Proverbs 2:1-22
1 My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee;
2 So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding;
3 Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding;
4 If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;
5 Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.
6 For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.
7 He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.
8 He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints.
9 Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path.
10 When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul;
11 Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee:
12 To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things;
13 Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;
14 Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;
15 Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths:
16 To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words;
17 Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.
18 For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.
19 None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.
20 That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.
21 For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it.
22 But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.
Third Discourse. The wise man praises Wisdom, describing the blessings of obedience to her. The deeper religious element in wisdom appears, the fundamental conception of Hebrew prophecy, that the knowledge of God is the supreme good.
Proverbs 2:1. If the young man hearkens to wisdom, prizes it above all other gain, he will acquire the true knowledge of God. Yahweh alone gives wisdom, and He gives it only to the upright.
Proverbs 2:5. The phrase knowledge of God occurs in the OT only here and in Hos. Also Elohim only occurs elsewhere in Pr. in Proverbs 2:17; Proverbs 3:4; Proverbs 25:2; Proverbs 30:9.
Proverbs 2:7. sound wisdom: cf. Job 6:12. The root possibly means to assist, support, hence effectual wisdom, implying success in life.
Proverbs 2:8. his saints: rather his pious ones. The term hasidim (Psalms 4:3 *) occurs only here in Pr.
Proverbs 2:12. He who possesses true wisdom in the knowledge of God will be preserved from the perverse and self-opinionated man and from the strange woman. These may be personifications, like Wisdom, representing some form of foreign philosophy or heretical teaching, so the later Jewish commentators explain. But probably the reference is to literal vice. The strange woman is the professional prostitute, possibly a foreigner and connected with foreign idolatrous cults (cf. Josephus, Ant., xii. 4- 6; Sir_9:3-9; Sir_23:16-26).
Proverbs 2:17. friend of her youth: husband rather than God. For the phrase cf. Jeremiah 3:2.
Proverbs 2:18. LXX reads she has set her house by death, RV presupposes a change in the accents, MT is rendered in RVm, the Targums and Peshitta suggest her house is a pit of deep gloom. the dead: the rephaim, the inhabitants of Sheol, beyond God's jurisdiction. For history of term see Charles-' Eschatology (cf. Genesis 14:5 *, Job 26:5 *, Isaiah 14:9).
Proverbs 2:20. Blessing of the upright who hearken to wisdom, and punishment of the wicked. The result of conduct is expressed in the material form of older Jewish hopes. A long life in the land of Israel was the ideal of good, but the phrases to possess, inherit, or dwell in the land remained as the expression of blessing when its local and temporary sense had been forgotten (cf. Matthew 5:5). Psalms 37 represents this point of view very fully.