I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.
I love them that love me: and those that seek me early shall find me. So the Qeri' or Hebrew margin reads ( 'ohabay (H157)); but the Kethibh or text has: 'I love them that love her,' making it the Word of the Lord concerning them that love Wisdom. In either case the Word of God identifies loving her with loving God Himself. She cannot be a mere attribute, but a person (if she be the speaker, as she is in the Qeri' reading) - namely, the Divine Son of God (cf. Exodus 20:6, "Showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me"). Wisdom had kindled the desire after her with various promises; now she suggests the mode in which she is to be obtained-namely, by love-a mode most calculated to attract men to her. Great as she is, she is not above thy love; nay, she will reciprocate it. Thy love's labour shall not be lost, when it is love that manifests its reality (as the second clause saith) in "seeking wisdom early" - i:e., rising up early, sedulously, and diligently to seek her before all things else. The harlot, worldly pleasure, seeks and is sought diligently by her deluded votaries (Proverbs 7:15). Shall we not show the same, or rather more diligence, in seeking until we find the heavenly Lover of her loving people (Matthew 7:7). All fancy that they love God. But those who either do not seek God at all, or seek Him coldly, while they eagerly seek the vanities of the world, make it plain that they are led by the love of the world more than by the love of God.
Moreover, it is not meant that we are the first to love and find God, not He us, which would contradict Isaiah 65:1; Romans 5:6-8; 1 John 4:10-19; but the object is to remove desponding doubts from the godly, and to assure them that God loves them, and presents Himself in the way, so as to be found by those who seek Him (cf. Hebrews 11:6). "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life" (Romans 5:10). It is implied that the love of God is the fountain and foundation of the communication of all blessings, and therefore of perfect blessedness (T. Cartwright).