Verses 1-22

The Search for Wisdom

1-4. The condition which must be fulfilled. Spinoza said, 'The effort to understand is the first and sole basis of virtue.'

1. Hide] i.e. as a treasure.

2. The heart in OT. is the seat of the intellect.

4. Wealth was hoarded in the shape of gold and jewels. In times of peril this was buried (Genesis 43:23; Job 3:21; Jeremiah 41:8; Matthew 13:44). Hence the suspicion with which Orientals have often regarded modern explorers.

5-8. The result. It brings us into relation with Him who is the only source of wisdom and safety.

7. Sound wisdom] read, 'deliverances.'

8. His saints] read, 'His pious' or 'loving ones'; those who love and are beloved by Him (Psalms 12:1; Psalms 30:4; Psalms 31:23).

9-19. A further result. It saves from the seductions of bad men and women.

10. When] RV 'for.' It becomes part of his very mind.

16-18. The stress laid in these chapters on sensual vice proves that the evil was a flagrant one. The population was drawn to the great towns where such temptations are common. The strange woman (Proverbs 22:14) was not a foreigner but an adulteress or harlot, to whom the man was not related. In later ages Jewish pride entitled such a person 'an Aramæan,' as though no Jewess would stoop so low.

17. The 'friend of her youth' (RV) is her husband (Jeremiah 3:2-5). The covenant of her God] Though there was perhaps no religious ceremony, the marriage relation was a religious one (Exodus 20:14; Malachi 2:14).

18. Read,

'For her house leads down unto Death,

And her paths unto the Shades.'

She and her guests are on their way to that under-world which is tenanted by the Shades, the disembodied, shadow-like, hopeless dead (Proverbs 9:18). The ancient idea of a future existence, not worthy of the name of existence, prevails all through this book.