Get wisdom, get understanding: forget [it] not; neither decline from the words of my mouth.
Ver. 5. Get wisdom, get understanding.] Compara sapientiam, compara intelligentiam - so Chrysostom. Comparate saeculares, comparate vobis biblia, animae pharmaca. Get you Bibles by all means, whatever they cost you. You may better want bread, light, &c., than the knowledge of the Scriptures. Augustine makes mention of some that neglected the means of knowledge, because knowledge puffeth up; and so would be ignorant, that they might be humble, and want knowledge, that they might want pride. This was to do as that foolish philosopher that plucked out his eyes to avoid the danger of uncleanness; or as the silly friar, to whom Sir Thomas Moore wrote thus, -
“ Tu bene cavisti ne te ulla occidere possit
Litera: Nam nota est litera nulla tibi. ”
But men must get knowledge, and lest it puff them up, swelling them beyond measure, they must get humility laid on as a weight to keep them down.
Forget it not. ] For so much a man learns as he remembers. The promise also of salvation is limited to the condition of "keeping in memory what we have received." 1Co 15:2