Proverbs 8:1

CHAPTER VIII

The fame and excellence of wisdom, and its manner of teaching,

1-4;

the matter of its exhortations, 5-12;

its influence among men, 13-21;

its antiquity, 22-31;

the blessedness of attending to its counsels, 32-35;

the misery of those who do not, 36.

NOTES ON CHAP. VIII.

Verse Proverbs 8:1. Doth not wisdom cry?] Here wisdom is again personified; but the prosopopoeia is carried on to a greater length than before, and with much more variety. It is represented in this chapter in a twofold point of view:

1. Wisdom, the power of judging rightly, implying the knowledge of Divine and human things.

2. As an attribute of God, particularly displayed in the various and astonishing works of creation.

Nor has it any other meaning in this whole chapter, whatever some of the fathers may have dreamed, who find allegorical meanings every where. The wise man seems as if suddenly awakened from the distressful contemplation which he had before him,-of the ruin of young persons in both worlds by means of debauchery,-by the voice of wisdom, who has lifted up her voice in the most public places, where was the greatest concourse of the people, to warn the yet unsnared, that they might avoid the way of seduction and sin; and cause those who love her to inherit substance, and to have their treasuries filled with durable riches.