The writer’s purpose is to educate. He is writing what might be called an ethical handbook for the young, though not for the young only. Of all books in the Old Testament, this is the one which we may think of as most distinctively educational. A comparison of it with a similar manual, the “sayings of the fathers,” in the Mishna, would help the student to measure the difference between Scriptural and rabbinical teaching.
Wisdom - The power by which human personality reaches its highest spiritual perfection, by which all lower elements are brought into harmony with the highest, is presently personified as life-giving and creative. Compare the notes of Job 28:23, etc.
Instruction - i. e., discipline or training, the practical complement of the more speculative wisdom.
Understanding - The power of distinguishing right from wrong, truth from its counterfeit. The three words σοφία sophia, παιδεία paideia, φρόνησις phronēsis (Septuagint), express very happily the relation of the words in the Hebrew.