Now in the divine order comes the promise Proverbs 2:5. The conditions of its fulfillment are stated in Proverbs 2:1 in four sets of parallel clauses, each with some shade of distinct meaning. Thus, not “receiving” only, but “hiding” or treasuring up - not the “ear” only, but the “heart” - not the m... [ Continue Reading ]
Note the illustrations. (1) Contact with Phoenician commerce, and joint expeditions in ships of Tarshish (see Psalms 72:10 note), had made the Israelites familiar with the risks and the enterprise of the miller’s life. Compare Job 28: (2) The treasure hidden in a field, is the second point of comp... [ Continue Reading ]
The promise. The highest blessedness is to know God John 17:3. If any distinction between “the Lord” יהוה _y__e__hovâh_ and “God” אלהים _'elohı̂ym_ can be pressed here, it is that in the former the personality, in the latter the glory, of the divine nature is prominent.... [ Continue Reading ]
People do not gain wisdom by any efforts of their own, but God gives it according to the laws of His own goodness.... [ Continue Reading ]
SOUND WISDOM - “Soundness,” an idea which passes on into that of health and safety. Compare “sound doctrine” in 1 Timothy 1:10; 2 Timothy 4:3.... [ Continue Reading ]
SAINTS - The devout and God-fearing. Compare Psalms 85:8 etc. The occurrence of the word here, in a book that became more and more prominent as prophetic utterances ceased, probably helped to determine its application in the period of the Maccabean struggles to those who especially claimed for thems... [ Continue Reading ]
Another picture of the results of living in the fear of the Lord. Not that to which it leads a man, but that from which it saves him, is brought into view. Notice also that it is one thing for wisdom to find entrance into the soul, another to be welcomed as a “pleasant” guest.... [ Continue Reading ]
The evil-doers here include not robbers and murderers only Proverbs 1:10, but all who leave the straight path and the open day for crooked ways, perverse counsels, deeds of darkness. “To delight etc.” Proverbs 2:14 is the lowest depth of all.... [ Continue Reading ]
The second great evil, the warnings against which are frequent (see the marginal reference). Two words are used to describe the class. (1) “The strange woman” is one who does not belong to the family, one who by birth is outside the covenant of Israel. (2) “The stranger” is none other than a forei... [ Continue Reading ]
THE GUIDE OF HER YOUTH - Better, the familiar friend (compare Proverbs 16:28; Proverbs 17:9). The “friend” is, of course, the husband, or the man to whom the strange woman first belonged as a recognized concubine. Compare Jeremiah 3:4 THE COVENANT OF HER GOD - The sin of the adulteress is not again... [ Continue Reading ]
The house of the adulteress is as Hades, the realm of death, haunted by the spectral shadows of the dead (Rephaim, see the Psalms 88:10 note), who have perished there.... [ Continue Reading ]
The words describe more than the fatal persistency of the sinful habit when once formed. A resurrection from that world of the dead to “the paths of life” is all but impossible.... [ Continue Reading ]
The previous picture of shame and sin is brought before the disciple as an incentive to a better course.... [ Continue Reading ]
Noticeable here is the Hebrew love of home and love of country. To “dwell in the land” is (compare Exodus 20:12; Leviticus 25:18, etc.) the highest blessing for the whole people and for individual men. contrast with it is the life of the sinner cut off from the land (not “earth”) of his fathers.... [ Continue Reading ]