CHAPTER 1

(1000 B.C.)

TITLE

¹The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel (the Wisdom in this Book is not human sagacity, cleverness, or ability, but the application to the smallest details of human life of the Wisdom that built the heavens and the Earth and maintains them in being);

PURPOSE OF THE BOOK

²To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding (the theme of this Verse is to know; that which we are instructed to know could be categorized as the Bible, which is Wisdom);

³To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity (the theme of this Verse is to receive; therefore, if we know the Bible, we will then receive its instruction);

⁴To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. (If we know the Bible and then receive its instruction, we will then be able to give the benefit of our knowledge to others.)

⁵A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels (if we know the Bible, the Holy Spirit then considers us wise, and we will, thereby, continue to increase learning through His wise counsels):

⁶To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings. (The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit [I Cor. 2:14]. Therefore, we are told in the following Verse how this understanding can come about.)

A WARNING

⁷The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. (So, the beginning of this God-breathed road is the fear of the LORD. Men do not fear Him because most do not believe Him.)

⁸My son, hear the instruction of your father, and forsake not the law of your mother:

⁹For they shall be an ornament of grace unto your head, and chains about your neck. (The Book opens with a double statement that fear of God [Vs. 7] and obedience to parents form the foundation of a just relationship to God and man.

Chains of gold about the neck indicate political dignity; therefore, the sense of the Passage is that rulership of men must be preceded by fidelity to Gods Commands, showing consecration of parents to Gods Word, and submission by children to Godly parents.)

¹⁰My son, if sinners entice you, consent you not. (This tells us that if parents have not been properly guided by the Word that they may properly instruct their sons and daughters, then the enticement of sinners will be successful in its allurement; this, sadly, is the lot of most.)

¹¹If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause (Verses 11 through 14 suggest the evil enticement fomented by Satan that lurks in the path of every young man and young lady. To be sure, these enticements are deadly, characterized by the words blood, grave, and the pit):

¹²Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those who go down into the pit (as a result of lacking the Wisdom of God, the land is filled with blood, the graves cannot be dug fast enough, and Hell opens her mouth without measure):

¹³We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil (Satan lies, and men love to believe his lies; he is the master of deception; there is no precious substance that can be obtained by such measures; and, if there is, it brings no satisfaction):

¹⁴Cast in your lot among us; let us all have one purse (this purse carries wages of sin, which is death):

¹⁵My son, walk not you in the way with them; refrain your foot from their path (the reference is that it is impossible to make the right decision concerning the right path unless the solidity of the Bible is our foundation):

¹⁶For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood (the spirit of this Passage ensconces itself in the heart of every Bible rejecter).

¹⁷Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird (the argument of this Verse is that as a bird with its eyes open flies into a net spread for its destruction, so evil men rush with their eyes wide open into death).

¹⁸And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives (they seek to kill others for ill-gotten gain; in the killing of others, they also kill themselves).

¹⁹So are the ways of everyone who is greedy of gain; which takes away the life of the owners thereof (the far greater majority of the world is greedy of gain, and will do anything up to and including murder to accomplish their purpose).

WISDOM SPEAKS

²⁰Wisdom cries without; she utters her voice in the streets (in Lk. 7:35, the Lord Jesus says, Wisdom is justified of all her children; the Wisdom who speaks here to Solomon and to all men invites them to become her sons):

²¹She cries in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she utters her words, saying (although Righteousness is not nearly as proliferated as evil, still, the crying of Wisdom which God gives is ample enough that it will appeal even to the simple),

²²How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? (The terms, simple, scorner, and fool, mark regression. The man who treats Wisdom with good humor and polite inattention presently becomes a mocker and finally a hater.

So it was with the Pharisees and the rulers of the Synagogue. At first, they politely permitted the Lord to read the Scriptures in the Synagogue and to preach; but very soon they began to mock Him; and, finally, they hated and crucified Him.)

²³Turn you at My reproof: behold, I will pour out My Spirit unto you, I will make known My Words unto you. (Wisdom speaks and pleads with the frivolous, the mockers, and the hostile, promising them that if they would turn, she would abundantly enrich them with her own spirit and with understanding. But such is conditional upon conversion, and conversion is repugnant to man, because it humbles him.)

²⁴Because I have called, and you refused; I have stretched out My hand, and no man regarded (the whole of humanity is set apart in two camps: those who follow God-given Wisdom, i.e., the Bible, and those who reject God-given Wisdom);

²⁵But you have set at nought all My counsel, and would none of My reproof (the implication is that man willingly and deliberately sets aside Gods counsel; then the reproofs come; they are but signposts directing our attention to the coming catastrophe; most mock and continue on):

²⁶I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear comes (this Verse does not mean that Wisdom will actually deride her rejecters; it is the language of idiomatic argument; the rejecters laughed and mocked at Wisdom; when, therefore, calamities came upon them, which Wisdom predicted, their laughter and mocking turned upon themselves, and so Wisdom may be justly said to deride their calamity);

²⁷When your fear comes as desolation, and your destruction comes as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish comes upon you. (Some may argue that such does not come to all who ignore God; however, they are only looking at the physical and the material. Spiritually, it is definite.)

²⁸Then shall they call upon Me, but I will not answer; they shall seek Me early, but they shall not find Me (while it is certainly true that God will hear any and all who earnestly cry out to Him, still, the sense of this Passage is that a late call cannot undo the irreparable harm done in a misspent life):

²⁹For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD (there is a choice that everyone has to make; those who choose the wrong path do so because they hate knowledge, i.e., the Bible):

³⁰They would none of My counsel: they despised all My reproof. (The almost identical repetition of this Passage from Verse 25 is not by accident, but by design. If men reject the counsel of God and despise His reproof, then the following Passage must come to pass.)

³¹Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. (Mans problem is his own way and his own devices. It is either Gods Way, which brings life, or our way, which brings death.)

³²For the turning away of the simple shall kill them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. (The simple turns away from God and is, thereby, destroyed. Likewise, the prosperity of fools does not bring the gain that they anticipated in Verse 19, but instead destruction.)

³³But whoso hearkens unto Me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. (In this First Chapter of Proverbs, written by Solomon, we are given the blueprint for living: Gods Way versus our way. Those who listen to Him shall dwell safely and shall have no fear.)