1 The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel:
2 To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
3 to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
4 to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
6 to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.
It will be seen from the analysis given in yesterday's Note that we do not come to Solomon's proverbs until chapter 10, for the good reason, as Kidner points out, 'that the reader needs preparation if he is to use them fruitfully'. The introduction (1:2-6) indicates that the book is designed to be 'a course of education in the life of wisdom'. The well- known words in 7 stand as the 'text', so to speak, on which the exposition of the follow- ing chapters is based. This exposition (1:8-9:18) takes the form of a series of homilies spoken by a father to his son, in which the choice that must be made between wisdom and folly is underlined. Then, in what follows (10:1ff) we are able to see in each proverb a miniature and particular outworking of the wisdom and folly that have been unfolded in chapters 1-9. The word 'wisdom' is one which has a wide range of meaning, and the other words in 2 and 3 instruction, understanding, justice, judgment and equity - are ei- ther synonyms or interpretations of what the writer means. Taken together - and these words recur again and again throughout the book - they convey the general meaning of instruction and training - that is to say, the idea of discipline is prominent. The implica- tion is that wisdom is not something that is easily come by, but hard won, and is a quali- ty of character that is produced through hard and rigorous discipline. It is true, of course that all wisdom comes from God - this is the point of the words 'will hear' in 5, it is from God that we hear it. But the way God teaches and imparts wisdom is through discipline. To be taught of God is to be taught in the school of discipline (cf 2:6, where it is stressed that it is the Lord who gives wisdom, but this statement follows the hard and arduous search for it mentioned in 2:1-5).