Proverbs 2 - Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible

Hide] i.e. as a treasure.

The Search for Wisdom

1-4. The condition which must be fulfilled. Spinoza said, 'The effort to understand is the first and sole basis of virtue.'

The heart in OT. is the seat of the intellect.

Wealth was hoarded in the shape of gold and jewels. In times of peril this was buried (Genesis 43:23; Job 3:21; Jeremiah 41:8; Matthew 13:44). Hence the suspicion with which Orientals have often regarded modern explorers.

5-8. The result. It brings us into relation with Him who is the only source of wisdom and safety.

Sound wisdom] read, 'deliverances.'

His saints] read, 'His pious' or 'loving ones'; those who love and are beloved by Him (Psalms 12:1; Psalms 30:4; Psalms 31:23).

9-19. A further result. It saves from the seductions of bad men and women.

When] RV 'for.' It becomes part of his very mind.

16-18. The stress laid in these Chapter s on sensual vice proves that the evil was a flagrant one. The population was drawn to the great towns where such temptations are common. The strange woman (Proverbs 22:14) was not a foreigner but an adulteress or harlot, to whom the man was not related. In later ages Jewish pride entitled such a person 'an Aramæan,' as though no Jewess would stoop so low.

The 'friend of her youth' (RV) is her husband (Jeremiah 3:2-5). The covenant of her God] Though there was perhaps no religious ceremony, the marriage relation was a religious one (Exodus 20:14; Malachi 2:14).

Read,

'For her house leads down unto Death,
And her paths unto the Shades.'

She and her guests are on their way to that under-world which is tenanted by the Shades, the disembodied, shadow-like, hopeless dead (Proverbs 9:18). The ancient idea of a future existence, not worthy of the name of existence, prevails all through this book.