Proverbs 1–9

The first nine chapters of the Book of Proverbs represent for many scholars the first (but not the oldest) section of the Book of Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. The opening verse refers to the proverbs of Solomon, but many scholars argue that it was composed later than Solomon's time, usually in the early Persian period.^[1]

Anglican commentator T. T. Perowne, in the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, calls this section "The Appeal of Wisdom",^[2] a title also reserved in particular for Proverbs 8.^[3]

The Jerusalem Bible describes chapters 1-9 as a prologue, and chapters 10-22:16, "the [actual] proverbs of Solomon", as "the body of the book".^[4] Aberdeen theologian Kenneth Aitken treats chapters 1-9 as a set of "didactic discourses".^[5] Chapter 10 also commences with the words "The proverbs of Solomon".^[6] and Methodist writer Joseph Benson suggests that this is where the proverbs "properly so called" commence; "for the foregoing chapters, although they had this title in the beginning of them, yet, in truth, were only a preparation to them, intended to stir up men’s minds to the greater attention to all the precepts of wisdom".^[7]

Chapter headings[]

The New King James Version entitles the chapters and sections as follows:

• Chapter 1:
  • The Beginning of Knowledge (verses 1–7)
  • Shun Evil Counsel (verses 8-19)
  • The Call of Wisdom (verses 20–32)
• Chapter 2: The Value of Wisdom
• Chapter 3: Guidance for the Young
• Chapter 4: Security in Wisdom
• Chapter 5: The Peril of Adultery
• Chapter 6:
  • Dangerous Promises (verses 1–5)
  • The Folly of Indolence (verses 6-11)
  • The Wicked Man (verses 12–19)
  • Beware of Adultery (verses 20–35)
• Chapter 7:
  • The Wiles of a Harlot (verses 1–5)
  • The Crafty Harlot (verses 6-27)
• Chapter 8: The Excellence of Wisdom
• Chapter 9:
  • The Way of Wisdom (verses 1-12)
  • The Way of Folly (verses 13–18).

Chapter 1[]

Verses 1:1–7 constitute an introduction to the whole of this part of the book, stating the purpose and value of the book and the basis upon which its teaching rests.^[5] The "Proverbs of Solomon" are "given" or taught" so that people may know "wisdom and good advice, and understand sayings with deep meaning".^[8] In the single word "wisdom", "the whole subject of the book is gathered up".^[2] Good advice, or "instruction" in the King James Version,^[9] "carries with it the sense of correction, or discipline".^[2]

Verse 8[]

My son, hear the instruction of your father,
And do not forsake the law of your mother.^[10]

This form of appeal, My son, "is continually repeated throughout these opening chapters".^[2] The medieval French rabbi Rashi suggested that the "father" refers to God, the father of mankind, and the "instruction" or "discipline" meant the law which God "gave Moses in writing and orally". Likewise, he suggested that "mother" refers to "your nation, the nation of Israel".^[11] Theologian John Gill challenges this:

This is not to be understood of God the Father of mankind, and of that law which he has given them, as Jarchi (Rashi) and Gersom ^[a] interpret it, but of Solomon and his son in a literal sense; and of anyone that came to him for instruction, any pupil, hearer, or reader of his; and it is a direction to all children to hearken to the instruction of their parents, and obey their commands.^[12]

Chapter 4[]

This chapter contains a short section on the value of wisdom and the call "to acquire it at all costs", and the metaphor in verses 10 to 27 of life as a road with two paths, the path of the wicked and the path of the just.^[13] The Jerusalem Bible entitles this chapter, "On choosing wisdom".^[14]

Chapter 5[]

Sub-titled "The Peril of Adultery" in the New King James Version, this is the first of three poems on the "forbidden woman", the “stranger” outside the social boundaries of Israel; the other two are Proverbs 6:20–35 and Proverbs 7.^[15] Verse 5 suggests that the woman is "as bitter as wormwood", a comparison used several times in the Hebrew Bible, by the prophets Jeremiah and Amos, also in Deuteronomy.

Verse 7[]

Wisdom is the principal thing; Therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.^[16]

Aitken stresses the need to acquire wisdom "at all costs",^[13] and the Jerusalem Bible advises that "one must first realise that it is essential to have it and that it demands self-sacrifice".^[17] Similarly the modern World English Bible's translation advises, Yes, though it costs all your possessions, get understanding.^[18]

Chapter 6[]

Verse 1[]

My son, if you become surety for your friend, If you have shaken hands in pledge for a stranger,^[19]

There are several references to suretyship in Proverbs, the first coming here (verses 1–6). According to Perowne,

the strong terms of warning and reprobation in which it is invariably spoken of ... accord well with what we should suppose to be the condition of society in the reign of Solomon. In earlier and simpler times it was enough for the Law to forbid usury or interest for a loan of money to be exacted by one Israelite of another; and raiment given as a pledge or security for a debt was to be returned before night-fall to be the owner’s covering in his sleep (Exodus 22:25–27; Leviticus 25:35–38). With the development, however, of commerce and the growth of luxury under Solomon, money-lending transactions, whether for speculation in trade, or for personal gratification, had come to be among the grave dangers that beset the path of youth.

Accordingly, the writer of Proverbs "has no quarter for it, but condemns it unsparingly on every mention of it".^[20] Subsequent references to surety are at Proverbs 11:15, 17:18, 20:16, 22:26 and 27:13.^[21]

Chapter 7[]

Verse 2[]

Keep my commands and live,
And my law as the apple of your eye.^[22]

The phrase "apple of my eye" (or similar) occurs in several other places in the Bible, including in reference to Moses, in Deuteronomy 32:10:

He found him in a desert land
And in the wasteland, a howling wilderness;
He encircled him, He instructed him,
He kept him as the apple of His eye.^[23]

Verses 6-23[]

These verses retell "an example story on the wiles of the adulteress ... cast in the form of [a] personal reminiscence".^[24] The narrator observes a wayward youth through the lattice of his window; in the Septuagint, it is the woman who looks out of the window seeking her prey, and this reading has been preferred by some scholars.^[24]

Chapter 8[]

This chapter covers "Wisdom's Second Speech". Wisdom "cries out" (verse 1). Some translations and paraphrases treat personify "Wisdom" and "Understanding" as characters speaking out, for example in the New American Bible, Revised Edition:

Does not Wisdom call,
and Understanding raise her voice?^[25]

and in The Voice translation:

Isn’t Lady Wisdom calling?^[26]

Aitken divides this chapter into sections as follows:

• Verses 1-11: personified Wisdom assumes the role of a wisdom teacher.
• Verses 12-21: Wisdom extols her providential role in the good and orderly government of the world (verses 12–16) and as the giver of wealth (verses 17–21)
• Verses 22-26: Wisdom's hymn of self-praise: before creation
• Verses 27-31: Wisdom's hymn of self-praise: at or during creation
• Verses 32-36: conclusion.^[27]

Verse 2[]

On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand.^[28]

American theologian Albert Barnes notes the contrast between Wisdom's openness and transparency, and the "stealth and secrecy and darkness" which had shrouded the harlot's enticements in chapter 7.^[29]

Chapter 9[]

Two "ways" are contrasted in this chapter:

• Verse 6: the way of understanding
• Verses 13-16: the "way of folly",^[30] especially verse 16: "whoever is simple (naive), let him turn in here".^[31] The Jerusalem Bible describes these alternatives as a "parable": "the meaning of the parable is plain: there are two ways open to man, of virtue or of vice".^[32]

Verse 3[]

She has sent out her maidens,
She cries out from the highest places of the city.^[33]

Benson says personified Wisdom may be compared to "a great princess": therefore "it was fit she should be attended on by maidens".^[34]

Verse 13[]

Folly is an unruly woman; she is simple and knows nothing.^[35]

Like Wisdom in the previous chapter, Folly is also personified as a character, called Dame Folly in the Jerusalem Bible, "the woman called Folly" in the New English Translation.^[36]

Notes[]

References[]