Proverbs 1 and 9 · Passage · The Fear of the Lord
The Beginning of Wisdom
Proverbs 1:7 and Proverbs 9:10 are the two verses in which Proverbs calls the fear of the LORD a beginning.
John Gill wrote of the motto of Proverbs, “Here properly the book begins, and this is the first of the proverbs.”
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
- The passage
- Proverbs 1:7, Proverbs 9:10
- Book
- Proverbs
- Hold in memory
- Proverbs 1:7, Proverbs 9:10
Summary
Reverence for God is where a wise life starts, and knowledge and wisdom grow out of it, year by year. The second verse joins this reverence to knowing God as holy, so that awe and the knowledge of God grow together in the one who keeps learning. A person who refuses that beginning stays a fool however much he learns.
- Proverbs 1:7 speaks of knowledge and Proverbs 9:10 of wisdom, in two different settings of the book.
- Job 28:28, Psalm 111:10 and Ecclesiastes 12:13 teach the same truth outside Proverbs.
- The church's teachers have read the beginning as the first step of wisdom or as its chief part.
The Motto of Proverbs
The motto is one Hebrew line of eight words, and its first word is the word for fear.
The fear of the Lord is the value of reverent awe toward God, and these two verses of Proverbs set it at the root of all the book teaches. A reader who wants to grow wise must ask what wisdom rests on, and these verses give the book's own answer.
The question this study answers is what the book means by setting this reverence at the head of all learning. It gives the setting of each verse, its Hebrew, the fools and the Holy One, the same teaching in other books, and the readings of the church's teachers.
for gaining wisdom and discipline, for comprehending words of insight,The prologue opens by naming what the reader will gain from the book.
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.The motto follows the prologue and names the ground of all it promises.
The Teaching in Four Texts
Each text stands with its book and setting, its Berean words and its Hebrew.
Psalm 111:10 shares the motto's Hebrew word for beginning, and Proverbs 15:33 puts the word for correction in its place.
| Text | Book and setting | The Berean words | The Hebrew in that place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Job 28:28 | Job, at the close of the poem that asks where wisdom can be found | “And He said to man, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.’” | The verse calls the fear of the Lord wisdom itself |
| Psalm 111:10 | Psalms, the last line of a psalm that praises the works of the LORD | “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow His precepts gain rich understanding.” | Re'shit, the word of Proverbs 1:7 |
| Proverbs 15:33 | Proverbs, in the sayings that follow the first nine chapters | “The fear of the LORD is the instruction of wisdom, and humility comes before honor.” | Musar, correction |
| Ecclesiastes 12:13 | Ecclesiastes, the conclusion of the Teacher's search | “When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this is the whole duty of man.” | Sof, the end of the matter, with the verb yare in the command |
Wisdom and Folly Call from the Heights
Both voices call from the same heights of the city, and both use the same words to the simple.
Wisdom has built her house, set her table and sent out her maidservants (Proverbs 9:1 to 3). She speaks in her own voice in chapters 8 and 9, and the reading of Proverbs 8 as a word about Christ is taught in Christ Our Wisdom.
Leave your folly behind, and you will live; walk in the way of understanding.”Wisdom's invitation asks the simple to leave folly for life before the verse on the fear of the LORD is spoken.
Sayings on the mocker and the wise man follow her call (Proverbs 9:7 to 9), and then comes the verse on the fear of the LORD. The Hebrew for the Holy One in its second line is qedoshim (H6918), a plural form, which the tagged text glosses holy ones.
But they do not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.The chapter ends by showing where Folly's guests lie, against the life that Wisdom offers in Proverbs 9:11.
The Fool Who Refuses the Beginning
Wisdom's warning in chapter 1 ends with the refusal of the fear of the LORD.
The Hebrew word for the fools in the motto's second line is 'evilim (H191). In her first speech Wisdom asks how long the simple will love their simple ways and fools will hate knowledge (Proverbs 1:22).
For they hated knowledge and chose not to fear the LORD.Here the motto's two words, knowledge and the fear of the LORD, stand together again in what the hearers refused.
Theodoret of Cyrus, in his Commentary on the Psalms, set the motto beside the fool of Psalm 14. He wrote that “To the atheist is the name fool most accurately applied in truth and nature”.
Two Hebrew Words for Beginning
Genesis, Proverbs, Ruth and Hosea show how the two words are used.
Re'shit (H7225) stands 51 times in the Hebrew Bible by the count of the Tyndale House tagged text. The Tyndale House brief lexicon glosses it “the first, in place, time, order or rank (specifically, a firstfruit)”.
It opens the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Proverbs uses it of the firstfruits: “Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your harvest” (Proverbs 3:9).
Techillah (H8462), the word at Proverbs 9:10, is glossed “a commencement”. It marks the start of the barley harvest at Ruth 1:22 and the first time the LORD spoke through Hosea at Hosea 1:2.
How This Text Has Been Taught
Three quotations from the third century to the nineteenth read the motto as the root of self-restraint, of turning from sin and of a whole life.
died 215 · Clement of Alexandria
The Stromata Book 7
A third-century reading: self-restraint out of the fear of God is the basis of knowledge.
The quotation1 quotation
“There are things practiced in a vulgar style by some people, such as control over pleasures. For as among the heathen there are those who, from the impossibility of obtaining what one sees and from fear of men, and also for the sake of greater pleasures, abstain from the delights before them, so also, in the case of faith, some practice self-restraint, either out of regard to the promise or from fear of God. [Indeed] such self-restraint is the basis of knowledge, and an approach to something better, and an effort after perfection. For ‘the fear of the Lord,’ it is said, ‘is the beginning of wisdom.’”
Clement of Alexandria · The Stromata Book 7 · on Proverbs 1:7Patristic
died 397 · Ambrose of Milan
The Six Days of Creation
A fourth-century reading: no one renounces sin who does not fear God.
The quotation1 quotation
“It is also the beginning of good discipline, as it is written: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7); for those who fear the Lord turn away from error and direct their ways to the path of virtue. For unless someone fears God, they cannot renounce sin.”
Ambrose of Milan · The Six Days of Creation · on Proverbs 1:7Patristic
1798 to 1870 · Albert Barnes
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
A nineteenth-century reading: the last lesson of Proverbs is the same as its first.
The quotation1 quotation
“The last lesson of the book is the same as the first. The fear of the Lord is the condition of all womanly, as well as of all manly, excellence.”
Albert Barnes · Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869) · on Proverbs 31:30Evangelical
The First Step or the Chief Part
Thomas Aquinas read the word one way, and Matthew Henry, Bonaventure and Adam Clarke read it the other.
Aquinas: the foundation where the builder beginsThomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, second part of the second part, question 19, article 7
Thomas Aquinas asked “Whether fear is the beginning of wisdom?” and answered that a thing may be the beginning of wisdom “as to its essence” or “as to its effect”. He wrote that “the beginning of the art of building is the foundation because that is where the builder begins his work.”
Bede's teaching of two fears, one at the start of wisdom and one at its perfection, is set out among the readings of The Fear of the Lord.
The objection to this reading is Proverbs 4:7, where re'shit opens a verse that the Berean text renders “Wisdom is supreme”.
Henry, Bonaventure and Clarke: the principal partMatthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible; Bonaventure, Collationes de Septem Donis; Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible
Matthew Henry wrote on Proverbs 1:7 that the fear of the Lord “is the principal part of knowledge” and “the head of knowledge.”
Bonaventure taught in the second of his Collationes de Septem Donis that “the fear of the Lord is the extrinsic principle of wisdom and the intrinsic principle and the complement of wisdom.”
Adam Clarke read re'shit in the motto as “the principle, the first moving influence, begotten in a tender conscience by the Spirit of God.”
The objection to this reading is that the parallel verse, Proverbs 9:10, uses techillah.
The Fear That Comes First
The wise life that Proverbs teaches is reverence for the LORD carried into knowledge, speech and conduct.
then you will discern the fear of the LORD and discover the knowledge of God.Wisdom's teaching in chapter 2 promises this fear as the reward of the one who searches for her.
But whoever listens to me will dwell in safety, secure from the fear of evil.”The promise that closes Wisdom's first speech shows what this fear brings to the one who keeps it.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748 to 1763), on Proverbs 1:7.
- Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on the Psalms, on Psalm 14:3.
- Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, book 7.
- Ambrose of Milan, The Six Days of Creation.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832 to 1869), on Proverbs 31:30.
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, second part of the second part, question 19, article 7, translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (1920).
- Bede, Commentary on Proverbs, on Proverbs 1:7.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Proverbs 1:7.
- Bonaventure, Collationes de Septem Donis, collation 2 (1257).
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, on Proverbs 1:7.
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