An exhortation to get the supreme thing
4
📚Hear, you children, the instruction of a father,
and pay attention so as
to find understanding.
2 📚For I give you good teaching.
Do not forsake my law.
3 📚For I was my father’s son,
tender and the only one
in the sight of my mother.
4 📚And he taught me, and said to me,
“Let your heart retain my words.
Keep my commands, and live.
5 📚Get wisdom, get understanding.
Do not forget it or turn away
from the words of my mouth.
6 📚Do not forsake her,
and she will preserve you.
Love her, and she will keep you.
4:6 True wisdom has such influence because God is behind it working with it.⚜
7 📚Wisdom is the principal thing.
Therefore get wisdom,
and with all your getting get understanding.
4:7 Since wisdom is far more precious than wealth, then one must be willing to give all one’s wealth to get it. It is hardly obtained otherwise (compare Matt 13:44-46; Mark 10:21-25; Luke 14:33). If there is something for which we will not give our wealth, then it is plain that we value our wealth more than that thing. And why should God give us something we value so little?⚜
8 📚Exalt her, and she will set you on high.
She will bring you to honour,
when you embrace her.
9 📚She will give an ornament of grace
for your head;
she will provide a crown of glory to you”.
4:3-9 Father and mother were David and Bathsheba (1 Kings 1:28-30). Solomon was the son who was to succeed David on the throne of Israel.⚜
10 📚Hear, O my son,
and receive my words,
and the years of your life will be many.
4:10 Under the old covenant God promised long life to those who obeyed Him (Prov 9:11).⚜
11 📚I have taught you in the way of wisdom;
I have led you in right paths.
12 📚When you walk,
your steps will not be cramped,
and when you run, you will not stumble.
13 📚Take firm hold of instruction.
Do not let her go.
Keep her,
for she is your life.
14 📚Do not enter the path of the wicked,
and do not go in the way of evil people.
15 📚Avoid it. Do not travel on it.
Turn from it and pass on.
16 📚For they do not sleep unless
they have done evil,
and their sleep is taken away,
unless they cause someone to fall.
17 📚For they eat the bread of wickedness,
and drink the wine of violence.
4:16-17 Wickedness is so natural to some people that it is like their food and drink, and trying to sleep without it is useless.⚜
18 📚But the path of the just is
like the shining light,
that shines more and more to the perfect day.
19 📚The way of the wicked is
like darkness.
They do not know over what they stumble.
20 📚My son, pay attention to my words.
Turn your ear to what I say.
21 📚Do not let them depart from your eyes.
Keep them in the center of your heart.
22 📚For they are life to those
who find them,
and health to their whole body.
23 📚Keep your heart with all watchfulness,
for out of it come the issues of life.
4:23 Here is one of those gem-like maxims of profound meaning which appear frequently in this book. Our hearts are like storehouses and what is in them will come out some time, some way (Matt 12:34-35). They are like gardens which will produce a good crop if the seed and water and care are good, but which will produce evil weeds if left to themselves (Prov 24:30-31). Our hearts are like fountains and will pour our sweet living water or bitter deadly water, depending on what we have in them.⚜
24 📚Put a crooked mouth away from you,
and put perverse lips far from you.
25 📚Let your eyes look right ahead,
and let your eyelids look straight before you.
4:25 If we do not do so we may stumble and fall.⚜
26 📚Consider the path of your feet,
and let all your ways be established.
27 📚Do not turn to the right hand or to the left.
Turn away your foot from evil.
4:27 Deut 5:32; 17:11, 20; 28:14; Josh 1:7; 1 Kings 15:5; 2 Kings 22:2. Going to right or the left means to go out of the path of complete obedience to God’s Word. Out of the straight and narrow way there is only sin.⚜