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Proverbschapter 9

18 verses · BSBProverbs book hub →

Speaks with:Proverbs 7×5Proverbs 9×4Proverbs 23×4Proverbs 8×2Proverbs 13×2Proverbs 1×2

Summary

Chapter summary

Two houses, two feasts. Wisdom hath builded her house, hewn out her seven pillars, mingled her wine: 'Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither… Forsake ye simplicity, and live.' The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom. Opposite her sits the foolish woman, clamorous, calling the same passers-by: 'Stolen waters are sweet': 'but he knoweth not that the dead are there.' Between the two invitations the whole book stands.

Context

Poetry · Solomon, Agur, Lemuel — Proverbs overview

  • A. 1–12 Wisdom Hath Builded Her House and Hewn Her Seven Pillars
  • B. 13–18 The Foolish Woman: Stolen Waters Are Sweet

The outline

  1. A.Wisdom Hath Builded Her House and Hewn Her Seven Pillarsvv. 1 to 12

    Read vv. 1 to 12 →

  2. B.The Foolish Woman: Stolen Waters Are Sweetvv. 13 to 18

    Read vv. 13 to 18 →

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

The beginning of wisdom

Pattern

The wisdom books answer their own question in the same words. Job's poem on wisdom ends where Psalms and Proverbs begin: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Ecclesiastes gathers the chain into its last sentence, Fear God, and keep his commandments.

Four books written across centuries land on one sentence. Wisdom in Scripture does not start with information but with reverence, and the chain shows the canon teaching a single lesson in a single vocabulary.

  1. Job 28:28

    The wisdom poem's last line

    Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.

  2. Psalms 111:10

    The beginning of wisdom

  3. Proverbs 1:7

    The motto of Proverbs

    The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

  4. Proverbs 9:10 you are here

    Restated at the seam of the first collection

  5. Ecclesiastes 12:13

    The conclusion of the whole matter

    Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

The world behind this chapter

Proverbs 9
When
The height of Solomon's reign · c. 970–931 BC
Where
Two houses on the high ground of the same city, each throwing a feast
Who first heard it
The "simple" — young, untaught townspeople who have not yet chosen a direction

The history

Both hostesses do the same three things: build or occupy a house on the high part of town, prepare a table, and send out an invitation to the same passers-by. In a walled city the highest ground held the best houses, and a banquet was announced by servants calling from the street. The chapter is a straight side-by-side comparison of two invitations that sound alike.

Wisdom's preparation is the real work of a feast. She "hath killed her beasts" — meat meant slaughtering that day, since there was no way to keep it — "mingled her wine," which in that world meant blending it with water and often spices to make it fit for a table, and set out bread. Her house has seven hewn pillars, which is stonework, not mud brick: a permanent, expensive building.

Folly prepares nothing. She sits at her door and calls, and what she offers is stolen water and bread eaten in secret. Cistern water and a loaf are the two cheapest things in the house; the only value she can add is that they are somebody else's.

"The dead are there" in the last line uses the word for the shades in the grave. Her guests are already in the underworld and do not know it — the sharpest possible ending for a dinner invitation.

What it meant to them

The first hearers lived in a town where you accepted whichever dinner invitation reached you first. The chapter says the two front doors are on the same street and the difference is not obvious from outside.

In the middle sits the line the whole book has been building toward: the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. Everything before chapter 10 has been the argument; this is the verdict, delivered just before the short proverbs begin.

Sources cited

  • John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
  • Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Proverbs of Solomon

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on Proverbs 9. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

This page draws on Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

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