Proverbs 1:17 - Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Strictly speaking, this is the first proverb (i. e., similitude) in the book; a proverb which has received a variety of interpretations. The true meaning seems to be as follows: “For in vain, to no purpose, is the net spread out openly. Clear as the warning is, it is in vain. The birds still fly in. The great net of God’s judgments is spread out, open to the eyes of all, and yet the doers of evil, willfully blind, still rush into it.” Others take the words as pointing to the failure of the plans of the evil-doers against the innocent (the “bird”): others, again, interpret the proverb of the young man who thinks that he at least shall not fall into the snares laid for him, and so goes blindly into them.