2 My son, if you receive my words
and treasure up my commandments with you,
2 making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;
3 yes, if you call out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding,
4 if you seek it like silver
and search for it as for hidden treasures,
5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
In 1, we can either take the speaker in the ultimate sense as being God, or - if it is a father speaking to his son - the father's words and his commandments are based upon God's word and law. In either case, we are brought back ultimately to the word of God. God has given us His Word, and it is there that we must concentrate our search for wis- dom. We should note what this implies: the starting point of the search is divine revela- tion - specific (words) and practical (commandments). And there is no kind of warrant, in the search for wisdom, for speculation or wide-ranging enquiry, but rather, as Kidner puts it, for 'treasuring and exploring received teachings so as to penetrate to their princi- ples' (as the verbs used indicate: 'receive', 'hide', 'incline', 'apply', 'cry', 'lift up they voice', 'seek', 'search'). These verbs are worth a second look, and we may consider them in pairs. The first of them, 'receive' and 'hide' set the tone. The word must be received, first of all. This is more than 'hearing' it. You can hear, and forget: The sower, when he sowed the seed, let some fall by the wayside, and the fowls of the air came and de- voured it. It never got into the soil. And sometimes divine truth falls on the mind like seed on a beaten path, never penetrating the soil. The word must not only be heard, but also received, and laid up, or hidden in the heart. It is sometimes disturbing, when peo- ple come and ask questions about this or that problem or issue, to reflect that these very problems and issues were dealt with as recently as a few weeks earlier. The answer to them was in the Word preached; the questioner was there; he heard the message, but he did not receive it or hide it in his heart. He was thinking about something else at the time. It makes one think, does it not?