is another passage in which we can see the difference between Hebrew wisdom literature and that of other ancient nations. Solomon identified Yahweh as the source of wisdom. Only through relationship with Him can a person be truly wise and experience the blessings of wisdom.
Wisdom safeguards a person morally. The first part of this pericope shows how God protects (vv. 10-11; cf. vv. 7b-8). The last part presents the temptations one can overcome (vv. 12-15 and 16-19). When a person submits himself or herself to God and gains wisdom, the ways of the wicked will lose some of their attractiveness. The wise person will see that the adventuress who promises thrills is offering something she cannot deliver except in the most immediate sensual sense.
The "strange"woman (v. 16) is one "outside the circle of [a man's] proper relations, that is, a harlot or an adulteress."43The word does not necessarily mean that she was a foreigner. Probably she is a stranger to the conventions of Israel's corporate life.44
"If the evil man uses perversewords to snare the unwary [v. 12], the adulteress uses flatteringwords. Someone has said that flattery isn't communication, it is manipulation; it's people telling us things about ourselves that we enjoy hearing and wish were true."45
The "covenant"she has left (v. 17) seems to refer to her own marriage covenant (Mal. 2:14) rather than to the covenant law that prohibited adultery (Exod. 20:14).46The "land"(vv. 21-22) is the Promised Land of Canaan.
This chapter, like the previous one, ends by contrasting the ends of the wicked and the righteous (vv. 21-22; cf. 1:32-33). It is a long poem that appeals for wisdom and then identifies the benefits of following wisdom.
Chapter 2 emphasizes moral stability as a fruit of wisdom, and chapter 3 stresses serenity. As chapter 2, chapter 3 also has three sections.
The trust of the wise son (vv. 5-6) comes from heeding sound teaching (vv. 1-4), and it leads to confident obedience (vv. 7-9).
"Teaching"(v. 1, Heb. torah) means "law"or, more fundamentally, "direction."Here the context suggests that the teachings of the parents are in view rather than the Mosaic Law, though in Israel their instruction would have rested on the Torah of God.
"Where it [torah] occurs unqualified (28:9; 29:18) it is clearly the divine law (it is also the Jewish term for the Pentateuch); but my law, thy mother's law' (1:8), etc., refer to the present maxims and to the home teachings, based indeed on the law, but not identical with it."47
Verse 3 pictures devotion to kindness and truth (cf. Deut. 6:8-9, which says that God's law should receive the same devotion). "Kindness"or "love"translates the Hebrew word hesed, which refers to faithfulness to obligations that arise from a relationship.48"Truth"or "faithfulness"(Heb. emet) refers to what one can rely on because it is stable.49Together they may form a hendiadys: true kindness or faithful love. "Repute"(v. 4) connotes success, as in Psalm 111:10.
"Trust"and "lean"(v. 5) are very close in meaning. Trusting means to put oneself wholly at the mercy of another (cf. Jer. 12:5b; Ps. 22:9b). Leaning is not just reclining against something but relying on it totally for support. "Acknowledge"(v. 6) means to be aware of and have fellowship with God, not just to tip one's hat to Him. It includes obeying God's moral will as He has revealed it. The promise (v. 6b) means that God will make the course of such a person's life truly successful in God's eyes. This is a promise as well as a proverb, and it refers to the totality of one's life experience. It does not guarantee that one will never make mistakes.
How can we tell if a proverb is a promise as well as a proverb? We can do so by consulting the rest of Scripture. If a proverb expresses a truth promised elsewhere in Scripture, we know it is a promise. In the case of 3:5-6 we have the repetition of a promise made numerous times in Scripture that people who trust God will experience His guidance through life (cf. Heb. 11). In our attempt to "handle accurately the word of truth"(2 Tim. 2:15) we must carefully distinguish proverbs that restate promises from those that do not and are only proverbs.
Verses 7-10 suggest some of the ways God will reward the commitment of verses 5-6. Verse 7a gives the converse of verse 5a, and 7b restates 6a (cf. Rom. 12:16). This is the act of acknowledging God in all one's ways. Verse 8 describes personal invigoration poetically.
"Scripture often uses the physical body to describe inner spiritual or psychical feelings."50
Verse 9 applies the principle of acknowledging God to the financial side of life.
"To know' God in our financial ways' is to see that these honour Him."51
The prospect of material reward (v. 10) was a promise to the godly Israelite (cf. Deut. 28:1-14; Mal. 3:10). We should take this verse more as a proverb than a promise since the Lord has revealed that as Christians we should expect persecution for our faith rather than material prosperity (2 Tim. 3:12; Heb. 12:1-11).
Even though the price one has to pay for wisdom (i.e., life within the will of God) includes submitting to God's discipline (vv. 11-12), it is worth it (vv. 13-20).
"Loath"(v. 11b) means to shrink back from (cf. Heb. 12:5-6). Rejecting with the will and recoiling emotionally are opposite actions from trusting (v. 5). God's discipline may not produce all God desires if we respond to it improperly. Long life, riches, and honor (v. 16) were the rewards God promised the godly under the Old Covenant. The tree of life figure (v. 18) implies that wisdom is the source and sustainer of a long and beneficial life (cf. v. 16).52The point is that by pursuing the way of wisdom a person can obtain the best things God has to offer him or her.
"It's good to have the things money can buy, provided you don't lose the things money can't buy. What good is an expensive house if there's no happy home within it? Happiness, pleasantness, and peace aren't the guaranteed by-products of financial success, but they are guaranteed to the person who lives by God's wisdom. Wisdom becomes a tree of life' to the believer who takes hold of her, and this is a foretaste of heaven (Rev. 22:1-2)."53
In these verses we can see the quality of love in the wise son. Verses 27-30 deal with neighborliness. The situation in view in verses 27-28 is one in which someone owes money, not one in which giving is an act of charity (cf. Lev. 19:13). The point is pay your debts promptly.54We could apply verse 30 by taking it as a warning against hauling someone into court on flimsy accusations.55
"The Book of Proverbs is the best manual you'll find on people skills, because it was given to us by the God who made us, the God who can teach us what we need to know about human relationships, whether it's marriage, the family, the neighborhood, the job, or our wider circle of friends and acquaintances. If we learn and practice God's wisdom as presented in Proverbs, we'll find ourselves improving in people skills and enjoying life much more."56
Verses 31-35 warn against the temptation to resort to violence when we deal with neighbors. One must decide if he or she wants to be odious to God or be His intimate friend (v. 32). That is the issue in choosing the ways of the wicked or those of the upright. James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5 quote the Septuagint version of verse 34. Verse 35 probably means fools display dishonor because that is what they get for their choices in contrast to the wise who get honor.
