7 My son, keep my words
and treasure up my commandments with you;
2 keep my commandments and live;
keep my teaching as the apple of your eye;
3 bind them on your fingers;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 Say to wisdom, “You are my sister”,
and call insight your intimate friend,
5 to keep you from the forbidden woman,
from the adulteress with her smooth words.
The prologue begins with the now familiar appeal from the father to the son to keep the commandments and the law, to keep which is life (2). The use of the metaphor of 'the apple of the eye' seems to suggest that the matter is something so sensitive that it dare not be damaged without detriment to the whole of life. This keeping of the law must, moreover, be something that goes to the very heart of our being - only thus to the gracious provisions of the law, its strengthening and protective power, become available for instant and instinctive application (3). The metaphor here is a fruitful one - to be so gripped and suffused by the teaching of God's word that we will never be at a loss to what is right to do, because we will have it at our fingertips, ready at hand in every mo- ment of crisis. There is obviously a contrast intended in 4 and 5 between the sister who is wisdom and the seductress who flatters with words. The man who calls wisdom his sister will give the other a wide berth. Many a man has had cause to thank God for the moderating and engracing influence that a sister has had upon his life. This is the kind of idea that lies behind these words. After all, in the time of need a sister is someone one can turn to, and a kinswoman one from whom one can expect help. And in the kind of situation represented in these verses, this sister is an indispensible necessity!