Proverbs2

World English Bible · Public Domain

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¹My son, if you will receive my words, and store up my commandments within you,

²so as to turn your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding;

³yes, if you call out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding;

⁴if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures;

⁵then you will understand the fear of Yahweh, and find the knowledge of God.

⁶For Yahweh gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

⁷He lays up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity,

⁸that he may guard the paths of justice, and preserve the way of his saints.

⁹Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path.

¹⁰For wisdom will enter into your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

¹¹Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you,

¹²to deliver you from the way of evil, from the men who speak perverse things,

¹³who forsake the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness,

¹⁴who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the perverseness of evil,

¹⁵who are crooked in their ways, and wayward in their paths,

¹⁶to deliver you from the strange woman, even from the foreigner who flatters with her words,

¹⁷who forsakes the friend of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God;

¹⁸for her house leads down to death, her paths to the departed spirits.

¹⁹None who go to her return again, neither do they attain to the paths of life.

²⁰Therefore walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.

²¹For the upright will dwell in the land. The perfect will remain in it.

²²But the wicked will be cut off from the land. The treacherous will be rooted out of it.

Study Guide

Public-domain commentary and original-language notes for Proverbs 2.

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Chapter Summary

In this chapter: Promises to those who seek wisdom. (1–9). The advantages of wisdom. (10–22).

vv1-9

Those who earnestly seek heavenly wisdom, will never complain that they have lost their labour; and the freeness of the gift does not do away the necessity of our diligence, Joh 6:27 Let them seek, and they shall find it; let them ask, and it shall be given them. Observe who are thus favoured. They are the righteous, on whom the image of God is renewed, which consists in righteousness. If we depend upon God, and seek to him for wisdom, he will enable us to keep the paths of judgment.

vv10-22

If we are truly wise, we shall be careful to avoid all evil company and evil practices. When wisdom has dominion over us, then it not only fills the head, but enters into the heart, and will preserve, both against corruptions within and temptations without. The ways of sin are ways of darkness, uncomfortable and unsafe: what fools are those who leave the plain, pleasant, lightsome paths of uprightness, to walk in such ways! They take pleasure in sin; both in committing it, and in seeing others commit it. Every wise man will shun such company. True wisdom will also preserve from those who lead to fleshly lusts, which defile the body, that living temple, and war against the soul. These are evils which excite the sorrow of every serious mind, and cause every reflecting parent to look upon his children with anxiety, lest they should be entangled in such fatal snares. Let the sufferings of others be our warnings. Our Lord Jesus deters from sinful pleasures, by the everlasting torments which follow them. 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. Many think that this caution, besides the literal sense, is to be understood as a caution against idolatry, and subjecting the soul to the body, by seeking any forbidden object. The righteous must leave the earth as well as the wicked; but the earth is a very different thing to them. To the wicked it is all the heaven they ever shall have; to the righteous it is the place of preparation for heaven. And is it all one to us, whether we share with the wicked in the miseries of their latter end, or share those everlasting joys that shall crown believers?

Key Words

sonH1121Hebrew

בֵּן: a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etc., (like father or brother), etc.)

ifH518Hebrew

אִם: used very widely as demonstrative, lo!; interrogative, whether?; or conditional, if, although; also Oh that!, when; hence, as a negative, not

receiveH3947Hebrew

לָקַח: to take (in the widest variety of applications)

wordsH561Hebrew

אֵמֶר: something said

treasure upH6845Hebrew

צָפַן: to hide (by covering over); by implication, to hoard or reserve; figuratively to deny; specifically (favorably) to protect, (unfavorably) to lurk

commandmentsH4687Hebrew

מִצְוָה: a command, whether human or divine (collectively, the Law)

earH241Hebrew

אֹזֶן: broadness. i.e. (concrete) the ear (from its form in man)

attentiveH7181Hebrew

קָשַׁב: to prick up the ears, i.e. hearken

wisdomH2451Hebrew

חׇכְמָה: wisdom (in a good sense)

incliningH5186Hebrew

נָטָה: to stretch or spread out; by implication, to bend away (including moral deflection); used in a great variety of application