The Message of Proverbs

David J. Atkinson

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 1997
• ISBN:
  9780830883097
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

The book of Proverbs is the most practical book in the Bible. Its instruction in the art of living has been long tried and long proven. Its proverbial seeds of discernment are ready to be planted and rooted in the receptive soil of Wisdom's sons and daughters today. In The Message of Proverbs the ancient voice of Lady Wisdom cries out again. She summons us to the life skills of godliness and helps us say no to the foolish and destructive enticements that inhabit the malls, campuses, housing divisions and office buildings of the postmodern world. But as much as we glean from the surface of Proverbs, there remains still more in its depths. David Atkinson's commentary wonderfully illumines the ancient cultural and religious background of the discourses and sayings of Proverbs. Wisdom's values are brought into sharp relief. More important, Atkinson brings the wisdom of Proverbs into conversation with the wisdom of God now more fully displayed in Christ. In this way the place of Proverbs in the pattern of God's Word is clearly accented.

Part 1

Wisdom’s portrait (1:1 – 9:18)

The first nine chapters of the book of Proverbs provide us with various sketches of Wisdom. We will examine these in the following pages. Wisdom is no abstract concept; wisdom is personified: she is described as a woman. In some places she is depicted by just a line drawing, one or two of her features emphasized for a particular purpose. In others, we are given a richly coloured, almost three-dimensional portrait. Taken together, these sketches introduce us to a woman who speaks the wisdom of God, and who points the way of life.

This personification of Wisdom is not a (mere) literary device; it reflects the essential nature of biblical wisdom. Wisdom is embodied. Wisdom is for living. In fact, nothing is truly known until it is lived out in the everyday world.

It is not until Proverbs 8 that Wisdom’s full beauty is described. But throughout the earlier chapters, details of her portrait are being filled in, rather like earlier sketches of a great Renaissance painter. In some art galleries you can see the ‘cartoons’ – preliminary sketches – of the great works of art, in which the artist has concentrated on one detail or another which will eventually contribute to the finished portrait. Proverbs 1–7 gives us a number of preliminary sketches of Wisdom, before her full-colour portrait appears in chapter 8.

These earlier sketches emphasize different aspects of Wisdom’s role. Professor Robert Coughenour has drawn together a number of different wisdom themes from the Scriptures, many of which we find illustrated in the first nine chapters of Proverbs. The following paragraphs draw on and adapt his work.1 We will select, in this chapter, those sections of Proverbs 1 – 9 which fill out Wisdom’s portrait, returning to the remaining sections of Proverbs 1 – 9 in our next chapter.

The town crier (1:20–33)

First of all, Wisdom is a sort of town crier, calling aloud at the street corner, making an appeal in the public squares. This is not the ridiculous figure with the billboard so much as the experienced orator at Speakers’ Corner, calling to the crowds to take stock of their foolish ways before it is too late. This is, in fact, far more ordinary than Speakers’ Corner. In Old Testament social life, we often find that the gateways of the city (1:21) are the places where the elders of the city gather to make plans, to enact justice, and to deliberate together about the welfare of the city. In the book of Ruth, it is at the gate that Boaz transacts his business (Ru. 4:1). In the book of Amos (cf. 5:15), the leaders are admonished because they have failed to enact justice at the gate. It is here at the city gate that Wisdom issues her call. Wisdom belongs at the centre of public life. She is a brave, passionate woman, with something very serious to say. Hers is a summons to the people to understand. Wisdom reproves those who will not listen, laughs at those who ignore her advice, but offers safety and security to those who heed her call.

Proverbs 1:20–33 is a three-part poem. In the first part (20–23), Wisdom is introduced as calling aloud in the street, in the public squares, and in the gateways. She calls to the simple (naïve) ones, asking why they seem to despise wisdom, and asking them to listen to her. Then (24–31) she denounces them, using the past tense for dramatic effect, as though her hearers had already rejected her appeal; and she warns of the calamity to come. Verses 24–27 addresses directly those who are mocking, perhaps heckling as she speaks. But Wisdom will have the last laugh (26). Then, perhaps turning to the wider crowd of onlookers, she points to her hecklers and comments on their fate (28–31). Verse 28 powerfully reverses the way that God’s response to prayerful people is expressed in some other places (contrast, for example, Is. 65:24). Finally, in the third part of the poem (32–33), Wisdom sums up her message: the waywardness of those who ignore wisdom will be their destruction, but there is a more hopeful fate for the attentive.

Wisdom calls aloud in the street,

she raises her voice in the public squares;

²¹at the head of the noisy streets she cries out,

in the gateways of the city she makes her speech:

²²‘How long will you simple ones love your simple ways?

How long will mockers delight in mockery

and fools hate knowledge?

²³If you had responded to my rebuke,

I would have poured out my heart to you

and made my thoughts known to you.

²⁴But since you rejected me when I called

and no-one gave heed when I stretched out my hand,

²⁵since you ignored all my advice

and would not accept my rebuke,

²⁶I in turn will laugh at your disaster;

I will mock when calamity overtakes you –

²⁷when calamity overtakes you like a storm,

when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind,

when distress and trouble overwhelm you.

²⁸‘Then they will call to me but I will not answer;

they will look for me but will not find me.

²⁹Since they hated knowledge

and did not choose to fear the LORD,

³⁰since they would not accept my advice

and spurned my rebuke,

³¹they will eat the fruit of their ways

and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.

³²For the waywardness of the simple will kill them,

and the complacency of fools will destroy them;

³³but whoever listens to me will live in safety

and be at ease, without fear of harm.’

Wisdom offers her advice in the public place. This is no secret knowledge, no private religious opinion. Wisdom can be found, and her advice heard, in the public realm. In the ordinary everyday places where people live their lives, build their relationships, learn their skills, seek their health and defend against death, there God’s Wisdom can be heard. So Wisdom faces her hearers with a challenge. There are choices to be made. There is the way of folly, of refusing the reverent obedience to God which is Wisdom’s hallmark: the end of that road is deafness, deadness and disaster. Or there is Wisdom’s way, bringing the public realm, the choices, and the importance of evaluating between different priorities and different paths, into the light of God. Wisdom offers the life-giving knowledge of God and his ways: how long will the fools hate this knowledge?

Wisdom needs to be searched for (2:1–9)

The second preliminary sketch of Wisdom is rather different. Now she is portrayed not only as one of the disclosures of God’s presence in the world, but as someone who sometimes hides, and her treasures need to be searched for. Her standing at the gate is not a strategy for coercing her hearers. She comes over now more as enticing than exhorting. She needs to be sought after and looked for, like a treasure as rare as silver. The summons to hear Wisdom is really a summons to hear God. The hearers are called to discern God’s presence in the world, and give attention to it, not only in the special times, or when God is, so to speak, ‘public’, but at all times, even when God is hidden. I think it was Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675–1751)2 who gave classic expression to the idea which has been captured more recently in the phrase ‘the sacrament of the present moment’, but the thought is there in the writings of the wise sages of the Old Testament. They had a sense that God was present at all times and his hand could be discerned in all things, when things were going well, as well as in the darkness when God seemed to be absent. God’s Wisdom, so to speak, infiltrates all things, but she often needs to be looked for. Wisdom must be sought out. When she is found, her presence provides a shield of security, a protection for life’s journey.

Separating out verses 1–9 from the rest of Proverbs 2 breaks into a long Hebrew sentence, but these verses highlight this emphasis about Wisdom’s elusiveness. It is worth noticing the verbs which are used in the first half of this section: accept (1), store up (1), turning your ear (2), applying your heart (2), call out (3), cry aloud (3), look for (4), search for (4). These are linked with various phrases beginning if. In verses 5–9, we have the responses. If this (1–4), then this (5–9): then you will understand (5, 9) and find (5).

My son, if you accept my words

and store up my commands within you,

²turning your ear to wisdom

and applying your heart to understanding,

³and if you call out for insight

and cry aloud for understanding,

⁴and if you look for it as for silver

and search for it as for hidden treasure,

⁵then you will understand the fear of the LORD

and find the knowledge of God.

⁶For the LORD gives wisdom,

and from his mouth come knowled...