Proverbs 1:17 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Surely in vain the net is spread, &c. Even the silly birds will not suffer themselves to be taken if the net be spread in their sight; therefore, be at least as wise as they, and shun that which, by repeated experience, is always known to end in ruin. Thus understood, the sentence connects with the preceding verse, and contains an argument to enforce the caution given to the young man, to shun the misery and ruin in which his hearkening to the counsel of sinners would involve him. But the sentence is considered by many commentators as connected with the following verse, and is interpreted thus: The fowler who spreads his net in the sight of the bird, loses his labour; but these sinners are more foolish than the silly birds, for, though they are not ignorant of the mischief which these evil courses will bring upon themselves, yet they will not take warning. Thus Schultens paraphrases the words: “There is no bird so stupid as to fly into a net spread immediately before its eyes; but these abandoned sinners spread with their own hands, immediately before their own eyes, those nets by which they willingly involve themselves in certain death and ruin: for they who lay snares for the blood of the innocent, lay snares for themselves; and they who desire to swallow up the virtuous alive as the grave, they themselves will be swallowed up in that grave, and be plunged in destruction.”