Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Proverbs 2:10
When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul;
10. When wisdom entereth knowledge is pleasant ] Rather: For wisdom shall enter knowledge shall be pleasant, R.V. The address flows on continuously and describes how wisdom as a shield preserves from the evil man ( Pro 2:12-15), and from the evil woman ( Pro 2:16-19).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Another picture of the results of living in the fear of the Lord. Not that to which it leads a man, but that from which it saves him, is brought into view. Notice also that it is one thing for wisdom to find entrance into the soul, another to be welcomed as a pleasant guest.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
When wisdom entereth into thine heart; when thou dost truly love it, and passionately desire it, and hide its precepts in thy heart, according to Psa 119:11.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10, 11. Idea of Pr2:9, amplified; on terms, compare Pro 2:2;Pro 2:4.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
When wisdom entereth into thine heart,…. Either Christ, the Wisdom of God; who enters there at conversion, and sets up a throne in the heart, and dwells there by faith: or else the Gospel, the wisdom of God in a mystery; which enters not into the head only, as in hypocrites and formal professors; nor into the natural affections, as in the stony ground hearers; but into the heart, opened by the Spirit of God to receive it, so as to have a spiritual understanding of it; which is done when the Gospel comes not in word only, but in the demonstration and power of the Spirit; when a man truly understands it, approves of it, loves it, believes it; and it has a place in his heart, and richly dwells there;
and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; which the Gospel thus entering gives; even the knowledge of God in Christ, as the God of all grace, as gracious and merciful, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the knowledge of Christ, as the only Redeemer and Saviour; and the knowledge of Gospel truths, which lead and relate unto him: all which is pleasant to a gracious soul, and affords unspeakable delight to the mind; and is sweeter, as every truth of the Gospel is, than the honey or the honeycomb; see Pr 16:24.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| The Benefits Conferred by Wisdom. | |
10 When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; 11 Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee: 12 To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things; 13 Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness; 14 Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked; 15 Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths: 16 To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words; 17 Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God. 18 For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead. 19 None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life. 20 That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous. 21 For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it. 22 But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.
The scope of these verses is to show, 1. What great advantage true wisdom will be of to us; it will keep us from the paths of sin, which lead to ruin, and will therein do us a greater kindness than if it enriched us with all the wealth of the world. 2. What good use we should make of the wisdom God gives us; we must use it for our own guidance in the paths of virtue, and for the arming of us against temptations of every kind. 3. By what rules we may try ourselves whether we have this wisdom or no. This tree will be known by its fruits; if we be truly wise, it will appear by our care to avoid all evil company and evil practices.
This wisdom will be of use to us,
I. For our preservation from evil, from the evil of sin, and, consequently, from the evil of trouble that attends it.
1. In general (Pro 2:10; Pro 2:11), “When wisdom has entire possession of thee, it will keep thee.” And when has it an entire possession of us? (1.) When it has dominion over us. When it not only fills the head with notions, but enters into the heart and has a commanding power and influence upon that,–when it is upon the throne there, and gives law to the affections and passions,–when it enters into the heart as the leaven into the dough, to diffuse its relish there, and to change it into its own image–then it is likely to do us good. (2.) When we have delight in it, when knowledge becomes pleasant to the soul: “When thou beginnest to relish it as the most agreeable entertainment, and art subject to its rules, of choice, and with satisfaction,–when thou callest the practice of virtue, not a slavery and a task, but liberty and pleasure, and a life of serious godliness the most comfortable life a man can live in this world,–then thou wilt find the benefit of it.” Though its restraints should be in some respects unpleasant to the body, yet even those must be pleasant to the soul. When it has come to this, with us, discretion shall preserve us and keep us. God keeps the way of his saints (v. 8), by giving them discretion to keep out of harm’s way, to keep themselves that the wicked one touch them not. Note, A principle of grace reigning in the heart will be a powerful preservative both against corruptions within and temptations without, Ecc 9:16; Ecc 9:18.
2. More particularly, wisdom will preserve us,
(1.) From men of corrupt principles, atheistical profane men, who make it their business to debauch young men’s judgments, and instil into their minds prejudices against religion and arguments for vice: “It will deliver thee from the way of the evil man (v. 12), and a blessed deliverance it will be, as from the very jaws of death, from the way in which he walks, and in which he would persuade thee to walk.” The enemy is spoken of as one (v. 12), an evil man, but afterwards as many (v. 13); there is a club, a gang of them, that are in confederacy against religion, and join hand in hand for the support of the devil’s kingdom and the interests of it. [1.] They have a spirit of contradiction to that which is good: They speak froward things; they say all they can against religion, both to show their own enmity to it and to dissuade others from it. They are advocates for Satan; they plead for Baal, and pervert the right ways of the Lord. How peevishly will profane wits argue for sin, and with what frowardness will they carp at the word of God! Wisdom will keep us either from conversing with such men or at least from being ensnared by them. [2.] They are themselves apostates from that which is good, and such are commonly the most malicious and dangerous enemies religion has, witness Julian (v. 13): They leave the paths of uprightness, which they were trained up in and had set out in, shake off the influences of their education, and break off the thread of their hopeful beginnings, to walk in the ways of darkness, in those wicked ways which hate the light, in which men are led blindfold by ignorance and error, and which lead men into utter darkness. The ways of sin are ways of darkness, uncomfortable and unsafe; what fools are those that leave the plain, pleasant, lightsome paths of uprightness, to walk in those ways! Psa 82:5; 1Jn 2:11. [3.] They take a pleasure in sin, both in committing it themselves and in seeing others commit it (v. 14): They rejoice in an opportunity to do evil, and in the accomplishment and success of any wicked project. It is sport to fools to do mischief; nor is any sight more grateful to them than to see the frowardness of the wicked, to see those that are hopeful drawn into the ways of sin, and then to see them hardened and confirmed in those ways. They are pleased if they can discern that the devil’s kingdom gets ground (see Rom. i. 32), such a height of impiety have they arrived at. [4.] They are resolute in sin (v. 15): Their ways are crooked, a great many windings and turnings to escape the pursuit of their convictions and break the force of them; some sly excuse, some subtle evasion or other, their deceitful hearts furnish them with, for the strengthening of their hands in their wickedness; and in the crooked mazes of that labyrinth they secure themselves from the arrests of God’s word and their own consciences; for they are froward in their paths, that is, they are resolved to go on in them, whatever is said against it. Every wise man will shun the company of such as these.
(2.) From women of corrupt practices. The former lead to spiritual wickednesses, the lusts of the unsanctified mind; these lead to fleshly lusts, which defile the body, that living temple, but withal war against the soul. The adulteress is here called the strange woman, because no man that has any wisdom or goodness in him will have any acquaintance with her; she is to be shunned by every Israelite as if she were a heathen, and a stranger to that sacred commonwealth. A strange woman indeed! utterly estranged from all principles of reason, virtue, and honour. It is a great mercy to be delivered from the allurements of the adulteress, considering, [1.] How false she is. Who will have any dealings with those that are made up of treachery? She is a strange woman; for, First, She is false to him whom she entices. She speaks fair, tells him how much she admires him above any man, and what a kindness she has for him; but she flatters with her words; she has no true affection for him, nor any desire of his welfare, any more than Delilah had of Samson’s. All she designs is to pick his pocket and gratify a base lust of her own. Secondly, She is false to her husband, and violates the sacred obligation she lies under to him. He was the guide of her youth; by marrying him she chose him to be so, and submitted herself to his guidance, with a promise to attend him only, and forsake all others. But she has forsaken him, and therefore it cannot be thought that she should be faithful to any one else; and whoever entertains her is partaker with her in her falsehood. Thirdly, She is false to God himself: She forgets the covenant of her God, the marriage-covenant (v. 17), to which God is not only a witness, but a party, for, he having instituted the ordinance, both sides vow to him to be true to each other. It is not her husband only that she sins against, but her God, who will judge whoremongers and adulterers because they despise the oath and break the covenant, Eze 17:18; Mal 2:14. [2.] How fatal it will prove to those that fall in league with her, Pro 2:18; Pro 2:19. Let the sufferings of others be our warnings. Take heed of the sin of whoredom; for, First, The ruin of those who are guilty of it is certain and unavoidable, if they do not repent. It is a sin that has a direct tendency to the killing of the soul, the extinguishing of all good affections and dispositions in it, and the exposing of it to the wrath and curse of God and the sword of his justice. Those that live in forbidden pleasures are dead while they live. Let discretion preserve every man, not only from the evil woman, but from the evil house, for the house inclines to death; it is in the road that leads directly to eternal death; and her paths unto Rephaim, to the giants (so some read it), the sinners of the old world, who, living in luxury and excess of riot, were cut down out of time, and their foundation was overthrown with a flood. Our Lord Jesus deters us from sinful pleasures with the consideration of everlasting torments which follow them. Where the worm dies not, nor is the fire quenched. See Mat 5:28; Mat 5:29. Secondly, Their repentance and recovery are extremely hazardous: None, or next to none, that go unto her, return again. It is very rare that any who are caught in this snare of the devil recover themselves, so much is the heart hardened, and the mind blinded, by the deceitfulness of this sin. Having once lost their hold of the paths of life, they know not how to take hold of them again, but are perfectly besotted and bewitched with those base lusts. Many learned interpreters think that this caution against the strange woman, besides the literal sense, is to be understood figuratively, as a caution, 1. Against idolatry, which is spiritual whoredom. Wisdom will keep thee from all familiarity with the worshippers of images, and all inclination to join with them, which had for many ages been of such pernicious consequence to Israel and proved so to Solomon himself. 2. Against the debauching of the intellectual powers and faculties of the soul by the lusts and appetites of the body. Wisdom will keep thee from being captivated by the carnal mind, and from subjecting the spirit to the dominion of the flesh, that notorious adulteress which forsakes its guide, violates the covenant of our God, which inclines to death, and which, when it has got an undisturbed dominion, makes the case of the soul desperate.
II. This wisdom will be of use to guide and direct us in that which is good (v. 20): That thou mayest walk in the way of good men. We must avoid the way of the evil man, and the strange woman, in order that we may walk in good ways; we must cease to do evil, in order that we may learn to do well. Note, 1. There is a way which is peculiarly the way of good men, the way in which good men, as such, and as far as they have really been such, have always walked. 2. It will be our wisdom to walk in that way, to ask for the good old way and walk therein, Jer 6:16; Heb 6:12; Heb 12:1. And we must not only walk in that way awhile, but we must keep it, keep in it, and never turn aside out of it: The paths of the righteous are the paths of life, which all that are wise, having taken hold of, will keep their hold of. “That thou mayest imitate those excellent persons, the patriarchs and prophets (so bishop Patrick paraphrases it), and be preserved in the paths of those righteous men who followed after them.” We must not only choose our way in general by the good examples of the saints, but must also take directions from them in the choice of our particular paths; observe the track, and go forth by the footsteps of the flock. Two reasons are here given why we should thus choose:– (1.) Because men’s integrity will be their establishment, v. 21. It will be the establishment, [1.] Of their persons: The upright shall dwell in the land, peaceably and quietly, as long as they live; and their uprightness will contribute to it, as it settles their minds, guides their counsels, gains them the good-will of their neighbours, and entitles them to God’s special favour. [2.] Of their families: The perfect, in their posterity, shall remain in it. They shall dwell and remain for ever in the heavenly Canaan, of which the earthly one was but a type. (2.) Because men’s iniquity will be their destruction, v. 22. See what becomes of the wicked, who choose the way of the evil man; they shall be cut off, not only from heaven hereafter and all hopes of that, but from the earth now, on which they set their affections, and in which they lay up their treasure. They think to take root in it, but they and their families shall be rooted out of it, in judgment to them, but in mercy to the earth. There is a day coming which shall leave them neither root nor branch, Mal. iv. 1. Let that wisdom then enter into our hearts, and be pleasant to our souls, which will keep us out of a way that will end thus.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
THE NATIONAL SIN
Pro 2:10-11; Pro 2:16-19
FROM the first reading of our text, you will easily imagine the direction of this evenings discourse. The National Sin is no sensational title, studied out by the preacher to excite questionings about what it can be? and attract Athenian auditors to hear the explanation of some new theory or thing. The title is fast becoming a technical term, and when authors or speakers employ it, there is need of no explanatory clause.
American Society and Life sees itself eaten through and through today with that worm of uncleanness which worked its way to the heart of the Republics of Greece and Rome, and overthrew them; and, living on the vitals of intervening nations, came to feed and fatten itself most in the more modern Republics in whose worm-eaten houses, she has not only managed to survive, but to lay the eggs of impurity and hatch foul broods whose breath has poisoned the moral atmosphere of many nations, and whose blighting work becomes more and more evident in the social habits of American homes and streets.
If the saloon had no peer as a civic scab, so the Bagnio knows no rival in the matter of generating social virus, and working wreck of soul.
If there were need of apology for presenting such a subject, my only words of defense would lie along two lines.
In the first place, commissioned as I am from God, to declare His whole counsel to men, I would seem to myself, to you, and to the holy angels, to be either a moral coward, or an indifferent hypocrite, if I was silent about one of the most prevalent and virulent iniquities of the hour in which we live.
In the next place, I should seem to despise the only revelation that God has made to men, His holy Word, if I purposely passed by a multitude of texts which distribute themselves through the entire Book, from Genesis to Revelation; and point, with a hundred fingers, toward one sin, saying to the preacher, Speak to that! Cry aloud! Spare not! When I cease to preach a whole Bible, the time will be on when, I trust, my own integrity will drive me from the desk, sacredly set apart to that ministry which accepts and discourses the entire Word. Is it not written, All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works (2Ti 3:16-17).
We will follow the suggestions of the text, in the order of their natural occurrence.
WOMANS SADDEST STEP
The first few sentences in this Scripture portray womans saddest step.
Our mothers, and sisters, and daughters, and female friends are capable of every crime possible to the sterner sex, and, under certain conditions, have committed the whole catalogue, from the petty lie or theft up to the most atrocious and shocking deed that ever stirred the hearts and stunned the senses of a civilized people. But among all her possible missteps, no one is so sad in its final consequence to character and destiny as that misstep of which Solomon, wrote when, of the strange woman, he said, Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God. What such a step means, in womans experience, only those know who have taken it, and suffered its dark, dismal, despairing results can understand.
It is a long step for the average girl. The distance between the training of her youth, and the path she chooses after Satan has entered her heart, is a mighty distance. To stand at the beginning of it and look off toward its end, it seems almost like the distance between the bosom of Abraham on which Lazarus reclined, and the seething pit of Perdition from which Dives sent up his hopeless cries.
That woman should cross it, in the growth of natural years, appears the least probable. Only think of it! It is like this! Out on yonder street sixteen years ago, a young mother sat in her humble home, happy; yes, happier even than on her wedding day, because a little onebone of her bone, flesh of her fleshplayed about her feet. At even time, amid the silences of her own house, that bright, sweet face looked love and questioning into her eyes, while she talked to her of angels, and God, and Heaven, and read to her from the Holy Book and at last saw her in long white robes prepared to sleep Before she slept, she knelt at her mothers knee, and clasping tightly the innocent hands, she raised the angel face to Heaven and prayedprayed as children pray:
Now I lay me down to sleep;I pray the Lord my soul to keep;And if 1 die before I wake,I pray the Lord my soul to take.
But while she is kneeling in all her angelic sweetness and purity, exciting a mothers love to finer flame, and starting love in angels bosoms, some dark fiend steals into that room; and though he be invisible, and no other hears him, the mother starts at his whisper, Your child may yet be a prostitute, but laughs him to scorn, and knows that her angel in human form will never take that fatal step.
But the sixteen years have gone, and off in another city that child lives tonight, a fallen angel; and in her home the mother, made old by the weight of one awful load, sits in a solitude that none can break, or even enterthe solitude of a mothers greatest sorrowand prays by day, and pleads by nightsometimes audibly, more often in silenceGod, pity my sinning child and save her soul. God pity me, and help me to bear the insupportable sorrow.
You say that is a picture of fancy. I could show you such a mother inside a ten minute walk! Oh, it is a long stepthe step from innocent, angelic girlhoodwhen youth is girded by a Christian mother and guarded by the sanctities of home to an abandoned womanhood, when mother is forgotten, with all her holy precepts brought from the Holy Word! A long step!
It is a step that has other dangerous steps back of it. A ruined girl said to me some years ago, as I talked with her about her sin, her shame, the opprobium she had brought on herself, and the wrong she had done her Church and Christ. I know; it now! But God knows, when I began to do questionable things, just for the pleasure of them, I never intended they should lead to this!
But every step has its direction, and leads either toward the good or the bad. Oh, fathers! Watch the feet of your daughters, and see which way they turn. Their innocence seems to you their safeguard, and all your solicitude is about the son. But I was his pastor whose oldest daughter, after having been reared with tender hand, taught virtue by precept and example, trained in the Word, went wrong and today leads a life of shame. Back of the last fatal step were a hundred others, that ought to have excited fears, and stirred parents to some better efforts to save their own. But they thought danger only came to boys, and only saw their blunder when their solicitude was scorned and shame preferred.
But again, no girl or woman takes that fatal step without the assistance, and often the lecherous betrayal, of man. It is not an uncommon thing for bad men to boast the number, the beauty, and the other attractions, of their victims; as if to ruin character, and blight lifes beauty, and blast hope for time and eternity, and break up the happiness of earths homes, and rob Heaven, were a thing of which to be proud.
In Chicago one summer, four young silly creatures were led to the altar of Venus, and sacrificed to that filthy goddess in less than ten days, by travelling toughs, if the city press reported truly. Doubtless they laughed at the wreck of virtue left in their lecherous trail. These were only the names of those whose ruin came to public notice, while the silent sufferers, who can know?
Yonder in our Industrial home are many others who languish tonight in a prison built of the hard stones of masculine knavery, laid in the mortar mixed with their own girlish, yet bitter tears, destined never to be free from stain, and in the enjoyment of innocence, again.
Some of the young men who robbed them of womans noblest charm, and sent them sobbing to their desolate, dreary life of shame, are walking our streets tonight in the pride of fiends, who glory in destructive work, shining in our social circles as if they had no hellish stains, or sitting solemnly in our sanctuaries, looking as pious as Faust, hiding beneath starched shirt-fronts a heart quite as black as that which beat in the bosom of Mephistopheles. Proud of it! Then if there were no hell, Gods pity for the wronged, and His hatred of sin, would speedily build one, and reserve its lowest chambers of horror for those who take pleasure in such hideous deeds.
It seems a pity that our secular press, the great educator of the masses, should be either such a moral coward, or else such a friend of fiends as to be silent at the sight of this sin, or ingenius and clever in palliating the guilt of the most damnable of men. It has only been a few months since the respectable patrons of a city press were treated to a sensational scrap of news that read after this manner, There is a subscription paper going the rounds today that is of a decidedly novel and amusing character. Mark the words, novel and amusing character. Oh, God, when we read what sentences follow, what language will describe his sense of right who could pen them? A young girl has been keeping furnished rooms in this city, and with no visible means of support. Her health has been wrecked, and it is now sought to raise a fund to send her to an Arkansas resort. While it is a sad commentary on frail humanity, it reveals the fact that some of the young men are not without charity, and that is a virtue.
The paper showed donations from fifty cents up; some of the more sympathetic ones giving as high as ten dollars. Then the article went on with a history of her fall from a Christian home, and a good name; and before it finished told how the fathers heart had broken at the discovery of his daughters ruin, and warned parents to guard their daughters against, the wiles of evilly disposed wretches.
That was a strong (?) term for such a paper; but it only used it in a general way, and that after having made the incarnate fiends who worked her ruin to believe themselves angelic in their charity in that they gave to ship away her whose body was so racked with disease that it no longer tempted their lusts or sated them.
It is difficult to know how much credence to put in popular rumors, but when, as a Pastor, the lot was mine to visit one led wrong, and hear what defence she had to offer in palliation of her conduct; and I found her face swollen with much crying, and saw the bitter, briny tears still scalding her cheek, I wished it were in my power to lead the men who had so cruelly wronged that child, into her presence, and let them look on the ruin their lust had wrought, until it proved a hell to their conscience, or showed them to be so heartless that hell would be voluntarily accepted as their just desert.
I have heard one man, against whom society had made this charge, talk glibly of the unutterable, unalterable, eternal love of God, in language that had done credit to a preacher.
But if his guilt were sure, Beechers prayer were none too strong. In his address on the subject of this hours talk, he said of such deeds and their need of judgment, O Prince of torment; if thou hast transforming power, give some relief to this once innocent child whom another has corrupted! Let thy deepest damnation seize him who brought her hither; let his coronation be upon the very mount of torment, and the rain of fiery hail be his salutation! He shall be crowned with thorns, poisoned and anguish-bearing, and let every woe beat upon him, and every wave of hell roll over the first risings of baffled hope. * * If Satan has one dart more poisoned than another, if there be one hideous spirit more unrelenting than others, they shall be thine, most execrable wretch, who led her to forsake the guide of her youth, and to abandon the covenant of her God.
Ah; and God will not let Satan finish the whole judgment upon his own. When the books are opened, and men assigned to heavenly heights or hellish depths, according to their deeds, the lowest pit will not be reserved for some Cain who, from envy, slew his brother; nor yet for any Absalom who, from unholy ambition, sought his fathers life; nor yet for that Herod who killed the innocents; nor even for Judas who betrayed his Lord for love of money; but rather, for that sleek gentlemanaccomplished in the blackest of artswho studiously arranged to gratify his lusts for ten minutes at the expense of womans honor, the happiness of time, and the hope of eternity.
And who is so base as to cause such sacrifice to sate himself, deserves not only the lowest pit, but, that his torture be complete, should hear this requiem, sung through eternity in the sad wail of the wronged and ruined one :
Once I was pure as the snow, but fell,Fell like a snowflake from Heaven to hell;Fell, to be trampled like filth of the street,Fell to be scoffed at, be spit on, and beat,Pleading, cursing, begging to die,Selling my soul to whoever would buy;Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread,Hating the living and fearing the dead.
Oh, God, have I fallen so low,When once I was pure as the driven snow!
Of the strange woman, Solomon has also said, Her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead; none that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.
So Solomon warns men against bad women. The wrong is not all on one side. The men of America are not always and wholly to blame for the presence and desecrating power of our national sin. There are women who prefer to live by their shame; and who, with equal indifference to all human obligations or Divine precepts, plan the ensnaring of the opposite sex. Against the wiles of such, Solomon spoke none too strongly in affirming that her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.
Many a poor foolish boy thinks he is discovering the ways of life when he climbs the stairs that lead to her attractive den. The older wretch in infamy often says to some younger and cleaner man, Come, let me take you around a little tonight, and show you something of life!
Alas for the prostitution of better terms! How many are misled by it. The young and clean boy or man goes to see life, and returns having seen the beginnings of death.
How artful Satan is! How all the bones of the destroyed are carted out of sight; and all loathesome, suffering victims are removed from the wayside; and all reeking, rotting bodies are hid; and every stench smothered with sweet perfume, when a new victim is to pass along this highway of sin. It presents to him only show of good. Flowers seem to bloom at the edges of that road; the most bewitching voices call to him from couches where merriment reclines; the painted beauty beams on him as if he were a nobleman, and every whisper is a promise of sated love!
Young men, let Solomon speak before you have passed further on! He knows about that road; he travelled it to the end! He saw its bewitching opening; he saw its ghastly termination. Let him speak, and listen! There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death (Pro 14:12). That is the path to the strange womans house, for her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.
It means physical death to go there. When you enter the house of the prostitute, you are in the way to do violence to, and deteriorate, your physical self. This fact is unknown to many, and forgotten by more. But it will make itself known to him who breaks the seventh commandment of God, and that in the universal language of menthe speech of suffering! You remember that Paul found it difficult to get the converted Gentiles to understand that to be Christians, they must be clean from such a sin. To the Corinthians he wrote, Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body (1Co 6:18).
Oh, that men could understand that fact! Now fornication is lewdness, and may be committed either by self-abuse, the solitary habit, or by adultery. In either case it means sowing the seed of physical disease or death, and many men find on their hands a bitter crop waiting to be reaped. I know there are some physicians who deny this, and teach with Gollman, but they are the quacks who give advice in the hope of gaining filthy lucre in return. Such physicians deserve the contempt of their fraternity, the ostracism of society, and the frown of a holy God. Their falsehood is hourly exposed by indisputable proofs. Go into any audience and look at the faces of youth. You must be blind indeed not to see the wreck written in ashy complexions, the death in eye and hair, and the destruction apparent in every sluggish movement of some. Oh, it is a horrid disease, this of sex excesses. Its victims are slimy in their sickness, and multitudinous in number.
An excellent Christian young man, a Y. M. C. A. secretary, some years ago said that although his father took him aside at the age of eleven and explained and warned, his advice came too late to wholly save him from harm.
In less than a year I have talked with a youth who is an awful wreck, and he said, I knew no danger till I was a victim at once of a relentless habit and a loathsome disease.
No wonder another young man, suffering the terrible sense of self-ruin, exclaimed, Medical men who know about such things and refuse to speak out and warn the young against this vice, ought to be hanged, every one of them. Just a hint, he said, from my father or the family doctor, or a little book, would have saved me. * *. What, in Heavens name, are doctors and parents and preachers for, if they cant give a single hint to the young about such things? If I had a million dollars, he continued, I would give it all to spread information about certain sex vices!
It would be an awful revelation, and yet doubtless a helpful one, if every young man in America had to undergo a medical examination upon reaching twenty-five years, and learn at the lips of skilled physicians his physical status. A great Chicago Daily said, Out of thirty-two young men in New York City who were recently examined for West Point Cadetship, only nine were accepted as physically sound. No wonder it concluded the note by adding, The Hidden Vices are making havoc with the physical manhood of all our towns and cities.
But if the physical drain were all, it would not be so bad. When, however, we come to the disease and death this evil works for bodies, the strongest hearts grow sick. Leading physicians declare that nature knows no other such a poison as that which the utterly abandoned woman communicates to her associates in, crime. My cousin, a well-instructed physician, a man of many years practice, said to me one day, while I was yet a boy, Willie; I wish I might be privileged to take every youth of this county and show him a patient that I am treating now. He is a victim of uncleanness, and every pore of his body drips putrefaction.
Young men, listen to Solomon, or rather to God, for in this text God speaks in warning against your visits to her, whose house inclineth unto death, and whose paths lead unto the dead; for she hath cast down many wounded; yea, many strong men have been slain by her. (Pro 7:26).
But the intellect of man is also destined to wreck in this house of the strange woman. Go into any one of our insane asylums, and pass through all the wards, and study the poor lunatics faces; and when you have finished, sit down with the doctor and ask what is the trouble with this man and that. While my brother held an appointment in the Anchorange Asylum, in Kentucky, I often went with him on his daily rounds. It is a sad sight at best to see the insane, but sadder still to learn that many were made maniacs by sin, their own or that of those who brought them into being. There are no sadder faces among the insane than those that lust has deprived of reason. Its most certain cruel work is accomplished through the good law of heredity, the first law of life. Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap, if not in himself, then surely in another, dearer to him than life.
Among all the sad cases of insanity, the saddest that my eyes have beheld, was that of a beautiful and accomplished young girl. Her fits of despondency, succeeded by those of laughing and saddest screaming, necessitated the Pastors presence in the house more than once. The mother was a beautiful Christian character; the father was dead, but he left his sin to flower and fruit in that eldest child. The family physician told me how disease had passed from his dying body into the functional structure of her brain; and oh, it was a bitter harvest of mental decay and death that the wife and daughter gathered after he was in his grave.
Men may seek to palliate the guilt of this crime as they will, but this is certain, that he who visits the house of the strange woman is indifferent to the highest interest or happiness of those whom God will put into his arms as his own. Let Dr.
L answer once for all the hurtful lie that some have hatched to the effect that sexual intercourse is essential to health. That brilliant man affirmed, If a healthy man refrain entirely from sexual pleasure, nature knows well what to do with those precious atoms. She finds use for them in building up a keener brain, and more vital and enduring nerves and muscles.
The climax of death is never reached until the soul is involved. If the disease and death resulting from the strange womans house were only physical, or even only physical and mental, men might go on to the end and yet have something left.
But, if it also involves the death of the immortal soul, who will sate the flesh at such a cost? None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life (Pro 2:19); for by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread; and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life (Pro 6:26)
It is difficult to reach the heart of a drunkard with the Gospel; more difficult to touch the conscience of a gambler; but most difficult to stir the soul of him who is given over to lust. There is no enemy to eternal life, holiness, happiness and Heaven, who is more artful in ensnaring and enchaining victims, than the strange woman. The man who enters her enchanted place, but a few times, seems to sell his soul and feel that he can never again redeem it. She winds him about with that double corded web, spun from the strands of her wiles and his lust, and holds him fast for eternity.
A young friend of mine who had been guilty of consorting with such, said to me, All other habits were easily broken off, and other bad companions quickly shaken, when I gave my heart to the Lord; but the habit of lust and the strange woman tempted me for months, and but for the help of an all-merciful and powerful God, I should have returned and lost my soul.
If any man thinks he can break her spell, one earnest trial to leave her house forever will prove his impotence. Beecher said of such futile struggles of mens strength, How often have I seen the spider watch, from his dark round hole, the struggling fly, until he began to break his web; and then dart out to cast his long, lithe arms about him and fasten new cords stronger than ever. So, God saith the strange woman shall secure her ensnared victims if they struggle. None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.
It is the souls death to linger in the polluted, poisoned air. Quit it tonight, young men! You cannot in your own strength; but the God who kept Joseph, and restored David after he had fallen, can keep you in your native innocence, or even reclaim you from your fall, and blot the memory of your sin forever from Heavens record of human conduct. Will you let Him? The Saviour who looked on a poor fallen, yet penitent, woman, and with pity in His eye, and pardon in His tender speech, dismissed her to a better life, will pass no judgment against your soul if you will trust Him, repent and sin no more. If your body is wronged, that may never be righted in time; and if your mind is injured, that can scarcely be repaired; but the sin against your soul need not mean eternal death, unless you persist in your unlawful course, and refuse the help in Gods outstretched hand!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
TEXT Pro. 2:10-22
10.
For wisdom shall enter into thy heart,
And knowledge shall be pleasant unto thy soul;
11.
Discretion shall watch over thee;
Understanding shall keep thee:
12.
To deliver thee from the way of evil,
From the men that speak perverse things;
13.
Who forsake the paths of uprightness,
To walk in the ways of darkness;
14.
Who rejoice to do evil,
And delight in the perverseness of evil;
15.
Who are crooked in their ways,
And wayward in their paths:
16.
To deliver thee from the strange woman,
Even from the foreigner that flattereth with her words;
17.
That forsaketh the friend of her youth,
And forgetteth the covenant of her God:
18.
For her house inclineth unto death,
And her paths unto the dead;
19.
None that go unto her return again,
Neither do they attain unto the paths of life:
20.
That thou mayest walk in the way of good men,
And keep the paths of the righteous.
21.
For the upright shall dwell in the land,
And the perfect shall remain in it.
22.
But the wicked shall be cut off from the land,
And the treacherous shall be rooted out of it.
STUDY QUESTIONS OVER 2:10-22
1.
Knowledge should be ……………. (Pro. 2:10).
2.
What is discretion (Pro. 2:11)?
3.
Does true knowledge trust all persons indiscriminately (Pro. 2:12)?
4.
What double sin were they guilty of (Pro. 2:13)?
5.
What about their rejoicing (Pro. 2:14)?
6.
Why do we speak of dishonest people as crooked (Pro. 2:15)?
7.
Young men should be strongly warned to watch out for dishonest men and …………….. women (Pro. 2:12; Pro. 2:16).
8.
What covenant (Pro. 2:17)?
9.
Why mention her house (Pro. 2:18)?
10.
They dont return in what sense (Pro. 2:19)?
11.
What kind of men avoid such women (Pro. 2:20)?
12.
What are the parallel words in Pro. 2:21?
13.
What are the parallel words in Pro. 2:22?
PARAPHRASE OF 2:10-22
1015.
For wisdom and truth will enter the very center of your being, filling your life with joy. You will be given the sense to stay away from evil men who want you to be their partners in crimemen who turn from Gods ways to walk down dark and evil paths, and exult in doing wrong, for they thoroughly enjoy their sins. Everything they do is crooked and wrong.
1619.
Only wisdom from the Lord can save a man from the flattery of prostitutes; these girls have abandoned their husbands and flouted the laws of God. Their houses lie along the road to death and hell. The men who enter them are doomed. None of these men will ever be the same again.
2022.
Follow the steps of the godly instead, and stay on the right path, for only good men enjoy life to the full; evil men lose the good things they might have had; and they themselves shall be destroyed.
COMMENTS ON 2:10-22
Pro. 2:10. Shall enter in the sense of permanent residence in the heart (Pulpit Commentary). Col. 3:15 uses the same figure of speech concerning the Word of Christ and our hearts: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Dwell in this verse means to make a home for. The heart that has made wisdom its permanent inhabitant will be a soul blessed with pleasantness and satisfaction.
Pro. 2:11. When blessed with wisdom, discretion will be there to guard what we say, what we do, the policies we adopt, etc., and understanding will be there to keep us from small embarrassments and costly mistakes. Pro. 6:22 similarly says, When thou wakest, it shall lead thee; When thou sleepest, it shall watch over thee.
Pro. 2:12. Wisdom will keep one from taking up with evil men (this verse) and with evil women (Pro. 2:16). The word deliver suggests that evil men are out to snare such young men into their plots and ways. The perverse speech of evil men is pointed out. There is a certain speech that goes with evil menusually coarse words, vulgar words, irreverent words.
Pro. 2:13. Some of those now evil were once on the right road, for they forsook the paths of uprightness. Probably as children they were taught the right way. Oh, how many drift from their childhood teachings into the ways of darkness (sin)! Those who walk in evil ways always try to get others to fall as they have, but how foolish to listen to them!
Pro. 2:14. The wicked become perverted: instead of grieving over evil, they rejoice in doing it. It is as sport to a fool to do wickedness (Pro. 10:23); When thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest (Jer. 11:15); Who, knowing the ordinance of God, that they that practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also consent with them that practise them (Rom. 1:32). We are forbidden to desire evil: Abhor that which is evil (Romans 12;&); Love not the world…the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vain-glory of life (1Jn. 2:15-16).
Pro. 2:15. Instead of walking a straight and right course, they are further described as crooked, and instead of staying on the right way, they are said to be wayward in their paths. Psa. 125:5 speaks of those who turn aside unto their crooked ways. It is from this crookedness and waywardness that true wisdom will deliver a young man.
Pro. 2:16. A strange woman means one who is not his wife; she is a foreigner to him because she is not related to him in marriage. This is a warning against loose, lascivious living that ends in sexual misbehavior. Several chapters (or extended sections) are devoted to warning against such involvements (here; Pro. 5:1-23; Pro. 6:23-25; Pro. 7:4-27; Pro. 9:13-18). Our verse warns of her enticing words (flattereth with her words). Other verses do the same: The lips of a strange woman drop honey, And her mouth is smoother than oil (Pro. 5:3); To keep thee from the evil woman, From the flattery of the foreigners tongue (Pro. 6:24); With her much fair speech she causeth him to yield; with the flattering of her lips she forceth him along (Pro. 7:21).
Pro. 2:17. Such a woman was once married, but she has forsaken her husband (here called the friend of her youth). What a poor one to get mixed up with! She is not only untrue to man (her husband), but she forgetteth the covenant of her God (Gods covenant or law forbids her to leave her husband and live as she is living). But her actions show that she doesnt care what God says.!
Pro. 2:18. Her house is referred to because this is where she operates her dirty business. Other passages on immorality and death: Her feet go down to death; Her steps take hold on Sheol (Pro. 5:5); Her house is the way to Sheol, Going down to the chambers of death (Pro. 7:27). The results are a bold contrast to her enticing promises: As for him that is void of understanding, she saith to him, stolen waters are sweet, And bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead are there; that her guests are in the depths of Sheol (Pro. 9:16-18).
Pro. 2:19. The difficulty which they who give themselves up to the indulgence of lust and passion encounter in extricating themselves makes the statement…an almost universal truth…It is as difficult to bring back a libidinous person to chastity as a dead man to life. This passage led some…to declare that the sin of adultery was unpardonable. Fornication was classed by the scholastic divines among the seven deadly sins (Pulpit Commentary).
Pro. 2:20. The good men of this verse are to be contrasted with the evil men of Pro. 2:12, and their good lives with the evil men who indulge with evil women.
Pro. 2:21. In contrast with death resulting from the indulgent life, this verse speaks of the good men getting to live on. Psalms 37 stresses this blessing of godliness: Those that wait for Jehovah, they shall inherit the land (Psa. 37:9); The meek shall inherit the land (Psa. 37:11); Such as are blessed of him shall inherit the land (Psa. 37:22); The righteous shall inherit the land, And dwell therein for ever (Psa. 37:29).
Pro. 2:22. The doom of the wicked is again mentioned. This fact is also stressed in Psalms 37 : They shall soon be cut down like the grass (Psa. 37:2); Evil-doers shall be cut off (Psa. 37:9); Yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be (Psa. 37:10); The arms of the wicked shall be broken (Psa. 37:17); The wicked shall perish, And the enemies of Jehovah shall be as the fat of lambs: They shall consume; in smoke shall they consume away (Psa. 37:20); They that are cursed of him shall be cut off (Psa. 37:22); The seed of the wicked shall be cut off (Psa. 37:28); I have seen the wicked in great power, And spreading himself like a green tree in its native soil. But one passed by, and, lo, he was not: Yea, I sought him, but he could not be found (Psa. 37:35-36); As for the transgressors, they shall be destroyed together: The end of the wicked shall be cut off (Psa. 37:38).
TEST QUESTIONS OVER 2:10-22
1.
What does shall enter in Pro. 2:10 signify about wisdom?
2.
From what will discretion and understanding keep us (Pro. 2:11)?
3.
Comment on the perverse speech of evil men (Pro. 2:12).
4
Are there wicked men who once walked in the paths of uprightness (Pro. 2:13)? When?
5.
How perverted do the wicked become (Pro. 2:14)?
6.
Crooked is the opposite of what way to walk (Pro. 2:15)?
7.
Comment on the wicked womans use of words to ensnare men (Pro. 2:16).
8.
To what two parties is such a woman untrue (Pro. 2:17)?
9.
What other passages besides Pro. 2:18 say that her house leads to death?
10.
What does Pro. 2:19 say about the difficulty involved in freeing oneself from such behavior once that he has begun it?
11.
Who are the good men of Pro. 2:20?
12.
What chapter has much to say about the long life of the righteous (Pro. 2:21)?
13.
What chapter has much to say about the short life of the wicked (Pro. 2:22)?
FOOLS ARE KNOWN BY THEIR SPEECH
Listen to Pro. 15:14 : The heart of him that hath understanding seeketh knowledge: but the mouth of the fools feedeth on foolishness. If you need any commentary on this verse, just go down to the corner store or to the garage or to the barber shopjust anywhere that men with time on their hands gatherand listen to them for ten minutes, and you will well understand the statement, The mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness. The chances are, you will not hear one thing that will build you up or do you any good, but will hear a lot of vocal drivel that depicts nothing but shallowness of thought, and such will go on all day long!
Another vocal mark of a fool is that he tells everything he knows. Pro. 29:11 says, A fool uttereth all his mind. He will freely talk concerning his financial matters or his business dealings. He will not hestitate to tell you how much money he has or how much he made or how much he sold his car for. For some reason, he wants everyone to know everything about him, so he tells everything he knows.
But, not only does he talk about his own thingshe talks about everybody elses things too. And this gets him into trouble. Pro. 18:7 says, A fools mouth is his destruction.
Furthermore, a fool weaves into his conversation all the rude words, all the vulgar words, and all the latest delinquents expressions. His speech is marked by all kinds of grammatical errors. Nothing of good literature is ever upon his tongue. No statement from the pen of David or from the pens of the great secular writers ever is upon his lips. In short, Pro. 17:7 says, Excellent speech becometh not a fool.
TEACHING PARENTS
Proverbs shows us parents who teach and warn their children. My son, the writer says, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. And then he goes on to forewarn his son of the way they will approach him to get him to go with them. But, the father adds, Walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path (Pro. 1:10-15).
There was ever the instruction to trust in God. My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion: so shall they be life unto thy soul, and grace to thy neck. Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble. When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet. Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh. For the Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken (Pro. 3:21-26).
The writer tells his son, I was my fathers son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live (Pro. 4:3-4), and the writer was turning around and doing the same thing to his sonteaching him.
Some fathers do little more than bring the children into the world and bring the money home for their livelihood. Proverbs shows that a father is to be teacher too, not expecting the mother to do all the talking and all the rearing of the children. On the other hand, the woman is to be a teacher also: Forsake not the law of thy mother (Pro. 1:8). She doesnt always wait till Dad comes home from work to tend to the disobedience of the children. She is strict with them also.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(10) When wisdom . . .Rather to be taken as an explanation of the preceding, For wisdom will enter, &c
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
BENEFITS OF WISDOM IN PRESERVING FROM EVIL ASSOCIATIONS, Pro 2:10-22.
10, 11. When wisdom entereth Here the instructor starts out again, in a different train of thought, to show the effects of a sanctified education in preserving his pupil from the malign influence, first, of bad men, Pro 2:12-15, and, secondly, of bad women, Pro 2:16-20. Hence he repeats in Pro 2:10-11 what he had before advanced, but with a pleasing variety of expression, about the beneficent effects of wisdom, when once attained, in preserving from evil in general. Here, in Pro 2:11, he personifies discretion ( intelligence) and understanding, ( discernment,) and represents them as faithful guardians, watching over and keeping in safety the interests of their votaries. But for the sake of greater force and vividness he soon descends to particulars. In Pro 2:10, for the expressions heart, soul, compare Pro 24:12; Psa 13:2; Jer 4:9; Deu 6:5; Mat 22:37; Act 4:32. The first word of Pro 2:10, when, Miller renders because.
Wisdom Always Provides a Path of Escape for Us Pro 2:10-22 tells us that wisdom will deliver us from the paths of the evil man and the strange woman. Pro 2:10-11 gives us the method of escaping from the devices of the wicked. The lifestyle of allowing wisdom to enter through our minds, our eyes and ears, and into our hearts allows us to avoid the snares that trap other people. For the words of the wicked man (Pro 2:12-15) and strange woman (16-19) are the methods of trapping the fool. These words are carefully placed before their victims in order to gain entrance into their hearts. Once these words have been received into the heart of a man, they ensnare him. But for the man of wisdom, he only receives words of wisdom into his heart. Wisdom will soon tell us to guard our hearts with all diligence (Pro 4:23). Thus, he protects his eyes and ears, which are the entrance into his heart.
Pro 4:23, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
One way that wisdom protects us is that it allows us to foresee problems ahead and avoid them. However, the simple continues on that course and is punished (Pro 22:3).
Pro 22:3, “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.”
For those who do not need wisdom’s call will give their labour and wealth to others and mourn at last when their bodies are consumed and they will say, “How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof; And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!” (Pro 5:12-13)
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. The path of escape Pro 2:10-11
2. Escape from the wicked man Pro 2:12-15
3. Escape from the adulteress Pro 2:16-20
4. End results of wise man & fool Pro 2:21-22
Pro 2:10-11 God’s Method of Divine Protection The previous verses (Pro 2:7-9) promise God’s divine hand of protection to those who faithfully serve Him. His method of protecting us is stated in the next verses (Pro 2:10-11), which says that divine wisdom enters our lives and protects us. In other words, God gives wisdom to avoid problems to those who seek Him. Therefore, if a child of God walks away from the wisdom given to him, he will encounter problems. He may ask God why such things happened to him, thinking God should be sovereignly protecting him. God’s system is to give His children wisdom, so that they become responsible for making sound decision.
Pro 2:10 When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul;
Pro 2:10 Scripture References – Note similar Scriptures:
Jas 1:21, “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.”
Rev 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
Pro 2:11 Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee:
Pro 2:12-15 Pro 2:12 To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things;
Pro 2:12 Pro 2:12 “from the man that speaketh froward things” Comments – Wisdom will teach us to discern the words of the fool that are used to entice us off of the good path. Discretion and understanding will also keep us from men who would otherwise speak horribly about us. We can avoid much slander and evil talk about us using God’s wisdom.
Note verses that illustrate this proverb:
1Pe 3:16, “Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.”
Tit 2:8, “Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.”
Pro 2:13 Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;
Pro 2:14 Pro 2:14 Pro 2:15 Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths:
Pro 2:16-20 Within the historical setting of King Solomon’s court, who else would the young ladies in society desire more than these young, educated, handsome men who are being trained in the king’s courts and who are destined for a career as a leader in that nation.
Pro 2:16 To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words;
Pro 2:17 Pro 2:17 (1) It is used to describe a close friend.
Psa 55:13, “But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide , and mine acquaintance.”
(2) It is also used to describe someone or something gentle, such as a bullock (as being tame).
Psa 144:14, “That our oxen may be strong to labour; that there be no breaking in, nor going out; that there be no complaining in our streets.”
(3) It also carries the meaning of a chieftain, captain, duke, (chief) friend, governor, or guide.
Zec 12:5, “And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.”
Comments – The NIV interprets this strange woman to be an adulteress, who has forsaken her husband and forsaken her marriage vows. It reads, “who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God.”
Pro 2:18 For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.
Pro 2:19 Pro 2:19 Pro 2:20 That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.
Pro 2:21-22 Pro 2:21 For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it.
Pro 2:22 Pro 2:22 Pro 2:22 Word Study on “shall be rooted out” – Gesenius says the Hebrew word ( ) (H5255) means, “to pluck out.” Strong says it means, “to tear away.” The Enhanced Strong says it is used 4 times in the Old Testament, being translated in the KJV as , “pluck 2, rooted 1, destroy 1.”
Pro 2:22 Comments – There are two ways to remove trees from a field. Some varieties of trees can simply be cut off without the stump being able to grow back into a new tree. Thus, the tree dies at the time of its cutting. But other varieties of trees must be uprooted in order to do away with it. For, if these trees are merely cut off, the stump will sprout a new tree.
In a similar way, God simply cuts off some people, and that is remedy enough. Illustration:
Exo 12:19, “Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger, or born in the land.”
For others, God must uproot the wicked and his posterity as a necessary remedy. This is a more severe punishment from God. We see this example in the Scriptures when God removes some wicked kings, because these kings and their family were so rooted in their nation that a removal of the king alone was not enough to remove evil. God did so to Jeroboam, Baasha and Ahab. Note:
1Ki 14:10, “Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone.”
1Ki 16:11, “And it came to pass, when he began to reign, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he slew all the house of Baasha: he left him not one that pisseth against a wall, neither of his kinsfolks, nor of his friends.”
1Ki 21:21, “Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel,”
God even cuts off cities, as He did with Sodom and Gomorrah. He cuts off nations, as He did with the Amalekites and the nations that Joshua overcame in the conquest of Canaan. God even judged the entire earth and destroyed it with a flood during the time of Noah as a necessary remedy for evil.
Wisdom Preserves from Folly
v. 10. When wisdom entereth into thine heart v. 11. discretion shall preserve thee v. 12. to deliver thee from the way of the evil man v. 13. who v. 14. who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness v. 15. whose ways are crooked v. 16. to deliver thee from the strange woman v. 17. which forsaketh the guide of her youth, v. 18. For her house inclineth unto death, v. 19. None that go unto her return again, v. 20. That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, v. 21. For the upright shall dwell in the land, v. 22. But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, DISCOURSE: 855 Pro 2:10-11. When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul, discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee.
PIETY, more than any other thing whatever, is regarded with jealousy and suspicion: and it is no uncommon thing for parents to guard their children against its advocates and professors, as they would against persons infected with a contagious disease. What the fruit of this folly, both in parents and children, too generally is, may be easily conceived: the children, taught to dread piety, which alone could preserve them from evil, become the victims of temptation, and fall into every species of iniquity: and the parents not unfrequently are bowed down by the misconduct of their children, till their grey hairs are brought with sorrow to the grave. Men vainly hope to effect that by moral suasion, which nothing but the grace of God can produce: they would have fruit without a root, and blamelessness without any fixed principle of piety in the soul. But the only way in which any man can be kept in one uniform path of goodness and of honour, is, by submitting his soul to the influence of true religion, and surrendering himself up unreservedly to God. This at least was the conviction of Solomons mind: When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant to thy soul, discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee. By wisdom and knowledge we are not to understand worldly wisdom: for a proficiency in that, however great it may be, is no pledge of morality, no preservative from sin. These terms are used in Scripture to express real piety: and it is that alone which will prove a sufficient antidote to temptation, or become a perennial source of holiness in the life.
In confirmation of this sentiment, I will shew,
I.
What reception divine truth should meet with
The heart is the proper seat of divine knowledge To make this clear, let me state what I mean by divine knowledge. The word of God teaches us that sin is an evil of extreme malignity; that, to every soul in which it reigns, it is defiling, debasing, damming. It teaches us that we are altogether incapable of cancelling its guilt, or of subduing its power; and that if we find not a Saviour who is able to effect these things for us, we must inevitably and eternally perish. It teaches us yet further, that the Lord Jesus Christ is precisely such a Saviour as we want, and that he is both able and willing to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by him. Still further, it teaches us the beauty of holiness, and the blessedness of serving and enjoying God. But of what use are those things, as a mere theory? It is only by their being actually experienced in the soul that they can be productive of any solid benefit. But, when truly received into the heart, they set in motion all the affections of the soul, and call into activity our fears and our hopes, our sorrows and our joys.]
It should be received there with supreme delight That we may be stirred up to seek divine truth in this way, let us consider,
II.
Its salutary influence when duly received
Discretion will preserve us, and understanding will keep us. This is the testimony of God himself. But it may be asked, If common knowledge be not, effectual to keep us, or even divine knowledge when received only into the head, how can the circumstance of receiving knowledge into the heart be productive of any such effect? I answer, It is this very circumstance which makes all the difference: divine knowledge, when it resides merely in the head, is speculative only; whereas, when it enters into the heart, it becomes practical.
1.
It rectifies the judgment
[On every subject connected with the soul, the judgment of mankind is in direct opposition to the mind of God. In their eyes, the things of time and sense are of the first importance; but in the sight of God they are all lighter than vanity itself; in his eyes, the concerns of the soul and of eternity are alone worthy of the care of an immortal Being. To the ungodly, even the Gospel itself, that unrivalled production of divine wisdom, is foolishness; but to an enlightened mind, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. To the stout-hearted infidel, to follow the commands of God is to be righteous over-much; but to one who is taught of God, obedience to Gods commands appears his highest honour and felicity. But the truth is, he once was in darkness, but is now brought into marvellous light: he once saw only through the distorting medium of sense; he now beholds with the eye of faith, which brings him within the vail of the sanctuary, and discovers every thing as it is beheld by God himself. Nor should this appear strange to us. The difference made in the aspect of any object by its being viewed through glasses of different construction, may easily convince us how different an appearance every object must assume, according as it is viewed through the medium of sense, or by the penetrating eye of faith. The person who turns to God has the very law of God written in his heart; and needs only to look within, and he will see the correspondence between the divine records and his own actual experience: so that he does not merely believe the divine testimonies to be true and good, but has within himself a witness of their transcendent excellence: or, as it is said in the verse before our text, he understands righteousness, and judgment, and equity, yea, every good path.]
2.
It infuses sensibility into the conscience
[The conscience of an unenlightened man is blind, partial, and in many respects seared; since, in relation to the dispositions of the soul towards God, which is of far greater importance than any thing else, it never reproves at all. But when divine wisdom has entered into his soul, a man will not be satisfied with a freedom from great and flagrant transgressions: he will examine his duties towards God as well as those towards man: he will mark his defects, no less than his excesses: he will observe his thoughts, yea, and the very imaginations of his thoughts: and will be more grieved for an evil propensity or desire, than the world at large are for an evil act. He endeavours to have his conscience as much alive to the least evils, as to the greatest: and to keep it tender, as the apple of his eye: and if but a mote assail it, he will take no rest, till he has wept it out with tears of penitence and contrition. See this in the Apostle Paul. Before his conversion, he could find no evil in himself, though he was a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but after his conversion, he did but utter a disrespectful word to a judge who was violating the plainest rules of justice, and he made it a matter of humiliation in the presence of the whole court.]
3.
It instils a watchfulness against the occasions of evil
Those who are destitute of vital godliness will venture themselves any where, without fear and without remorse: but a man of real piety will be afraid to expose himself where the objects around him present only what has a tendency to vitiate his mind: he prays to God not to lead him into temptation: and therefore he will not voluntarily run into it; he will select his associates from amongst the excellent of the earth, who will forward, rather than retard, the growth of holy affections within him: and, as far as his situation will admit of it, he will come out from the ungodly world, and be separate, and not even touch an unclean thing, lest he be defiled, and have his good manners corrupted by evil communications. This is very particularly insisted on in the following context, in reference both to evil men and evil women. It is said, Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee: to deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things; who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness: who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked: whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths: to deliver thee also from the strange woman, oven from the stranger who flattereth with her words: who forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God: for her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead: none that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life: That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous [Note: ver. 1120.]. Here the conduct of evil men is drawn to the very life, as is the character of the evil woman also, against both of whom the man of piety will be strictly on his guard, proposing to himself the example of the godly, and availing himself of their aid in his walk before God. He knows, that he cannot take fire in his bosom, and not be burned; and therefore he will use the utmost possible circumspection in the whole of his deportment. The books, the company, the conversation that would defile his mind, he carefully avoids; and, like the Jews at the time of the Passover, he searches the most secret recesses of his soul, to sweep from it the leaven that would offend his God.]
4.
It leads us continually to God for direction and support
[Without divine aid all human efforts are vain. But the word of God clearly, fully, constantly directs us to look to him i and an experience of it in our own souls will convince us of the necessity of crying to him continually, Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe. It is in this way chiefly that divine wisdom preserves us. The soundness of our principles may prescribe what is right; and our love to those principles may incline us to the performance of it: but divine grace alone can ever prove effectual for us. No power, but that which raised Jesus Christ himself from the dead, will be sufficient to carry on within us the work that has been begun. On the other hand, if we really trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall, through his strength, be able to do all things, nor shall any thing ever prevail to separate us from his love.]
Having illustrated the great truth in our text, we would further improve it, by suggesting, In what spirit we should hear the word
[We should not come to the house of God in a mere customary manner, for example sake, or to perform a duty, and still less to be amused with what we hear: but, as Cornelius and his friends, when Peter came to minister unto them, said, Now are we all here before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God; so should we come up to the house of God to hear what the Lord our God shall say concerning us. We should come to learn our duty, in order that we may practise it. We should bless our God that so sublime a privilege is accorded to us. We should come as a patient to receive the counsels of his physician, with a determination of heart to follow his prescriptions. A mariner, if amongst shoals and quicksands, does not consult his chart and compass for amusement, or with a disposition to dispute their testimony, but with a desire to have every mistake rectified, and to navigate his ship through the dangerous passage, agreeably to their direction. O! when will Christian assemblies meet in this frame? When will Gods ordinances be thus improved for their proper end? Brethren, only reflect on the office of true wisdom, as delineated in the passage before us and you will never want either a direction or a motive for a profitable attendance on the means of grace.]
2.
With what care we should improve it
[The word we hear will judge us in the last day; and if we do not take occasion from it to follow the counsels of the Most High, we shall greatly aggravate our guilt before God. The word we hear, if it prove not a savour of life unto life, will become to us a savour of death unto death. The lessons of wisdom had better never have been delivered to us, than be suffered to pass away without a suitable improvement of them. Our blessed Lord told his hearers, that if he had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but that now they had no cloak for their sin. And so must I also say unto you. All that you have heard respecting the evil of sin, the sufficiency of Christ, the beauty of holiness, of what use will it be to you, if it do not humble you as sinners, encourage you as penitents, and animate you as believers? I pray you, neglect not the day of your visitation, nor hold the truth in unrighteousness: but receive the truth in the love of it: and deliver your souls into it as a mould, that it may fashion you after the image of your God. And never imagine that you have got above the use of ordinances, or that it is of no profit to attend upon them: they are the golden pipes through which, to your latest hour, you must receive the golden oil into your lamps: and through the supplies of the Spirit which you may receive by them, you may hope that your path shall shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.]
DISCOURSE: 756 Pro 2:10-22. When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul, discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee: to deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things: who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness; who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked; whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths: to deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words; which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God: for her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead. None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life; that thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous. For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it: but the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.
WHETHER we regard Solomon as a saint walking with his God, or as a backslider restored to God, we must consider him as pre-eminently qualified to give advice for the regulation of our conduct: for, as a saint, he was endued with wisdom above all the children of men; and, as a backslider, he had a wider range for his wickedness, and a deeper experience of its folly, than any other person ever possessed. I.
The benefits derived from true wisdom
When once religion is deeply rooted in the heart, it will render us the most essential services
1.
It will keep us from the society of ungodly men
[There are many whose delight is in wickedness: they have departed from God themselves, and have made crooked paths for themselves; in which they proceed with all imaginable frowardness and perverseness. Disdaining to receive any light from God or his word, they walk in utter darkness, not at all knowing whither they go [Note: ver. 13. with 1Jn 2:11.]. And not content with casting off all restraint themselves, and walking after their own lusts in all manner of uncleanness, they wish to draw all they can along with them: they deride all serious piety, and labour to the uttermost to turn aside from the way of godliness any who may be inclined to it [Note: 1Pe 4:4.] They rejoice to do evil: and, if they can but succeed in their efforts to ensnare a person who has been fleeing from sin, and to divert him from following after God, not even Satan himself will exult more than they
Now from such companions true religion will preserve us. We shall see at once how far they are from God, and how impossible it is to be happy in their society: for what fellowship can righteousness have with unrighteousness; or light with darkness; or Christ with Belial; or he that believeth with an unbeliever [Note: 2Co 6:14-15.]? Instead of seeking their society, therefore, we shall come out from among them, and be separate [Note: 2Co 6:17.]; and not have any fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them [Note: Eph 5:11.] ]
2.
It will keep us from the snares also of ungodly women
[It is lamentable to think how degraded human nature is, and how assimilated to the very beasts multitudes are, who were originally formed in the image of their God. Females, married, as well as unmarried, forsaking the guide of their youth and the covenant of their God, will abandon themselves to the most vicious courses, soliciting the embrace of men to whom they are utter strangers, and practising every species of artifice, to ensnare and vitiate all who come in their way But from these also will vital piety preserve us. It will lead us to use all the precautions against them, that a prudent government employs against the infection of the plague. We shall have no communication with person, whose very presence will endanger the life of our souls. We shall not go near their houses, or the places of their resort [Note: Pro 5:8.]. We shall not parley with temptation when it comes in our way: but shall flee from it, as Joseph did, saying, How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God [Note: Gen 39:9.]? ]
3.
It will guide us in the paths of righteousness and peace
[When once true religion enters into the soul, we shall take the Scriptures for our guide, and endeavour to walk in the paths which all the holy men of old have trod before us [Note: ver. 20.]. We shall not be satisfied with following the customs of those around us, or with conforming to the standard of duty which the world approves; we shall desire to be holy, as God is holy: and shall determine through grace to perfect holiness in the fear of God ]
Such being the effects of true wisdom, I will proceed to point out to you,
II.
The vast importance of seeking after it
Both the promises and threatenings of the Mosaic law were chiefly of a temporal nature; the people who served God faithfully being encouraged to expect peace and plenty in the land of Canaan; whilst those who were disobedient to his laws were to be visited with war, famine, pestilence, and ultimately to be driven out of that land, as the Canaanites had been before them. But under these figures truths of far higher moment were veiled: and the present and eternal states of men were shadowed forth as indissolubly connected with their moral and religious character. Hence the contrast drawn between the sentence accorded to the upright and the wicked in the concluding verses of our text, must be understood as referring to their respective states,
1.
In this world
[Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come [Note: 1Ti 4:8.]. Certainly in this world there is an immense difference between those who serve God, and those who serve him not [Note: Mal 3:18.]. We readily grant that the ungodly and profane may prosper in respect of outward things, and that the saints may be in a state of degradation and oppression [Note: Psa 73:3-10.]: but there is no comparison between the real happiness of the one and of the other: the ungodly are like the troubled sea, whose waters cast up mire and dirt [Note: Isa 57:20-21.]: they are agitated by many ungovernable and conflicting passions: their tempers are a source of continual disquietude [Note: Rom 3:16-17.]: and they have no inward resources to calm the tumult of their minds But the godly have consolations peculiar to themselves, and abundantly sufficient to counterbalance their afflictions. They have a God to go unto; a God, who says, Cast thy burthen on the Lord, and he will sustain thee. The very tribulations which they endure for righteousness sake, are to them a ground of glorying [Note: Rom 5:3.]: and the light of Gods countenance lifted up upon them their their souls with joy and peace, even with a joy that is unspeakable, and a peace that passeth all understanding.
If then we look no further than to this present life, we do not hesitate to declare, that the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil, that is understanding [Note: Job 28:28.].]
2.
In the world to come
[There is a rest which remaineth for the people of God [Note: Heb 4:9.]; a rest, into which the true Joshua shall introduce them, as soon as ever they shall have completed the period fixed for their abode in this dreary wilderness: and there shall they remain for ever: there shall they be as pillars in the temple of their God and shall go no more out [Note: ver. 21. with Rev 3:12.]. But how shall I represent their happiness in that place where there will be no remains of those evils which they experienced in this world [Note: Rev 21:4.]; and where every blessing which they here sought for, shall be imparted to the utmost extent of their desires, and of their capacities for enjoyment [Note: Psal. 16:11.]
On the other hand, there is a day of retribution for the ungodly, when they shall not only be convinced of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodlily committed, and of all their hard speeches which they have spoken against the Lord and his ways, but will have judgment executed upon them by the Judge of quick and dead [Note: Jude. ver. 15.]. And what words can ever suffice to give an adequate idea of their misery, when, driven from the presence of their God, and from the congregation of his saints [Note: Psa 1:5. Luk 13:28.], they shall be consigned to those regions of misery, where they will take their portion in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, and dwell for ever with everlasting burnings!
If men would but reflect one moment on these consequences of their impiety, there would be no longer any occasion to descant on the wisdom of seeking after God, or the folly of provoking his displeasure by a life of sin.]
Let us learn then, To form a right estimate of religion
[Religion is wisdom, even though the whole world should combine to call it folly ]
2.
To seek it in due measure
[To receive it into the head is to little purpose: the proper seat of it is the heart. Nor is it sufficient that we yield a constrained obedience to it: its service should in our estimation be accounted perfect freedom. It is only when wisdom enters into our heart, and knowledge it pleasant to our soul, that we can be said to have received the grace of God in truth. The worldly man is at home in the world: it is his element wherein he moves. And such must religion be to the child of God, his rest, his element, his delight ]
3.
To let it have its full operation on our souls
[Wherever true wisdom is, there will be discretion to preserve us, and understanding to keep us [Note: Pro 2:11.]. We conceive this observation to be deserving of peculiar attention; because the indiscretions of religious people are rarely traced to their proper source, a want of right dispositions in the heart. Where meekness, and modesty, and diffidence, and humility reside in the heart, there will be a corresponding propriety of conduct in the life: but where pride, and conceit, and forwardness, and self-will are predominant, there will the deportment savour of these hateful qualities in all our intercourse with mankind. There is this remarkable difference between human wisdom and that which is divine: human wisdom leaves the heart untouched, or even administers fuel to its corruptions: but divine wisdom pours the very soul into the mould of the Gospel [Note: Rom 6:17. The Greek.], and assimilates all its dispositions to the image of God himself. It was not Pauls eminence in intellectual attainments that made him so eminent in Christian tempers: it was the abundance of Gods grace that rendered him so fruitful in every good word and work: and, if the grace of God abound in us, we also shall proportionality adorn the Gospel in the whole of our life and conversation. Lot that then be remembered which Solomon has told us, I Wisdom dwell with Prudence [Note: Pro 8:12.]: and let us be careful that we do not by any indiscreet conduct give occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. Our determination, through grace, must be, to cut off from the world all unnecessary occasion of offence. We must not imagine that our separation from an ungodly world gives us a licence to violate either the duties or the charities of life; but, whilst we abstain from all appearance of evil, we must cultivate to the uttermost not only whatsoever things are true, and honest, and just, and pure, but whatsoever things are lovely and of good report [Note: Php 4:8.]. We must labour to behave ourselves wisely in a perfect way [Note: Psa 101:2.].]
Pro 2:10 When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul;
Ver. 10. Is pleasant to thy soul. ] Spiritual joy mortifies sin. His mouth hankers not after homely provision that hath lately tasted of delicate sustenance. Pleasure there must be in the ways of God, because therein men let out their souls into God, that is the fountain of all good; hence they so infinitely distaste sin’s tasteless fooleries. Crede mihi, res severa est verum gaudium, saith Seneca. True joy is a solid business.
When, &c.: or because. Commencing the particular instructions as to the practical power of wisdom, to keep from evil men (verses: Pro 2:10-15) and the foreign woman (verses: 16-19); and in the way of good men (verses: Pro 2:20-22). See App-74.
thy soul = thee. Hebrew. nephesh. App-13.
Pro 18:1, Pro 18:2, Pro 24:13, Pro 24:14, Job 23:12, Psa 19:10, Psa 104:34, Psa 119:97, Psa 119:103, Psa 119:111, Psa 119:162, Jer 15:16, Col 3:16
Reciprocal: Gen 39:8 – refused Lev 11:3 – cheweth Deu 6:6 – shall be Neh 8:12 – because Psa 17:4 – word Pro 3:17 – ways of Pro 4:6 – love Pro 11:9 – through Pro 12:1 – loveth Pro 14:27 – to Pro 22:18 – it is Eze 3:3 – it was Joh 17:6 – they
Pro 2:10-15. When wisdom entereth into thy heart When thou dost truly love it, and hide its precepts in thy heart; Discretion shall preserve thee From wicked courses, and the mischiefs which attend upon them; from the way of the evil man From following his counsel or example; the man that speaketh froward things With a design to corrupt thy mind, and entice thee to evil principles or practices. Who leave the paths of righteousness The way of Gods precepts; to walk in the ways of darkness Of sin, which is often called darkness, because it proceeds from ignorance and error, hates the light of knowledge and truth, and leads to the eternal darkness of misery and despair. Who rejoice to do evil Seeking and embracing occasions of sin, with diligence and greediness, and pleasing themselves both in the practice and remembrance of it: and delight in the frowardness of the wicked Not only in their own sins, but in the sins of other wicked men, which shows a great malignity of mind and love to sin, Rom 1:32 : whose ways are crooked Hebrew, who in, or with respect to, their ways, are perverse; acting contrary to the straight rules of piety and virtue.
The fruit of moral integrity 2:10-22
Wisdom safeguards a person morally. The first part of this pericope shows how God protects the wise (Pro 2:10-11; cf. Pro 2:7-8). The last part presents the temptations one can overcome as he or she seeks wisdom (Pro 2:12-19). When a person submits himself or herself to God and gains wisdom, the ways of the wicked will lose some of their attractiveness. The wise person will see that the adventuress who promises thrills is offering something she cannot give, except in the most immediate sensual sense.
The "strange" woman (Pro 2:16) is one "outside the circle of his [a man’s] proper relations, that is, a harlot or an adulteress." [Note: Toy, p. 46.] The word does not necessarily mean that she is a foreigner. Probably she is a stranger to the conventions of Israel’s corporate life. [Note: William McKane, Proverbs: A New Approach, p. 285.]
"If the evil man uses perverse words to snare the unwary [Pro 2:12], the adulteress uses flattering words. Someone has said that flattery isn’t communication, it is manipulation; it’s people telling us things about ourselves that we enjoy hearing and wish were true." [Note: Wiersbe, p. 37.]
The "covenant" she has left (Pro 2:17) seems to refer to her own marriage covenant (Mal 2:14), rather than to the covenant law that prohibited adultery (Exo 20:14). [Note: Ross, p. 914.] The "land" (Pro 2:21-22) is the Promised Land of Canaan.
This chapter, like the previous one, ends by contrasting the ends of the wicked and the righteous (Pro 2:21-22; cf. Pro 1:32-33). It is a long poem that appeals to the reader to pursue wisdom, and then identifies the benefits of following wisdom. Chapter 2 emphasizes moral stability as a fruit of wisdom.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
PIETY A PRESERVATIVE FROM EVIL
[Other knowledge is seated in the head: it is acquired only by deep study, and by force of intellect: nor, in whatever degree it be attained, does it at all sanctify and renew the soul. But the truth of God enters into the heart: there is that incorruptible seed deposited; and from thence is it brought forth into life and action. I mean not to say, that the understanding is not to be exercised, or exercised deeply, in relation to divine truth; for, beyond all doubt, every truth must so far approve itself to our judgment, as evidently to appear worthy of God, and suited to our condition: nor should any man give an unrestrained scope to his imagination or affections: for, if he were implicitly to follow them, he would of necessity be led away from the solid maxims of the Gospel: but when once he is convinced of any truth of God, then is he to deliver up his affections to be moulded and directed by it.
[Truth of any kind is pleasing to the mind, as all who are accustomed to the investigations of science can attest. But divine truth should generate the sublimest joy; or, as my text expresses it, should be pleasant to the soul. It should be to us what light is to the wandering and benighted traveller: he pants for it; and congratulates himself on the very first appearance of its orient dawn. To him it comes as a remedy that is suited to his most urgent necessities. Conceive of the Israelites, when pressed with hunger, or perishing with thirst; with what interest must they have beheld the manna that was showered about their tents! and with what avidity must they have bowed down to drink of the streams that issued from the rock! Or, if it be said that these things are objects of sense, and therefore inapplicable to the point in hand, take the instance of the brazen serpent, which was exhibited to their faith. They felt themselves dying of the wounds which had been inflicted by the fiery serpents: they were perfectly conscious that no physician on earth could help them: and they were informed, that, by Gods appointment, a brazen serpent had been erected, in order that, by looking to that, they might be restored to health. Would they hear of that with sceptical indifference, or behold it with uninterested curiosity? No: it would be to them a matter of life and death: the very first tidings of such an instrument would make them eager for the exposure of it to their view: and when they saw or heard others attesting its efficacy, they would look to it with a desire to experience in themselves its healing power. Now this is the way in which divine truth should be viewed by us. To the ungodly world it is most unwelcome, because it bears testimony against them, and against all their ways: hence they hate the light, and will not come to it, lest their deeds should be reproved. But to us it should be an object of ardent desire and supreme delight. We should look to it, not for the purpose of critical discussion, but of grateful application to the soul. Our spirit should be precisely that of the blind man whom Jesus had healed. Our Lord put the question to him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? To which he replied, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him [Note: Joh 9:35-36.]? Here he finds no disposition to speculate upon the subject, as on a matter of mere critical inquiry: but shews a readiness to admit the truth the moment it should be revealed to him, and to embrace it as the one ground of all his future conduct. Such should be the disposition of our minds also. And when we have attained clearer views of divine truth, we should rejoice as one that findeth great spoil [Note: Psa 119:162.].]
1.
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
BENEFITS OF TRUE WISDOM
Under the character of wisdom, he here speaks of true religion; which he recommends to all, but especially to persons in early life; and, in order to impress his advice the more deeply on our minds, he sets before us,
And such is their influence over those whom they have once ensnared, that it is a miracle almost if even one is recovered to a sense of his duty, and is brought back again in penitential sorrow to his God [Note: ver. 19.]. Truly their ways lead down to death and to hell [Note: Pro 5:3-5; Pro 7:26-27.]: for not only do they draw men from all thoughtfulness about their souls, but they bring them into extravagances and crimes, which not unfrequently issue in suicide, or death by the hands of the public executioner.
1.
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)