Proverbs 1:22 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

How long, ye simple ones Ye ignorant, careless, and credulous persons, who are so easily deceived by sin and sinners, and cheated and deluded by the world, and the god of it, and do not understand or consider your own interest; will ye love simplicity? Being unwilling to part with it, or to be made wise. And the scorners That scoff at all religion, and despise the word and faithful ministers of God; delight in their scorning Take pleasure, and glory in deriding and reviling the truths and precepts of the gospel, and the people and ways of God. And fools That is, the wicked, for the Scriptures, with the utmost propriety, denominate all such, fools; hate knowledge Which surely none but fools would hate. They hate it, because it lays open and reproves their errors, sins, and corrupt ways, which they cannot bear to have detected and rebuked. Hence they hate the knowledge of the divine laws, and also all those who are acquainted with them, and set a value upon them. Turn you at my reproof Upon this admonition here given you, turn from your evil ways unto me. Behold If you do so; I will pour out my spirit unto you The gifts and graces of my Spirit, which God, whose wisdom here speaks, has promised to those that turn to him, and sincerely and earnestly ask them, Luke 11:13; John 4:14; and John 7:39. I will make known my words unto you By my Spirit I will enable you truly and savingly to understand my word, which is hid from others, 2 Corinthians 4:3. The Hebrew, תשׁבו לתוכחתי, may be rendered, ye shall turn at my instruction, or correction; behold, אביעה לכם רוחי, ebulliam vobis Spiritum meum, I will cause my Spirit to ebulliate, or spring up within you, or, “I will make my Spirit flow upon you as a fountain, which produces its water.” The special and saving grace of God shall never be denied to any that honestly seek it and submit to it.