Sweet Words, Bitter Ends, and a Faithful Fountain

For the first time the father calls the wisdom and understanding his own: “my wisdom”, “my understanding”. Until now he has pointed to wisdom as a woman in the street or a gift from the LORD. “Bow thine ear” is natah again, to lean the ear toward the speaker.

Malachi 2:7 says the same of priests: “the priest’s lips should keep knowledge”. “Discretion” is in the plural here, mezimmot, many sound plans. The son’s lips are to guard knowledge before another pair of lips begins to speak in verse 3.

“Drop as an honeycomb” is the language the Song of Solomon uses of the bride, “Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb” (Song 4:11). Psalm 55:21 describes a traitor whose words “were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords”, the same turn the next verse makes.

Wormwood, la’anah, is a bitter plant paired with gall in Deuteronomy 29:18 and Lamentations 3:19. “Twoedged sword” is literally “a sword of mouths”, the phrase of Psalm 149:6: her mouth, smooth in verse 3, becomes a blade with mouths on both edges.

“Take hold” is tamach, to grip firmly, the same verb as “retaineth” in 3:18, where the happy man holds the tree of life. Her steps grip the opposite thing. Death and Sheol are paired as in Isaiah 28:15, where Jerusalem’s rulers boast of a covenant with them.

The Hebrew is compressed and can be read with the woman as its subject: “she does not weigh the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.” “Ponder” is pales, the leveling of 4:26. “Moveable” is na’u, to wander, the word for Cain as a “vagabond” (Genesis 4:12).

“Now therefore” is ve’attah, the word with which a speech turns from description to demand, as in Deuteronomy 4:1, “Now therefore hearken, O Israel”. The plural “children” returns from 4:1, as if the warning is being given to a whole room of young men.

“The door of her house” is petach, the opening; the same place where Folly sits calling out in 9:14, and the word of Genesis 4:7, where sin “lieth at the door”. The advice is geographical: stay away from the street, and the doorway never has to be refused.

“Honour” is hod, splendour or vigour, the bloom of a man’s best years; Daniel says his hod “was turned in me into corruption” (Daniel 10:8). “The cruel” is a single cruel one; some think of the wronged husband of 6:34, who will show no mercy, but the text leaves him unnamed.

“Wealth” is koach, literally strength: outsiders will be filled with your strength. “Labours” is atsavim, painful toil, from the root of Genesis 3:17, “in sorrow shalt thou eat of it”. What was earned by sweat ends up feeding a house that is not his.

“Mourn” is naham, to groan or growl, the word for a lion’s roar in 19:12. “At the last” is the acharit, the “end”, of verse 4, now arrived. Flesh and body are two Hebrew words for the same thing, basar and she’er, doubled for the whole physical self.

“How” is eich, the opening cry of a lament, the word that begins Lamentations 1:1 in its longer form. The confession uses the vocabulary of chapter 1 against himself: hated knowledge (1:29), despised reproof (1:30). He is quoting the charge sheet in his own voice.

Two words for teacher stand side by side: morim, from yarah, the root of torah, and melammedim, from lamad, to train, the word in Psalm 119:99, “more understanding than all my teachers”. He had more than one, and he names them by their office.

“Almost” is kim’at, a little more and: I came within a hair of utter ruin. “Congregation and assembly” are qahal and edah, the formal gathering of Israel, which sat in judgment (Numbers 35:24). Under the Law adultery was a capital case (Leviticus 20:10), heard in public.

A cistern, bor, was a plastered pit cut in rock to hold rainwater, every household’s store. The Assyrian envoy promised Jerusalem that each man would “drink ye every one the waters of his own cistern” (2 Kings 18:31). The Song of Solomon calls the bride “a well of living waters” (4:15).

The streets, rechovot, are the open squares where Wisdom cried aloud in 1:20. The Greek translation adds a negative, “let not thy waters overflow”, which many modern versions follow in making the line a question: should your springs be poured out in the squares?

“Only thine own” is levaddecha, for you alone. “Strangers” are zarim, the outsiders of 2:16. The gang of chapter 1 offered one purse held in common; here the father insists on something not held in common, the one thing the son must not share.

“Fountain” is maqor, source or spring, a word the Law uses of a woman’s body (Leviticus 12:7). “Rejoice” is samach, the verb of Deuteronomy 24:5, where a newly married man is excused from war for a year to “cheer up his wife which he hath taken”.

The hind is a doe, and the “roe” is ya’alah, the female ibex of the mountain cliffs, the animal whose name Jael bears (Judges 4:17). “Satisfy” is ravah, to drink one’s fill, carrying on the water of verses 15 to 18. The Song of Solomon compares the beloved to these same animals (2:9).

“Embrace” is chabaq, the verb the father used in 4:8 of embracing wisdom. The same arms can take hold of wisdom or of a stranger. “Bosom” is cheq, the fold of the garment over the chest, where a child or a lover is held close.

“Before the eyes” is nokhach, the “right on” of 4:25: the son’s eyes were to look straight ahead, and all his ways lie straight ahead of God’s. Job, disowning lust, asks, “Doth not he see my ways, and count all my steps?” (Job 31:4).

“Cords” is chevel, rope, the same word behind the “wise counsels” of 1:5, the helmsman’s ropes. The wise steer with ropes; the wicked are tied up in them. “Holden” is tamach, the gripping verb of verse 5, so the one whose steps gripped Sheol is now gripped himself.

“Folly” is ivvelet, the folly of the evil, the thick fool of 1:7, and “greatness” is rov, abundance: he has a great deal of it. 10:21 gives the same verdict in a single line: “fools die for want of wisdom.” He dies not ignorant but untrained.