Proverbschapter 9
18 verses · Solomon and others · 10th to 5th century BC · Wisdom and poetry
Wisdom has built her house; she has carved out her seven pillars.
Introduction
Solomon and others, Wisdom and poetry, Proverbs Overview.
This chapter closes the opening section of Proverbs, which the book's heading gives to Solomon. It speaks to the simple, the young who have not yet chosen a direction. Two women, Wisdom and Folly, each host a meal and each send out an invitation. Listen for the words the two hostesses share, and for what each one sets on her table. Between the two scenes stand a few sayings about teaching the mocker and the wise, and the book's key line returns at their centre. Read it as the last choice set before the reader before the collected proverbs begin.
Context
- Who
- The "simple", young, untaught townspeople who have not yet chosen a direction
- What
- Two portraits set side by side, Wisdom preparing a feast in her well built house and Folly calling from her doorway, with sayings on correction between them.
- Where
- Two houses on the high ground of the same city, each sending an invitation to the people passing in the street.
- 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 place the choice between wisdom and folly before the untaught one last time and to show where each invitation leads.
Historical context
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.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
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.
Significance
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.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
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.
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. The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts printed parashot total 0 and haftarah uses total 0 for Proverbs, and no festival reading.
The corpus joins the chapter to three weekly portions through Bereshit Rabbati. Under the first verse, wisdom's house, it carries Parashat Bereshit 1 and Parashat Vayishlach 30, and under the eighth Parashat Vayechi 59. All three stand in the site's table of portions.
How it is read
Two commentators on this chapter have English in the corpus. Rashi is quoted from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. Malbim is quoted from the Sefaria Community Translation, which Sefaria reports as CC0.
Rashi reads wisdom's house as the world. "With wisdom has the Holy One, blessed be He, built the world" (Rashi on Proverbs 9:1:1). The seven pillars carry two readings, and he gives both. They are the seven days of Creation, or they are the seven books of the Torah. The second reading counts the passage on the ark setting out, at Numbers 10:35, as a book of its own, as tractate Shabbat 116a states (Rashi on Proverbs 9:1:2). Her table holds all creations, liquid and solid (Rashi on Proverbs 9:2:2).
On the maidens wisdom sends out, the two commentators give two readings. Rashi says in two words that they are Adam and Eve (Rashi on Proverbs 9:3:1). Malbim reads them as the teachers of every generation. He gives the reason. "wisdom does not come to a man from himself, but it is necessary to receive it from wise men and prophets and teachers" (Malbim on Proverbs 9:3:1). The two readings stand side by side in the corpus, and neither is set aside.
The reproof of the scoffer Rashi turns into a rule. It is a blemish to the one who reproves, since the scoffer berates him and does not listen. "This is a warning that it is forbidden to talk with those who entice to worship idols, even to reprove them and to draw them near" (Rashi on Proverbs 9:7:1). The wise man who grows wiser he reads as the worthy pupil, and he gives the Midrash Aggadah from Tanchuma, Vayakhel 6, on Noah and the clean animals (Rashi on Proverbs 9:9:1). The years of life added are years of sustenance and wealth (Rashi on Proverbs 9:11:1). On the stolen water of the seventeenth verse he notes that other editions of his text read sectarianism where this one reads commandments (Rashi on Proverbs 9:17:1).
The corpus carries eight 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 9:4:1, 9:5:1, 9:8:1, 9:12:1, 9:13:1, 9:14:1, 9:15:1 and 9:18:1.
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 first verse it holds Chagigah 12b:3 with the two passages of Bereshit Rabbati named above. On the second it holds Avodah Zarah 58b:4, Avot DeRabbi Natan 2:7 and Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 4:21. On the third it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 12:4, and on the fourth Bereshit Rabbah 54:1, Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 41:1:2 and Sanhedrin 38a:17.
The feast and the scoffer draw the next run. On the fifth verse the corpus holds Aggadat Bereshit 40:1 with Bamidbar Rabbah 13:1 and 13:15. On the seventh it holds Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 15 and Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Rabbah 18:10. On the eighth it holds Arakhin 16b:7 and Bereshit Rabbah 54:3. On the ninth it holds Bava Kamma 113a:11 with Ein Yaakov and the Glick Edition, both at Shabbat 15:2. On the tenth it holds Midrash Mishlei 9:2, and on the eleventh Devarim Rabbah 8:2, Midrash Mishlei 31:5 and Midrash Tehillim 119:26.
The foolish woman carries the rest. On the twelfth verse the corpus holds Aggadat Bereshit 2:1 and Avodah Zarah 18b:12. On the thirteenth it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 9:12 and 11:1, and on the fourteenth Avodah Zarah 19a:11 and Sanhedrin 38a:16. On the seventeenth, the stolen water, it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 9:31 and Ein Yaakov, Nedarim 11:4, and on the eighteenth Bamidbar Rabbah 10:2 and Bava Batra 79a:3. 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 9:1:1 to 9:17:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Malbim, Malbim on Proverbs 9:3:1, Sefaria Community Translation, reported CC0; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Proverbs 9:4:1, 9:5:1, 9:8:1, 9:12:1, 9:13:1, 9:14:1, 9:15:1 and 9:18:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/proverbs/9.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, printing no portion, no Haftarah and no festival reading for this book, with Bereshit, Vayishlach and Vayechi in its PARASHOT table.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Wisdom Hath Builded Her House and Hewn Her Seven Pillars
Proverbs 9:1-6
Wisdom has built her house: Wisdom “has built her house; she has carved out her seven pillars,” and seven is the book's figure of completeness. The words “Leave your folly behind, and you will live” name the cost before the gift, an exchange the guest must make to sit down.
Proverbs 9:1
“Wisdom hath builded her house,.... Or "Wisdoms": of which see Pro 1:20; Christ, the Wisdom of God, is meant, in whom and from whom all wisdom is. Various are the opinions concerning this house built by him. Some take it to be the whole circle of sciences, and the seven pillars to be the seven liberal ones, as Aben Ezra; though rather, as others, it may design the schools of the prophets, in which young men were trained up in the knowledge of divine and spiritual things.”
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Proverbs 9:1
“A parable full of beauty, and interesting in its parallelism to the parables of our Lord Mat 22:3-4; Luk 14:16. Seven pillars - The number is chosen as indicating completeness and perfection. God revealing Himself in nature, resting in His work, entering into covenant with human beings - these were the ideas conveyed by it.”
Proverbs 9:1
“The church is Wisdom's house, to which she invites her guests, supported by the power and promise of God, as by seven pillars. Probably, Solomon refers to the temple which he himself had lately built for the service of religion, and to which he would persuade people to resort, both to worship God and to receive the instructions of Wisdom.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
mixed her wine: Gill renders she has prepared her meat as she has killed her sacrifice, and he reads it as a figure of the death of Christ. The adulteress of 7:14 also set a table of peace offerings. Wisdom's table leads to life.
Proverbs 9:2
“She hath killed her beasts,.... Or, "her sacrifice" (d): a crucified Christ, the principal of the provisions in Wisdom's house, or the church of Christ. The death of Christ was prefigured by the slaying of beasts for sacrifice under the old law; was foretold in prophecy, and is expressed by "killing" him in the New Testament; and which shows his death not to be natural, but violent.”
She has sent out her maidservants: Barnes notes Wisdom and Folly call from the same heights of the city to the same people, the simple standing where the two paths part. Wisdom sends maidservants out, and Folly in verse 14 sits at her own door. The simple hear both.
Proverbs 9:3
“Wisdom and the “foolish woman” Pro 9:13 speak from the same places and to the same class - the simple, undecided, wavering, standing at the diverging point of the two paths that lead to life or death.”
she says to him who lacks judgment: Clarke notes that lacks judgment reads literally wants a heart, a man feeble, fickle and easily drawn aside. The young man of 7:7 was described with these words. Wisdom calls him first.
Proverbs 9:4
“Our Saviour came, not to call the righteous, but sinners, not the wise in their own eyes, who say they see ( John ix. 41 ), but the simple, those who are sensible of their simplicity and ashamed of it, and him that is willing to become a fool, that he may be wise, 1 Cor. iii. (2.) What the invitation is. [1.] We are invited to Wisdom's house: Turn in hither.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 9:4
“Whoso is simple - Let the young, heedless, and giddy attend to my teaching. Him that wanteth understanding - Literally, he that wanteth a heart; who is without couraye, is feeble and fickle, and easily drawn aside from the holy commandment.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ambrose heard this invitation in the church's song and set it beside Song of Solomon 5:1, where friends are told to eat and drink. Isaiah 55:1 calls the thirsty to buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Wisdom's bread and wine are free.
Proverbs 9:5
“But do you want to eat, do you want to drink? Come to the banquet of wisdom which invites everyone with great preaching, saying: Come and eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mixed for you. Do songs delight and soothe the feasting? Listen to the exhorter, listen to the Church singing, not only in songs, but also in the Song of Songs: Eat, my friends, and drink, and be intoxicated, my dears. But this drunkenness makes the sober; this drunkenness is of grace, not of intoxication. It generates joy, not stumbling.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · On Cain and Abelpatristic
Leave your folly behind, and you will live: The King James reads forsake the foolish, the company, and the Berean reads leave your folly behind, the condition. Barnes pictures the simple standing where the paths to life and death divide. This verse names the turn.
Proverbs 9:6
“Forsake the foolish - For the companion of fools must be a fool. And live - Answer the end for which thou wert born.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 9:6
“Forsake foolishness and live, etc. After offering the feast, he also adds the admonitions of life, so that those whom he refreshed with the mysteries of his incarnation, he may also instruct equally with the words of his teaching.”
Bede · written before 735 · Commentary on Proverbspatristic
Proverbs 9:7-9
He who corrects a mocker brings shame on himself: Between the two tables the chapter pauses for a rule about correction. The same words land as insult in one hearer and as gift in another. “Instruct a wise man, and he will be wiser still” turns the rule into a test a reader can apply to himself.
Proverbs 9:7
“Wisdom not only supplies right but forbids wrong principles. 7, 8. shame--(Compare Pr 3:35). a blot--or, "stain on character." Both terms denote the evil done by others to one whose faithfulness secures a wise man's love.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 9:7
“These verses seem somewhat to interrupt the continuity of the invitation which Wisdom utters. The order of thought is, however, this: “I speak to you, the simple, the open ones, for you have yet ears to hear: but from the scorner or evil doer, as such, I turn away.” The words are illustrated by Mat 13:11 ff.”
rebuke a wise man, and he will love you: Gill cites Amos 5:10, where men hate the one who reproves at the city gate. The wise man hears the same rebuke and loves the one who gave it. Proverbs 27:6 calls the wounds of a friend faithful.
Proverbs 9:8
“Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee,.... For wicked men are apt to hate those that publicly rebuke them, Amo 5:10. Hence minister's of the word are of all men most hated; though this also should be bore with, could it be thought, or there was any reason to believe, that the reproof would be of any service.”
Instruct a wise man: The Hebrew has only the verb give, and Henry fills in advice, reproof or comfort, any of which makes the wise man wiser still. The Greek reads give him occasion. Learning grows by use.
Proverbs 9:9
“Give to a wise man (so it is in the original), give him advice, give him reproof, give him comfort, and he will be yet wiser; give him occasion (so the LXX.), occasion to show his wisdom, and he will show it, and the acts of wisdom will strengthen the habits. The instructions she gives to those that are invited, which her maidens must inculcate upon them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 9:9
“Give instruction to a wise man,.... In the Hebrew text it is only "give to a wise man"; give him reproof, correction, chastisement, doctrine, or instruction, be it what it will, he will be the better for it.”
Proverbs 9:10-12
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: The book's motto returns at the seam between its two great sections, restating 1:7 almost word for word and marking this chapter as a hinge. Its second line pairs fear with “knowledge of the Holy One,” so wisdom never stands apart from the Lord it begins in.
Proverbs 9:10
“The fear of the Lord - See on Pro 1:7 (note). The knowledge of the holy; קדשים kedoshim, of the holy ones: Sanctorum, of the saints - Vulgate. boulh agiwn, the counsel of the holy persons.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 9:10
“Discipline is an index to doctrine. [The heretics] say that God is not to be feared. So everything is free to them and unrestrained. But where is God not feared, except where he is not present? Where God is not present, there is no truth either; and where there is no truth, discipline like theirs is natural. But where God is present, there is the fear of God, there are decent seriousness, vigilant care and anxious solicitude, well-tested selection, well-weighed communion and deserved promotion, religious obedience, devoted service, modest appearance, a united church, and all things godly.”
Tertullian · written before 220 · Prescriptions Against Heretics 43patristic
your days will be multiplied: Clarke notes that three ancient versions add a long passage here on the man who trusts in falsehood and feeds on the wind. Verse 6 promised life to those who leave folly, and this verse measures it in days and years. Her guests live long.
Proverbs 9:11
For by me thy days shall be multiplied - Vice shortens human life, by a necessity of consequence: and by the same, righteousness lengthens it. There is a long addition here in the Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate: “He who trusts in falsity feeds on the winds; and is like him who chases the fowls of heaven. He forsakes the way of his own vineyard, and errs from the paths of his own inheritance. He enters also into lonely and desert places, and into a land abandoned to thirst; and his hands collect that which yieldeth no fruit.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
you alone will bear the consequences: Hippolytus warns that a wise man must be useful to many, or his wisdom stands condemned. The one who scoffs is like poison, harmful only to the body that takes it. The mocker of verse 7 bears his own consequences.
Proverbs 9:12
“Observe that the wise man must be useful to many; so that he who is useful only to himself cannot be wise. For great is the condemnation of wisdom if she reserves her power simply for the one possessing her. But as poison is not injurious to another body, but only to that one which takes it, so also the man who turns out wicked will injure himself, and not another. For no man of real virtue is injured by a wicked man.”
Hippolytus of Rome · written before 235 · Hippolytus Exegetical Fragmentspatristic
The Foolish Woman: Stolen Waters Are Sweet
Proverbs 9:13-18
The woman named Folly is loud: Folly mirrors Wisdom's table, calling the same passersby with the same line, “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here”. The narrator adds what the guest cannot see, “that her guests are in the depths of Sheol,” closing the first nine chapters on the choice.
Proverbs 9:13
“A foolish woman is clamorous,.... Some by this woman understand folly itself, as opposed to wisdom; others blind reason, ignorant of divine things; others carnal sensual pleasure, which entices and draws men to that which is evil; others heresy and superstition; others the old serpent, the devil; she seems to be the same with the strange woman and harlot before described, Pro 2:16, &c. and being set in direct opposition to Wisdom, or Christ, seems to design antichrist, who is described in the book of the Revelation as the great whore; and all the characters here agree with the same.”
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 9:13
“The picture of the harlot as the representative of the sensual life, the Folly between which and Wisdom the young man has to make his choice (Pro 9:3 note). “Simple,” in the worst sense, as open to all forms of evil. “Knoweth nothing,” ignorant with the ignorance which is willful and reckless.”
on a seat in the heights of the city: Henry hears in her the voice of rank, offering the young the liberties of people of standing. Her seat in the heights of the city is the place Wisdom called from in verse 3. Folly sits at the door of her house while Wisdom works.
Proverbs 9:14
“For she sitteth at the door of her house - Her conduct here marks at once her folly, impudence, and poverty. See above on Pro 7:6 (note), etc., where the reader will find a similar character.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 9:14
"Do not all persons of rank and figure in the world" (says she) "give themselves a greater liberty than the strict laws of virtue allow; and why shouldst thou humble thyself so far as to be cramped by them?" Thus the tempter affects to seem both kind and great. Who are the tempted--young people who have been well educated; these she will triumph most in being the ruin of.
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
who make their paths straight: Folly calls to those who pass by on straight paths, travelers with no plan to turn in. The young man of 7:8 walked to the adulteress's door. Henry saw the same plot on the stage of his day, where the well-raised young man is made the fool.
Proverbs 9:15
“This is the method of the stage (which is too close an exposition of this paragraph), where the sober young man, that has been virtuously educated, is the fool in the play, and the plot is to make him seven times more a child of hell than his profane companions, under colour of polishing and refining him, and setting him up for a wit and a beau.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Clarke pictures Folly setting up her school next door to Wisdom's to defeat its work. The simple man who turns in to Wisdom loses his folly, and the one who turns in to Folly finds his darkness thickened. The words are the same.
Proverbs 9:16
“Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither - Folly or pleasure here personified, uses the very same expressions as employed by Wisdom, Pro 9:4. Wisdom says, “Let the simple turn in to me.” No, says Folly, “Let the simple turn in to me.” If he turn in to Wisdom, his folly shall be taken away and he shall become wise; if he turn in to Foliy, his darkness will be thickened, and his folly will remain. Wisdom sets up her school to instruct the ignorant: Folly sets her school up next door, to defeat the designs of Wisdom.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Gill notes that wells were private property in that hot country, and stolen water from another man's well tasted sweet for being stolen. Bread eaten in secret is the same pleasure. Proverbs 5:15 told the son to drink from his own cistern.
Proverbs 9:17
“Stolen waters are sweet,.... Wells and fountains of waters in those hot countries were very valuable, and were the property of particular persons; about which there were sometimes great strife and contention; and they were sometimes sealed and kept from the use of others; see Gen 26:18; now waters got by stealth from such wells and fountains were sweeter than their own, or what might be had in common and without difficulty, to which the proverb alludes.”
2 more voices on this verse
Proverbs 9:17
"The foolish and bold woman comes to want bread." What bread? Surely that bread which comes down from heaven. And he immediately adds, "The earth-born perish in her house, rush into the depths of hell." Who are the earth-born that perish in her house? They of course who follow the first Adam, who is of the earth, and not the second, who is from heaven.
Jerome · written before 420 · Against Jovinianus 1.28patristic
Proverbs 9:17
“The besetting sin of all times and countries, the one great proof of the inherent corruption of man’s nature. Pleasures are attractive because they are forbidden (compare Rom 7:7).”
her guests are in the depths of Sheol: Clarke notes that the word for the dead is rephaim, the word behind departed spirits at Proverbs 2:18. Wisdom's guests live, as verse 6 promised. Folly's house is a tomb with a table.
Proverbs 9:18
“But he knoweth not that the dead are there - See on Pro 2:18 (note). He does not know that it was in this way the first apostates from God and truth walked. רפאים rephaim; gigantev, the Giants - Septuagint. The sons of men, the earth-born, to distinguish them from the sons of God, those who were born from above.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Proverbs 9:18
“He that so far wants understanding as to be drawn aside by these enticements is led on, ignorantly, to his own inevitable ruin: He knows not, will not believe, does not consider, the tempter will not let him know, that the dead are there, that those who live in pleasure are dead while they live, dead in trespasses and sins.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
How this psalm is built
The patterns in this chapter
Two hostesses and one invitation
1 more paragraph on the patterns
The chapter has three parts. Verses 1 to 6 describe Wisdom's house and meal, verses 7 to 12 give sayings on teaching the mocker and the wise, and verses 13 to 18 describe Folly at her door. Verse 4 and verse 16 carry the same words in the Berean text, the call to the simple to turn in and the line spoken to him who lacks judgment. The two women call from the heights of the city in verses 3 and 14. What differs is the meal and its end, bread and mixed wine leading to life in verse 6, stolen water and secret bread leading to Sheol in verse 18. The fear of the LORD stands at verse 10, in the middle part. These counts are taken from the Berean text of the chapter in the store.
Keep studying
Studies5
Words12
Subjects1
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); Ambrose of Milan, On Cain and Abel; Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Proverbs of Solomon; Hippolytus of Rome, Hippolytus Exegetical Fragments; John Gill and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.