Searching for wisdom and finding it
2
📚My son, if you will receive my words, and store up my commands with you,
2 📚So that you turn your ear to wisdom,
and apply your heart
to understanding,
3 📚Yes, if you cry out after knowledge,
and lift up your voice
for understanding,
4 📚If you seek her as for silver,
and search for her as for hidden treasures,
2:1-4 Wisdom and understanding are not gained by the careless or the lazy or the worldly. It must be valued according to its worth, and sought as some people seek for riches (Job 28:12-28; Ps 19:9-10; 119:72; Prov 8:10; 1 Cor 1:30; Col 2:2-3). How sad it is when men spend their whole lives in the pursuit of riches, and go to their graves in their folly, without that priceless wisdom they might have had if they had sought it. Whatever else we may or may not ask, let us seek wisdom with diligence and zeal!⚜
5 📚Then you will understand the fear
of the LORD,
and find the knowledge of God.
2:5 Here is the reward that comes to those who search diligently for wisdom. They gain the highest, brightest, and best treasure men can ever have – the knowledge of God.⚜
6 📚For the LORD gives wisdom.
Out of his mouth come knowledge
and understanding.
2:6 But we must seek wisdom where it is – not in books of philosophers, nor in writings of men about their gods, not in some so-called jnana marg but in the LORD (Jehovah), the God of the Bible, the only living and true God. He alone gives wisdom.⚜
7 📚He stores up sound wisdom for the righteous.
He is a shield to those who
walk uprightly.
8 📚He guards the paths of justice,
and preserves the way of his saints.
2:7-8 Gen 15:1; Deut 33:29; 2 Sam 22:3, 31; Ps 3:3; 7:1; 18:25; 97:10. Observe that after speaking of wisdom he turns our attention to our way of living. True wisdom is always practical, always related to morality and ethics and holiness of life. “Wisdom” (v 7) – or “success”.⚜
Some benefits of wisdom
9 📚Then you will understand righteousness
and justice and fairness,
yes, every good path.
10 📚When wisdom enters your heart
and knowledge is pleasant to your soul,
11 📚Discretion will preserve you,
understanding will keep you,
12 📚To deliver you from the way
of the evil man, from the man
who speaks perverse things,
13 📚Who leave the right paths to walk
in the ways of darkness,
14 📚Who rejoice in doing evil and delight
in the perversity of the wicked,
15 📚Whose ways are crooked,
and who are devious in their paths.
16 📚It will save you from
the strange woman 📖,
from the stranger who flatters
with her words,
17 📚Who forsakes the guide of her youth,
and forgets the covenant of her God.
2:11-17 True wisdom protects from all evil – evil words (v 12), evil ways (v 13), evil deeds (v 14), evil temptations (v 16).⚜
18 📚For her house goes down to death,
and her paths to the dead.
19 📚None who go to her return again or reach the paths of life.
2:19 Adultery is a sin that so captures those engaging in it, so overpowers their reason and conscience, that escape is exceedingly difficult. Those who practice it will never, in their own strength, arrive in the path of life and holiness. But God in His mercy can bring them there if they repent and turn to Him (1 Cor 6:9, 11).⚜
20 📚Thus you may walk in the way of good men,
and keep to the paths of the righteous.
21 📚For the upright will live in the land,
and the blameless will remain in it.
22 📚But the wicked will be cut off from the earth,
and transgressors will be uprooted from it.