Proverbs 1:1-9 An Ode To Fathers
“The lessons here given are plain, and likely to benefit those who feel their own ignorance, and their need to be taught. If young people take heed to their ways, according to Solomon's Proverbs, they will gain knowledge and discretion. Solomon speaks of the most important points of truth, and a greater than Solomon is here. Christ speaks by his word and by his Spirit. Christ is the Word and the Wisdom of God, and he is made to us wisdom.” (Matthew Henry) It is all made manifest through the Bible.
1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:
2 To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding,
3 To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity;
4 To give prudence to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion—
5 A wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel,
6 To understand a proverb and an enigma, the words of the wise and their riddles.
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
8 My son, hear the instruction of your father, and do not forsake the torah of your mother;
9 For they will be a graceful ornament on your head, and chains about your neck.
This (vv.7-9) "may be regarded as a summary statement of the principle on which the whole book is based, and of the duty which it enjoins. The principle is that true wisdom is based on religion, and the duty is to listen to parental instruction. ‘My son,’ is the address of a teacher to his disciples, rather than of a father to his child.
The characteristic Old Testament designation of religion as ‘the fear of Jehovah’ corresponds to the Old Testament revelation of Him as the Holy One,-that is, as Him who is infinitely separated from creatural being and limitations. Therefore is He ‘to be had in reverence of all’ who would be ‘about Him’; that fear of reverential awe in which no slavish dread mingles, and which is perfectly consistent with aspiration, trust, and love. The Old Testament reveals Him as separate from men; the New Testament reveals Him as united to men in the divine man, Christ Jesus. Therefore its keynote is the designation of religion as ‘the love of God’; but that name is no contradiction of the earlier, but the completion of it.
That fear is the beginning or basis of wisdom, because wisdom is conceived of as God’s gift, and the surest way to get it is to ‘ask of God’ [James 1:5]. Religion is, further, the foundation of wisdom, inasmuch as irreligion is the supreme folly of creatures so dependent on God, and so hungering after Him in the depths of their being, as we are. In whatever directions a godless man may be wise, in the most important matter of all, his relations to God, he is unwise, and the epitaph for all such is ‘Thou fool!’
Further, religion is the fountain of wisdom, in the sense of the word in which this book uses it, since it opens out into principles of action, motives, and communicated powers, which lead to right apprehension and willing discharge of the duties of life. Godless men may be scientists, philosophers, encyclopaedias of knowledge, but for want of religion, they blunder in the direction of their lives, and lack wisdom enough to keep them from wrecking the ship on the rocks.
The Israelitish parent was enjoined to teach his or her children the law [torah] of the Lord [Yahweh]. Here the children are enjoined to listen to the instruction. Reverence for traditional wisdom was characteristic of that state of society, and since a divine revelation stood at the beginning of the nation’s history, it was not unreasonable to look back for light. Nowadays, a belief’s being our fathers’ is with many a reason for not making it ours. But perhaps that is no more rational than the blind adherence to the old with which this emancipated generation reproaches its predecessors.
Possibly there are some ‘old lamps’ better than the new ones now hawked about the streets by so many loud-voiced vendors. The youth of this day have much need of the exhortation to listen to the ‘instruction’ {by which is meant, not only teaching by word, but discipline by act} of their fathers, and to the gentler voice of the mother telling of law in accents of love. These precepts obeyed will be fairer ornaments than jewelled necklaces and wreathed chaplets.” (Alexander Maclaren, 1826-1910-- an English non-conformist minister of Scottish origin.)
Give me that old time religion. "It is good for my father and mother; its good enough for me."
Proverbs 1:10-19
“My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not” (Proverbs 1:10 KJV).
“The warning points to a state of society of which indications are to be found not only in the unsettled times ‘when the Judges ruled’ and before the monarchy was firmly established, when ‘vain’ and ‘discontented’ men banded together to lead the life of the outlaw and the freebooter (Jdg 11:3; 1 Samuel 22:2); but also in the better ordered periods of Jewish history when Psalmist and prophet inveigh against those who lurk privily in secret to murder the innocent (Psalm 10:8-10), and those whose feet are swift to shed blood (Isaiah 59:7). When our Lord was upon earth such robbing with violence and bloodshed was so familiar an incident in Palestine that He was able to make it the groundwork of a parable (Luke 10:30). And it is so still. ‘Strange country! and it has always been so. There are a hundred allusions to just such things in the history, the psalms and the prophets of Israel. A whole class of imagery is based upon them. Psalm 10:8-10; ‘He sitteth in the lurking-places of the villages’ &c. And a thousand rascals, the living originals of this picture, are this day crouching and lying in wait all over the country to catch poor helpless travellers.’ (Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 314.)
Two hundred years ago, when young men even of birth and education were to be found in the ranks of the highwaymen who overran the country (see, for example, Macaulay, Hist. of Eng. Vol. i. ch. iii.), the warning was no less apposite in England. In our own day, even in the special form which it here assumes, the warning, in view of the gangs of desperate men, poachers and burglars, to be found still both in towns and in the country, has not come to be superfluous, while in its wider aspect, ‘My son, if sinners entice thee consent thou not,’ it is of universal application.” (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges)
“This world is filled with temptations. Sinful individuals surround us, and they encourage us to sin with them. Today’s Scripture says, ‘Consent thou not!’ Ignore the negative peer pressure!
Saints, even though we are members of the Church- the Body of Christ, we still sin. On a daily basis, our new nature in Christ wars against our old nature we inherited from Adam: ‘the flesh lusteth against the [indwelling Holy] Spirit, and the Spirit lusteth against the flesh’ (Galatians 5:17a). But, we have victory over sin when we walk, by faith, in our identity in Christ!
In today’s Scripture (and the verses following it), King Solomon shares God’s wisdom with us: ‘If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood [murder], let us lurk privily [secretly] for the innocent without cause: let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: we shall find all precious substance [loot], we shall fill our houses with spoil: cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse’ (Proverbs 1:11-14).
What is God’s response? Verses 15-19: ‘My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: for their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives. So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.’
When someone encourages you to be partaker of their ‘killing or stealing’ or any action that does not agree with God’s Holy Word, ‘walk not thou in the way of them.’ In Christ, God has saved us from that lifestyle and its resulting death: we have no need to return to them. ‘Walk in the Spirit [by faith in our new identity in Christ], and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh [sin]’ (Gal 5:16).” [If Sinners Entice Thee, Consent Thou Not] http://333wordsofgrace.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/if-sinners-entice-thee-consent-thou-not/
Jesus said: “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder (Exo 20:13; Deut 5:17), and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ (added by teachers) But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause [NU-Text omits ‘without a cause.’] shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.” (Matt 5:21-26) We need to make amends with all men.
“GOSSIP/BACKBITING [is precluded]. ‘Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice...’ (Ephesians 4:31) [as it is written in] Leviticus 19:17..... Those who spread slander cannot dwell with God, for He is holy. (Psalms 15:1-3)... God calls them fools.(Proverbs 10:18 )... We are exhorted to ‘lay aside’ all slander, and scripture advises us not even to associate with gossips. (1 Peter 2:1; Proverbs 20:19)... The desire to backbite comes from a heart of bitterness and hatred. (Leviticus 19:16-18; Psalms 109:2-3... ) ...” http://www.dianedew.com/gossip.htm
Proverbs 1:20-33-- The Voice of Christ
20 Wisdom calls aloud outside; she raises her voice in the open squares.
21 She cries out in the chief concourses, at the openings of the gates in the city She speaks her words:
22 “How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? For scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge.
23 Turn at my rebuke; surely I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you.
“Having shown the counsels and invitations of folly and of wicked men, he now declares the voice of wisdom. The Hebrew word חכמות, rendered wisdom here, is in the plural number, and is literally wisdoms. It was probably intended to include various kinds, or, rather, all the kinds of Wisdom 1ST, The works of creation, (see Psalm 19:1-6,) .... 2ND, Human laws, and the institutions of civil governments, when they do not contradict, but accord with, the divine law, and especially when they enjoin and encourage obedience to it, and punish the disobedient, are the voice of wisdom crying without; even in the opening of the gates, and in the places of concourse, where courts were kept, where the judges sat, and where the wisdom of the nation called the wicked to repent and reform. In a still higher degree, 3RD, Divine revelation is wisdom. All its doctrines, its precepts, its promises, its threatenings, are the dictates of infinite wisdom; and where this is published and made known to any people in their own language, and more especially when it is declared, explained, and enforced by God’s ministers, whether in churches, chapels, private houses, or in the open air, there wisdom cries without, and utters her voice in the streets. 4TH, ABOVE ALL, Christ is Wisdom, even the wisdom and word of God incarnate, for in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and he was, and is, the centre and source of all divine revelation; the person in whom all its doctrines, precepts, and promises are yea and amen. And he, in the days of his flesh, continually cried without, and uttered his voice in the streets.” (Benson Commentary)
24 “Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded,
25 Because you disdained all my counsel, and would have none of my rebuke,
26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your terror comes,
27 When your terror comes like a storm, and your destruction comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you.”
Jesus "is 'the Logos', the Word and Wisdom of God; as Mediator, 'all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid' in him, Colossians 2:3; and, as man, 'the Spirit of Wisdom' rests upon him without measure, Isaiah 11:2. This, with what follows to the end of the chapter, is a prophecy of the ministry of Christ in the days of his flesh, and of the success of it; and of the calamities that should come upon..." (Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible) anyone of any generation who rejects Him. “‘Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.’ Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, ‘We shall hear you again concerning this.’”(Acts 17:30-32)
28 “Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently, but they will not find me.
29 Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord,
30 They would have none of my counsel and despised my every rebuke.
31 Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled to the full with their own fancies.
32 For the turning away of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them;
33 But whoever listens to me will dwell safely, and will be secure, without fear of evil.”
Could this time of trouble be the Second Coming? “The change in this verse from the second to the third person is striking. It implies that Wisdom thinks fools no longer worthy of being addressed personally ...The declaration is the embodiment of the laughter and scorn of ver. 26. The three verbs, ‘they shall call,’ ‘they shall seek,’ ‘they shall find,’ occur in uncommon and emphatic forms in the original. They are some out of the few instances where the future terminations are inserted fully before the pronominal suffix. I will not answer. The distress and anguish consequent upon their calamity and fear lead them to pray, but there will be no answer nor heed given to their cry. They are not heard, because they do not cry rightly nor in the time of grace (Lapide). See the striking parallel to the tenor of this passage in Luke 13:24-28. They shall seek me early; i.e. diligently. The verb שָׁחַר (shakhar) is the denominative from the substantive שַׁחַר (shakar), ‘the dawn, morning,’ and signifies to go out and seek something in the obscurity of the morning twilight (Delitzsch, Zockler), and hence indicates diligence and earnestness in the search. Gesenius gives the same derivation, but connects it with the dawn in the sense of the light breaking forth, and thus, as it were, seeking (see also Proverbs 2:27; 7:15; 8:17; Hosea 5:15).” ( Pulpit Commentary) Seek Him while He may be found!