Proverbs 4:6(v11)Don’t forsake her, and she will preserve you. Love her, and she will keep you.
Ephesians 5:15(v11)Therefore watch carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise,
Jeremiah 6:16(v9)Yahweh says, “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, ‘Where is the good way?’ and walk in it, and you will find rest for…
Psalms 25:21(v11)Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.
Jeremiah 15:16(v10)Your words were found, and I ate them. Your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart, for I am called by your name, Yahweh, God…
Show all 45 cross-references
1 Corinthians 15:33(v12)Don’t be deceived! “Evil companionships corrupt good morals.”
Proverbs 8:13(v12)The fear of Yahweh is to hate evil. I hate pride, arrogance, the evil way, and the perverse mouth.
Proverbs 13:20(v12)One who walks with wise men grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.
Psalms 143:8-10(v9)Cause me to hear your loving kindness in the morning, for I trust in you. Cause me to know the way in which I should walk, for I lift up my…
Isaiah 48:17(v9)Yahweh, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel says: “I am Yahweh your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way that you…
Matthew 7:13-14(v9)“Enter in by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter in by it.…
Colossians 3:16(v10)Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs,…
Job 23:12(v10)I haven’t gone back from the commandment of his lips. I have treasured up the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
Ecclesiastes 10:10(v11)If the ax is blunt, and one doesn’t sharpen the edge, then he must use more strength; but skill brings success.
2 Corinthians 6:17(v12)Therefore “ ‘Come out from among them, and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘Touch no unclean thing. I will receive you.
Psalms 19:10(v10)They are more to be desired than gold, yes, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the extract of the honeycomb.
Psalms 104:34(v10)Let my meditation be sweet to him. I will rejoice in Yahweh.
Psalms 119:9-11(v11)How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word. With my whole heart, I have sought you. Don’t let me wander from…
Psalms 119:162(v10)I rejoice at your word, as one who finds great plunder.
Proverbs 1:2-6(v9)to know wisdom and instruction; to discern the words of understanding; to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice,…
Proverbs 18:1-2(v10)A man who isolates himself pursues selfishness, and defies all sound judgment. A fool has no delight in understanding, but only in…
Proverbs 24:13-14(v10)My son, eat honey, for it is good, the droppings of the honeycomb, which are sweet to your taste; so you shall know wisdom to be to your…
Isaiah 59:3-5(v12)For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies. Your tongue mutters wickedness. No one…
Psalms 17:4-5(v12)As for the deeds of men, by the word of your lips, I have kept myself from the ways of the violent. My steps have held fast to your paths.…
Psalms 25:8-9(v9)Good and upright is Yahweh, therefore he will instruct sinners in the way. He will guide the humble in justice. He will teach the humble…
Psalms 26:4-5(v12)I have not sat with deceitful men, neither will I go in with hypocrites. I hate the assembly of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked.
Psalms 32:8(v9)I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go. I will counsel you with my eye on you.
Psalms 119:99(v9)I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.
Psalms 119:111(v10)I have taken your testimonies as a heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart.
Psalms 141:4(v12)Don’t incline my heart to any evil thing, to practice deeds of wickedness with men who work iniquity. Don’t let me eat of their delicacies.
Proverbs 1:10-19(v12)My son, if sinners entice you, don’t consent. If they say, “Come with us. Let’s lay in wait for blood. Let’s lurk secretly for the innocent…
Proverbs 3:32(v12)For the perverse is an abomination to Yahweh, but his friendship is with the upright.
Proverbs 4:14-17(v12)Don’t enter into the path of the wicked. Don’t walk in the way of evil men. Avoid it, and don’t pass by it. Turn from it, and pass on. For…
Proverbs 6:22-24(v11)When you walk, it will lead you. When you sleep, it will watch over you. When you awake, it will talk with you. For the commandment is a…
Proverbs 9:6(v12)Leave your simple ways, and live. Walk in the way of understanding.”
Proverbs 16:28-30(v12)A perverse man stirs up strife. A whisperer separates close friends. A man of violence entices his neighbor, and leads him in a way that is…
Ecclesiastes 9:15-18(v11)Now a poor wise man was found in it, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man. Then I said,…
John 14:6(v9)Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.
Acts 20:30(v12)Men will arise from among your own selves, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.
Psalms 101:4(v12)A perverse heart will be far from me. I will have nothing to do with evil.
Psalms 119:97(v10)How I love your law! It is my meditation all day.
Psalms 119:103(v10)How sweet are your promises to my taste, more than honey to my mouth!
Psalms 119:105(v9)Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light for my path.
Proverbs 14:33(v10)Wisdom rests in the heart of one who has understanding, and is even made known in the inward part of fools.
Isaiah 35:8(v9)A highway will be there, a road, and it will be called “The Holy Way”. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it will be for those who…
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (22 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn v11The word of God shall teach thee, and counsel…
The word of God shall teach thee, and counsel thee how to govern thyself.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv9–12Pro 2:9 Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment,…
Pro 2:9 Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; [yea], every good path.
Ver. 9. Then shalt thou understand righteousness.] Not as cognoscitiva, standing in speculation; but as directiva vitae, a rule of life. Knowledge is either apprehensive only, or affective also. This differs from that, as much as the light of the sun, wherein is the influence of an enlivening power, from the light of torches.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv9–12Then; when thou hast done thy part, expressed Pro…
Then; when thou hast done thy part, expressed Pro 2:1-3, &c., and God in answer to thy desires hath given thee wisdom, Pro 2:6; or when it is with thee, as it follows, Pro 2:10. Righteousness, and judgment, and equity; all the parts of thy duty to man, as well as the fear of God, Pro 2:5, which contains all duties to God. These three words are used here, as also Pro 1:3, to signify the same thing. Every good path; the practice of all virtues and graces.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry1710 · Public DomainOn v10The scope of these verses is to show, 1.…
The scope of these verses is to show, 1. What great advantage true wisdom will be of to us; it will keep us from the paths of sin, which lead to ruin, and will therein do us a greater kindness than if it enriched us with all the wealth of the world. 2. What good use we should make of the wisdom God gives us; we must use it for our own guidance in the paths of virtue, and for the arming of us against temptations of every kind. 3. By what rules we may try ourselves whether we have this wisdom or no. This tree will be known by its fruits; if we be truly wise, it will appear by our care to avoid all evil company and evil practices.
This wisdom will be of use to us,
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I. For our preservation from evil, from the evil of sin, and, consequently, from the evil of trouble that attends it.
1. In general (Pro 2:10, Pro 2:11), "When wisdom has entire possession of thee, it will keep thee." And when has it an entire possession of us? (1.) When it has dominion over us. When it not only fills the head with notions, but enters into the heart and has a commanding power and influence upon that, - when it is upon the throne there, and gives law to the affections and passions, - when it enters into the heart as the leaven into the dough, to diffuse its relish there, and to change it into its own image - then it is likely to do us good. (2.) When we have delight in it, when knowledge becomes pleasant to the soul: "When thou beginnest to relish it as the most agreeable entertainment, and art subject to its rules, of choice, and with satisfaction, - when thou callest the practice of virtue, not a slavery and a task, but liberty and pleasure, and a life of serious godliness the most comfortable life a man can live in this world, - then thou wilt find the benefit of it." Though its restraints should be in some respects unpleasant to the body, yet even those must be pleasant to the soul. When it has come to this, with us, discretion shall preserve us and keep us. God keeps the way of his saints (Pro 2:8), by giving them discretion to keep out of harm's way, to keep themselves that the wicked one touch them not. Note, A principle of grace reigning in the heart will be a powerful preservative both against corruptions within and temptations without, Ecc 9:16, Ecc 9:18.
2. More particularly, wisdom will preserve us,
(1.) From men of corrupt principles, atheistical profane men, who make it their business to debauch young men's judgments, and instil into their minds prejudices against religion and arguments for vice: "It will deliver thee from the way of the evil man (Pro 2:12), and a blessed deliverance it will be, as from the very jaws of death, from the way in which he walks, and in which he would persuade thee to walk." The enemy is spoken of as one (Pro 2:12), an evil man, but afterwards as many (Pro 2:13); there is a club, a gang of them, that are in confederacy against religion, and join hand in hand for the support of the devil's kingdom and the interests of it. [1.] They have a spirit of contradiction to that which is good: They speak froward things; they say all they can against religion, both to show their own enmity to it and to dissuade others from it. They are advocates for Satan; they plead for Baal, and pervert the right ways of the Lord. How peevishly will profane wits argue for sin, and with what frowardness will they carp at the word of God! Wisdom will keep us either from conversing with such men or at least from being ensnared by them. [2.] They are themselves apostates from that which is good, and such are commonly the most malicious and dangerous enemies religion has, witness Julian (Pro 2:13): They leave the paths of uprightness, which they were trained up in and had set out in, shake off the influences of their education, and break off the thread of their hopeful beginnings, to walk in the ways of darkness, in those wicked ways which hate the light, in which men are led blindfold by ignorance and error, and which lead men into utter darkness. The ways of sin are ways of darkness, uncomfortable and unsafe; what fools are those that leave the plain, pleasant, lightsome paths of uprightness, to walk in those ways! Psa 82:5; Jo1 2:11. [3.] They take a pleasure in sin, both in committing it themselves and in seeing others commit it (Pro 2:14): They rejoice in an opportunity to do evil, and in the accomplishment and success of any wicked project. It is sport to fools to do mischief; nor is any sight more grateful to them than to see the frowardness of the wicked, to see those that are hopeful drawn into the ways of sin, and then to see them hardened and confirmed in those ways. They are pleased if they can discern that the devil's kingdom gets ground (see Rom 1:32), such a height of impiety have they arrived at. [4.] They are resolute in sin (Pro 2:15): Their ways are crooked, a great many windings and turnings to escape the pursuit of their convictions and break the force of them; some sly excuse, some subtle evasion or other, their deceitful hearts furnish them with, for the strengthening of their hands in their wickedness; and in the crooked mazes of that labyrinth they secure themselves from the arrests of God's word and their own consciences; for they are froward in their paths, that is, they are resolved to go on in them, whatever is said against it. Every wise man will shun the company of such as these.
(2.) From women of corrupt practices. The former lead to spiritual wickednesses, the lusts of the unsanctified mind; these lead to fleshly lusts, which defile the body, that living temple, but withal war against the soul. The adulteress is here called the strange woman, because no man that has any wisdom or goodness in him will have any acquaintance with her; she is to be shunned by every Israelite as if she were a heathen, and a stranger to that sacred commonwealth. A strange woman indeed! utterly estranged from all principles of reason, virtue, and honour. It is a great mercy to be delivered from the allurements of the adulteress, considering, [1.] How false she is. Who will have any dealings with those that are made up of treachery? She is a strange woman; for, First, She is false to him whom she entices. She speaks fair, tells him how much she admires him above any man, and what a kindness she has for him; but she flatters with her words; she has no true affection for him, nor any desire of his welfare, any more than Delilah had of Samson's. All she designs is to pick his pocket and gratify a base lust of her own. Secondly, She is false to her husband, and violates the sacred obligation she lies under to him. He was the guide of her youth; by marrying him she chose him to be so, and submitted herself to his guidance, with a promise to attend him only, and forsake all others. But she has forsaken him, and therefore it cannot be thought that she should be faithful to any one else; and whoever entertains her is partaker with her in her falsehood. Thirdly, She is false to God himself: She forgets the covenant of her God, the marriage-covenant (Pro 2:17), to which God is not only a witness, but a party, for, he having instituted the ordinance, both sides vow to him to be true to each other. It is not her husband only that she sins against, but her God, who will judge whoremongers and adulterers because they despise the oath and break the covenant, Eze 17:18; Mal 2:14. [2.] How fatal it will prove to those that fall in league with her, Pro 2:18, Pro 2:19. Let the sufferings of others be our warnings. Take heed of the sin of whoredom; for, First, The ruin of those who are guilty of it is certain and unavoidable, if they do not repent. It is a sin that has a direct tendency to the killing of the soul, the extinguishing of all good affections and dispositions in it, and the exposing of it to the wrath and curse of God and the sword of his justice. Those that live in forbidden pleasures are dead while they live. Let discretion preserve every man, not only from the evil woman, but from the evil house, for the house inclines to death; it is in the road that leads directly to eternal death; and her paths unto Rephaim, to the giants (so some read it), the sinners of the old world, who, living in luxury and excess of riot, were cut down out of time, and their foundation was overthrown with a flood. Our Lord Jesus deters us from sinful pleasures with the consideration of everlasting torments which follow them. Where the worm dies not, nor is the fire quenched. See Mat 5:28, Mat 5:29. Secondly, Their repentance and recovery are extremely hazardous: None, or next to none, that go unto her, return again. It is very rare that any who are caught in this snare of the devil recover themselves, so much is the heart hardened, and the mind blinded, by the deceitfulness of this sin. Having once lost their hold of the paths of life, they know not how to take hold of them again, but are perfectly besotted and bewitched with those base lusts. Many learned interpreters think that this caution against the strange woman, besides the literal sense, is to be understood figuratively, as a caution, 1. Against idolatry, which is spiritual whoredom. Wisdom will keep thee from all familiarity with the worshippers of images, and all inclination to join with them, which had for many ages been of such pernicious consequence to Israel and proved so to Solomon himself. 2. Against the debauching of the intellectual powers and faculties of the soul by the lusts and appetites of the body. Wisdom will keep thee from being captivated by the carnal mind, and from subjecting the spirit to the dominion of the flesh, that notorious adulteress which forsakes its guide, violates the covenant of our God, which inclines to death, and which, when it has got an undisturbed dominion, makes the case of the soul desperate.
II. This wisdom will be of use to guide and direct us in that which is good (Pro 2:20): That thou mayest walk in the way of good men. We must avoid the way of the evil man, and the strange woman, in order that we may walk in good ways; we must cease to do evil, in order that we may learn to do well. Note, 1. There is a way which is peculiarly the way of good men, the way in which good men, as such, and as far as they have really been such, have always walked. 2. It will be our wisdom to walk in that way, to ask for the good old way and walk therein, Jer 6:16; Heb 6:12; Heb 12:1. And we must not only walk in that way awhile, but we must keep it, keep in it, and never turn aside out of it: The paths of the righteous are the paths of life, which all that are wise, having taken hold of, will keep their hold of. "That thou mayest imitate those excellent persons, the patriarchs and prophets (so bishop Patrick paraphrases it), and be preserved in the paths of those righteous men who followed after them." We must not only choose our way in general by the good examples of the saints, but must also take directions from them in the choice of our particular paths; observe the track, and go forth by the footsteps of the flock. Two reasons are here given why we should thus choose: - (1.) Because men's integrity will be their establishment, Pro 2:21. It will be the establishment, [1.] Of their persons: The upright shall dwell in the land, peaceably and quietly, as long as they live; and their uprightness will contribute to it, as it settles their minds, guides their counsels, gains them the good-will of their neighbours, and entitles them to God's special favour. [2.] Of their families: The perfect, in their posterity, shall remain in it. They shall dwell and remain for ever in the heavenly Canaan, of which the earthly one was but a type. (2.) Because men's iniquity will be their destruction, Pro 2:22. See what becomes of the wicked, who choose the way of the evil man; they shall be cut off, not only from heaven hereafter and all hopes of that, but from the earth now, on which they set their affections, and in which they lay up their treasure. They think to take root in it, but they and their families shall be rooted out of it, in judgment to them, but in mercy to the earth. There is a day coming which shall leave them neither root nor branch, Mal 4:1. Let that wisdom then enter into our hearts, and be pleasant to our souls, which will keep us out of a way that will end thus.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv9–12Then shalt thou understand righteousness and judgment,.... This is…
Then shalt thou understand righteousness and judgment,.... This is another fruit and effect of the Gospel, and of a spiritual understanding of it; that besides the knowledge of God, and how to behave with reverence towards him, Pro 2:5; it leads men into a notion of doing that which is right and just among men; it gives them not only a theoretic but a practical understanding of justice, and a true judgment of what is right and wrong; or gives such an understanding thereof as that they practise it; for it teaches men to live soberly, righteously, and godly, Tit 2:11. It is not only a revelation and ministration of the righteousness of Christ as the only matter of a sinner's justification before God; and informs a man's judgment so that he can distinguish between truth and error, right and wrong, good and bad notions and practices; but it influences his actions, life, and conversation, and engages him to do works of righteousness from the best principles, upon the best motives, and with the best views;
and equity; yea, every good path; that is, so to understand equity, as to do that which is equitable between man and man; and to understand every good path which the word of God directs to, even all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, so as to walk in them; these things the Gospel acquaints men with, and urges them to observe: or the words may be rendered, either "the rectitude" or "equity of fall good paths", as the Syriac version; how just, and right, and plain, and equitable, everyone is, and therefore ought to be walked in; or "plainnesses", or "most plain", is or shall be "every good path" (r), to them that have a spiritual and experimental knowledge of the Gospel; and by it an understanding of their duty. One word signifies "plain" and "straight", and another "round" (s), and both are true of the path of righteousness; for though it is a circle of duty saints walk in, yet straight and plain.
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(r) So Schmidt. (s) "complanationes", Schultens; "orbitam", Montanus; "ab rotundus", Gejerus.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv9–10Then - When God in answer to thy desires…
Then - When God in answer to thy desires hath given thee wisdom. Equity - All the parts of thy duty to man, as well as the fear of God.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv9, 11, 12Verse 9. Then shalt thou understand] He who is…
Verse 9. Then shalt thou understand] He who is taught of God understands the whole law of justice, mercy, righteousness, and truth; God has written this on his heart. He who understands these things by books only is never likely to practise or profit by them.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn v10Pro 2:10-15. When wisdom entereth into thy heart —…
Pro 2:10-15. When wisdom entereth into thy heart — When thou dost truly love it, and hide its precepts in thy heart; Discretion shall preserve thee — From wicked courses, and the mischiefs which attend upon them; from the way of the evil man — From following his counsel or example; the man that speaketh froward things — With a design to corrupt thy mind, and entice thee to evil principles or practices. Who leave the paths of righteousness — The way of God’s precepts; to walk in the ways of darkness — Of sin, which is often called darkness, because it proceeds from ignorance and error, hates the light of knowledge and truth, and leads to the eternal darkness of misery and despair. Who rejoice to do evil — Seeking and embracing occasions of sin, with diligence and greediness, and pleasing themselves both in the practice and remembrance of it: and delight in the frowardness of the wicked — Not only in their own sins, but in the sins of other wicked men, which shows a great malignity of mind and love to sin, Rom 1:32 : whose ways are crooked — Hebrew, who in, or with respect to, their ways, are perverse; acting contrary to the straight rules of piety and virtue.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv10, 12Another picture of the results of living in the…
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.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Charles Bridges1846 · Public DomainOn vv10, 12We have seen the good that wisdom brings to…
We have seen the good that wisdom brings to us. (Pro 2:5 .) Now see the evil, from which it preserves us. But observe its place — in the heart. Here only has it any light, life, or power. (Pro 4:23 .) Clear knowledge floating in the head is deep ignorance. While it only glitters in the understanding, it is dry, speculative, and barren. When it entereth into the heart, light beams out, all the affections are engaged; and how pleasant is it to the soul! (Pro 24:13-14 . Job 23:12 . Psa 119:103 . Jer 15:16 .) Religion now is no lifeless notion. It is handled, tasted, enjoyed. It gives a discreet and understanding direction to the whole conduct. It becomes not only an external rule, but a preserving, keeping principle (Pro 4:6 ; Pro 6:22-24 . Psa 17:4 ; Psa 119:9-11, Psa 119:104 ); like the military guard for the safety of the royal person. (1Sa 26:16 . 2Ki 11:11 .) Before, it was the object of our search. Now, having found it, it is our pleasure. Until it is so, it can have no practical influence. It is "the man, whose delight is in the law of the LORD," who is preserved from "walking in the counsel of the ungodly." (Psa 1:1-2 ; Compare Pro 7:4-5 .) Education, conviction, high moral principle, are at best only partially operative. The reclaimed drunkard may be true to his Temperance-pledge; but, if the "root of bitterness" be untouched, he may be a Socialist or a Chartist, or revel in some other equally ruinous course. External wickedness may be exchanged for decent formality. Vagrant affections may be turned from some object of vanity; yet not fixed upon the Divine centre of attraction. The mind may be disciplined from utter unprofitableness, only to indulge in the idolatry of talent, or the fascinations of poisoned literature. The folly of the pride of life may be resisted; yet pride in other of its multiform fruits tenderly cherished. In all these cases, the principle is unsubdued. The forsaken sin only makes way for some more plausible, but not less deadly passion. The heart, cast into the mold of the Gospel, is the only cover from those snares within and without (Rom 6:17-18 . 2Co 3:18 ), which so imperceptibly, yet so fatally, estrange us from God. Never, till the vital principle is implanted, is their mischief discerned. Never, till then, does the heart find its proper object, its true resting-place.
We have seen the good that wisdom brings to us. (Pro 2:5 .) Now see the evil, from which it preserves us. But observe its place — in the heart. Here only has it any light, life, or power. (Pro 4:23 .) Clear knowledge floating in the head is deep ignorance. While it only glitters in the understanding, it is dry, speculative, and barren. When it entereth into the heart, light beams out, all the affections are engaged; and how pleasant is it to the soul! (Pro 24:13-14 . Job 23:12 . Psa 119:103 . Jer 15:16 .) Religion now is no lifeless notion. It is handled, tasted, enjoyed. It gives a discreet and understanding direction to the whole conduct. It becomes not only an external rule, but a preserving, keeping principle (Pro 4:6 ; Pro 6:22-24 . Psa 17:4 ; Psa 119:9-11, Psa 119:104 ); like the military guard for the safety of the royal person. (1Sa 26:16 . 2Ki 11:11 .) Before, it was the object of our search. Now, having found it, it is our pleasure. Until it is so, it can have no practical influence. It is "the man, whose delight is in the law of the LORD," who is preserved from "walking in the counsel of the ungodly." (Psa 1:1-2 ; Compare Pro 7:4-5 .) Education, conviction, high moral principle, are at best only partially operative. The reclaimed drunkard may be true to his Temperance-pledge; but, if the "root of bitterness" be untouched, he may be a Socialist or a Chartist, or revel in some other equally ruinous course. External wickedness may be exchanged for decent formality. Vagrant affections may be turned from some object of vanity; yet not fixed upon the Divine centre of attraction. The mind may be disciplined from utter unprofitableness, only to indulge in the idolatry of talent, or the fascinations of poisoned literature. The folly of the pride of life may be resisted; yet pride in other of its multiform fruits tenderly cherished. In all these cases, the principle is unsubdued. The forsaken sin only makes way for some more plausible, but not less deadly passion. The heart, cast into the mold of the Gospel, is the only cover from those snares within and without (Rom 6:17-18 . 2Co 3:18 ), which so imperceptibly, yet so fatally, estrange us from God. Never, till the vital principle is implanted, is their mischief discerned. Never, till then, does the heart find its proper object, its true resting-place.
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Footnotes
Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1846) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn v12Things. The danger of such company for young people…
Things. The danger of such company for young people is very great, as the heart is misled by the understanding, (Calmet) if it do not itself shew the way to error. (Haydock) --- We all possess a fund of corruption. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv9, 10, 12Then--emphatic, in such a case.
Then--emphatic, in such a case.
righteousness . . . path--all parts of duty to God and man.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv9, 10, 129. Then — Referring back to Pro_2:1-4, from which…
9. Then — Referring back to Pro_2:1-4, from which the instructor started out with the same particle as at Pro_2:5. This verse is a summing up of vs.
5-8, and connects with Pro_1:3, where he states the object of his work to be, to impart clear, discriminating instructions in righteousness, judgment, and equities. (See note on Pro_1:3.)
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Every good path — The practice of every virtue and grace. “The whole good track.” — Miller. The teacher has thus made a circle, so to speak, by which he has come around to his starting point.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv10–1210. When wisdom entereth … knowledge is pleasant] Rather:…
10. When wisdom entereth … knowledge is pleasant] Rather: For wisdom shall enter … knowledge shall be pleasant, R.V. The address flows on continuously and describes how wisdom as a shield preserves from the evil man (Pro_2:12-15), and from the evil woman (Pro_2:16-19).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv10, 12(10) When wisdom . . .—Rather to be taken…
(10) When wisdom . . .—Rather to be taken as an explanation of the preceding, For wisdom will enter, &c
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv9–12Then (za, az), repeated from ver. 5, introduces the…
Then (za, az), repeated from ver. 5, introduces the second apodosis. As the former referred to God, so this appears to refer more especially to man, and thus we have stated the whole benefit, in its twofold aspect, which Wisdom confers on those who diligently seek her. It is not to be affirmed, however, that righteousness and judgment and equity refer exclusively to man; they must represent some aspects of our relationship to God, both from the meaning of the words themselves, and because the law which regulates our dealings and intercourse with man has its seat in the higher law of our relation to God. Righteousness, and judgment, and equity. These three words occur in the same collocation in Pro_1:3, which see. Yea, every good path. "Yea" does not occur in the original. The expression is a summarizing of the three previous conceptions, as if the teacher implied that all good paths are embraced by and included in "righteousness, and judgment, and equity;" but the term is also comprehensive in the widest degree. The literal translation is "every path of good" (bwOfAlGumAlK, cal-ma"gal-tov), i.e. every course of action of which goodness is the characteristic, or, as the Authorized Version, "every good path," the sense in which it was understood by St. Jerome, omnem orbitam bonam. The word here used for "path" is lGm (ma"gal), "the way in which the chariot rolls" (Delitzsch), and metaphorically a course of action, as in Pro_2:15 Pro_4:26.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv11–12Discretion shall preserve thee.
Pro_2:11
Discretion shall preserve thee.
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Humility
This is the first sought and last won of the Christian graces. Such are the difficulties in the acquisition of humility that it is but seldom really found. It is a common want of the present day. See the ordinary courtesy of modern society. See the special snare in intellectual careers. In both of these provinces of life especial discouragement has been given during the recent period to the growth in us of true humility.
I. Abjectness is not humility. Depression, abasement, humiliation, by no means exhaust all the commutation of this well-known Christian term. Abjectness and humility may have some features in common. But humility presupposes a soaring spirit. The calm dignity of Christian holiness must rest behind. This lovely grace assists and furthers genuine aspirations. Our Lord made three contributions to the science of ethics, and each of them bore the impress of the Cross--humility, faith, love. These, at least, He lifted into places of high importance. Our Lord places humility in the very front of His teaching. See sermons on the mount and on the plain. There is nothing vain or false in humility. Humility is the hall-mark of wisdom.
II. The beginnings of humility must be made in careful self-repression. We are so much bound up with ourselves that we cannot come to a just and fair estimate of our own affairs without rejecting a vast amount of the suggestions and insinuations that we make to ourselves. Self-abnegation may, in becoming habitual, cast off all consciousness. Repentance must begin with humiliation. There can be no contrition without humility. The difficulty is to get this feeling the permanent posture of the soul. Here we must depend upon the action of conscience. The following are some of the provinces in which we have to exercise self-repression.
1. Good-fortune, successes, advancement, commendation, praise, bring a too satisfied sense of our own exaltation.
2. Success is said to try humility, misfortune to produce it. We can hardly learn humility and tenderness enough except by suffering.
3. Think of the wrath, quarrels, and resentments which arise from nervous anxiety about ourselves and our position. Bishop Wilson says, He that is truly humble never thinks himself wronged.
4. Humility often seems persistently to fly away from the intellectual life.
III. Humility requires us to fix our attentions upon people and things outside of ourselves. This includes a steady posture of reverence. The reverent life confers grace and refinement upon our characters. It constitutes the inextinguishable charm of religion. In the practice of the reverent life we have the conscious cultivation of humility. We move out of self-contemplation and self-pleasing into the higher region of sacrifice, and into the dignity of giving, in offering homage to the Almighty God, and in according attention to other people.
IV. Humility is regulated by our deportment towards truth. True humility is marked by a simplicity of mind from which self is banished. Disorderly introspection is morbid and unwholesome. But humility is difficult to attain. It is scarcely possible until the character is thoroughly settled to avoid an amount of self-consciousness which is inconsistent with real humility. There is indeed much intellectual as well as moral weakness that stands in the way of acquiring humility. Besides the want of the power of concentration, there is generally a lack of imagination. See illustration in our Lords life of humility with aspiration in it.
1. The lofty aspirations and the soaring aims of our Lord were never laid aside by Him, but they were kept in the background.
2. With what consistency did He repress Himself, and how thoroughly His teaching coincided with His example!
3. He showed reverence towards all. His respect for men is most touching.
4. What self-sacrifice and neglect of self are visible throughout His career! No labour is ever too much for Him. He was always ready at the call of duty. Does the way of humility still seem hard? There, on that hill outside Jerusalem, at the foot of that Cross which is set up towards heaven, drawing all men unto it, we may come to learn what we can learn nowhere else--how to lower our pride, and to foster humility in our souls. (Edward Miller, M.A.)
The negative beneficial influence of religion
There is an important distinction between the understanding of the meaning of Divine discoveries and the perception of their excellence and truth. Knowledge in Scripture, with which salvation is connected, includes the latter. The knowledge of anything means the knowledge of its real and distinctive properties. The apostle speaks of spiritual discernment. Discretion and, understanding in this connection mean self-jealousy arising from self-knowledge. The knowledge of ourselves includes the knowledge, theoretical and experimental, of the unlimited deceitfulness of our own hearts. And this, connected with a right knowledge of the sources of temptation as they exist in such abundance and variety around us, will inspire and maintain discretion. He will watch unto prayer, and not merely trust to his own discretion. Diffidence of self and confidence in God constitute the discretion of the spiritual man. The two sources of temptation for youth are wicked men and wicked women. The evil man speaketh froward things, i.e., words of perverse rebellion, of a spirit stubborn, refractory, scornful, self-willed. These work seductively on youthful minds of a particular temperament; especially on those who have a craze for independence. The evil mans ways are crooked ways, changing from purpose at wayward inclination. The strange woman represents all seducers to immorality and sensual indulgences, and such have a special influence on youth. (R. Wardlaw,D. D.)
The youth assisted in forming his religious sentiments
I. Let your mind be impressed with this sentiment, that there is such a thing as religion; and that it is of serious importance.
II. Always remember that religion is agreeable to the nature of God. As it is a service which you owe to Him, your ideas of it must correspond with His moral character.
III. To judge what religion is, you must always consider that it is a rational thing.
IV. Religion must be a work suited to the nature and condition of man.
V. You must always remember that religion is a benevolent and useful thing; and that, wherever it takes place, it makes men better than they were before.
VI. Judge of things doubtful by things which are plain. VII. If a matter proposed to you, in a way of instruction or advice, appears doubtful, suspend your resolution, until you have made further inquiry. (J. Lathrop, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible1887 · Public DomainOn v12"To deliver thee from the way of the evil…
CHAPTER 3
WISDOM AS THE GUIDE OF CONDUCT
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"To deliver thee from the way of the evil man…To deliver thee from the strange woman."- Pro_2:12-16
WISDOM is concerned, as we have seen, with the whole universe of fact, with the whole range of thought; she surveys and orders all processes of nature. We might say of her,
"She doth preserve the stars from wrong, And the most ancient heavens by her are fresh and strong."
But while she is occupied in these high things, she is no less attentive to the affairs of human life, and her delight is to order human conduct, not despising even the smallest detail of that which is done by men under the sun. Side by side with physical laws, indeed often intertwined with them, appear the moral laws which issue from the lively oracles of Wisdom. There is not one authority for natural phenomena, and another for mental and moral phenomena. As we should say now, Truth is one: Science is one: Law is one. The laws of the physical order, the laws of the speculative reason, the laws of practical life, form a single system, come from the sole mind of God, and are the impartial interests of Wisdom.
As the great authority on Conduct, Wisdom is pictured standing in the places where men congregate, where the busy hum of human voices and the rush of hurried feet make it necessary for her to lift up her voice in order to gain attention. With words of winsome wooing-"for wisdom shall enter into thy heart, and knowledge shall be pleasant unto thy soul" {Pro_2:10}-or with loud threats and stern declarations of truth -"the backsliding of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them" {Pro_1:32} -she tries to win us, while we are yet young, to her paths of pleasantness and her ways of peace. Her object is to deliver youth,
(1) from the evil man, and
(2) from the evil woman, or in the most comprehensive way "to deliver us from evil."
First of all, we may spend a few moments in noting the particular temptations to which men were exposed in the days when these chapters were written. There was a temptation to join a troop of banditti, and to obtain a living by acts of highway robbery which would frequently result in murder; and there was the temptation to the sin which we call specifically Impurity, a temptation which arose not so much from the existence of a special class of fallen women, as from the shocking looseness and voluptuousness of married women in well-to-do circumstances.
Society under the kings never seems to have reached anything approaching to an ordered security. We cannot point to any period when the mountain roads, even in the neighborhood of the capital, were not haunted by thieves, who lurked in the rocks or the copses, and fell upon passing travelers, to strip and to rob, and if need be to kill them. When such things are done, when such things are even recounted in sensational literature, there are multitudes of young men who are stirred to a debased ambition; a spurious glory encircles the brow of the adventurer who sets the laws of society at defiance; and without any personal entreaty the foolish youth is disposed to leave the quiet ways of industry for the stimulating excitement and the false glamour of the bandit life. The reckless plottings of the robbers are described in Pro_1:11-14. The character of the men themselves is given in Pro_4:16-17 : "They sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fail. For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence." The proverb in Pro_24:15 is addressed to such a one: "Lay not wait, O wicked man, against the habitation of the righteous; spoil not his resting-place."
The rebukes of the prophets-Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah-may have a wider application, but they seem at any rate to include this highwaymans life. "Your hands are full of blood" is the charge of Isaiah; and {Isa_1:15} again, "Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity." {Isa_59:7} "They build up Zion with blood," says Micah indignantly. {Mic_3:10} Jeremiah cries with still more vehemence to his generation, "Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the innocent poor": {Jer_2:34} and again, "But thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it." {Jer_22:17}
We are to conceive, then, the young and active men of the day constantly tempted to take these unhallowed paths which seemed to promise wealth; the sinners were always ready to whisper in the ears of those whose life was tedious and unattractive, "Cast in thy lot among us; we will all have one purse." The moral sense of the community was not sufficiently developed to heartily condemn this life of iniquity; as in the eighteenth century among, ourselves, so in Israel when this book was written, there existed in the minds of the people at large a lurking admiration for the bold and dashing "gentlemen of the way."
The other special temptation of that day is described in our book with remarkable realism, and there is no false shame in exposing the paths of death into which it leads. In Pro_5:3-20 the subject is treated in the plainest way: "Her latter end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on Sheol." It is taken up again in Pro_6:24-35 : "Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? or can one walk upon hot coals and his feet not be scorched?" The guilty man who has been betrayed by the glitter and beauty, by the honeyed words and the soft entreaties, "shall get wounds and dishonor, and his reproach shall not be wiped away."
Pro_7:5-27 a most vivid picture is drawn of the foolish youth seduced into evil; there he is seen going as an ox to the slaughter, as one in fetters, "till an arrow strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life." And the Introduction closes with a delineation of Folly, which is obviously meant as a counterpart to the delineation of Wisdom in Pro_1:20, etc. {Pro_9:13-18} The miserable woman sits at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city; with seductive words she wins the foolish passers-by to enter her doors: "The dead are there; her guests are in the depths of Sheol."
It is a temptation which in many varying forms has always beset human life. No small part of the danger is that this evil, above all others, grows in silence, and yet seems to be aggravated by publicity. The preacher cannot speak plainly about it, and even writers shrink from touching the subject. We can, however, be thankful that the book, which is Gods book rather than mans, knows nothing of our false modesty and conventional delicacy: it speaks out not only boldly, but minutely; it is so explicit that no man who with a prayerful heart will meditate upon its teachings need fall into the pitfall-that pitfall which seems to grow even more subtle and more seductive as civilization advances, and as the great cities absorb a larger proportion of the population; or if he fail he can only admit with shame and remorse, "I have hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof. Neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me. I was well-nigh in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly." {Pro_5:12-14}
In the second place, we must try to look at these temptations in the light of our own day, in order that we may listen to the voice of wisdom, not in the antiquarian, but rather in the practical spirit. The second temptation exists amongst us almost unchanged, except that the vast accumulation and concentration of vice in great cities has provided that mournful band of women whom a great moralist has designated the Vestal Virgins of Humanity, consecrated to shame and ruin in order to preserve unsullied the sacred flame of the domestic altar. The result of this terrible development in evil is that the deadly sin has become safer for the sinner, and in certain circles of society has become recognized as at any rate a venial fault, if not an innocent necessity. It is well to read these chapters again with our eye on the modern evil, and to let the voice of Wisdom instruct us that the life is not the less blighted because the body remains unpunished, and vice is not the less vicious because, instead of ruining others for its gratification, it feeds only on those who are already ruined. If the Wisdom of the Old Testament is obscure on this point, the Wisdom of the New Testament gives no uncertain sound. Interpreting the doctrine of our book, as Christians are bound to do, by the light of Christ, we can be left in no doubt, that to all forms of impurity applies the one principle which is here applied to a specific form: "He doeth it that would destroy his own soul." "His own iniquities shall take the wicked, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sin." {Pro_6:32 and Pro_5:22}
But with regard to the first of the two temptations, it may be urged that in our settled and ordered society it is no longer felt. "We are not tempted to become highwaymen, nor even to embark on the career of a professional thief." We are disposed to skim lightly over the warning, under the impression that it does not in any way apply to us. But stop a moment! Wisdom spoke in the first instance direct to the vice of her day, but she gave to her precepts a more general coloring, which makes it applicable to all time, when she said, "So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; it taketh away the life of the owners thereof." {Pro_1:19} The specific form of greediness described in this first chapter may have become obsolete among decent and respectable people; but that greed of gain which showed itself then in a particular form is alive today. Dressed in a different garb, it presents temptations of a slightly different order; but the spirit is the same, the issue, the fatal issue, is the same. It is a melancholy fact that in the most progressive and civilized communities the greed of gain, instead of dying out, becomes aggravated, acquires a dominant influence, and sways men as the master passion. The United States, a country so bountiful to her children that a settled peace might be supposed to pervade the life of men who can never be in fear of losing the necessaries, or even the comforts, of life, are inflamed with a fierce and fiery passion. Society is one perpetual turmoil; life is lived at the highest conceivable pressure, because each individual is seeking to gain more and ever more. In our own country, though society is less fluid, and ancient custom checks the action of disturbing forces, the passion for gain becomes every year a more exacting tyranny over the lives of the people. We are engaged in a pitiless warfare, which we dignify by the name of competition; the race is to the swift, and the battle to the strong. It becomes almost a recognized principle that man is at liberty to prey upon his fellow man. The Eternal Law of Wisdom declares that we should treat others as we treat ourselves, and count the interests of others dear as our own; it teaches us that we should show a tender consideration for the weak, and be always ready, at whatever cost, to succor the helpless. But competition says, "No; you must try rather to beat the weak out of the field; you must leave no device untried to reduce the strength of the strong, and to divert into your own hands the grist which was going to your neighbors mill." This conflict between man and man is untempered by pity, because it is supposed to be unavoidable as death itself. In a community so constituted, where business has fallen into such ways, while the strong may hold their own with a clean hand, the weaker are tempted to make up by cunning what they lack in strength, and the weakest are ground as the nether millstone. The pitilessness of the whole system is appalling, the more so because it is accepted as necessary.
The bandit life has here emerged in a new form. "Come, let us lay wait for blood," says the Sweater or the Fogger, "let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause; let us swallow them up alive as Sheol, and whole as those that go down into the pit." The Bandit is an outcast from society, and his hand is turned against the rich. The Sweater is an outcast from society, and his hand is turned against the poor. By "laying wait" he is able to demand, from weak men, women, and children, the long hours of the day for unceasing toil, and the bitter hours of the night for hunger and cold, until the gaunt creatures, worn with weariness and despair, find a solace in debauchery or an unhallowed rest in death.
Now, though the temptation to become a sweater may not affect many or any of us, I should like to ask, Are there not certain trades or occupations, into which some of us are tempted to enter, perfectly honeycombed with questionable practices? Under the pretext that it is all "business," are not things done which can only be described as preying upon the innocence or the stupidity of our neighbors? Sometimes the promise is, "We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil." {Pro_1:13} Sometimes the simple object is to escape starvation. But there is the miserable temptation to sacrifice probity and honor, to stifle compassion and thought, in order to bring into our own coffers the coveted wealth. And is there not, I ask, a similar temptation lurking in a thousand haunts more or less respectable-a temptation which may be described as the spirit of gambling? The essence of all gambling, whether it be called speculative business or gaming, in stock and share markets or in betting clubs and turf rings, is simply the attempt to trade on the supposed ignorance or misfortune of others, and to use superior knowledge or fortune for the purpose, not of helping, but of robbing them. It may be said that we do it in self-defense, and that others would do the same by us; yes, just as the bandit says to the young man, "We do not want to injure the traveler yonder; we want his purse. He will try to shoot you; you only shoot him in self-defense." It is the subtlety of all gambling that constitutes its great danger. It seems to turn on the principle that we may do what we like with our own; it forgets that its object is to get hold of what belongs to others, not by honest work or service rendered, but simply by cunning and deception.
It is, then, only too easy to recognize, in many varied shapes of so-called business and of so-called pleasure, "the ways of those who are greedy of gain." Wisdom has need to cry aloud in our streets, in the chief place of concourse, in the city, in exchanges and marts. Her warning to the young man must be explicit and solemn: "My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not." The bandit life still has its attractions, though its methods are changed; it plays upon the idle imagination: it promises freedom from laborious and distasteful toil; but it says nothing of the ways of death into which it leads.
Now, in the third place, we come to the protest of Divine Wisdom against these evil ways in which men are tempted to walk. They are, she says, folly of the most egregious kind. There may be an apparent success or a momentary gratification: "precious substance may be amassed, and houses may be filled with spoil"; but the people who are betrayed into these wicked courses "shall be cut off from the land." {Pro_2:22} They "lay wait for their own blood"; greed "taketh away the life of the owner thereof"; {Pro_1:19} and as for the strange woman, that flattereth with her words, "none that go unto her return again." {Pro_2:19}
It needs but a clear vision or a little wise reflection to see the destructive tendency of Evil. It is the commonest fact of experience that where "vice goes before, vengeance follows after." Why do men not perceive it? There is a kind of fatuity which blinds the eyes. The empty-headed bird sees the net spread out before its eyes; {Pro_1:17} many of its fellows have already been caught; the warning seems obvious enough, but it is all "in vain": eager to get the bait-the dainty morsel lying there, easy obtainable - the foolish creature approaches, looks, argues that it is swifter and stronger than its predecessors, who were but weaklings! it will wheel down, take the food, and be gone long before the flaps of the net can spring together. In the same way the empty-headed youth, warned by the experience of elders and the tender entreaties of father and mother, assured that these ways of unjust gain are ways of ruin, is yet rash enough to enter the snare in order to secure the coveted morsel. And what is the issue? Setting at naught all the counsel of Wisdom, he would none of her reproof. {Pro_1:25} A momentary success led to wilder infatuation, and convinced him that he was right, and Wisdom was wrong; but his prosperity destroyed him. Soon in the shame of exposure and the misery of remorse he discovers his mistake. Or, worse still, no exposure comes; success continues to his dying day, and he leaves his substance to his heirs; "he eats of the fruits of his own way, and is filled with his own devices," {Pro_1:31-32} but none the less he walks in the ways of darkness-in paths that are crooked and perverse-and he is consumed with inward misery. The soul within is hard, and dry, and dead; it is insensible to all feelings except feelings of torture. It is a life so dark and wretched, that when a sudden light is thrown upon its hidden secrets men are filled with astonishment and dismay, that such things could exist underneath that quiet surface.
Finally, note these two characteristics of the Divine Wisdom:
(1) she is found in her fullness only by diligent seekers; and
(2) rejected, she turns into the most scornful and implacable foe.
She is to be sought as silver or hidden treasure is sought. The search must be inspired by that eagerness of desire and passion of resolve with which avarice seeks for money. No faculty must be left unemployed: the ear is to be inclined to catch the first low sounds of wisdom; the heart is to be applied to understand what is heard; the very voice is to be lifted up in earnest inquiry. It is a well-known fact that the fear of the Lord and the knowledge of God are not fruits which grow on every wayside bush, to be plucked by every idle passer-by, to be dropped carelessly and trodden under foot. Without seriousness and devotion, without protracted and unflagging toil, the things of God are not to be attained. You must be up betimes; you must be on your knees early; you must lay open the book of Wisdom, pore over its pages, and diligently turn its leaves, meditating on its sayings day and night. The kingdom of God and His righteousness must be sought, yes, and sought first, sought exclusively, as the one important object of desire. That easy indifference, that lazy optimism-"it will all come right in the end"-that habit of delay in deciding, that inclination to postpone the eternal realities to vanishing shadows, will be your ruin. The time may come when you will call, and there will be no answer, when you will seek diligently, but shall not find. Then in the day of your calamity, when your fear cometh, what a smile of scorn will seem to be on Wisdoms placid brow, and around her eloquent lips! What derision will seem to ring in the well-remembered counsels which you rejected. {Pro_1:24-31} O tide in the affairs of men! O tide in the affairs of God! We are called to stand by death-beds, to look into anguished eyes which know that it is too late. The bandit of commercial life passes into that penal servitude which only death will end; what agony breaks out and hisses in his remorse! The wretched victim of lust passes from the house of his sin down the path which inclines unto death; how terrible is that visage which just retains smirched traces that purity once was there! The voice rings down the doleful road, "If I had only been wise, if I had given ear, wisdom might have entered even into my heart, knowledge might have been pleasant even to my soul!"
And wisdom still cries to us, "Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary1892 · Public DomainOn v12Pro_2:12. Deliver, “snatch,” as a brand out of the…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Pro_2:12. Deliver, “snatch,” as a brand out of the fire. Evil man, rather “an evil way.”
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Pro_2:13. “Level” paths.
Pro_2:16. Strange, “unknown,” “wanton” (see 1Ki_11:1-8).
Pro_2:17. Guide, or “companion,” “confidant,” her lawful husband.
Pro_2:18. House, in the East means “interests;” a man’s whole blended well-being (Exo_1:21).—Miller. (On Pro_2:16-18 see Note at the beginning of Chap. 7)
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH—Pro_2:12-20
THE CHARACTER OF THOSE FROM WHOM WISDOM PRESERVES
I. The evil man.
1. His speech is corrupt, Pro_2:12. The closed grave contains death and holds within it the seeds of pestilence, but while it remains unopened the corrupt influence remains enclosed in its narrow walls. But should it be opened, and its foulness allowed to fill the air, it begins to set in motion what will strike men down to its own level. The mouth of the wicked man while kept shut is a closed grave, his iniquity is shut up within himself, but when he speaks out the thoughts of his heart his mouth is as an open sepulchre, and he spreads around him moral disease and death.
2. He is a man of progressive iniquity. “He walks in the ways of darkness.” When a stone is set in motion, the momentum given to it, if no other law comes into operation to prevent it, will carry it to the lowest level in the direction in which it travels. The progress of wickedness is downhill, and walking in the ways of darkness implies a destination which in Scripture is called “outer darkness.”
3. He delights in his downward progress. Sorrow and joy are revealers of human hearts. The saint rejoices in whatsoever things are pure, lovely, and of good report, and in his increase of power to do the same. That which rejoices him reveals his heart. The sinner that “rejoices to do evil and delights in the forwardness of the wicked,” brings to light the hidden things of darkness that are within him.
II. The wicked woman.
1. She is, pre-eminently, a covenant-breaker. The ribs of a vessel hold and keep together the whole structure, and enable it to keep its cargo safe. If the ribs give way, all goes to pieces, and the precious things which have been stored up within the ship are lost in the ocean. Human society is belted together—kept from going to pieces—by covenants. They are the ribs which keep together the State. The marriage covenant holds the first place. The woman whose character is here depicted has broken the bonds of this most sacred covenant—to which God was a witness (the covenant of an institution of His own ordination)—and has taken to the “strange” way of the devil. Well may she be called a strange woman. That a woman should be guilty of such a crime—should choose such a course of life, so opposed to all that is pure and womanly—is indeed a mystery.
2. She is a destroyer, not only of herself, but of others. When the river has broken through its proper boundaries there is a present and continual destruction, of which the bursting of its banks was only the beginning. This woman in the past broke the moral boundaries of her life, and is now not content to go to ruin herself, but tries to take others with her. To this end are her false and flattering words, of which we shall hear more in chapter Pro_5:3. She carries her victims beyond hope of recovery. There are no rules without exceptions. We know that there are those who have for a time been under the influence of such characters, and have returned to the paths of virtue and honour. But these are rare exceptions. In the main, it is, alas! true that “none that go unto her return again.” A vessel founders at sea, and we say that the crew is lost, although one survivor may have been rescued. We speak of an army being destroyed if one escapes to tell the tale. Where one who has taken hold on her paths struggles back to life and purity, thousands go down with her to death, bodily, social, and spiritual.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Pro_2:12. To snatch (see “Critical Notes.”) “The way of evil.” The terms begin gently. It is only the gentle aspects that are dangerous at first. These are so fascinating that it requires us to be snatched to keep us out of the ways of darkness.—Miller.
Pro_2:13. Among the pests of men, none are such virulent pests of everything that is good as those that once made a profession of religion, but have left the way of uprightness. The stings of conscience which such persons experience, instead of reclaiming them, tend only to irritate their spirits, and inflame them into fierce enmity against religion.—Lawson.
Darkness, as thus set in contrast with uprightness, may be interpreted as descriptive both of the nature of the ways, and of their tendency and end. The man who walks in uprightness walks in light. His eye is “single.” There is “none occasion of stumbling in him.” He has but one principle; his “eyes look right on, his eyelids look straight before him.” He is not always looking this way and that, for devious paths that may suit a present purpose, but presses on ever in the same course; and thus all is light, all plain, all safe. “The ways of darkness” are the ways of concealment, evasion, cunning, tortuous policy and deceit. He who walks in them is ever groping; hiding himself among the subtleties of “fleshly wisdom”: and being ways of false principle and sin, they are ways of danger, and shame, and ruin.—Wardlaw.
There is a strictly causal and reciprocal relation between unrighteous deeds and moral darkness. The doing of evil produces darkness, and darkness produces the evil doing. Indulged lusts put out the eye-sight of the conscience; and under the darkened conscience the lusts revel unchecked.—Arnot.
The light stands in the way of their wicked ways as the angel did in Balaam’s way to his sin.—Trapp.
Pro_2:14. Though it be wormwood which they drink (Lam_3:15), yet being drunk with it, they perceive not the bitterness thereof, but like drunken men rejoice in their shame and misery.—Jermin.
Better is the sorrow of him that suffereth evil than the jollity of him that doeth evil, saith St. Augustine.—Trapp.
Here is a note of trial to discern our spiritual estate. Wicked men rejoice in sin; good men sorrow more for sin than for troubles.… Many triumph in their evil deeds because they have no good to boast of. And men are naturally proud and would boast of something.—Francis Taylor.
Pro_2:16. There is no viler object in nature than an adulteress. Though born and baptised in a Christian land, she is to be looked upon as a heathen woman and a stranger, and as self-made brutes are greater monsters than natural brute beasts, so baptised heathens are by far the worst of pagans.—Lawson.
This strange woman is an emblem of impenitence. The passage 16–19, means the seductiveness and yet the betraying wretchedness of impenitence. The woman who has left her husband has also left her God; and the nulla vestigia retrorsum witnessed in her dupes is the warning for the saint by which he keeps clear of her undoing. No man would err who would treat of adultery as having its lessons here. But no man would understand the passage who did not understand it further as a great picture of impenitence. The warnings are two:
(1) the un-stopping-short character of sin; she who wrongs her husband will be seen universally wronging God; and
(2) the unrecuperative history of the lost.—Miller.
Twice Solomon uses a similar expression, “the strange woman (even) the stranger,” to impress more forcibly on the young man the fact that her person belongs to another. The literal and spiritual adulteress are both meant. The spiritual gives to the world her person and her heart, which belong by right to God. In this sense the foreign women who subsequently drew aside Solomon himself, were “strange women,” not so much in respect to their local distance from Israel, as in respect to their being utterly alien to the worship of God. Lust and idolatry were the spiritual adultery into which they entrapped the once wise king. How striking that he should utter beforehand a warning which he himself afterwards disregarded.—Fausset.
We are not to forget that the accomplished seducer has herself perhaps been seduced. The fair and flattering words, the endless arts of allurement, are on both sides.—Wardlaw.
One who is as it were, a stranger to her own house and husband by faithlessness (Hitzig), and hence a type of anything that is false and seductive in doctrine or practice.… By God’s goodness Solomon’s words in this divinely inspired book were an antidote to the poison of his own vicious example.—Wordsworth.
Pro_2:17. False doctrine and false worship are in Scripture compared to harlotry and adultery. (Num_14:33; Jdg_2:17; Jdg_8:33; Psa_106:39; Rev_17:1-2; Rev_18:3.—Wordsworth.
It is God that is the guide of her youth, whoever may be under Him; it is God’s covenant that is made, whosoever may be the contractor in it. It is God who is first forsaken, then forgotten; forsaken in the beginning of wickedness, forgotten in the hardened practice of it. God hath appointed guides for youth—to stay the weakness of it, and to which, as unto God, youth ought to yield obedience. For elder years He hath appointed covenants as bonds and chains to hold them sure.—Jermin.
There is no trusting them that will fail God and their near friends. If they fail God, they will fail men for their advantage. If they fail friends—much more strangers.—Francis Taylor.
Pro_2:18. When you get into the company of the licentious, you are among the dead. They move about like men in outward appearance, but the best attributes of humanity have disappeared—the best affections of nature have been drained away from their hearts.—Arnot.
Her house is not a building reared up, but inclined and bowed down, and she who dwelleth in it will, by her life, bring thee to the dead.… Death is here twice mentioned to show that it is a double death, a temporal death, and an eternal death, to which she bringeth men.—Jermin.
Pro_2:19. Who would cast himself into a deep pit in the hopes of coming out alive, when almost all that fell into it were dashed in pieces.—Lawson.
It is as hard to restore a lustful person to chastity as it is to restore a dead person to life.—Chrysostom.
A sin which, I am verily persuaded, if there be another that slays her thousands, may with truth be affirmed to slay its ten thousands.—Wardlaw.
Pro_2:20. Here follows the whole ground of the exhibition: “That,” for the very purpose that “thou mayest walk in the way of good men.” This is a grand, pregnant doctrine. This bad life was abandoned to its worst partly as a lesson.—Miller.
It is not enough to shun the evil way, unless men walk in the good way.—Muffet.
He that walks in the way of good men shall meet with good men, and that shall keep him from the company of evil men and women. The paths of the righteous are too narrow for such: he shall not be troubled with them.—Jermin.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann1924 · Public DomainOn v10Wisdom Preserves from Folly
Wisdom Preserves from Folly
v. 10. When wisdom entereth into thine heart, not as a transient guest, but for the purpose of making it a permanent residence, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul, affording the only genuine pleasure and satisfaction,
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v. 11. discretion shall preserve thee, that is, proper reflection, a careful consideration, will serve to keep the prudent from foolish steps, understanding shall keep thee, enabling one to judge rightly in any given situation,
v. 12. to deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from wicked conduct, from the man that speaketh froward things, uttering perverse and malicious speeches;
v. 13. who, that is, such people in general, leave the paths of uprightness, where their conduct was in agreement with the Word and will of God, to walk In the ways of darkness, being habitually active in the pursuit of wickedness;
v. 14. who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness, the maliciousness and deceitfulness, of the wicked;
v. 15. whose ways are crooked, literally, "who with respect to their ways are crooked," and they froward, full of malice and deceit, in their paths;
v. 16. to deliver thee from the strange woman, the unknown, foreign, unattached, her existence and way of conduct being full of dangers to youth, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words, making use of wanton speeches,
v. 17. which forsaketh the guide of her youth, her lawful husband, and forgetteth the covenant of her God, which demands purity and chastity from every woman.
v. 18. For her house inclineth unto death, sinking down to destruction, and her paths unto the dead, the shadowy forms of those who dwell in the kingdom of the dead, said, in this case, of everlasting damnation.
v. 19. None that go unto her return again, being swallowed up by the destruction which is her punishment, neither take they hold of the paths of life, they forfeit their chance to reach the ways of life once more. Over against the temptation from such wicked men and wanton women is placed the companionship of godly people.
v. 20. That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, following their conduct, and keep the paths of the righteous, that being the object of this admonition.
v. 21. For the upright shall dwell in the land, enjoying earthly prosperity, as the blessing of the Lord, and the perfect shall remain in it.
v. 22. But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, utterly destroyed, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it, this punishment being all the greater in the case of the Israelites because their land was the Land of Promise and a removal from it was equivalent to total rejection by the Lord. But the same facts, in substance, apply to men at this time, and therefore the warning of wisdom should be heeded most carefully.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv9, 11every good path
equity
fairness
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every good path
A behavior that is wise and pleases Yahweh is spoken of as if it were a good path. AT: "ways to live that are pleasing to God" (See: Metaphor)
wisdom will come into your heart
Here "heart" represents a person's inner being. A person becoming wise is spoken of as if wisdom would enter into a person's heart. AT: "you will gain much wisdom" or "you will learn how to be truly wise" (See: Metonymy and Metaphor)
pleasant to your soul
Here "soul" represents the whole person. AT: "pleasing to you" or "enjoyable to you" (See: Synecdoche)
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv10, 122:10 Wisdom will enter your heart, becoming an integral…
2:10 Wisdom will enter your heart, becoming an integral part of life. Rather than occasionally doing wise things, the wise person consistently makes wise choices. • Knowledge brings joy because it helps people live successfully.
GEBible — Godless Engineer's Bible App
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On v11 The word of God shall teach thee, and counsel…
The word of God shall teach thee, and counsel thee how to govern thyself.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv9–12 Pro 2:9 Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment,…
Pro 2:9 Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; [yea], every good path.
Ver. 9. Then shalt thou understand righteousness.] Not as cognoscitiva, standing in speculation; but as directiva vitae, a rule of life. Knowledge is either apprehensive only, or affective also. This differs from that, as much as the light of the sun, wherein is the influence of an enlivening power, from the light of torches.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv9–12 Then; when thou hast done thy part, expressed Pro…
Then; when thou hast done thy part, expressed Pro 2:1-3, &c., and God in answer to thy desires hath given thee wisdom, Pro 2:6; or when it is with thee, as it follows, Pro 2:10. Righteousness, and judgment, and equity; all the parts of thy duty to man, as well as the fear of God, Pro 2:5, which contains all duties to God. These three words are used here, as also Pro 1:3, to signify the same thing. Every good path; the practice of all virtues and graces.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v10 The scope of these verses is to show, 1.…
The scope of these verses is to show, 1. What great advantage true wisdom will be of to us; it will keep us from the paths of sin, which lead to ruin, and will therein do us a greater kindness than if it enriched us with all the wealth of the world. 2. What good use we should make of the wisdom God gives us; we must use it for our own guidance in the paths of virtue, and for the arming of us against temptations of every kind. 3. By what rules we may try ourselves whether we have this wisdom or no. This tree will be known by its fruits; if we be truly wise, it will appear by our care to avoid all evil company and evil practices.
This wisdom will be of use to us,
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I. For our preservation from evil, from the evil of sin, and, consequently, from the evil of trouble that attends it.
1. In general (Pro 2:10, Pro 2:11), "When wisdom has entire possession of thee, it will keep thee." And when has it an entire possession of us? (1.) When it has dominion over us. When it not only fills the head with notions, but enters into the heart and has a commanding power and influence upon that, - when it is upon the throne there, and gives law to the affections and passions, - when it enters into the heart as the leaven into the dough, to diffuse its relish there, and to change it into its own image - then it is likely to do us good. (2.) When we have delight in it, when knowledge becomes pleasant to the soul: "When thou beginnest to relish it as the most agreeable entertainment, and art subject to its rules, of choice, and with satisfaction, - when thou callest the practice of virtue, not a slavery and a task, but liberty and pleasure, and a life of serious godliness the most comfortable life a man can live in this world, - then thou wilt find the benefit of it." Though its restraints should be in some respects unpleasant to the body, yet even those must be pleasant to the soul. When it has come to this, with us, discretion shall preserve us and keep us. God keeps the way of his saints (Pro 2:8), by giving them discretion to keep out of harm's way, to keep themselves that the wicked one touch them not. Note, A principle of grace reigning in the heart will be a powerful preservative both against corruptions within and temptations without, Ecc 9:16, Ecc 9:18.
2. More particularly, wisdom will preserve us,
(1.) From men of corrupt principles, atheistical profane men, who make it their business to debauch young men's judgments, and instil into their minds prejudices against religion and arguments for vice: "It will deliver thee from the way of the evil man (Pro 2:12), and a blessed deliverance it will be, as from the very jaws of death, from the way in which he walks, and in which he would persuade thee to walk." The enemy is spoken of as one (Pro 2:12), an evil man, but afterwards as many (Pro 2:13); there is a club, a gang of them, that are in confederacy against religion, and join hand in hand for the support of the devil's kingdom and the interests of it. [1.] They have a spirit of contradiction to that which is good: They speak froward things; they say all they can against religion, both to show their own enmity to it and to dissuade others from it. They are advocates for Satan; they plead for Baal, and pervert the right ways of the Lord. How peevishly will profane wits argue for sin, and with what frowardness will they carp at the word of God! Wisdom will keep us either from conversing with such men or at least from being ensnared by them. [2.] They are themselves apostates from that which is good, and such are commonly the most malicious and dangerous enemies religion has, witness Julian (Pro 2:13): They leave the paths of uprightness, which they were trained up in and had set out in, shake off the influences of their education, and break off the thread of their hopeful beginnings, to walk in the ways of darkness, in those wicked ways which hate the light, in which men are led blindfold by ignorance and error, and which lead men into utter darkness. The ways of sin are ways of darkness, uncomfortable and unsafe; what fools are those that leave the plain, pleasant, lightsome paths of uprightness, to walk in those ways! Psa 82:5; Jo1 2:11. [3.] They take a pleasure in sin, both in committing it themselves and in seeing others commit it (Pro 2:14): They rejoice in an opportunity to do evil, and in the accomplishment and success of any wicked project. It is sport to fools to do mischief; nor is any sight more grateful to them than to see the frowardness of the wicked, to see those that are hopeful drawn into the ways of sin, and then to see them hardened and confirmed in those ways. They are pleased if they can discern that the devil's kingdom gets ground (see Rom 1:32), such a height of impiety have they arrived at. [4.] They are resolute in sin (Pro 2:15): Their ways are crooked, a great many windings and turnings to escape the pursuit of their convictions and break the force of them; some sly excuse, some subtle evasion or other, their deceitful hearts furnish them with, for the strengthening of their hands in their wickedness; and in the crooked mazes of that labyrinth they secure themselves from the arrests of God's word and their own consciences; for they are froward in their paths, that is, they are resolved to go on in them, whatever is said against it. Every wise man will shun the company of such as these.
(2.) From women of corrupt practices. The former lead to spiritual wickednesses, the lusts of the unsanctified mind; these lead to fleshly lusts, which defile the body, that living temple, but withal war against the soul. The adulteress is here called the strange woman, because no man that has any wisdom or goodness in him will have any acquaintance with her; she is to be shunned by every Israelite as if she were a heathen, and a stranger to that sacred commonwealth. A strange woman indeed! utterly estranged from all principles of reason, virtue, and honour. It is a great mercy to be delivered from the allurements of the adulteress, considering, [1.] How false she is. Who will have any dealings with those that are made up of treachery? She is a strange woman; for, First, She is false to him whom she entices. She speaks fair, tells him how much she admires him above any man, and what a kindness she has for him; but she flatters with her words; she has no true affection for him, nor any desire of his welfare, any more than Delilah had of Samson's. All she designs is to pick his pocket and gratify a base lust of her own. Secondly, She is false to her husband, and violates the sacred obligation she lies under to him. He was the guide of her youth; by marrying him she chose him to be so, and submitted herself to his guidance, with a promise to attend him only, and forsake all others. But she has forsaken him, and therefore it cannot be thought that she should be faithful to any one else; and whoever entertains her is partaker with her in her falsehood. Thirdly, She is false to God himself: She forgets the covenant of her God, the marriage-covenant (Pro 2:17), to which God is not only a witness, but a party, for, he having instituted the ordinance, both sides vow to him to be true to each other. It is not her husband only that she sins against, but her God, who will judge whoremongers and adulterers because they despise the oath and break the covenant, Eze 17:18; Mal 2:14. [2.] How fatal it will prove to those that fall in league with her, Pro 2:18, Pro 2:19. Let the sufferings of others be our warnings. Take heed of the sin of whoredom; for, First, The ruin of those who are guilty of it is certain and unavoidable, if they do not repent. It is a sin that has a direct tendency to the killing of the soul, the extinguishing of all good affections and dispositions in it, and the exposing of it to the wrath and curse of God and the sword of his justice. Those that live in forbidden pleasures are dead while they live. Let discretion preserve every man, not only from the evil woman, but from the evil house, for the house inclines to death; it is in the road that leads directly to eternal death; and her paths unto Rephaim, to the giants (so some read it), the sinners of the old world, who, living in luxury and excess of riot, were cut down out of time, and their foundation was overthrown with a flood. Our Lord Jesus deters us from sinful pleasures with the consideration of everlasting torments which follow them. Where the worm dies not, nor is the fire quenched. See Mat 5:28, Mat 5:29. Secondly, Their repentance and recovery are extremely hazardous: None, or next to none, that go unto her, return again. It is very rare that any who are caught in this snare of the devil recover themselves, so much is the heart hardened, and the mind blinded, by the deceitfulness of this sin. Having once lost their hold of the paths of life, they know not how to take hold of them again, but are perfectly besotted and bewitched with those base lusts. Many learned interpreters think that this caution against the strange woman, besides the literal sense, is to be understood figuratively, as a caution, 1. Against idolatry, which is spiritual whoredom. Wisdom will keep thee from all familiarity with the worshippers of images, and all inclination to join with them, which had for many ages been of such pernicious consequence to Israel and proved so to Solomon himself. 2. Against the debauching of the intellectual powers and faculties of the soul by the lusts and appetites of the body. Wisdom will keep thee from being captivated by the carnal mind, and from subjecting the spirit to the dominion of the flesh, that notorious adulteress which forsakes its guide, violates the covenant of our God, which inclines to death, and which, when it has got an undisturbed dominion, makes the case of the soul desperate.
II. This wisdom will be of use to guide and direct us in that which is good (Pro 2:20): That thou mayest walk in the way of good men. We must avoid the way of the evil man, and the strange woman, in order that we may walk in good ways; we must cease to do evil, in order that we may learn to do well. Note, 1. There is a way which is peculiarly the way of good men, the way in which good men, as such, and as far as they have really been such, have always walked. 2. It will be our wisdom to walk in that way, to ask for the good old way and walk therein, Jer 6:16; Heb 6:12; Heb 12:1. And we must not only walk in that way awhile, but we must keep it, keep in it, and never turn aside out of it: The paths of the righteous are the paths of life, which all that are wise, having taken hold of, will keep their hold of. "That thou mayest imitate those excellent persons, the patriarchs and prophets (so bishop Patrick paraphrases it), and be preserved in the paths of those righteous men who followed after them." We must not only choose our way in general by the good examples of the saints, but must also take directions from them in the choice of our particular paths; observe the track, and go forth by the footsteps of the flock. Two reasons are here given why we should thus choose: - (1.) Because men's integrity will be their establishment, Pro 2:21. It will be the establishment, [1.] Of their persons: The upright shall dwell in the land, peaceably and quietly, as long as they live; and their uprightness will contribute to it, as it settles their minds, guides their counsels, gains them the good-will of their neighbours, and entitles them to God's special favour. [2.] Of their families: The perfect, in their posterity, shall remain in it. They shall dwell and remain for ever in the heavenly Canaan, of which the earthly one was but a type. (2.) Because men's iniquity will be their destruction, Pro 2:22. See what becomes of the wicked, who choose the way of the evil man; they shall be cut off, not only from heaven hereafter and all hopes of that, but from the earth now, on which they set their affections, and in which they lay up their treasure. They think to take root in it, but they and their families shall be rooted out of it, in judgment to them, but in mercy to the earth. There is a day coming which shall leave them neither root nor branch, Mal 4:1. Let that wisdom then enter into our hearts, and be pleasant to our souls, which will keep us out of a way that will end thus.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv9–12 Then shalt thou understand righteousness and judgment,.... This is…
Then shalt thou understand righteousness and judgment,.... This is another fruit and effect of the Gospel, and of a spiritual understanding of it; that besides the knowledge of God, and how to behave with reverence towards him, Pro 2:5; it leads men into a notion of doing that which is right and just among men; it gives them not only a theoretic but a practical understanding of justice, and a true judgment of what is right and wrong; or gives such an understanding thereof as that they practise it; for it teaches men to live soberly, righteously, and godly, Tit 2:11. It is not only a revelation and ministration of the righteousness of Christ as the only matter of a sinner's justification before God; and informs a man's judgment so that he can distinguish between truth and error, right and wrong, good and bad notions and practices; but it influences his actions, life, and conversation, and engages him to do works of righteousness from the best principles, upon the best motives, and with the best views;
and equity; yea, every good path; that is, so to understand equity, as to do that which is equitable between man and man; and to understand every good path which the word of God directs to, even all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, so as to walk in them; these things the Gospel acquaints men with, and urges them to observe: or the words may be rendered, either "the rectitude" or "equity of fall good paths", as the Syriac version; how just, and right, and plain, and equitable, everyone is, and therefore ought to be walked in; or "plainnesses", or "most plain", is or shall be "every good path" (r), to them that have a spiritual and experimental knowledge of the Gospel; and by it an understanding of their duty. One word signifies "plain" and "straight", and another "round" (s), and both are true of the path of righteousness; for though it is a circle of duty saints walk in, yet straight and plain.
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(r) So Schmidt. (s) "complanationes", Schultens; "orbitam", Montanus; "ab rotundus", Gejerus.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv9–10 Then - When God in answer to thy desires…
Then - When God in answer to thy desires hath given thee wisdom. Equity - All the parts of thy duty to man, as well as the fear of God.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv9, 11, 12 Verse 9. Then shalt thou understand] He who is…
Verse 9. Then shalt thou understand] He who is taught of God understands the whole law of justice, mercy, righteousness, and truth; God has written this on his heart. He who understands these things by books only is never likely to practise or profit by them.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On v10 Pro 2:10-15. When wisdom entereth into thy heart —…
Pro 2:10-15. When wisdom entereth into thy heart — When thou dost truly love it, and hide its precepts in thy heart; Discretion shall preserve thee — From wicked courses, and the mischiefs which attend upon them; from the way of the evil man — From following his counsel or example; the man that speaketh froward things — With a design to corrupt thy mind, and entice thee to evil principles or practices. Who leave the paths of righteousness — The way of God’s precepts; to walk in the ways of darkness — Of sin, which is often called darkness, because it proceeds from ignorance and error, hates the light of knowledge and truth, and leads to the eternal darkness of misery and despair. Who rejoice to do evil — Seeking and embracing occasions of sin, with diligence and greediness, and pleasing themselves both in the practice and remembrance of it: and delight in the frowardness of the wicked — Not only in their own sins, but in the sins of other wicked men, which shows a great malignity of mind and love to sin, Rom 1:32 : whose ways are crooked — Hebrew, who in, or with respect to, their ways, are perverse; acting contrary to the straight rules of piety and virtue.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv10, 12 Another picture of the results of living in the…
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.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Charles Bridges 1846 · Public Domain On vv10, 12 We have seen the good that wisdom brings to…
We have seen the good that wisdom brings to us. (Pro 2:5 .) Now see the evil, from which it preserves us. But observe its place — in the heart. Here only has it any light, life, or power. (Pro 4:23 .) Clear knowledge floating in the head is deep ignorance. While it only glitters in the understanding, it is dry, speculative, and barren. When it entereth into the heart, light beams out, all the affections are engaged; and how pleasant is it to the soul! (Pro 24:13-14 . Job 23:12 . Psa 119:103 . Jer 15:16 .) Religion now is no lifeless notion. It is handled, tasted, enjoyed. It gives a discreet and understanding direction to the whole conduct. It becomes not only an external rule, but a preserving, keeping principle (Pro 4:6 ; Pro 6:22-24 . Psa 17:4 ; Psa 119:9-11, Psa 119:104 ); like the military guard for the safety of the royal person. (1Sa 26:16 . 2Ki 11:11 .) Before, it was the object of our search. Now, having found it, it is our pleasure. Until it is so, it can have no practical influence. It is "the man, whose delight is in the law of the LORD," who is preserved from "walking in the counsel of the ungodly." (Psa 1:1-2 ; Compare Pro 7:4-5 .) Education, conviction, high moral principle, are at best only partially operative. The reclaimed drunkard may be true to his Temperance-pledge; but, if the "root of bitterness" be untouched, he may be a Socialist or a Chartist, or revel in some other equally ruinous course. External wickedness may be exchanged for decent formality. Vagrant affections may be turned from some object of vanity; yet not fixed upon the Divine centre of attraction. The mind may be disciplined from utter unprofitableness, only to indulge in the idolatry of talent, or the fascinations of poisoned literature. The folly of the pride of life may be resisted; yet pride in other of its multiform fruits tenderly cherished. In all these cases, the principle is unsubdued. The forsaken sin only makes way for some more plausible, but not less deadly passion. The heart, cast into the mold of the Gospel, is the only cover from those snares within and without (Rom 6:17-18 . 2Co 3:18 ), which so imperceptibly, yet so fatally, estrange us from God. Never, till the vital principle is implanted, is their mischief discerned. Never, till then, does the heart find its proper object, its true resting-place.
We have seen the good that wisdom brings to us. (Pro 2:5 .) Now see the evil, from which it preserves us. But observe its place — in the heart. Here only has it any light, life, or power. (Pro 4:23 .) Clear knowledge floating in the head is deep ignorance. While it only glitters in the understanding, it is dry, speculative, and barren. When it entereth into the heart, light beams out, all the affections are engaged; and how pleasant is it to the soul! (Pro 24:13-14 . Job 23:12 . Psa 119:103 . Jer 15:16 .) Religion now is no lifeless notion. It is handled, tasted, enjoyed. It gives a discreet and understanding direction to the whole conduct. It becomes not only an external rule, but a preserving, keeping principle (Pro 4:6 ; Pro 6:22-24 . Psa 17:4 ; Psa 119:9-11, Psa 119:104 ); like the military guard for the safety of the royal person. (1Sa 26:16 . 2Ki 11:11 .) Before, it was the object of our search. Now, having found it, it is our pleasure. Until it is so, it can have no practical influence. It is "the man, whose delight is in the law of the LORD," who is preserved from "walking in the counsel of the ungodly." (Psa 1:1-2 ; Compare Pro 7:4-5 .) Education, conviction, high moral principle, are at best only partially operative. The reclaimed drunkard may be true to his Temperance-pledge; but, if the "root of bitterness" be untouched, he may be a Socialist or a Chartist, or revel in some other equally ruinous course. External wickedness may be exchanged for decent formality. Vagrant affections may be turned from some object of vanity; yet not fixed upon the Divine centre of attraction. The mind may be disciplined from utter unprofitableness, only to indulge in the idolatry of talent, or the fascinations of poisoned literature. The folly of the pride of life may be resisted; yet pride in other of its multiform fruits tenderly cherished. In all these cases, the principle is unsubdued. The forsaken sin only makes way for some more plausible, but not less deadly passion. The heart, cast into the mold of the Gospel, is the only cover from those snares within and without (Rom 6:17-18 . 2Co 3:18 ), which so imperceptibly, yet so fatally, estrange us from God. Never, till the vital principle is implanted, is their mischief discerned. Never, till then, does the heart find its proper object, its true resting-place.
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Footnotes
Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1846) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On v12 Things. The danger of such company for young people…
Things. The danger of such company for young people is very great, as the heart is misled by the understanding, (Calmet) if it do not itself shew the way to error. (Haydock) --- We all possess a fund of corruption. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv9, 10, 12 Then--emphatic, in such a case.
Then--emphatic, in such a case.
righteousness . . . path--all parts of duty to God and man.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv9, 10, 12 9. Then — Referring back to Pro_2:1-4, from which…
9. Then — Referring back to Pro_2:1-4, from which the instructor started out with the same particle as at Pro_2:5. This verse is a summing up of vs.
5-8, and connects with Pro_1:3, where he states the object of his work to be, to impart clear, discriminating instructions in righteousness, judgment, and equities. (See note on Pro_1:3.)
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Every good path — The practice of every virtue and grace. “The whole good track.” — Miller. The teacher has thus made a circle, so to speak, by which he has come around to his starting point.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv10–12 10. When wisdom entereth … knowledge is pleasant] Rather:…
10. When wisdom entereth … knowledge is pleasant] Rather: For wisdom shall enter … knowledge shall be pleasant, R.V. The address flows on continuously and describes how wisdom as a shield preserves from the evil man (Pro_2:12-15), and from the evil woman (Pro_2:16-19).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv10, 12 (10) When wisdom . . .—Rather to be taken…
(10) When wisdom . . .—Rather to be taken as an explanation of the preceding, For wisdom will enter, &c
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv9–12 Then (za, az), repeated from ver. 5, introduces the…
Then (za, az), repeated from ver. 5, introduces the second apodosis. As the former referred to God, so this appears to refer more especially to man, and thus we have stated the whole benefit, in its twofold aspect, which Wisdom confers on those who diligently seek her. It is not to be affirmed, however, that righteousness and judgment and equity refer exclusively to man; they must represent some aspects of our relationship to God, both from the meaning of the words themselves, and because the law which regulates our dealings and intercourse with man has its seat in the higher law of our relation to God. Righteousness, and judgment, and equity. These three words occur in the same collocation in Pro_1:3, which see. Yea, every good path. "Yea" does not occur in the original. The expression is a summarizing of the three previous conceptions, as if the teacher implied that all good paths are embraced by and included in "righteousness, and judgment, and equity;" but the term is also comprehensive in the widest degree. The literal translation is "every path of good" (bwOfAlGumAlK, cal-ma"gal-tov), i.e. every course of action of which goodness is the characteristic, or, as the Authorized Version, "every good path," the sense in which it was understood by St. Jerome, omnem orbitam bonam. The word here used for "path" is lGm (ma"gal), "the way in which the chariot rolls" (Delitzsch), and metaphorically a course of action, as in Pro_2:15 Pro_4:26.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv11–12 Discretion shall preserve thee.
Pro_2:11
Discretion shall preserve thee.
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Humility
This is the first sought and last won of the Christian graces. Such are the difficulties in the acquisition of humility that it is but seldom really found. It is a common want of the present day. See the ordinary courtesy of modern society. See the special snare in intellectual careers. In both of these provinces of life especial discouragement has been given during the recent period to the growth in us of true humility.
I. Abjectness is not humility. Depression, abasement, humiliation, by no means exhaust all the commutation of this well-known Christian term. Abjectness and humility may have some features in common. But humility presupposes a soaring spirit. The calm dignity of Christian holiness must rest behind. This lovely grace assists and furthers genuine aspirations. Our Lord made three contributions to the science of ethics, and each of them bore the impress of the Cross--humility, faith, love. These, at least, He lifted into places of high importance. Our Lord places humility in the very front of His teaching. See sermons on the mount and on the plain. There is nothing vain or false in humility. Humility is the hall-mark of wisdom.
II. The beginnings of humility must be made in careful self-repression. We are so much bound up with ourselves that we cannot come to a just and fair estimate of our own affairs without rejecting a vast amount of the suggestions and insinuations that we make to ourselves. Self-abnegation may, in becoming habitual, cast off all consciousness. Repentance must begin with humiliation. There can be no contrition without humility. The difficulty is to get this feeling the permanent posture of the soul. Here we must depend upon the action of conscience. The following are some of the provinces in which we have to exercise self-repression.
1. Good-fortune, successes, advancement, commendation, praise, bring a too satisfied sense of our own exaltation.
2. Success is said to try humility, misfortune to produce it. We can hardly learn humility and tenderness enough except by suffering.
3. Think of the wrath, quarrels, and resentments which arise from nervous anxiety about ourselves and our position. Bishop Wilson says, He that is truly humble never thinks himself wronged.
4. Humility often seems persistently to fly away from the intellectual life.
III. Humility requires us to fix our attentions upon people and things outside of ourselves. This includes a steady posture of reverence. The reverent life confers grace and refinement upon our characters. It constitutes the inextinguishable charm of religion. In the practice of the reverent life we have the conscious cultivation of humility. We move out of self-contemplation and self-pleasing into the higher region of sacrifice, and into the dignity of giving, in offering homage to the Almighty God, and in according attention to other people.
IV. Humility is regulated by our deportment towards truth. True humility is marked by a simplicity of mind from which self is banished. Disorderly introspection is morbid and unwholesome. But humility is difficult to attain. It is scarcely possible until the character is thoroughly settled to avoid an amount of self-consciousness which is inconsistent with real humility. There is indeed much intellectual as well as moral weakness that stands in the way of acquiring humility. Besides the want of the power of concentration, there is generally a lack of imagination. See illustration in our Lords life of humility with aspiration in it.
1. The lofty aspirations and the soaring aims of our Lord were never laid aside by Him, but they were kept in the background.
2. With what consistency did He repress Himself, and how thoroughly His teaching coincided with His example!
3. He showed reverence towards all. His respect for men is most touching.
4. What self-sacrifice and neglect of self are visible throughout His career! No labour is ever too much for Him. He was always ready at the call of duty. Does the way of humility still seem hard? There, on that hill outside Jerusalem, at the foot of that Cross which is set up towards heaven, drawing all men unto it, we may come to learn what we can learn nowhere else--how to lower our pride, and to foster humility in our souls. (Edward Miller, M.A.)
The negative beneficial influence of religion
There is an important distinction between the understanding of the meaning of Divine discoveries and the perception of their excellence and truth. Knowledge in Scripture, with which salvation is connected, includes the latter. The knowledge of anything means the knowledge of its real and distinctive properties. The apostle speaks of spiritual discernment. Discretion and, understanding in this connection mean self-jealousy arising from self-knowledge. The knowledge of ourselves includes the knowledge, theoretical and experimental, of the unlimited deceitfulness of our own hearts. And this, connected with a right knowledge of the sources of temptation as they exist in such abundance and variety around us, will inspire and maintain discretion. He will watch unto prayer, and not merely trust to his own discretion. Diffidence of self and confidence in God constitute the discretion of the spiritual man. The two sources of temptation for youth are wicked men and wicked women. The evil man speaketh froward things, i.e., words of perverse rebellion, of a spirit stubborn, refractory, scornful, self-willed. These work seductively on youthful minds of a particular temperament; especially on those who have a craze for independence. The evil mans ways are crooked ways, changing from purpose at wayward inclination. The strange woman represents all seducers to immorality and sensual indulgences, and such have a special influence on youth. (R. Wardlaw,D. D.)
The youth assisted in forming his religious sentiments
I. Let your mind be impressed with this sentiment, that there is such a thing as religion; and that it is of serious importance.
II. Always remember that religion is agreeable to the nature of God. As it is a service which you owe to Him, your ideas of it must correspond with His moral character.
III. To judge what religion is, you must always consider that it is a rational thing.
IV. Religion must be a work suited to the nature and condition of man.
V. You must always remember that religion is a benevolent and useful thing; and that, wherever it takes place, it makes men better than they were before.
VI. Judge of things doubtful by things which are plain. VII. If a matter proposed to you, in a way of instruction or advice, appears doubtful, suspend your resolution, until you have made further inquiry. (J. Lathrop, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v12 "To deliver thee from the way of the evil…
CHAPTER 3
WISDOM AS THE GUIDE OF CONDUCT
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"To deliver thee from the way of the evil man…To deliver thee from the strange woman."- Pro_2:12-16
WISDOM is concerned, as we have seen, with the whole universe of fact, with the whole range of thought; she surveys and orders all processes of nature. We might say of her,
"She doth preserve the stars from wrong, And the most ancient heavens by her are fresh and strong."
But while she is occupied in these high things, she is no less attentive to the affairs of human life, and her delight is to order human conduct, not despising even the smallest detail of that which is done by men under the sun. Side by side with physical laws, indeed often intertwined with them, appear the moral laws which issue from the lively oracles of Wisdom. There is not one authority for natural phenomena, and another for mental and moral phenomena. As we should say now, Truth is one: Science is one: Law is one. The laws of the physical order, the laws of the speculative reason, the laws of practical life, form a single system, come from the sole mind of God, and are the impartial interests of Wisdom.
As the great authority on Conduct, Wisdom is pictured standing in the places where men congregate, where the busy hum of human voices and the rush of hurried feet make it necessary for her to lift up her voice in order to gain attention. With words of winsome wooing-"for wisdom shall enter into thy heart, and knowledge shall be pleasant unto thy soul" {Pro_2:10}-or with loud threats and stern declarations of truth -"the backsliding of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them" {Pro_1:32} -she tries to win us, while we are yet young, to her paths of pleasantness and her ways of peace. Her object is to deliver youth,
(1) from the evil man, and
(2) from the evil woman, or in the most comprehensive way "to deliver us from evil."
First of all, we may spend a few moments in noting the particular temptations to which men were exposed in the days when these chapters were written. There was a temptation to join a troop of banditti, and to obtain a living by acts of highway robbery which would frequently result in murder; and there was the temptation to the sin which we call specifically Impurity, a temptation which arose not so much from the existence of a special class of fallen women, as from the shocking looseness and voluptuousness of married women in well-to-do circumstances.
Society under the kings never seems to have reached anything approaching to an ordered security. We cannot point to any period when the mountain roads, even in the neighborhood of the capital, were not haunted by thieves, who lurked in the rocks or the copses, and fell upon passing travelers, to strip and to rob, and if need be to kill them. When such things are done, when such things are even recounted in sensational literature, there are multitudes of young men who are stirred to a debased ambition; a spurious glory encircles the brow of the adventurer who sets the laws of society at defiance; and without any personal entreaty the foolish youth is disposed to leave the quiet ways of industry for the stimulating excitement and the false glamour of the bandit life. The reckless plottings of the robbers are described in Pro_1:11-14. The character of the men themselves is given in Pro_4:16-17 : "They sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fail. For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence." The proverb in Pro_24:15 is addressed to such a one: "Lay not wait, O wicked man, against the habitation of the righteous; spoil not his resting-place."
The rebukes of the prophets-Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah-may have a wider application, but they seem at any rate to include this highwaymans life. "Your hands are full of blood" is the charge of Isaiah; and {Isa_1:15} again, "Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity." {Isa_59:7} "They build up Zion with blood," says Micah indignantly. {Mic_3:10} Jeremiah cries with still more vehemence to his generation, "Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the innocent poor": {Jer_2:34} and again, "But thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it." {Jer_22:17}
We are to conceive, then, the young and active men of the day constantly tempted to take these unhallowed paths which seemed to promise wealth; the sinners were always ready to whisper in the ears of those whose life was tedious and unattractive, "Cast in thy lot among us; we will all have one purse." The moral sense of the community was not sufficiently developed to heartily condemn this life of iniquity; as in the eighteenth century among, ourselves, so in Israel when this book was written, there existed in the minds of the people at large a lurking admiration for the bold and dashing "gentlemen of the way."
The other special temptation of that day is described in our book with remarkable realism, and there is no false shame in exposing the paths of death into which it leads. In Pro_5:3-20 the subject is treated in the plainest way: "Her latter end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on Sheol." It is taken up again in Pro_6:24-35 : "Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? or can one walk upon hot coals and his feet not be scorched?" The guilty man who has been betrayed by the glitter and beauty, by the honeyed words and the soft entreaties, "shall get wounds and dishonor, and his reproach shall not be wiped away."
Pro_7:5-27 a most vivid picture is drawn of the foolish youth seduced into evil; there he is seen going as an ox to the slaughter, as one in fetters, "till an arrow strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life." And the Introduction closes with a delineation of Folly, which is obviously meant as a counterpart to the delineation of Wisdom in Pro_1:20, etc. {Pro_9:13-18} The miserable woman sits at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city; with seductive words she wins the foolish passers-by to enter her doors: "The dead are there; her guests are in the depths of Sheol."
It is a temptation which in many varying forms has always beset human life. No small part of the danger is that this evil, above all others, grows in silence, and yet seems to be aggravated by publicity. The preacher cannot speak plainly about it, and even writers shrink from touching the subject. We can, however, be thankful that the book, which is Gods book rather than mans, knows nothing of our false modesty and conventional delicacy: it speaks out not only boldly, but minutely; it is so explicit that no man who with a prayerful heart will meditate upon its teachings need fall into the pitfall-that pitfall which seems to grow even more subtle and more seductive as civilization advances, and as the great cities absorb a larger proportion of the population; or if he fail he can only admit with shame and remorse, "I have hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof. Neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me. I was well-nigh in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly." {Pro_5:12-14}
In the second place, we must try to look at these temptations in the light of our own day, in order that we may listen to the voice of wisdom, not in the antiquarian, but rather in the practical spirit. The second temptation exists amongst us almost unchanged, except that the vast accumulation and concentration of vice in great cities has provided that mournful band of women whom a great moralist has designated the Vestal Virgins of Humanity, consecrated to shame and ruin in order to preserve unsullied the sacred flame of the domestic altar. The result of this terrible development in evil is that the deadly sin has become safer for the sinner, and in certain circles of society has become recognized as at any rate a venial fault, if not an innocent necessity. It is well to read these chapters again with our eye on the modern evil, and to let the voice of Wisdom instruct us that the life is not the less blighted because the body remains unpunished, and vice is not the less vicious because, instead of ruining others for its gratification, it feeds only on those who are already ruined. If the Wisdom of the Old Testament is obscure on this point, the Wisdom of the New Testament gives no uncertain sound. Interpreting the doctrine of our book, as Christians are bound to do, by the light of Christ, we can be left in no doubt, that to all forms of impurity applies the one principle which is here applied to a specific form: "He doeth it that would destroy his own soul." "His own iniquities shall take the wicked, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sin." {Pro_6:32 and Pro_5:22}
But with regard to the first of the two temptations, it may be urged that in our settled and ordered society it is no longer felt. "We are not tempted to become highwaymen, nor even to embark on the career of a professional thief." We are disposed to skim lightly over the warning, under the impression that it does not in any way apply to us. But stop a moment! Wisdom spoke in the first instance direct to the vice of her day, but she gave to her precepts a more general coloring, which makes it applicable to all time, when she said, "So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; it taketh away the life of the owners thereof." {Pro_1:19} The specific form of greediness described in this first chapter may have become obsolete among decent and respectable people; but that greed of gain which showed itself then in a particular form is alive today. Dressed in a different garb, it presents temptations of a slightly different order; but the spirit is the same, the issue, the fatal issue, is the same. It is a melancholy fact that in the most progressive and civilized communities the greed of gain, instead of dying out, becomes aggravated, acquires a dominant influence, and sways men as the master passion. The United States, a country so bountiful to her children that a settled peace might be supposed to pervade the life of men who can never be in fear of losing the necessaries, or even the comforts, of life, are inflamed with a fierce and fiery passion. Society is one perpetual turmoil; life is lived at the highest conceivable pressure, because each individual is seeking to gain more and ever more. In our own country, though society is less fluid, and ancient custom checks the action of disturbing forces, the passion for gain becomes every year a more exacting tyranny over the lives of the people. We are engaged in a pitiless warfare, which we dignify by the name of competition; the race is to the swift, and the battle to the strong. It becomes almost a recognized principle that man is at liberty to prey upon his fellow man. The Eternal Law of Wisdom declares that we should treat others as we treat ourselves, and count the interests of others dear as our own; it teaches us that we should show a tender consideration for the weak, and be always ready, at whatever cost, to succor the helpless. But competition says, "No; you must try rather to beat the weak out of the field; you must leave no device untried to reduce the strength of the strong, and to divert into your own hands the grist which was going to your neighbors mill." This conflict between man and man is untempered by pity, because it is supposed to be unavoidable as death itself. In a community so constituted, where business has fallen into such ways, while the strong may hold their own with a clean hand, the weaker are tempted to make up by cunning what they lack in strength, and the weakest are ground as the nether millstone. The pitilessness of the whole system is appalling, the more so because it is accepted as necessary.
The bandit life has here emerged in a new form. "Come, let us lay wait for blood," says the Sweater or the Fogger, "let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause; let us swallow them up alive as Sheol, and whole as those that go down into the pit." The Bandit is an outcast from society, and his hand is turned against the rich. The Sweater is an outcast from society, and his hand is turned against the poor. By "laying wait" he is able to demand, from weak men, women, and children, the long hours of the day for unceasing toil, and the bitter hours of the night for hunger and cold, until the gaunt creatures, worn with weariness and despair, find a solace in debauchery or an unhallowed rest in death.
Now, though the temptation to become a sweater may not affect many or any of us, I should like to ask, Are there not certain trades or occupations, into which some of us are tempted to enter, perfectly honeycombed with questionable practices? Under the pretext that it is all "business," are not things done which can only be described as preying upon the innocence or the stupidity of our neighbors? Sometimes the promise is, "We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil." {Pro_1:13} Sometimes the simple object is to escape starvation. But there is the miserable temptation to sacrifice probity and honor, to stifle compassion and thought, in order to bring into our own coffers the coveted wealth. And is there not, I ask, a similar temptation lurking in a thousand haunts more or less respectable-a temptation which may be described as the spirit of gambling? The essence of all gambling, whether it be called speculative business or gaming, in stock and share markets or in betting clubs and turf rings, is simply the attempt to trade on the supposed ignorance or misfortune of others, and to use superior knowledge or fortune for the purpose, not of helping, but of robbing them. It may be said that we do it in self-defense, and that others would do the same by us; yes, just as the bandit says to the young man, "We do not want to injure the traveler yonder; we want his purse. He will try to shoot you; you only shoot him in self-defense." It is the subtlety of all gambling that constitutes its great danger. It seems to turn on the principle that we may do what we like with our own; it forgets that its object is to get hold of what belongs to others, not by honest work or service rendered, but simply by cunning and deception.
It is, then, only too easy to recognize, in many varied shapes of so-called business and of so-called pleasure, "the ways of those who are greedy of gain." Wisdom has need to cry aloud in our streets, in the chief place of concourse, in the city, in exchanges and marts. Her warning to the young man must be explicit and solemn: "My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not." The bandit life still has its attractions, though its methods are changed; it plays upon the idle imagination: it promises freedom from laborious and distasteful toil; but it says nothing of the ways of death into which it leads.
Now, in the third place, we come to the protest of Divine Wisdom against these evil ways in which men are tempted to walk. They are, she says, folly of the most egregious kind. There may be an apparent success or a momentary gratification: "precious substance may be amassed, and houses may be filled with spoil"; but the people who are betrayed into these wicked courses "shall be cut off from the land." {Pro_2:22} They "lay wait for their own blood"; greed "taketh away the life of the owner thereof"; {Pro_1:19} and as for the strange woman, that flattereth with her words, "none that go unto her return again." {Pro_2:19}
It needs but a clear vision or a little wise reflection to see the destructive tendency of Evil. It is the commonest fact of experience that where "vice goes before, vengeance follows after." Why do men not perceive it? There is a kind of fatuity which blinds the eyes. The empty-headed bird sees the net spread out before its eyes; {Pro_1:17} many of its fellows have already been caught; the warning seems obvious enough, but it is all "in vain": eager to get the bait-the dainty morsel lying there, easy obtainable - the foolish creature approaches, looks, argues that it is swifter and stronger than its predecessors, who were but weaklings! it will wheel down, take the food, and be gone long before the flaps of the net can spring together. In the same way the empty-headed youth, warned by the experience of elders and the tender entreaties of father and mother, assured that these ways of unjust gain are ways of ruin, is yet rash enough to enter the snare in order to secure the coveted morsel. And what is the issue? Setting at naught all the counsel of Wisdom, he would none of her reproof. {Pro_1:25} A momentary success led to wilder infatuation, and convinced him that he was right, and Wisdom was wrong; but his prosperity destroyed him. Soon in the shame of exposure and the misery of remorse he discovers his mistake. Or, worse still, no exposure comes; success continues to his dying day, and he leaves his substance to his heirs; "he eats of the fruits of his own way, and is filled with his own devices," {Pro_1:31-32} but none the less he walks in the ways of darkness-in paths that are crooked and perverse-and he is consumed with inward misery. The soul within is hard, and dry, and dead; it is insensible to all feelings except feelings of torture. It is a life so dark and wretched, that when a sudden light is thrown upon its hidden secrets men are filled with astonishment and dismay, that such things could exist underneath that quiet surface.
Finally, note these two characteristics of the Divine Wisdom:
(1) she is found in her fullness only by diligent seekers; and
(2) rejected, she turns into the most scornful and implacable foe.
She is to be sought as silver or hidden treasure is sought. The search must be inspired by that eagerness of desire and passion of resolve with which avarice seeks for money. No faculty must be left unemployed: the ear is to be inclined to catch the first low sounds of wisdom; the heart is to be applied to understand what is heard; the very voice is to be lifted up in earnest inquiry. It is a well-known fact that the fear of the Lord and the knowledge of God are not fruits which grow on every wayside bush, to be plucked by every idle passer-by, to be dropped carelessly and trodden under foot. Without seriousness and devotion, without protracted and unflagging toil, the things of God are not to be attained. You must be up betimes; you must be on your knees early; you must lay open the book of Wisdom, pore over its pages, and diligently turn its leaves, meditating on its sayings day and night. The kingdom of God and His righteousness must be sought, yes, and sought first, sought exclusively, as the one important object of desire. That easy indifference, that lazy optimism-"it will all come right in the end"-that habit of delay in deciding, that inclination to postpone the eternal realities to vanishing shadows, will be your ruin. The time may come when you will call, and there will be no answer, when you will seek diligently, but shall not find. Then in the day of your calamity, when your fear cometh, what a smile of scorn will seem to be on Wisdoms placid brow, and around her eloquent lips! What derision will seem to ring in the well-remembered counsels which you rejected. {Pro_1:24-31} O tide in the affairs of men! O tide in the affairs of God! We are called to stand by death-beds, to look into anguished eyes which know that it is too late. The bandit of commercial life passes into that penal servitude which only death will end; what agony breaks out and hisses in his remorse! The wretched victim of lust passes from the house of his sin down the path which inclines unto death; how terrible is that visage which just retains smirched traces that purity once was there! The voice rings down the doleful road, "If I had only been wise, if I had given ear, wisdom might have entered even into my heart, knowledge might have been pleasant even to my soul!"
And wisdom still cries to us, "Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v12 Pro_2:12. Deliver, “snatch,” as a brand out of the…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Pro_2:12. Deliver, “snatch,” as a brand out of the fire. Evil man, rather “an evil way.”
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Pro_2:13. “Level” paths.
Pro_2:16. Strange, “unknown,” “wanton” (see 1Ki_11:1-8).
Pro_2:17. Guide, or “companion,” “confidant,” her lawful husband.
Pro_2:18. House, in the East means “interests;” a man’s whole blended well-being (Exo_1:21).—Miller. (On Pro_2:16-18 see Note at the beginning of Chap. 7)
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH—Pro_2:12-20
THE CHARACTER OF THOSE FROM WHOM WISDOM PRESERVES
I. The evil man.
1. His speech is corrupt, Pro_2:12. The closed grave contains death and holds within it the seeds of pestilence, but while it remains unopened the corrupt influence remains enclosed in its narrow walls. But should it be opened, and its foulness allowed to fill the air, it begins to set in motion what will strike men down to its own level. The mouth of the wicked man while kept shut is a closed grave, his iniquity is shut up within himself, but when he speaks out the thoughts of his heart his mouth is as an open sepulchre, and he spreads around him moral disease and death.
2. He is a man of progressive iniquity. “He walks in the ways of darkness.” When a stone is set in motion, the momentum given to it, if no other law comes into operation to prevent it, will carry it to the lowest level in the direction in which it travels. The progress of wickedness is downhill, and walking in the ways of darkness implies a destination which in Scripture is called “outer darkness.”
3. He delights in his downward progress. Sorrow and joy are revealers of human hearts. The saint rejoices in whatsoever things are pure, lovely, and of good report, and in his increase of power to do the same. That which rejoices him reveals his heart. The sinner that “rejoices to do evil and delights in the forwardness of the wicked,” brings to light the hidden things of darkness that are within him.
II. The wicked woman.
1. She is, pre-eminently, a covenant-breaker. The ribs of a vessel hold and keep together the whole structure, and enable it to keep its cargo safe. If the ribs give way, all goes to pieces, and the precious things which have been stored up within the ship are lost in the ocean. Human society is belted together—kept from going to pieces—by covenants. They are the ribs which keep together the State. The marriage covenant holds the first place. The woman whose character is here depicted has broken the bonds of this most sacred covenant—to which God was a witness (the covenant of an institution of His own ordination)—and has taken to the “strange” way of the devil. Well may she be called a strange woman. That a woman should be guilty of such a crime—should choose such a course of life, so opposed to all that is pure and womanly—is indeed a mystery.
2. She is a destroyer, not only of herself, but of others. When the river has broken through its proper boundaries there is a present and continual destruction, of which the bursting of its banks was only the beginning. This woman in the past broke the moral boundaries of her life, and is now not content to go to ruin herself, but tries to take others with her. To this end are her false and flattering words, of which we shall hear more in chapter Pro_5:3. She carries her victims beyond hope of recovery. There are no rules without exceptions. We know that there are those who have for a time been under the influence of such characters, and have returned to the paths of virtue and honour. But these are rare exceptions. In the main, it is, alas! true that “none that go unto her return again.” A vessel founders at sea, and we say that the crew is lost, although one survivor may have been rescued. We speak of an army being destroyed if one escapes to tell the tale. Where one who has taken hold on her paths struggles back to life and purity, thousands go down with her to death, bodily, social, and spiritual.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Pro_2:12. To snatch (see “Critical Notes.”) “The way of evil.” The terms begin gently. It is only the gentle aspects that are dangerous at first. These are so fascinating that it requires us to be snatched to keep us out of the ways of darkness.—Miller.
Pro_2:13. Among the pests of men, none are such virulent pests of everything that is good as those that once made a profession of religion, but have left the way of uprightness. The stings of conscience which such persons experience, instead of reclaiming them, tend only to irritate their spirits, and inflame them into fierce enmity against religion.—Lawson.
Darkness, as thus set in contrast with uprightness, may be interpreted as descriptive both of the nature of the ways, and of their tendency and end. The man who walks in uprightness walks in light. His eye is “single.” There is “none occasion of stumbling in him.” He has but one principle; his “eyes look right on, his eyelids look straight before him.” He is not always looking this way and that, for devious paths that may suit a present purpose, but presses on ever in the same course; and thus all is light, all plain, all safe. “The ways of darkness” are the ways of concealment, evasion, cunning, tortuous policy and deceit. He who walks in them is ever groping; hiding himself among the subtleties of “fleshly wisdom”: and being ways of false principle and sin, they are ways of danger, and shame, and ruin.—Wardlaw.
There is a strictly causal and reciprocal relation between unrighteous deeds and moral darkness. The doing of evil produces darkness, and darkness produces the evil doing. Indulged lusts put out the eye-sight of the conscience; and under the darkened conscience the lusts revel unchecked.—Arnot.
The light stands in the way of their wicked ways as the angel did in Balaam’s way to his sin.—Trapp.
Pro_2:14. Though it be wormwood which they drink (Lam_3:15), yet being drunk with it, they perceive not the bitterness thereof, but like drunken men rejoice in their shame and misery.—Jermin.
Better is the sorrow of him that suffereth evil than the jollity of him that doeth evil, saith St. Augustine.—Trapp.
Here is a note of trial to discern our spiritual estate. Wicked men rejoice in sin; good men sorrow more for sin than for troubles.… Many triumph in their evil deeds because they have no good to boast of. And men are naturally proud and would boast of something.—Francis Taylor.
Pro_2:16. There is no viler object in nature than an adulteress. Though born and baptised in a Christian land, she is to be looked upon as a heathen woman and a stranger, and as self-made brutes are greater monsters than natural brute beasts, so baptised heathens are by far the worst of pagans.—Lawson.
This strange woman is an emblem of impenitence. The passage 16–19, means the seductiveness and yet the betraying wretchedness of impenitence. The woman who has left her husband has also left her God; and the nulla vestigia retrorsum witnessed in her dupes is the warning for the saint by which he keeps clear of her undoing. No man would err who would treat of adultery as having its lessons here. But no man would understand the passage who did not understand it further as a great picture of impenitence. The warnings are two:
(1) the un-stopping-short character of sin; she who wrongs her husband will be seen universally wronging God; and
(2) the unrecuperative history of the lost.—Miller.
Twice Solomon uses a similar expression, “the strange woman (even) the stranger,” to impress more forcibly on the young man the fact that her person belongs to another. The literal and spiritual adulteress are both meant. The spiritual gives to the world her person and her heart, which belong by right to God. In this sense the foreign women who subsequently drew aside Solomon himself, were “strange women,” not so much in respect to their local distance from Israel, as in respect to their being utterly alien to the worship of God. Lust and idolatry were the spiritual adultery into which they entrapped the once wise king. How striking that he should utter beforehand a warning which he himself afterwards disregarded.—Fausset.
We are not to forget that the accomplished seducer has herself perhaps been seduced. The fair and flattering words, the endless arts of allurement, are on both sides.—Wardlaw.
One who is as it were, a stranger to her own house and husband by faithlessness (Hitzig), and hence a type of anything that is false and seductive in doctrine or practice.… By God’s goodness Solomon’s words in this divinely inspired book were an antidote to the poison of his own vicious example.—Wordsworth.
Pro_2:17. False doctrine and false worship are in Scripture compared to harlotry and adultery. (Num_14:33; Jdg_2:17; Jdg_8:33; Psa_106:39; Rev_17:1-2; Rev_18:3.—Wordsworth.
It is God that is the guide of her youth, whoever may be under Him; it is God’s covenant that is made, whosoever may be the contractor in it. It is God who is first forsaken, then forgotten; forsaken in the beginning of wickedness, forgotten in the hardened practice of it. God hath appointed guides for youth—to stay the weakness of it, and to which, as unto God, youth ought to yield obedience. For elder years He hath appointed covenants as bonds and chains to hold them sure.—Jermin.
There is no trusting them that will fail God and their near friends. If they fail God, they will fail men for their advantage. If they fail friends—much more strangers.—Francis Taylor.
Pro_2:18. When you get into the company of the licentious, you are among the dead. They move about like men in outward appearance, but the best attributes of humanity have disappeared—the best affections of nature have been drained away from their hearts.—Arnot.
Her house is not a building reared up, but inclined and bowed down, and she who dwelleth in it will, by her life, bring thee to the dead.… Death is here twice mentioned to show that it is a double death, a temporal death, and an eternal death, to which she bringeth men.—Jermin.
Pro_2:19. Who would cast himself into a deep pit in the hopes of coming out alive, when almost all that fell into it were dashed in pieces.—Lawson.
It is as hard to restore a lustful person to chastity as it is to restore a dead person to life.—Chrysostom.
A sin which, I am verily persuaded, if there be another that slays her thousands, may with truth be affirmed to slay its ten thousands.—Wardlaw.
Pro_2:20. Here follows the whole ground of the exhibition: “That,” for the very purpose that “thou mayest walk in the way of good men.” This is a grand, pregnant doctrine. This bad life was abandoned to its worst partly as a lesson.—Miller.
It is not enough to shun the evil way, unless men walk in the good way.—Muffet.
He that walks in the way of good men shall meet with good men, and that shall keep him from the company of evil men and women. The paths of the righteous are too narrow for such: he shall not be troubled with them.—Jermin.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v10 Wisdom Preserves from Folly
Wisdom Preserves from Folly
v. 10. When wisdom entereth into thine heart, not as a transient guest, but for the purpose of making it a permanent residence, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul, affording the only genuine pleasure and satisfaction,
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v. 11. discretion shall preserve thee, that is, proper reflection, a careful consideration, will serve to keep the prudent from foolish steps, understanding shall keep thee, enabling one to judge rightly in any given situation,
v. 12. to deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from wicked conduct, from the man that speaketh froward things, uttering perverse and malicious speeches;
v. 13. who, that is, such people in general, leave the paths of uprightness, where their conduct was in agreement with the Word and will of God, to walk In the ways of darkness, being habitually active in the pursuit of wickedness;
v. 14. who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness, the maliciousness and deceitfulness, of the wicked;
v. 15. whose ways are crooked, literally, "who with respect to their ways are crooked," and they froward, full of malice and deceit, in their paths;
v. 16. to deliver thee from the strange woman, the unknown, foreign, unattached, her existence and way of conduct being full of dangers to youth, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words, making use of wanton speeches,
v. 17. which forsaketh the guide of her youth, her lawful husband, and forgetteth the covenant of her God, which demands purity and chastity from every woman.
v. 18. For her house inclineth unto death, sinking down to destruction, and her paths unto the dead, the shadowy forms of those who dwell in the kingdom of the dead, said, in this case, of everlasting damnation.
v. 19. None that go unto her return again, being swallowed up by the destruction which is her punishment, neither take they hold of the paths of life, they forfeit their chance to reach the ways of life once more. Over against the temptation from such wicked men and wanton women is placed the companionship of godly people.
v. 20. That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, following their conduct, and keep the paths of the righteous, that being the object of this admonition.
v. 21. For the upright shall dwell in the land, enjoying earthly prosperity, as the blessing of the Lord, and the perfect shall remain in it.
v. 22. But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, utterly destroyed, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it, this punishment being all the greater in the case of the Israelites because their land was the Land of Promise and a removal from it was equivalent to total rejection by the Lord. But the same facts, in substance, apply to men at this time, and therefore the warning of wisdom should be heeded most carefully.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv9, 11 every good path
equity
fairness
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every good path
A behavior that is wise and pleases Yahweh is spoken of as if it were a good path. AT: "ways to live that are pleasing to God" (See: Metaphor)
wisdom will come into your heart
Here "heart" represents a person's inner being. A person becoming wise is spoken of as if wisdom would enter into a person's heart. AT: "you will gain much wisdom" or "you will learn how to be truly wise" (See: Metonymy and Metaphor)
pleasant to your soul
Here "soul" represents the whole person. AT: "pleasing to you" or "enjoyable to you" (See: Synecdoche)
translationWords
righteous
just
wise
heart
know
soul
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv10, 12 2:10 Wisdom will enter your heart, becoming an integral…
2:10 Wisdom will enter your heart, becoming an integral part of life. Rather than occasionally doing wise things, the wise person consistently makes wise choices. • Knowledge brings joy because it helps people live successfully.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.