Proverbs 31 - Bible Commentary

Proverbs 1

Proverbs 1:1:
The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;

"The Proverbs", the opening noun gives the book its name in the Hebrew Bible as in ours. The Hebrew term basically means 'a comparison' (e.g., the sharp simile such as --at random--11:23, 12:4; or the full grown allegory of Ezek 17:2 or Judges 9:8), but it came to stand for any kind of sage pronouncement from a maxim or observation to a sermon, and from a wisecrack (Ez 18:2) to a doctrinal revelation.

Proverbs 1:2-6:
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.

The term for wisdom in vs. 2 is used 37 times in this book! It means skillfulness; the ability to use knowledge properly. It is possible to have lots of instruction and information in our head, and yet not have the wisdom to put it into practice in our daily lives. Knowledge isn’t enough. If it were, our generation would be doing just fine! Knowledge has doubled every year since 1955. We have more information and data than we know what to do with. But we do NOT have the wisdom to use it properly. The world has plenty of knowledge and information—but by anyone’s standards: the world today is a mess! -Salem Bible Church

What we are in search of, is right in front of us. We are trying to solve problems and come up with solutions that have a process that we can not circumvent. There are procurers that we must know. Could a doctor perform a heart transplant without the necessary education and training to do it? To accomplish anything in life, we must have knowledge. There are more bibles in circulation than any other book ever written and it has the answers for life. That means that you will not have to search long to find one and you will have what you need to conquer the things that seem now to be insurmountable. -John Pfeifer

Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket. Do not pull it out merely to show that you have one. If asked what o’clock it is, tell it; but do not proclaim it hourly and unasked, like the watchman. -Lord Chesterfield

Proverbs 1:5:
5 A wise man will hear and increase learning, And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel,

Listening. “A wise man will hear.” Wisdom begins with a hearing ear. But most people use their mouth more than their ears. Someone has said that we have two ears and only one mouth which tells us the ratio of talk to listening. If we did listen twice as much as we talked, we would all be much wiser. Of course, it makes a big difference regarding what you are listening to with your ears. This verse implies that you are listening to truth and righteousness, to godly counsel, to God’s Word. However, many men prefer to listen to the lies of the world rather than to the truth of God. [SOURCE: Glenwood Devotional

Proverbs 1:6-7:
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.

The Greek idea of “Wisdom” was a grander thing; it meant a clear insight into the eternal order of the world. In more modern terms, it meant the knowledge of God. But it had its defects. The God that was sought after was too much of an Intellectual Infinite, and too exclusively apprehended by the intellectual. Hence the dictum that the highest wisdom was a kind of intellectual contemplation in which the mind transcended appearances and looked right into the heart and the reality of things. Even by the Greek this wisdom was held with a strong element of of ethical apprehension and feeling. The ethical factors were presupposed even when not expressly stated, for the Greeks declared that knowledge was virtue, and it was clear that the knowledge which is virtue is ethical at the heart of it. But the intellectual and metaphysical predominated too much in the Greek system; the transcendence and sovereignty of the ethical element was not made clear and emphatic, and Greek wisdom at the last generated into a jingle of syllogisms. Yet the Greek had much of the truth of the world and many of the sons of Greece lived strong and heroic lives through the wisdom that God had revealed to them. When their old truths were ready to vanish away, God was already preparing to send them the higher wisdom, the wisdom revealed in Christ.

Recovering Our Sanity: How the Fear of God Conquers the Fears that Divide Us" by Westminster Seminary theologian Michael Horton.

“The fear of God is living with the grain of reality. … We did not make ourselves, so it is insane to live as though we could be whatever and whomever we choose. We do not belong to ourselves, but to God.”

“The Fear to End All Fears,” sets out the Scriptural basis for a proper fear of God.

“All of our fears come down to this one: we are afraid of Someone knowing our deepest secrets, cherished transgressions, and failures to fulfill our chief end.”

"Don’t mistake God’s kindness and patience as a sign that he is either unable or unwilling to unleash his wrath. Even now, there may be some reading this who have lived around Noah’s ark all your life, so to speak. You have camped around it and played in its shadow and on its scaffolding, even as this barge of salvation was being built. But you have never entered the ark. Like an old coin, your religion is something you carry around in your pocket. It even has an image of Christ, but this image has lost its embossing and is now faded."

“When we raise our eyes to heaven, something strange happens to us. Fears of our circumstances, including life, vocations, and the condition of the environment, are so moderated that we are able to engage in stewardship with hopeful responsibility instead of utopianism or despair.”

Ecclesiastes 12:13 - Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

Proverbs 14:26 - In the fear of the LORD is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place of refuge.

Proverbs 14:27 - The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death.

Proverbs 8:13 - The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.

In this verse we are also introduced to the fifth character in the introduction of Proverbs, and one of the central characters of the book – “the fool.” Always used in the Bible with a negative connotation, it does not suggest someone mentally deficient, but someone who is morally deficient, someone who make inappropriate choices.
The fool says in his heart that there is no God (Ps 14:1), so, it is no surprise that this verse says a fool despises both wisdom (see :2) and discipline (see :2, 3). Fools make conscious decisions to not connect with God – even though He is there and working in their lives all the time, anyway. -Helping UP Mission

David Wells defines worldliness as whatever makes “sin look normal and righteousness look strange.” Our default vision is blurry, which is why Scripture says knowledge begins with fearing the Lord (Prov. 1:7). Until we understand God’s authority—he is God, we are not—we’re not seeing straight. Repentance points us to our deepest problem (sin), our right response to that problem (humility), and the only One with power to fix it (God). Without it, we’re prone to shrink our view of both the seriousness of our sin and the holiness of God. -Will Anderson; Gospel Coalition

In today’s world, there is plenty of knowledge out there. Just look at the growth of the internet. Many of us use our smartphones more than our computers to find answers to our questions.
This is not the kind of knowledge that Solomon is referring to. Wisdom is so much more than having a head full of knowledge. As you can read in the verse above, the knowledge Solomon refers to is combined with wisdom and discipline. That means wisdom is linked to the basic attitudes we develop.
Furthermore, Solomon is telling us that as we honor and respect God, we find ourselves wanting to know more about God, his kingdom, his son, his word (the Bible), and all that he has to teach us about life.
As we recognize God’s power and glory, we grow into faith. Our faith in God helps us to understand the world around us. It helps us to understand the actions we take to live a good life, as well as the attitudes that mark our character. It is by putting our trust in God that we develop true wisdom. -Kathy Brumbaugh

The important difference here is that fear, in this context, is a verb. That’s right. Fear can be used as a catalyst for good. During the time that much of the Bible was written, it was customary to enter the palace of a king, or to approach an authority figure, by bowing and humbling yourself. ‘Fearing God’ is acting in humility to show honor and respect to God. Fearing God is clarified further in these verses from 1 Peter 5:6-7, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
Consider this acronym for FEAR: faith eternal and reverence. We can fear God and still have love, faith and hope (1 Corinthians 13:13). As I tell my counseling clients, you don’t need to live in a state of being afraid, you can use fear to overcome. As Paul so eloquently says, “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10). -Andrew McCleary; Life fellowship

References to the “fear of God” occur many times in Scripture. It is a phrase easily misunderstood, for to fear something or someone brings to mind the impulse to flee or to avoid whatever or whoever causes our fear. Yet this fear of the Lord is closely connected in the Bible with a true and abiding love of the Lord. A foundational text is Deuteronomy 6, in which the Hebrews are told three times to “fear the Lord your God” (Dt 6:2, 13, 24), but are also commanded to love the one true God: “… and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Dt 6:5).
This loving fear of God is also closely intertwined with wisdom—“Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov 1:7) and with true life—“The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life” (Prov 14:27; cf. Prov 19:23). Examples abound, but this is enough to provide background to the first reading, in which the worthy wife is praised for many things, all of which are rooted in her fear of the Lord (Prov 31:30). As the notes to the New American Bible explain, this fear is “primarily a disposition rather than the emotion of fear; reverential awe and respect toward God combined with obedience to God’s will.”

This is why the prophet Isaiah listed the fear of the Lord as one of the seven gifts of the Spirit of God (Isa 11:2-3; CCC, 1831). This fear is, paradoxically, a vibrant awareness of who we are in the eyes of a loving God; it is also a recognition of the duties that come with being gifted with God’s mercy and grace. It means that those who have a proper fear of God are spiritually awake and aware, prepared for the day of the Lord that St. Paul wrote about to the Christians in Thessalonica. Those who are filled with the Holy Spirit are “children of the light” and “children of the day” who do not sleep as others do—that is, who are spiritually vigilant and alert.
Today’s Gospel makes mention of fear, but it is a different fear. The parable of the talents is about three servants entrusted by their departing master with different amounts of money. Each sum is quite large; it’s likely that a “talent” was equal to up twenty years of wages. The first two servants used their talents (yes, this is why the term “talent” refers to abilities or gifts) to produce a profit. But the third went and buried his single talent in the ground. Why? When asked by his angry master, he explained that he has acted “out of fear”.
The master’s angry, damning response is shocking, and we are tempted to think he is overreacting. But here we see the difference between a holy, righteous fear, and a doubtful, faithless fear. The former acts out of love for God, and is fearless for the sake of the Kingdom; the latter is paralyzed and without faith, lacking love. We must, as a great Saint taught, fear God from love. --Carl Olson

Proverbs 1:8-9:
My son, hear the instruction of your father, And do not forsake the law of your mother; 9 For they will be a graceful ornament on your head, And chains about your neck.

The structure of the nine introductory chapters (1:8–9:18) follows the pattern of father, mother and son in an instructional setting, promoting wise behavior over foolishness. “My son, hear the instruction of your father, and do not forsake the law of your mother” (1:8). “My son” is addressed many more times (1:10, 15; 2:1; 3:1, 11, 21; 4:10, 20; 6:1, 3, 20; 7:1), as direction is given to avoid the sins of laziness, deceit and promoting discord; and to avoid the company of sinners of various stripes: murderers, thieves, immoral women, oppressors, the scornful, adulterers. -David Hulm; Vision

Proverbs 1:10:
10 My son, if sinners entice you, Do not consent.

“My son,” says Solomon, “if sinful men entice you,
do not give in to them.”
Sin ‘entices’ – that’s an honest statement, but it’s not always said. I grew up being told that sin was evil and horrible, and no one would ever want any part of it. That teaching didn’t prepare me for the day when sin seemed very attractive, exactly what I would want to do.
Sin is evil, and should always be shunned. That’s true. But what’s also true is that sin entices us. In the short term at least, we want what it offers, and we’re easily tempted to run to it rather than from it.
So Solomon warns against those who make wrongdoing look attractive. He calls them “sinful men,” but the Hebrew word used means criminals, not just people of poor moral judgment. In this world there are very bad people who would lure away the innocent, and especially the naïve, to behavior they will regret. - Northern Seminary

Proverbs 1:11:
11 If they say, “Come with us, Let us lie in wait to shed blood; Let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause;

let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause;
or "let us hide" {q}, the Vulgate Latin version adds "snares"; so Vatablus and others, as the fowler does for birds; or "let us hide ourselves" ; in some private place, waiting "for the innocent", the harmless traveller, who has done no injury to any man's person or property; thinks himself safe, and is not aware of any design upon him; going about his lawful business, and having done nothing to provoke such miscreants to attempt his life or take away his property: and which they do "without cause" as to him; "freely" as to themselves; and "with impunity" , as they promise themselves and one another; all which senses the word used will bear. -Gills Exposition

Proverbs 1:12:
12 Let us swallow them alive like Sheol, And whole, like those who go down to the Pit;

Fools and sinners are arrogantly confident. In this proverb a band of cutthroats try to lure an innocent youth to join it by boasting of certain success. Such lazy, murderous thieves, bloated with ambitious and ignorant pride, are beyond hope or help (Pr 26:12,16).
Solomon knew evil friends were the greatest danger to his son and all young men, so he began Proverbs by warning against them (Pr 1:10-19). This proverb is part of a parable about a gang of murdering marauders, who optimistically described their plans to entice a new member. Solomon concluded the parable by guaranteeing their ruin (Pr 1:17-19).

Proverbs 1:13-19:
13 We shall find all kinds of precious possessions, We shall fill our houses with spoil;
14 Cast in your lot among us, Let us all have one purse”--
15 My son, do not walk in the way with them, Keep your foot from their path;
16 For their feet run to evil, And they make haste to shed blood.
17 Surely, in vain the net is spread In the sight of any bird;
18 But they lie in wait for their own blood, They lurk secretly for their own lives.
19 So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain; It takes away the life of its owners.

Proverbs 1:20-31:
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.
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.
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.

In the first nine chapters, Solomon describes two women who compete for his son’s affection. Lady Wisdom urges simpletons to abandon their simplicity and warns them of the consequences if they refuse to listen (1:20–33). Lady Folly entices young men to dangerous liaisons. Lady Wisdom offers food, while Lady Folly plots to lead the prince to slaughter (7:22). Solomon tells his son to flee Lady Folly and embrace Lady Wisdom (5:1–23; 6:20–35; 7:6–27; 9:13–18). It’s a classic rom-com setup: A young man chooses between two women, one seductively transgressive, the other the kind of girl you take home to meet Mom. At the same time, he decides whether to listen to Dad or pursue his own bliss. - Peter Leithart; First Things

Proverbs 1:32:
For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.”

A season of unusual outward prosperity is usually accompanied with an hour of temptation. Prosperity and temptation go together; yea, prosperity is a temptation, many temptations, and that because without eminent supplies of grace it is apt to cast a soul into a frame and temper exposed to any temptation, and provides it with fuel and food for all. It has provision for lust and darts for Satan.”
“The wise man tells us that the ‘prosperity of fools destroys them’ (Prov. 1:32). It hardens them in their way, makes them despise instructions, and puts the evil day (whose terror should influence them into moral improvement) far from them. Without a special assistance, it has an inconceivably malignant influence on believers themselves. Hence Agur prays against riches because of the temptation that attends them: ‘Lest,’ says he, ‘I be full and deny you, and say, Who is the Lord?’ (Prov. 30:8-9)—lest, being filled with them, he should forget the Lord; as God complains that his people did (Hosea 13:6)…”
“As, then, unto a prosperous condition. I shall not contradict Solomon’s counsel, ‘In the day of prosperity rejoice’ (Ecc. 7:14). Rejoice in the God of your mercies who does you good in his patience and forbearance, notwithstanding all your unworthiness. Yet I may add to it, from the same foundation of wisdom, ‘Consider,’ also, lest evil lie at the door. A man in that state is in the midst of snares. Satan has many advantages against him; he forges darts out of all his enjoyments; and, if he watch not, he will be entangled before he is aware.”
“You want that which should poise and ballast your heart. Formality in religion will be apt to creep upon you; and that lays the soul open to all temptations in their full power and strength. Satisfaction and delight in creature-comforts, the poison of the soul, will be apt to grow upon you. In such a time be vigilant, be circumspect (attentive and cautious) or you will be surprised. Job says that in his affliction ‘God made his heart soft’ (Job 23:16). There is a hardness, an uncomprehending lack of spiritual sense, gathered in prosperity, that, if not watched against, will expose the heart to the deceits of sin and baits of Satan. ‘Watch and pray’ in this season. Many men’s negligence in it has cost them dear; their woeful experience cries out to take heed. Blessed is he that fears always, but especially in a time of prosperity.”
--John Owen (1616-1683) and his classic book Of Temptation: The Nature and Power of It