A Lesson Passed from One Generation to the Next

“Children” is banim, sons in the plural, where the lectures usually address a single son; the plural returns at 5:7, 7:24 and 8:32. It is “a father” rather than “your father”, which may suggest a teacher speaking as a father to a class.

“Doctrine” is leqach, what is received, the “learning” of 1:5; in 1611 doctrine simply meant teaching. The father calls his lesson “good leqach”, and gives a reason before he gives a command: the goodness of what he hands over is why it should not be forsaken.

“Tender” is rach, the word David used of Solomon: “Solomon my son is young and tender” (1 Chronicles 22:5). “Only beloved” is yachid, the word for Isaac, “thine only son” (Genesis 22:2). Bathsheba had four sons (1 Chronicles 3:5), so if the speaker is Solomon the word means uniquely dear.

The father now quotes his own father, so three generations speak at once. Where the grandfather’s words end is not marked; some end the quotation at verse 5, others at verse 9. “Keep my commandments, and live” comes back word for word in 7:2.

“Get” is qanah, to buy or acquire, the market verb; 23:23 says “Buy the truth, and sell it not.” The same verb is Eve’s “I have gotten” (Genesis 4:1) and the LORD’s “possessed me” in 8:22. “Decline” is natah, to turn aside from the road.

The pronoun becomes “her”: wisdom is loved as a woman is loved, with the ordinary verb ahav. She answers with shamar and natsar, the two guarding verbs of 2:8 and 2:11. “Forsake” is azav, the verb used in 2:17 of the woman who forsook the companion of her youth.

The Hebrew is abrupt: “The beginning of wisdom: get wisdom.” The first step is simply to want it enough to acquire it. “With all thy getting” means with everything you own, spend it all. The verse is missing from the Greek translation altogether.

“Exalt” is silsel, a rare verb, perhaps to heap up as a raised road is built, and so to prize highly. “Embrace” is chabaq, the verb of lovers in the Song of Solomon, “his right hand should embrace me” (Song 8:3). The honour runs in both directions.

“Ornament of grace” repeats the garland of 1:9, but the giver has changed from parents to wisdom herself. “Crown of glory” is ateret tif’eret, the phrase 16:31 uses of grey hair: “The hoary head is a crown of glory.” The crown is age well spent.

“Hear, O my son” is shema beni, the verb of the Shema, “Hear, O Israel” (Deuteronomy 6:4). “Receive” is qach, take, from the same root as leqach in verse 2. A new lesson starts, and its first promise is the long life of 3:2.

“Taught” is horeticha, from yarah, the verb from which torah comes. “Led” is literally “caused thee to tread”. “Right paths” are ma’gelei yosher, straight wheel tracks, the word of 2:9, a road already worn smooth by traffic.

“Straitened” is yetsar, to be hemmed in or cramped, the opposite of Psalm 18:36, “Thou hast enlarged my steps under me”. The verse moves from walking to running, as Isaiah 40:31 moves the other way, and the open road allows both.

“Take fast hold” is hachazeq, grip hard, the root of “lay hold” in 3:18. The noun “instruction”, musar, is masculine in Hebrew, yet the verbs that follow treat it as “her”. The grammar slides from the lesson to the woman wisdom, as though they were one.

“Go not” is al te’asher, “do not step forward” on it, from ashar, to advance; the same root gives ashrei, “blessed”, the first word of Psalm 1: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.” The step forward that blesses and this one are opposites.

“Avoid it” is para’ehu, from para, the verb of 1:25, where fools “set at nought” wisdom’s counsel, letting it go unattended. The son is to do to the wicked path what fools did to wisdom: leave it alone. Four commands are fitted into about six Hebrew words.

Micah 2:1 has the same insomnia: “Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds!” Psalm 36:4 adds “He deviseth mischief upon his bed.” The verse reverses the sweet sleep of 3:24; these men cannot rest until someone else is lying down.

“Bread of wickedness” can mean bread got by wickedness, their living earned by crime, or wickedness as the thing they feed on. 20:17 carries the first sense further: “Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.” “Violence” is chamas again (3:31).

“Shining light” is or nogah, the brightness of dawn. “The perfect day” is literally “the established point of the day”, noon, when the sun seems to stand still at its height. The light “goeth on and brighteth”, a continuous growth from first grey to full midday.

“Darkness” is afelah, thick gloom, the word of the ninth plague, “a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt” (Exodus 10:22). Jesus uses the same picture in John 12:35: “he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.”

The two verbs of 2:2, qashav and natah, return, but trade places: there the ear attended and the heart was inclined; here the son attends to the words and inclines the ear. The third lecture of the chapter opens with the organ that receives, the ear.

Almost a repetition of 3:21, “let not them depart from thine eyes”, using the same verb luz, to slip aside. “In the midst of thine heart” is betoch levavecha, the very centre, where a treasure is kept furthest from reach.

“Health” is marpe, healing or medicine, a word Proverbs returns to (12:18, 13:17, 14:30). “Them that find them” uses matsa, the verb for finding wisdom in 3:13. The words are like a remedy that works only on the one who takes it.

“With all diligence” is literally “more than all guarding”, mikkol mishmar; a mishmar is a guard post or a place of custody, as in Genesis 40:3. “Issues” is totse’ot, outgoings, the word the Law uses for the points where a border runs out (Numbers 34:4–5).

“Froward mouth” is iqqeshut peh, a twisted mouth, from the iqqesh of 2:15. “Perverse lips” is lezut sefatayim, devious lips, from luz, the slipping aside of 3:21. Both words for crooked speech are built from roots the lectures have already used of crooked roads.

“Eyelids” stand in Hebrew poetry for the eyes and their glances, as in Psalm 11:4, “his eyelids try, the children of men”. “Right on” is nokhach, straight ahead. Where the eyes rest the feet tend to follow, so the gaze is ordered before the step.

“Ponder” is pales, to level or to weigh as with scales; the peles in 16:11 is a balance. 5:21 uses the verb of God, who “pondereth all his goings”, and Isaiah 26:7 of the path of the just. The son is asked to do for his own road what God does.

“Turn not to the right hand nor to the left” is the phrase used of keeping the Law of Moses (Deuteronomy 5:32, Joshua 1:7). The Greek translation adds two verses after this one, saying God knows the ways on the right, while those on the left are crooked.