Proverbs 1:20-33

Wisdom Is Depicted As Crying Out To Be Heard, Longing For Response, Promising Inculcation Of Her Own Spirit, And Warning Of The Consequences Of Refusal (Proverbs 1:20).

We have here the first of the wisdom passages, where Wisdom herself speaks, crying out to be heard and warning of the consequences of refusal. But Wisdom is essentially God's Wisdom. Consider especially Proverbs 3:19; Proverbs 8:22. Thus when Wisdom speaks, God speaks.

The passage conveys its ideals chiastically:

A Wisdom cries out to those who will hear (Proverbs 1:20).

B The failings of the naive, scorners and fools are described (Proverbs 1:22).

C Men are to turn at her reproof and receive her poured out spirit and have made known to them her words of wisdom (Proverbs 1:23).

D Wisdom called and they refused (Proverbs 1:24).

E Wisdom will laugh in the day of their calamity, (at the folly lying behind their coming calamities), and will mock when their fear comes (Proverbs 1:26).

E For their fear will come like a storm and their calamity like a whirlwind (Proverbs 1:27).

D They will call but she will not answer (Proverbs 1:28).

C Men scorn her reproof, and eat the fruit of their own way and are filled with their own devices (Proverbs 1:29).

B The naive and fools will be destroyed for their failings (Proverbs 1:32).

A Those who hear and respond to wisdom will enjoy peace and security (Proverbs 1:33).

Note the chiastic arrangement, A paralleling A, B paralleling B, and so on. Central to the chiasmus is that Wisdom will mock the so-called wisdom of those who will undoubtedly suffer calamities and experience their fear, because of their refusal to heed her. For this fear and these calamities (note the reversal) will come like a storm and a whirlwind. It is quite clear elsewhere that these calamities are seen as coming from the hand of YHWH (Proverbs 3:25; Proverbs 3:33; Proverbs 10:3; Proverbs 12:2; Proverbs 15:3), a constant message of the Old Testament.