Proverbs 2:1-9 Incline Your Ears to Wisdom
1 My son, if you receive my words, and treasure my commands within you,
2 so that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding;
3 yes, if you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding,
4 if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures;
5 then you will understand the fear of Yahweh, and find the knowledge of God.
6 for Yahweh gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding;
7 He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk uprightly;
8 He guards the paths of justice, and preserves the way of His saints.
9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path.
Solomon asked Yahweh for wisdom in 2 Chronicles 1 and it pleased Him and He gave it to him. In the New Testament, James testified: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” (James 1:5) Jesus said: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. “ (Matt 7:7-8)“'God gives wisdom only to those who search for it. Often in the Bible, God is pictured as giving something when he merely makes it available. He gave the city of Jericho to Joshua; but it was necessary for Joshua and his soldiers to obey God's instructions before they could possess it. God gave manna to Israel in the wilderness; but they had to go and gather it up (Num. 11). Christ gave the blind man his sight; but he received it only when he went and washed in the Pool of Siloam. God gives men wisdom; but much diligent study is required in order to receive it.' (George DeHoff’s Commentary) Likewise, [wisdom and ] salvation itself is the free gift of God; but it is given conditionally. ... Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven (Matt 7:21)." (Coffman Commentary)
Learning must be accompanied by obedience. “Peter and the other apostles replied: ‘We must obey God rather than human beings! The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead—whom you killed by hanging him on a cross. God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.’ When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death.” (Acts 5:29-33)The idea that Yahweh requires anything of us is abhorrent to many, but it is the heart of a covenant relationship both the Old and New Testaments.
Proverbs 2:10-22
10 When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul,
When wisdom enters your heart, “...Christ, the Wisdom of God; who enters there at conversion, and sets up a throne in the heart, and dwells there by faith.” And knowledge is pleasant to your soul... “which the Gospel thus entering gives; even the knowledge of God in Christ, as the God of all grace, as gracious and merciful, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the knowledge of Christ, as the only Redeemer and Saviour; and the knowledge of Gospel truths, which lead and relate unto him: all which is pleasant to a gracious soul, and affords unspeakable delight to the mind; and is sweeter, as every truth of the Gospel is, than the honey or the honeycomb; see Prov 16:24.”(Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible)
11 Discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you,
12 to deliver you from the way of evil,
13 from those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness;
“Discretion (מְזַמָּת m'zimoth), as in Proverbs 1:4, is the outward manifestation of wisdom; it tests what is uncertain, and avoids danger (Hitzig). The word carries with it the idea of reflection or consideration (see Proverbs 3:21; Proverbs 5:2; Proverbs 8:12) The LXX. reads, βουλὴ καλή, ‘good counsel;’ and the Vulgate, concilium. Shall preserve thee. The idea of protection and guarding, which is predicated of Jehovah in ver. 8, is here transferred to discretion and understanding, which to some extent are put forward as personifications. Understanding (תְבוּנָה, t'vunah), as in Proverbs 2:11; the power of distinguishing and separating, and, in the case of conflicting interests, to decide on the best. Shall keep; i.e. keep safe, or in the sense of watching over or guarding. The two verbs ‘to preserve’ (שָׁמַר shamar) and ‘to keep’ (נָצַר, natsar), LXX. τήρειν, occur together again in Proverbs 4:6.” (The Pulpit Commentary)
14 Who rejoice in doing evil, and delight in the perversity of the wicked;
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” (Matt 23:15) The wicked delight in the sins of their converts, so that they look good in comparison. In contrast, the righteous of God have love, which “suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things [revealed in the Word], hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Cor 13:4-7)
15 Whose ways are crooked, and who are devious in their paths;
Their ways “swerve from and are not agreeably to the rule of the divine word, either the law of God or the Gospel of Christ... and they are devious in their paths... sometimes going one way and sometimes another, but always following that which is evil, and resolute to continue therein.” (Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible)
16 To deliver you from the immoral woman, from the seductress who flatters with her words,
17 Who forsakes the companion of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God.
18 For her house leads down to death, and her paths to the dead;
19 None who go to her return, nor do they regain the paths of life—
“Jarchi interprets this of idolatry; the character well agrees with the idolatrous church... or antichrist [which elevates tradition over the Word of God], represented by a whore, Revelation 17:1; as this woman is called ‘the woman of evil’, for so it may be rendered, one very evil, given up and abandoned to sin; so antichrist is called ‘the man of sin’, 2 Thessalonians 2:3; and as this woman is said to have the ‘smoothness of a strange tongue’, as the words may be translated, and are by the Targum; so the religion of this false church is delivered in a strange language the people understand not, by which they are kept in ignorance and deception; now the word of God read and explained in the mother tongue, and especially the Gospel part of it, the doctrine of wisdom, is a means of preserving persons from the errors and heresies, superstition and idolatry, of the church of Rome, and from being carried away with their false glosses, and gaudy worship, and all its deceivable ways of unrighteousness.” (John Gill)
20 So you may walk in the way of goodness, and keep to the paths of righteousness.
21 For the upright will dwell in the land, and the blameless will remain in it;
22 But the wicked will be cut off from the earth, and the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.