Bow down thine ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply thine heart unto my knowledge.
Ver. 17. Bow down thine ear and hear.] Here begins, say some interpreters, the third book of Solomon's Proverbs - as the second began at chapter ten. And indeed he here seems to assume a new kind of bespeaking his son, different from his discourse in the preceding twelve Chapter s; and much like that in the first nine.
And apply thy heart, &c.] q.d., Call up the ears of thy mind to the ears of thy body, that one sound may pierce both at once; otherwise thou wilt be like the wolf in the fable: thou wilt never attain to any more divine learning than to spell Pater, father, and when thou shouldst come to put together, and to put thy heart to it, as Solomon's phrase here is, instead of Pater father thou wilt say Agnus, thy mind running a-madding after profit and pleasures of the world, as hath been once before noted.