Proverbschapter 1
33 verses · Solomon and others · 10th to 5th century BC · Wisdom and poetry
These are the proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel,
Introduction
Solomon and others, Wisdom and poetry, Proverbs Overview.
Proverbs was gathered for the young men of Israel, and its heading gives the book to Solomon, the king whose wisdom the historical books record. In the ancient world a father taught his son out loud, in short lines a boy could carry in his head, and this book takes up that form. This chapter is the front door. It states what the book is for and names the one ground every lesson stands on. Listen for the two voices that call to the same young man in the street, and notice which one speaks in public. Read it as the key to the thirty chapters after it.
Context
- Who
- Young men being trained for responsibility, a king's sons, court officials, and any son under his father's roof
- What
- The book's statement of its purpose and its first principle, followed by a father's warning against a violent gang and Wisdom's own call in the streets.
- Where
- Jerusalem, in a household where a father teaches his son, and in the streets, squares and gates of the city where Wisdom calls.
- When
- The reign of Solomon, about 970 to 931 BC, by the heading at Proverbs 1:1; the book reached its final form later, since Proverbs 25:1 names the men of Hezekiah as copyists.
- Why
- To show a young man what wisdom is for and to set the fear of the LORD at the head of all learning before any single lesson is given.
Historical context
Teaching in the ancient world came father to son, out loud, in short lines a boy could carry in his head. Egypt produced whole books of it, the Instruction of Ptahhotep, the Instruction of Amenemope, and Babylon had its own counsels of wisdom. Proverbs opens in that recognized form, which is why the phrase "my son" runs through the first nine chapters like a heartbeat.
Show the rest of the historical context, 2 more paragraphs
The gate is the other classroom. An Israelite city gate was not a doorway but a building: a passage with benches and side chambers where elders heard cases, contracts were witnessed, grain changed hands, and news travelled. Excavated gates at Dan, Megiddo, and Gezer still show the stone benches. When Wisdom "cries in the chief place of concourse," she is standing in the courthouse and the marketplace at once, shouting over the traffic.
The ambush described here was a live danger, not a thought experiment. Roads between towns ran through wadis and rocky passes with good cover, travellers carried their money on them, and bands of armed men worked those stretches. The invitation "cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse" is a recruiting pitch to a bored teenage boy with no money.
Significance
The first hearers were being handed a map of two voices working the same street. One gang offers instant money and belonging. One woman offers understanding and offers it free, in public, to anyone who will stop walking.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
And the book plants its flag in the opening lines: the fear of the LORD is where knowledge starts. To a young man in Solomon's Jerusalem, a city suddenly rich, full of foreign trade and new opportunity, that was the claim that everything else in the book would hang on.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
No part of this chapter is read in the synagogue year. Probed for this lane, the site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts printed parashot total 0 and haftarah uses total 0 for Proverbs, with no festival reading. The same table holds 54 weekly portions and 6 festival readings. A congregation does not hear this book read aloud on a Sabbath.
The book is met in study instead, and the corpus shows two doors. The first is Midrash Mishlei, the midrash the corpus anchors to this book, which it cites on this chapter at 1:1, 1:2, 1:4, 1:7 and 1:9. The second is the weekly portion, and here the corpus carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bechukotai 4:2 under the twenty-first verse. Bechukotai stands in the site's table of the fifty-four portions.
How it is read
Rashi is the commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. His first note gives the key to the whole book. "All his words are illustrations and allegories. He compared the Torah to a good woman, and he compared idolatry to a harlot" (Rashi on Proverbs 1:1:1). A reader who meets the two women of the opening chapters meets them first in this note.
He then says how the figures are to be read. A reader should follow two methods at once, the allegory and the figure, and should not neglect the figure itself. When the book warns against a strange woman, Rashi says idolatry is meant, and the warning against a real harlot stands with it (Rashi on Proverbs 1:6:1). The seventh verse is the turn. "Until here, he explained for what purpose Solomon composed this book, and now the book commences" (Rashi on Proverbs 1:7:1).
The father's discipline in the eighth verse he reads as the Law itself: "What the Holy One, blessed be He, gave Moses in writing and orally" (Rashi on Proverbs 1:8:1). The written and the oral Torah are named together in one line. The purpose of the proverbs is that the people toil in the Torah, which is wisdom, discipline and understanding (Rashi on Proverbs 1:2:1). The three words of the third verse he divides as charity from one's money, honest judgment and compromise (Rashi on Proverbs 1:3:1).
Wisdom crying in the street he sets in a place a Jewish reader knows. "Now what are her streets? The study halls" (Rashi on Proverbs 1:20:1). The naive ones she calls to are "Those who are enticed by enticers and sectarians" (Rashi on Proverbs 1:22:1). The gang of sinners in the middle of the chapter he reads plainly. The net spread in sight of the bird is the fowl seeing grain on the net and going down to eat, not knowing why it was spread (Rashi on Proverbs 1:17:1). The robber becomes the owner of his own death, since the stolen money takes the life of the man who now holds it (Rashi on Proverbs 1:19:1).
The corpus carries three further notes on this chapter without an English text, each marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. They stand cited and unquoted at Ibn Ezra on Proverbs 1:13:1 and 1:23:1, and at Metzudat David on Proverbs 1:15:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited here rather than quoted. On the title verse it holds Midrash Mishlei 1:1 and Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:1:10. On the second it holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Bachodesh 10:10, and on the third Avodah Zarah 19a:18 and 19b:3. On the fifth and the sixth it holds Bereshit Rabbah 31:8 and 44:6, with the Jerusalem Talmud at Kilayim 8:1:6 and Demai 7:6:7.
The father's instruction draws the Talmud. On the eighth verse the corpus holds Berakhot 35b:2 and Chullin 93b:3, and on the ninth Bamidbar Rabbah 11:6 and Bava Batra 75a:7. On the tenth it holds Aggadat Bereshit 25:2 and Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 20:14. On the fourteenth it holds Esther Rabbah 5:1 and Jerusalem Talmud Horayot 3:5:11, and on the nineteenth Bava Kamma 119a:10.
Wisdom's call carries the rest. On the twentieth verse it holds Berakhot 57a:10, on the twenty-second Jerusalem Talmud Taanit 3:10:4, and on the twenty-fifth Bamidbar Rabbah 16:24. On the twenty-sixth it holds Midrash Tehillim 2:6, on the thirty-first Avot DeRabbi Natan 40:2, and on the thirty-third Devarim Rabbah 4:5. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Proverbs 1:1:1 to 1:24:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Proverbs 1:13:1 and 1:23:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Proverbs 1:15:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/proverbs/1.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this book and printing parashot total 0 and haftarah uses total 0, with the portion Bechukotai in its PARASHOT table.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Why the Proverbs Were Written: and the Beginning of Knowledge
Proverbs 1:1-4
the proverbs of Solomon son of David: The book opens with a heading that names its author, his descent from David, and his office as “king of Israel”. Headings of the same kind return at 10:1, 22:17, 24:23, 25:1, 30:1 and 31:1, the book's record of how the collection was gathered across generations.
Proverbs 1:1
“The long exhortation Proverbs 1–9, characterized by the frequent recurrence of the words “my son,” is of the nature of a preface to the collection of the “Proverbs of Solomon” Pro 10:1. On Pro 1:1-7, see the introduction to Proverbs.”
for gaining wisdom and discipline: Discipline translates a Hebrew word for training by correction, the schooling a father gives a son. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown read each for as the book's stated design, first wisdom gained and then words of insight understood. Both are learned.
instruction in wise living: The word behind wise living differs from the wisdom of verse 2, and Albert Barnes renders it thoughtfulness. Righteousness, justice and equity then carry the learning into dealings with other people. Equity is plural in the Hebrew, many forms of one principle.
Proverbs 1:3
“Wisdom - Not the same word as in Pro 1:2; better, perhaps, thoughtfulness. Justice - Rather, righteousness. The word in the Hebrew includes the ideas of truth and beneficence as well as “justice.” Judgment - The teaching of the Proverbs is to lead us to pass a right sentence upon human actions, whether our own or another’s. Equity - In the Hebrew (see the margin) the plural is used, and expresses the many varying forms and phases of the one pervading principle.”
To impart prudence to the simple: Adam Clarke traces the word simple to a Latin root meaning without a fold, a plain person with nothing hidden. The simple are easily led, and the young with them. Prudence and discretion let them see the net before the path leads into it.
Proverbs 1:4
“To give subtilty to the simple - The word simple, from simplex, compounded of sine, without, and plica, a fold, properly signifies plain and honest, one that has no by-ends in view, who is what he appears to be; and is opposed to complex, from complico, to fold together, to make one rope or cord out of many strands; but because honesty and plaindealing are so rare in the world, and none but the truly religious man will practice them, farther than the fear of the law obliges him, hence simple has sunk into a state of progressive deterioration.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Proverbs 1:5-6
let the wise listen and gain instruction: Verse 5 turns from the simple of verse 4 to those already wise, since in this book even the wise keep adding to their wisdom. Understanding a proverb is a double task, the terse saying and the working out of what it means in a life.
Proverbs 1:5
“But it is not for the young only that he writes. The “man of understanding” may gain “wise counsels,” literally, the power to “steer” his course rightly on the dangerous seas of life. This “steersmanship,” it may be noted, is a word almost unique to Proverbs (compare “counsel” in Pro 11:14; Pro 12:5; Pro 24:6).”
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 1:5
“A wise man will hear,.... With great attention, and hearken to the proverbs and wise sayings herein delivered; for here are many things entertaining to men of years and wisdom, as well as instructive to young men and simple ones; and will increase learning; or "add" (k) to his stock of learning; or, as the Targum, "will add knowledge;'' see 2Pe 1:5; or, "will be wiser", as the Vulgate Latin version.”
the sayings and riddles of the wise: The word for riddles is used of Samson's riddle at Judges 14:12 and of the questions the queen of Sheba brought at 1 Kings 10:1. Adam Clarke likens such sayings to the parables Jesus told. Their meaning has to be worked for.
Proverbs 1:6
“Dark sayings - חידת chidoth, enigmas or riddles, in which the Asiatics abounded. I believe parables, such as those delivered by our Lord, nearly express the meaning of the original.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” sets the book's motto. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” at 9:10 closes the first collection, framing all between. The second half, “fools despise wisdom and discipline,” makes the fool's fault a moral refusal.
Proverbs 1:7
“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 · written before 397 · The Six Days of Creationpatristic
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 1:7
“The beginning of wisdom is found in the temper of reverence and awe. The fear of the finite in the presence of the Infinite, of the sinful in the presence of the Holy (compare Job 42:5-6), this for the Israelite was the starting-point of all true wisdom. In the Book of Job 28:28 it appears as an oracle accompanied by the noblest poetry. In Psa 111:10 it comes as the choral close of a temple hymn. Here it is the watchword of a true ethical education. This fear has no torment, and is compatible with child-like love.”
My Son, If Sinners Entice Thee, Consent Thou Not
Proverbs 1:8-9
Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction: “Listen, my son” opens the appeal that runs through the first nine chapters. It binds the teaching of both parents, naming “the teaching of your mother” beside the father's instruction. The words “a garland of grace on your head and a pendant around your neck” picture wisdom as adornment.
Proverbs 1:8
“My son, hear - Father was the title of preceptor, and son, that of disciple or scholar, among the Jews. But here the reference appears to be to the children of a family; the father and the mother have the principal charge, in the first instance, of their children’s instruction. It is supposed that these parents have, themselves, the fear of the Lord, and that they are capable of giving the best counsel to their children, and that they set before them a strict example of all godly living.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
a garland of grace on your head: Albert Barnes notes that a garland on the head and a gold chain on the neck marked the favor of a king. Pharaoh set such a chain on Joseph at Genesis 41:42. A father's instruction and a mother's teaching are worn with the same honor.
Proverbs 1:9
“To the Israelite’s mind no signs or badges of joy or glory were higher in worth than the garland around the head, the gold chain around the neck, worn by kings and the favorites of kings Gen 41:42; Dan 5:29.”
Proverbs 1:10-14
My son, if sinners entice you: “My son, if sinners entice you, do not yield to them” opens the first voice the father warns against. The offer has the pattern, invitation, belonging and hidden cost: “share one purse,” the con of every gang, that shared spoil buys shared guilt. The father's strategy is refusal before argument.
Proverbs 1:10
“Wherefore by Solomon He commands the children to beware: "My son, let not sinners deceive thee, and go not after their ways; and go not, if they entice thee, saying, Come with us, share with us in innocent blood, and let us hide unjustly the righteous man in the earth; let us put him out of sight, all alive as he is into Hades." This is accordingly likewise a prediction concerning the Lord's passion.”
Clement of Alexandria · written before 215 · The Instructor Book 1patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Proverbs 1:10
“If sinners entice thee, consent thou not - אל תבא al tobe, Will-not. They can do thee no harm unless thy will join in with them. God’s eternal purpose with respect to man is that his will shall be free; or, rather, that the will, which is essentially Free, shall never be forced nor be forceable by any power. Not even the devil himself can lead a man into sin till he consents. Were it not so, how could God judge the world?”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Proverbs 1:10
“A solemn warning against temptation. entice--literally, "open the way." consent . . . not--Sin is in consenting or yielding to temptation, not in being tempted.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
let us lie in wait for blood: The gang means to lie in wait beside the road for travelers and ambush the innocent without cause. Albert Barnes recalls the lawless men who gathered around Jephthah at Judges 11:3, a sign of how old such bands were in Israel. Their aim is blood.
Proverbs 1:11
“The temptation against which the teacher seeks to guard his disciple is that of joining a band of highway robbers. The “vain men” who gathered around Jephthah Jdg 11:3, the lawless or discontented who came to David in Adullam 1Sa 22:2, the bands of robbers who infested every part of the country in the period of the New Testament, and against whom every Roman governor had to wage incessant war, show how deeply rooted the evil was in Palestine. Compare the Psa 10:7, note; Psa 10:10 note.”
swallow them alive like Sheol: Sheol is the grave, pictured as a mouth that takes the living whole. Korah's men went down alive into Sheol at Numbers 16:33. Adam Clarke reads the boast as a plan to destroy a whole village at once and carry off everything in it.
Proverbs 1:12
“Let us swallow them up alive - Give them as hasty a death as if the earth were suddenly to swallow them up. This seems to refer to the destruction of a whole village. Let us destroy man, woman, and child; and then we may seize on and carry away the whole of their property, and the booty will be great.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
we will fill our houses with plunder: The first lure was blood, and this second one is plunder. Albert Barnes names its pull as the robber's life of equal hazards and equal hopes, one share for all. The precious goods that fill their houses come from the houses of the innocent.
Proverbs 1:13
“The second form of temptation (see Pro 1:10 note) appeals to the main attraction of the robber-life, its wild communism, the sense of equal hazards and equal hopes.”
Throw in your lot with us: Throw in your lot pictures the casting of lots to divide the spoil. John Gill reads it as a promise to the newcomer of a full share beside men long in the trade. The offer flatters the young.
Proverbs 1:14
“Cast in thy lot among us,.... Or "thou shall cause thy lot to fall among us" (u); though just entered, as soon as any booty is taken thou shalt cast lots with us, and have thy full share with those that have been longer engaged; let us all have one purse; or "we will all have one purse" (w); will throw all our booty, taken by us into one common stock, and live upon it comfortably and merrily.”
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 1:14
“Cast in thy lot - Be a frater conjuratus, a sworn brother, and thou shalt have an equal share of all the spoil. Common sense must teach us that the words here used are such as must be spoken when a gang of cutthroats, pickpockets, etc., are associated together.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Proverbs 1:15-19
do not walk the road with them: The command “do not walk the road with them or set foot upon their path” uses the road and path language of the whole book. Verse 17 turns the warning on the plotters. Verse 19 closes with the book's verdict that “unjust gain takes the lives of its possessors”.
their feet run to evil: Paul uses the same words at Romans 3:15, drawn chiefly from Isaiah 59:7, in his charge that all have sinned. Gregory of Nazianzus turns the image to baptism, where feet once swift to shed blood are to run to the gospel instead. Feet show where the heart is set.
Proverbs 1:16
“It is good for the … feet … that they be not swift to shed blood or to run to evil, but that they be prompted to run to the gospel and the prize of the high calling, and to receive Christ who washes and cleanses them.”
Gregory of Nazianzus · written before 390 · On Holy Baptism, Oration 40:39patristic
to spread the net where any bird can see it!: Albert Barnes calls this the first proverb in the book, a short likeness drawn from the fowler's trade. He reads it as a bird that sees the net spread in plain view and still flies into it. The gang sees its danger just as plainly.
Proverbs 1:17
“Strictly speaking, this is the first proverb (i. e., similitude) in the book; a proverb which has received a variety of interpretations. The true meaning seems to be as follows: “For in vain, to no purpose, is the net spread out openly. Clear as the warning is, it is in vain. The birds still fly in.”
2 more voices on this verse
Proverbs 1:17
“If then nets are not wrongfully stretched for birds, as it is said in Proverbs, but God justly leads men into the snare, as it is said, "You led us into the snare," and if not even a sparrow, cheapest of birds, falls into the snare without the will of the Father (its fall into the snare being due to its failure to use properly the power of its wings given to it to soar), let us pray to do nothing to deserve being brought into temptation.”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · On Prayer 29:16patristic
Proverbs 1:17
“Men warned ought to escape danger as birds instinctively avoid visibly spread nets. But stupid sinners rush to their own ruin (Ps 9:16), and, greedy of gain, succeed in the very schemes which destroy them (1Ti 6:10), not only failing to catch others, but procuring their own destruction.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
they lie in wait for their own blood: The ambush turns back on the men who set it. John Gill reads the blood of this verse as their own, repaid by justice for the innocent blood they planned to shed in verse 11. Psalm 7:15 tells of the man who falls into the pit he dug.
Proverbs 1:18
“And they lay wait for their own blood,.... While they lie in wait for the blood of others, they lie in wait for their own; and when they shed the blood of innocent persons, it in the issue comes upon their own heads, and is the cause of their own blood being shed; vengeance pursues them, and justice will not suffer them to live; they lurk privily for their own lives: while they are lurking in secret places to take away, the lives of others, they are laying snares for their own souls; and the consequence of it will be,…”
2 more voices on this verse
Proverbs 1:18
“They lay wait for their own blood - I believe it is the innocent who are spoken of here, for whose blood and lives these lay wait and lurk privily; certainly not their own, by any mode of construction.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Proverbs 1:18
“Christ himself is Wisdom, is Wisdoms, for in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and he is the centre of all divine revelation, not only the essential Wisdom, but the eternal Word, by whom God speaks to us and to whom he has committed all judgment; he it is therefore who here both pleads with sinners and passes sentence on them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Such is the fate of all who are greedy: The fate of the gang is the fate of all the greedy. The word for unjust gain comes from a root meaning to cut off, profit taken from another by force. Paul gives the same warning at 1 Timothy 6:10.
Proverbs 1:19
“Which taketh away the life - A covetous man is in effect, and in the sight of God, a murderer; he wishes to get all the gain that can accrue to any or all who are in the same business that he follows - no matter to him how many families starve in consequence.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 1:19
“Not robbery only, but all forms of covetousness are destructive of true life.”
Wisdom Crieth Aloud in the Streets
Proverbs 1:20-21
Wisdom calls out in the street: Wisdom speaks as soon as the sinners have plotted. She “lifts her voice in the square” and speaks “at the city gates,” the city's most public places. They invite privately and specifically, and she calls publicly and to everyone, so no one can later say the offer never reached him.
Proverbs 1:20
“Wisdom crieth - Here wisdom is again personified, as it is frequently, throughout this book; where nothing is meant but the teachings given to man, either by Divine revelation or the voice of the Holy Spirit in the heart. And this voice of wisdom is opposed to the seducing language of the wicked mentioned above. This voice is everywhere heard, in public, in private, in the streets, and in the house. Common sense, universal experience, and the law of justice written on the heart, as well as the law of God, testify against rapine and wrong of every kind.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 1:20
“Others think that wisdom, as the divine attribute specially employed in acts of counsel and admonition, is here personified, and represents God. In either case the address is a most solemn and divine admonition, whose matter and spirit are eminently evangelical and impressive (see on Pr 8:1).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
at the city gates she makes her speech: The city gates were where the elders gave justice and where goods were bought, as Boaz found at Ruth 4:1-2. Wisdom makes her speech where the whole city passes. Adam Clarke hears in her voice the law written on the heart, crying aloud against evil.
Proverbs 1:22-27
Wisdom names three kinds of refusal, “simple ones,” “scoffers” and “fools,” the book's vocabulary for resistance to instruction, from the untaught to the contemptuous. Her answer, “I will mock your calamity,” is the harvest of a chosen path, spoken by the one who warned against it.
Proverbs 1:22
“Compare the Psa 1:1 note. (1) The “simple,” literally, “open,” i. e. fatally open to evil; (2) the “scorners,” mocking at all good; (3) lastly, the “fools” in the sense of being hardened, obstinate, perverse, hating the knowledge they have rejected.”
I would have poured out my spirit on you: Poured out my spirit is the wording Joel 2:28 later uses of the Spirit of God. Albert Barnes hears in it the promise of John 14:26, the Spirit teaching and the words made known together. The gift waited on one condition: to turn at her rebuke.
Proverbs 1:23
For where at all have they found in divine Scripture, or from whom have they heard, that there is another Word and another wisdom besides this Son, that they should frame to themselves such a doctrine? True, indeed, it is written, "Are not my words like fire, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?" and in the Proverbs, "I will make known my words unto you."
Athanasius of Alexandria · written before 373 · Discourses Against the Arians 2.39patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 1:23
“The teaching of Divine Wisdom is essentially the same as that of the Divine Word Joh 7:38-39. “Turning,” repentance and conversion, this is what she calls the simple to. The promise of the Spirit is also like His Joh 14:26. And with the spirit there are to be also the “words” of Wisdom. Not the “spirit” alone, nor “words” alone, but both together, each doing its appointed work - this is the divine instrumentality for the education of such as will receive it.”
no one took my outstretched hand: An outstretched hand calls someone to come near. Adam Clarke takes the ones who refused as the sinners, who would not turn until the hand of justice took hold of them. Isaiah 65:2 gives the same outstretched hands to the LORD.
Proverbs 1:24
“Because I have called - These and the following words appear to be spoken of the persons who are described, Pro 1:11-19, who have refused to return from their evil ways till arrested by the hand of justice; and here the wise man points out their deplorable state. They are now about to suffer according to the demands of the law, for their depredations.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
you neglected all my counsel: Counsel is the plan Wisdom lays out, and correction is the warning that goes with it. Bede applies the verse to the scribes and Pharisees who took away the key of knowledge and neither entered themselves nor let others in. Both were refused together.
Proverbs 1:25
“And neglected my reproofs. Saying, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you have taken the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering (Matthew XXIII). And generally, Whoever does not believe is already judged (John III).”
Bede · written before 735 · Commentary on Proverbspatristic
I will mock your calamity: The mocking answers the scoffers of verse 22 with their own scorn. Psalm 2:4 gives the same mocking to the Lord in heaven. Albert Barnes observes that when the Son speaks of judgment, the tone is sadness and severity.
Proverbs 1:26
“When your fear comes as calamity. Saying to one another, If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation (John XI).”
Bede · written before 735 · Commentary on Proverbspatristic
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 1:26
“Compare the marginal reference. The scorn and derision with which men look on pride and malice, baffled and put to shame, has something that answers to it in the Divine Judgment. It is, however, significant that in the fuller revelation of the mind and will of the Father in the person of the Son no such language meets us. Sadness, sternness, severity, there may be, but, from first to last, no word of mere derision.”
your destruction like a whirlwind: Storm and whirlwind picture a judgment that gathers fast and strikes without warning. Albert Barnes sets beside it the sudden coming Jesus describes at Luke 17:24, like lightning across the sky. Their dread arrives all at once.
Proverbs 1:27
“When sudden calamity comes upon you, etc. He speaks of the sudden siege of Jerusalem, and the destruction of the whole province that was made by the Romans, which the Lord himself predicted in the Gospel, seeing the city and weeping over it (Luke XIX).”
Bede · written before 735 · Commentary on Proverbspatristic
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 1:27
“Desolation - Better, tempest. The rapid gathering of the clouds, the rushing of the mighty winds, are the fittest types of the suddenness with which in the end the judgment of God shall fall on those who look not for it. Compare Mat 24:29 etc.; Luk 17:24.”
Proverbs 1:28-33
Then they will call on me, but I will not answer: “Then they will call on me, but I will not answer” describes a door that does not stay open forever. The line “they will eat the fruit of their own way” states the chapter's logic, consequence as a harvest of their own devices.
Proverbs 1:28
“Now no prayers or most diligent seeking will avail (Pr 8:17). The sinner's infatuated rejection brings his ruin.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 1:28
“This has been the case of some even in this life, as of Saul, whom God answered not by Urim or prophets; but, ordinarily, while there is life there is room for prayer and hope of speeding, and therefore this must refer to the inexorable justice of the last judgment.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
they hated knowledge: The verse gives the cause of the unanswered cry of verse 28. Fearing the LORD, set at verse 7 as the beginning of knowledge, was offered to them and deliberately refused. The ruin comes from their own choice.
Proverbs 1:29
“They hated knowledge - This argues the deepest degree of intellectual and moral depravity.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
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Proverbs 1:29
“The threatenings here will have their full accomplishment in the judgment of the great day and the eternal misery of the impenitent, of which yet there are some earnests in present judgments. [1.] Now sinners are in prosperity and secure; they live at ease, and set sorrow at defiance.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Proverbs 1:29
“This is no arbitrary sentence. The fault was all along their own. The fruit of their own ways is death.”
they despised all my reproof: Scoffers who delight in scorn at verse 22 now despise every reproof Wisdom gives. John Gill finds the Septuagint's word for this despising again at Luke 16:14, where the Pharisees sneered at Jesus. Gill reads the speaker as Christ.
Proverbs 1:30
“They would none of my counsel,.... Neither his doctrines nor his ordinances; nor would they attend to the wholesome counsel and advice he gave them in his sermons upon the mount, and in other discourses of his at other times and places; they despised all my reproof; for their hypocrisy, uncleanness, covetousness, and other sins they were addicted to; see Mat 23:1; but they "derided" him for it, Luk 16:14; where the same word is used as is by the Septuagint here.”
be filled with their own devices: Filled with their own devices pictures a meal eaten until the eater can hold no more. Proverbs 14:14 returns to the image, the backslider having his fill of his own ways. Paul states the same law of harvest at Galatians 6:7.
the complacency of fools will destroy them: Complacency is the ease of fools who feel secure while destruction gathers. Gregory the Dialogist sets the verse beside Paul's counsel at 1 Corinthians 7:31, to use this world as though not using it. Waywardness is the simple turning away from Wisdom's call.
Proverbs 1:32
Hence Solomon says, "The turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them." Hence Paul admonishes, saying, "They that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as though they used it not."
Gregory the Dialogist · written before 604 · The Book of Pastoral Rule, Part 3, Chapter 26patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 1:32
“For the turning away of the simple - This difficult place seems to refer to such a case as we term turning king’s evidence; where an accomplice saves his own life by impeaching the rest of his gang. This is called his turning or repentance, משובה meshubah; and he was the most likely to turn, because he was of the פתים pethayim, seduced or deceived persons.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
will dwell in safety: Adam Clarke renders the Hebrew as inhabiting safety itself, as if safety were the house. The promise closes Wisdom's speech with the listener at rest while the storm of verse 27 falls on others. Psalm 112:7 says the righteous fear no bad news.
Proverbs 1:33
“But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely - The man who hears the voice of wisdom in preference to the enticements of the wicked. He shall dwell in safety, ישכן בטח yishcan betach, he shall inhabit safety itself; he shall be completely safe and secure; and shall be quiet from the fear of evil, having a full consciousness of his own innocence and God’s protection. Coverdale translates, “And have ynough without eney feare of evell.” What the just man has he got honestly; and he has the blessing of God upon it.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The context
Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Bede, Commentary on Proverbs; Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Proverbs of Solomon; Gregory of Nazianzus, ON HOLY BAPTISM, ORATION 40:39; Gregory the Dialogist, The Book of Pastoral Rule, Part 3, Chapter 26; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.