# commentaries

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<p>Man is like a breath, his days are like a shadow that passes away-</p><p>"Breath" is the word for "vanity". So this may not be a general reflection upon all humanity, but upon the unrighteous, upon whom the judgment of :5,6 is to come. The word is used in <a href='B:230 94:11'>Psa 94:11</a> "Yahweh knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile". "Vanity" is the word commonly used of idolatry. And this indeed is where modern day idolatry is committed- through having an empty mind, filled with vanity, rather than the things of God's Spirit. And yet all the same, the parallel in Psalms 8 seems to suggest that David marvelled that God had wrought so much through him, a mere mortal man. And his allusions to the language of idolatry and apostasy could effectively be saying that 'Seeing I am a mere mortal, there but for God's grace go I, I am not so much higher than those apostates'. An attitude we all need to remember as we mix with those others would consider the dregs of our societies.</p>


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<p>Part Your heavens, Yahweh, and come down; touch the mountains, and they will smoke-</p><p>It seems at this point that David is praying for a dramatic deliverance from apparently certain death, and he has reminded himself in :1-4 of the victory and salvation granted him over Goliath as an inspiration. He has done this previously in this section of the Psalms; see on <a href='B:230 140:7'>Psa 140:7</a>. He asks for a theophany to save him, no less that what happened at Sinai (s:w. <a href='B:20 19:18-20'>Exo 19:18-20</a>), when again God had as it were made the mountains smoke by His touch. We marvel at David's spiritual ambition, unafraid to ask for a similar theophany to save him. And he reflects at the end of his life that this prayer was in fact answered (<a href='B:230 18:9'>Psa 18:9</a>). The relevance to the exiles is that Yahweh was prepared to "bow" (s:w. "stretch out") the heavens and "come down" to restore the exiles; but they chose not to make use of that huge potential (s:w. <a href='B:290 40:22'>Isa 40:22</a>; <a href='B:290 42:5'>Isa 42:5</a>; <a href='B:290 64:1'>Isa 64:1</a>):&nbsp;</p>


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<p>Throw out lightning and scatter them-</p><p>This continues the request for a saving theophany of the magnitude of what was seen at Sinai; see on :5. At the end of his life, David was thankful that this prayer had in fact been answered (<a href='B:230 18:14'>Psa 18:14</a>). David rejoices that Divine "arrows" were sent to destroy his enemies (<a href='B:230 7:13'>Psa 7:13</a>; <a href='B:230 18:14'>Psa 18:14</a>; <a href='B:230 45:5'>Psa 45:5</a>; <a href='B:230 64:7'>Psa 64:7</a>; <a href='B:230 144:6'>Psa 144:6</a>), in fulfilment of God's promise to do so to the sinful within Israel (<a href='B:50 32:23'>Deu 32:23</a>; <a href='B:50 32:42'>Deu 32:42</a>). But David was to later realize that those same arrows had been fired by God into him in judgment for his sin (<a href='B:230 38:2'>Psa 38:2</a>). This realization was perhaps to help David understand that his rejoicing in Divine arrows of judgment being fired at his enemies had not been mature; for he himself had to realize that he was worthy of the same.</p><p>Send out Your arrows and defeat them-</p><p>Again the prayer was answered and David thanks God for this at the end of his life (s:w. <a href='B:230 18:14'>Psa 18:14</a>). We cannot locate any particular historical incident of fulfilment; perhaps it was too personal and wonderful to be recorded. Just as a Christian man or woman might feel it inappropriate to record God's most dramatic salvation of them when they write their autobiography. The shooting or sending forth of arrows is only elsewhere used of God doing so against an apostate Judah (s:w. <a href='B:330 5:16'>Eze 5:16</a>). The phrase is also repeatedly used of how Jonathan shot arrows to signal to David that his father Saul was going to try to kill him (<a href='B:90 20:20-22'>1Sa 20:20-22</a>). Perhaps the enemies in view are therefore Saul and his men.</p>


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<p>Stretch out Your hand from above, rescue me and deliver me out of great waters, out of the hands of foreigners-</p><p>The "foreigners" may be literal Gentiles, represented as often by "waters". But I suggested on :6 that it is perhaps Saul and his men (such as Doeg, the Gentile Edomite) who may be initially in view. This would continue a major Biblical theme; that the apostate amongst God's people are as Gentiles. See on :8.</p><p>As noted on :5,6, Psalms 144 has many points of contact with Psalms 18, here to <a href='B:230 18:16'>Psa 18:16</a> "He sent from on high. He took me, He drew me out of many waters". At the end of his life, David felt his prayer of <a href='B:230 144:7'>Psa 144:7</a> had indeed been answered. "Waters" are usually symbolic of armies or nations. David felt he had been surrounded and faced with certain death, but had been as it were airlifted to safety by God. The language here says that God has done this, but it is parallel with David's prayer for this to happen in <a href='B:230 144:7'>Psa 144:7</a>. The triumphant song of Psalms 18 is therefore praise for the prayer of Psalms 144 being answered.</p>


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<p>whose mouths speak deceit, whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood-</p><p>The language of deceit is more appropriate to the apostate within Israel than to Gentiles. See on :7. The mouths who spoke deceit and falsehood are often those of Saul and his men (see s:w. <a href='B:230 7:14'>Psa 7:14</a>; <a href='B:230 27:12'>Psa 27:12</a>; <a href='B:230 31:18'>Psa 31:18</a>; <a href='B:230 35:19'>Psa 35:19</a>; <a href='B:230 119:69'>Psa 119:69</a>; <a href='B:230 119:78'>Psa 119:78</a>; <a href='B:230 119:86'>Psa 119:86</a>; <a href='B:230 119:118'>Psa 119:118</a> etc:)&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


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<p>I will sing a new song to You, God, on a ten-</p><p>stringed lyre I will sing praises to You-</p><p>This is the song of Psalms 18; see on :5-7. Even in the Old Testament, the idea of living in a spirit of newness of life is to be found. David six times invites us to sing with him “a new song” (<a href='B:230 33:3'>Psa 33:3</a>; <a href='B:230 40:3'>Psa 40:3</a>; <a href='B:230 96:1'>Psa 96:1</a>; <a href='B:230 98:1'>Psa 98:1</a>; <a href='B:230 144:9'>Psa 144:9</a>; <a href='B:230 149:1'>Psa 149:1</a> cp. <a href='B:290 42:10'>Isa 42:10</a>). Invariably these songs are associated with the experience of God’s redemption (cp. <a href='B:730 5:9'>Rev 5:9</a>). Obviously those ‘new songs’ were intended to be repeatedly sung. Our regular experience of forgiveness and redemption should urge us onwards in the spirit of ‘newness of life’. Like Paul we die daily with the Lord, and the power of His resurrection life likewise daily breaks out in us.</p>


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<p>You are He who gives salvation to kings, who rescues David His servant from the deadly sword-</p><p>Again the allusion is to the victory over the deadly sword of Goliath. David is praying for a dramatic deliverance from apparently certain death, and he has reminded himself in :1-4 of the victory and salvation granted him over Goliath as an inspiration. He has done this previously in this section of the Psalms; see on <a href='B:230 140:7'>Psa 140:7</a>. We note how David on one hand recognizes that he is indeed a king, but more than that, Yahweh's servant. In the thinking of his time, kings didn't need salvation. They were themselves seen as saviours, self sufficient. But David broke this paradigm of thinking, considering himself to be the humble king.</p>


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<p>Rescue me, and deliver me out of the hands of foreigners, whose mouths speak deceit, whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood-</p><p>This repeats :7,8, where I suggested that the people in view are not necessarily Gentiles but Saul, acting as a Gentile, and whose entourage included Gentiles like Doeg the Edomite. "Redeem / deliver me from the hand..." is again a quotation from Jacob's words when he found his relative Esau [not a complete Gentile, although acting like one] barring his path back home (<a href='B:10 32:11'>Gen 32:11</a>; <a href='B:10 32:30'>Gen 32:30</a>). And the word is used of David's desire for deliverance from Saul (<a href='B:90 26:24'>1Sa 26:24</a>); and yet this was a redemption unappreciated by him as it ought to have been (<a href='B:100 12:7'>2Sa 12:7</a>). Finally David recognized that this prayer was answered (<a href='B:100 22:18'>2Sa 22:18</a>; <a href='B:100 22:49'>2Sa 22:49</a>). As David had earlier prayed for redemption / deliverance from Saul and his enemies (<a href='B:230 31:15'>Psa 31:15</a>; <a href='B:230 59:1'>Psa 59:1</a>; <a href='B:230 144:7'>Psa 144:7</a>), he would later pray for redemption / deliverance from his sins (<a href='B:230 39:8'>Psa 39:8</a>; <a href='B:230 79:9'>Psa 79:9</a>).</p>


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<p>Then our sons will be like well-</p><p>nurtured plants, our daughters like corner stones carved to adorn a palace-</p><p>If indeed Saul and his followers are in view in :11 (see note there), then this will be David's anticipation of what the kingdom of God in Israel would be like when he became king and Saul was deposed, as had been promised by Samuel. This vision of that Davidic kingdom didn't fully come about, partly because of David's own imperfections; but it looks ahead to how things will be in the ultimate Davidic kingdom of the Lord Jesus. Solomon and David's other sons were hardly like "well nurtured plants". The potential was that David's sons would be "planted" eternally (s:w. <a href='B:100 7:10'>2Sa 7:10</a>), but this only came finally true in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus. God's people were indeed "planted" in the land (<a href='B:230 80:8'>Psa 80:8</a>) but were uprooted; and the prophecies only come true in the person of the Lord Jesus who is as the plant which grew in the dry land (<a href='B:230 80:15'>Psa 80:15</a>):&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


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<p>Our barns will be full, filled with all kinds of provision; our sheep will bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our fields-</p><p>As noted on :12, this is a picture of the kingdom which David hoped to establish after the death of Saul. It is expressed in terms of the blessings for obedience to the covenant; and throughout Psalms 119 David had vowed to be personally obedient to the laws of God which formed the old covenant. But he was overconfident of both his own obedience and that of Israel. And so as explained on :12, these things are reapplied to the final reestablishment of the Davidic kingdom by the Lord Jesus.</p>


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<p>Our oxen will pull heavy loads, there will be no breaking in and no going away, and no crying in our streets-</p><p>The reference is to the breaking in of the Philistines upon Israel and their going away in flight from them, and the crying in the streets after the Philistines had sacked the Israelite villages. This would now be no more, thanks to David's victory. But this vision of the Davidic kingdom didn't last and didn't even fully come about. See on :11,12.</p>


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<p>Happy are the people who are in such a situation. Happy are the people whose God is Yahweh- </p><p>This kingdom of God on earth under David's rulership was indeed the ideal projection of how God's Kingdom in Israel could be. But the people didn't retain Yahweh is their God in a meaningful sense, and so its realization was precluded; it will only come fully true in the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus, which will be a restoration and extension of the Davidic kingdom, with Him reigning eternally on David's throne. This is indeed "the Hope of Israel":&nbsp;</p>


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<p>A praise Psalm of David-</p><p>This psalm is alphabetic, like other Psalms, but the letter nun is omitted. It is good homework for the enthusiast to work out why. The Psalm appears to be David looking forward to how his kingdom would be once he had taken over from Saul as promised; in this sense it follows on from the end of Psalms 144, which is all about thIsa. However, as noted on <a href='B:230 144:12-15'>Psa 144:12-15</a>, this didn't come about as David hoped and envisioned. But it will do so in the future Kingdom of God, where the Lord Jesus will sit upon David's throne and rule over a revived Davidic Kingdom. This Psalm therefore becomes a prophecy of God's future Kingdom, and praise for how it shall be. </p><p>I will exalt You my God as the King. I will praise Your name forever and ever-</p><p>As noted above, David is looking ahead to his kingdom becoming the Kingdom of God which would be eternal, with him praising God forever. And David emphasizes that God and not himself is the ultimate king of the Kingdom. Samuel had well instilled this into him.</p>


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<p>Every day I will praise You, I will extol Your name forever and ever-</p><p>This was David's vision of the Davidic kingdom; praising God's name daily for ever, implying he would live endless days.</p>


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<p>Great is Yahweh, and greatly to be praised! His greatness is unsearchable-</p><p>The eternity of David's praise (:2) is related to the unsearchable greatness of God which he is praising. Paul appears to allude to this in <a href='B:520 11:33'>Rom 11:33</a>, where the unsearchable greatness refers to the greatness of God's grace in saving sinners. David is quoting <a href='B:220 5:9'>Job 5:9</a>; <a href='B:220 9:10'>Job 9:10</a>, which also talk of God's unsearchable grace in human salvation. Job and the Pentateuch were likely the main scriptures known by David. The same unsearchable nature of God's grace was available to the exiles (s:w. <a href='B:290 40:28'>Isa 40:28</a>).</p>


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<p>One generation will commend Your works to another, and will declare Your mighty acts-</p><p>This is how David imagined his kingdom being. God’s word is a living word. Unlike other history, we can see the intense personal relevance of all God’s past dealings with men. David at times gets ecstatic for what God had done at the Red Sea; one generation would tell accounts like the Passover story to another, they too would sing as Miriam had done (<a href='B:230 145:4-7'>Psa 145:4-7</a>). The "works" retold would be of God's saving grace; that will be our talk throughout eternity, and we should begin living the Kingdom life now.</p>


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<p>Of the glorious majesty of Your honour, of Your wondrous works, I will meditate-</p><p>This is defined in :12 as the glory of God's Kingdom. David was about to become king as promised by Samuel, and he hopes that his kingdom shall be God's Kingdom. He is commendably full of thought and meditation of God's Kingdom rather than his own; and there we have an abiding principle. But David used the same words in <a href='B:230 8:5'>Psa 8:5</a> when meditating upon his victory over Goliath; he had been crowned with glory and honour. That victory was the basis upon which he became king, in the eyes of Israel; and he meditates how the glory and honour given him was in fact God's and not his own. The glory and majesty of the kingship and kingdom was "laid upon" him (<a href='B:230 21:5'>Psa 21:5</a> s:w:). But David's kingdom didn't fully become God's Kingdom on earth, and the final glory, honour and majesty will be in the future Kingdom of God on earth, when the Lord Jesus reestablishes David's kingdom and reigns on his throne (s:w. <a href='B:290 35:2'>Isa 35:2</a>):&nbsp;&nbsp; </p>


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<p>Men will speak of the might of Your awesome acts; I will declare Your greatness-</p><p>It was David who was doing just this, especially through his Psalms. But he imagines the Kingdom of God as being a time when all men will have his uninhibited desire to speak and declare God's greatness.</p>


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<p>They will utter the memory of Your great goodness and will sing of Your righteousness-</p><p>As noted on :6, it was David who was the singer, and he looked forward to all men having his same attitude to open and uninhibited praise. Hence this Psalm, which was intended for all men to sing even now. Thus David consciously sets himself up as the parade example to all who shall be in God's Kingdom.</p>


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<p>Yahweh is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and of great grace-</p><p>This repeats Yahweh's declaration of His Name to Moses, when He listed His characteristics. We note that "grace" is His lead characteristic. And this will be the more apparent when we are in God's Kingdom, for this is how David imagines us praising God in the Kingdom.</p>


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<p>Yahweh is good to all, His tender mercies are over all His works-</p><p>This will be the praise offered to God in His Kingdom. The struggle of modern man is indeed to believe that God "is good to all". Issues of the justice of God cloud so many attempted relationships with Him. Only in the Kingdom will we finally perceive that He has been good to all, and all His works are encoded with His tender grace. Those issues are left unresolved in this life in order to teach is humility, and trust that there will come a day when all shall be clarified and God's essential goodness and tenderness will be finally perceived. </p>


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<p>All Your works will give thanks to You, Yahweh; Your saints will extol You-</p><p>God's "works" may refer to the natural creation, which will be endued with a capacity to praise Yahweh in His Kingdom. In this sense all of creation groans for that day of His Kingdom (<a href='B:520 8:22'>Rom 8:22</a>). But we can also interpret His "works" as a poetic parallel with His "saints", His people. We will then realize that God worked with us to prepare us for the final and eternal day of His Kingdom.</p>


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<p>They will speak of the glory of Your kingdom, and talk about Your power-</p><p>Again we see David aware that his kingdom was essentially God's Kingdom; although he imagined his kingdom being established as God's Kingdom, he realizes that all the glory and power was related to God and not himself. The descriptions here of how life will be in God's Kingdom do not focus upon the physical environment which will then be experienced; but rather upon what we will be doing and thinking, particularly focusing upon our praise of Him. And the idea is that this Psalm is to be sung and felt today; we can begin to live the Kingdom life now. In that sense, as we learn in John's writings, we even now "have eternal life".</p>


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<p>to make known to the sons of men His mighty acts, the glory of the majesty of His kingdom-</p><p>See on :5. We note in this Psalm David's continual desire to tell others of God's majesty. David knew his sinfulness, he knew his reliance upon the grace of God, more and more as he got older. One would have thought that after the Bathsheba incident, David would have kept his mouth shut so far as telling other people how to live was concerned. But instead, we find an increasing emphasis in the Psalms (chronologically) upon David's desire to teach others of God's ways- particularly the surrounding Gentile peoples, before whom David had been disgraced over Bathsheba, not to mention from his two faced allegiance to Achish (<a href='B:90 27:8-12'>1Sa 27:8-12</a>). There is real stress upon this evangelistic fervour of David (<a href='B:230 4:3'>Psa 4:3</a>; <a href='B:230 18:49'>Psa 18:49</a>; <a href='B:230 22:25'>Psa 22:25</a>; <a href='B:230 22:31'>Psa 22:31</a>; <a href='B:230 35:18'>Psa 35:18</a>; <a href='B:230 40:9-10'>Psa 40:9-10</a>; <a href='B:230 57:9'>Psa 57:9</a>; <a href='B:230 62:8'>Psa 62:8</a>; <a href='B:230 66:5'>Psa 66:5</a>; <a href='B:230 66:16'>Psa 66:16</a>; <a href='B:230 95:1'>Psa 95:1</a>; <a href='B:230 95:8'>Psa 95:8</a>; <a href='B:230 96:5-8'>Psa 96:5-8</a>; <a href='B:230 96:10'>Psa 96:10</a>; <a href='B:230 100:1-4'>Psa 100:1-4</a>; <a href='B:230 105:1-2'>Psa 105:1-2</a>; <a href='B:230 119:27'>Psa 119:27</a>; <a href='B:230 145:5-6'>Psa 145:5-6</a>; <a href='B:230 145:12'>Psa 145:12</a>). Indeed, <a href='B:230 71:18'>Psa 71:18</a> records the "old and greyheaded" David pleading with God not to die until he had taught "thy strength unto this generation". As with Paul years later, the only reason he wanted to stay alive was in order to witness the Gospel of grace to others. David&nbsp;therefore coped with his deep inner traumas by looking out of himself to those around him, eagerly desiring to share with them the pureness of God's grace. He didn't do this as some kind of self-help psychiatry; it came naturally from a realization of his own sinfulness and God's mercy, and the wonderful willingness&nbsp;of God to extend this to men.</p>


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<p>Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, Your dominion endures throughout all generations. Yahweh is faithful in all His words, and loving in all His deeds-</p><p>The particular "words" and "deeds" David has in view are that despite all odds, God's word of promise that he would become king and Saul deposed had come true. We see this faith expressed in this word so often in Psalms 119. David perceived that his kingdom would be everlasting, because it was to be God's Kingdom. And whilst that didn't come true in his times, it will do finally, because the Lord Jesus will reign over the restored Davidic Kingdom, on David's throne, for ever. </p>


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<p>Yahweh upholds all who fall, and raises up all those who are bowed down-</p><p>The Psalms were likely rewritten by David over the years. The upholding of the lowly could have referred initially to how he was exalted from the persecution under Saul, to be king of God's kingdom (s:w. <a href='B:230 3:5'>Psa 3:5</a>; <a href='B:230 37:17'>Psa 37:17</a>; <a href='B:230 37:24'>Psa 37:24</a>). It was at that time that he was "bowed down" (s:w. <a href='B:230 57:6'>Psa 57:6</a>). But it also has reference to how he was 'upheld' after he temporarily lost his kingdom after his 'fall' in the matter of Uriah and Bathsheba (s:w. <a href='B:230 55:12'>Psa 55:12</a>):&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


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<p>The eyes of all wait for You; You give them their food in due season-</p><p>"Wait for" or "wait upon" is a term used for serving or praising God. As the eyes of servants look to their master, so the eyes of God's people look to Him (<a href='B:230 123:2'>Psa 123:2</a>, and the eyes of David are described often in the Psalms as waiting upon God (e.g. <a href='B:230 121:1'>Psa 121:1</a>; <a href='B:230 123:1'>Psa 123:1</a>):&nbsp; David sees encoded in the natural creation a prophecy of how things shall eternally be in God's Kingdom; all turning their eyes to God as the animal creation subconsciously does.</p>


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<p>You open Your hand to satisfy the desire of every living thing-</p><p>LXX "Thou openest thine hands, and fillest every living thing with pleasure". But the idea is that the natural creation turns its eyes to God (:15) and He opens His hand to satisfy their desire. As noted on :15, David sees in this a prophecy of how God's true people would turn their eyes to Him and have their desires satisfied by His opening hand. In the context of the exiles, the idea is that their desire for restoration would be fulfilled when they turned their eyes to their God. Opening the hand is an idiom for generous response to the cry of the poor (<a href='B:50 15:8'>Deu 15:8</a>; <a href='B:50 15:11'>Deu 15:11</a>); our generosity is to reflect the open handed generosity we have received and yet hope for from God:&nbsp; "Satisfy" translates&nbsp; word often used to describe how God's people in His land would be "filled" or satisfied"; if they were obedient to the covenant (<a href='B:50 6:11'>Deu 6:11</a>; <a href='B:50 8:10'>Deu 8:10</a>; <a href='B:50 8:12'>Deu 8:12</a>; <a href='B:50 11:15'>Deu 11:15</a> and very often).</p>


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<p>Yahweh is righteous in all His ways, and gracious in all His works-</p><p>This is evidenced in the natural creation (:15,16), and will finally be proven true in the lives of God's faithful people. Whether God was just / righteous and gracious was under question in the mindset of the exiles, as Ezekiel's prophecy reflects. And it has always been questioned. But David sees the Kingdom as a time when people shall finally accept and perceive His justice and grace. This means that the challenges arising from His perceived injustice is all designed to elicit our faith in the Kingdom; for according to David, there will be no answer to the questions until then. The very existence of those questions is therefore a test of our humility, the all important characteristic God looks for:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>Yahweh is near to all those who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth-</p><p>Literally, 'next to', 'neighbour / relative to'. This is how close God feels to the broken hearted and crushed; and conversely, how far He is from the self satisfied and self congratulatory, 'the strong' in secular terms. It is this feature of Yahweh which makes Him unique; no other God has this characteristic of 'nearness' (s:w. <a href='B:50 4:7'>Deu 4:7</a>). Only those who call upon Him “in truth”, with “unfeigned lips” will he heard (<a href='B:230 145:18'>Psa 145:18</a>). Men repeatedly ‘sought for’ the Lord Jesus (<a href='B:480 1:37'>Mar 1:37</a>; <a href='B:500 6:26'>Joh 6:26</a>), but He told them to truly seek Him (<a href='B:470 6:33'>Mat 6:33</a>; <a href='B:470 7:7'>Mat 7:7</a>; <a href='B:490 12:31'>Luk 12:31</a>).</p>


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<p>He will fulfil the desire of those who fear Him, He will also hear their cry and save them-</p><p>Often, “desire” is seen by God as prayer (<a href='B:230 10:17'>Psa 10:17</a>; <a href='B:230 21:2'>Psa 21:2</a>; <a href='B:230 27:4'>Psa 27:4</a>; <a href='B:230 59:10'>Psa 59:10</a>; <a href='B:230 92:11'>Psa 92:11</a>; <a href='B:230 140:8'>Psa 140:8</a>; <a href='B:230 145:19'>Psa 145:19</a>; <a href='B:470 18:32'>Mat 18:32</a>; <a href='B:520 10:1'>Rom 10:1</a>; <a href='B:690 5:15'>1Jn 5:15</a>). God interprets that inner desire as prayer, even if it is not articulated in specific requests. In the context of the exiles, the idea is that if they truly desired the restoration, it could come in response to their cry. But the problem was that the Kingdom was not their heart's desire.</p>


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<p>Yahweh preserves all those who love Him, but all the wicked He will destroy-</p><p>See on <a href='B:230 146:9'>Psa 146:9</a>. David felt preserved by God from Saul and his other enemies (<a href='B:90 30:23'>1Sa 30:23</a>; <a href='B:100 22:44'>2Sa 22:44</a>), because he had preserved or obeyed [s:w:] God's ways (<a href='B:100 22:22'>2Sa 22:22</a>; <a href='B:100 22:24'>2Sa 22:24</a>; <a href='B:230 18:21'>Psa 18:21</a>; <a href='B:230 18:23'>Psa 18:23</a>); whereas Saul didn't obey / preserve them and was destroyed (<a href='B:90 13:13-14'>1Sa 13:13-14</a>; <a href='B:130 10:13'>1Ch 10:13</a>). Hence <a href='B:230 145:20'>Psa 145:20</a>: "Yahweh preserves all those who love Him, but all the wicked He will destroy". Solomon's prophetic sonship of David was conditional upon him preserving or observing Yahweh's ways (<a href='B:110 2:4'>1Ki 2:4</a>; <a href='B:130 22:13'>1Ch 22:13</a>; <a href='B:140 7:17'>2Ch 7:17</a>); but he didn't preserve of observe them (<a href='B:110 11:10-11'>1Ki 11:10-11</a>); despite David praying that Solomon would be given a heart to observe them (<a href='B:130 29:19'>1Ch 29:19</a>). We can pray for God to work upon the hearts of others, but He will not force people against their own deepest will and heart position. Solomon stresses overmuch how God would keep or preserve the righteous (<a href='B:240 2:8'>Pro 2:8</a>; <a href='B:240 3:26'>Pro 3:26</a>), without recognizing the conditional aspect of thIsa. Why did Solomon go wrong? His Proverbs are true enough, but he stresses that obedience to his wisdom and teaching would preserve his hearers (<a href='B:240 4:4'>Pro 4:4</a>; <a href='B:240 6:22'>Pro 6:22</a>; <a href='B:240 7:1'>Pro 7:1</a>; <a href='B:240 8:32'>Pro 8:32</a>; <a href='B:240 15:5'>Pro 15:5</a>), preservation was through following the example of the wise (<a href='B:240 2:20'>Pro 2:20</a>); rather than stressing obedience to God's ways, and replacing David his father's simple love of God with a love of academic wisdom: "Yahweh preserves all those who love Him" (<a href='B:230 145:20'>Psa 145:20</a>).</p>


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<p>My mouth will speak the praise of Yahweh; let all flesh bless His holy name forever and ever- </p><p>Several times in the Psalms, David’s poetry matches ‘myself’ with “all men”; he wants all men to share in his experience of Yahweh. He sees his thankful attitude in this life as characteristic of how all in God's Kingdom will eternally live. </p>


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<p>Praise Yah! Praise Yahweh, my soul-</p><p>A case can be made that the whole of book 3 of the Psalter (Psalms 73-89) was written / edited in Babylon. The Psalms of Korah (83-87) seem to reflect the longing of the righteous remnant in Babylon for the temple services. And it is just possible that the entire Psalter was re-edited there in Babylon, under inspiration- for so many Psalms have elements of appropriacy to the exiles in Babylon and the restoration. The LXX titles of Psalms 56 [“Concerning the people that were removed from the Sanctuary”] and 71 [“Of the sons of Jonadab, and the first that were taken captive”] speak for themselves. Likewise the LXX attributes Psalms 146-148 to Haggai and Zechariah. Although I suggest they are all initially Psalms of David, relevant to his experiences, but used under inspiration in these later contexts.</p>


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<p>While I live, I will praise Yahweh. I will sing praises to my God as long as I exist-</p><p>This is why David and Hezekiah asked to be preserved from death exactly because this life is the time to praise the Lord, and that was impossible in death. We see their implicit understanding that death is unconsciousness, and not praising God in heaven afterwards.</p>


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<p>Don’t put your trust in princes, each merely a son of man in whom there is no help-</p><p>The parallel between princes and men is also found in <a href='B:230 118:8-9'>Psa 118:8-9</a>. Princes are but men, no more than men, and nothing compared to Yahweh. I noted on <a href='B:230 118:8'>Psa 118:8</a> the application to Hezekiah. Yet he failed in putting confidence in princes, turning to Egypt for help. Yet he repented and was rewarded for his sole faith in Yahweh alone. And yet afterwards, he put his confidence in the princes of Babylon. His intensity of faith was not maintained. The relevance to the exiles (see on :1) would have been that the "princes" like Cyrus who appeared to have brought about the restoration were not of themselves to be trusted. They were mere men, used by Yahweh. There may also be some reference to a Jewish leader who tried to free the exiles but not in God's strength.</p>


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<p>His spirit departs, and he returns to the dust. In that very day, his thoughts perish-</p><p>As noted on :2, the Psalmists clearly understood death to be unconsciousness. Whilst a specific "son of man" may be in view in :3, that individual is only human and shares the experience of mortality which all humans share. This would explain why the ambiguous term "son of man" is used, referring both to an individual as well as generic humanity.</p>


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<p>Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in Yahweh his God-</p><p>This hope and happiness is posited in contrast to the mortality which affects all humanity in :4. By implication, therefore, we can assume that the hope in view is that of resurrection to eternal life in a bodily form, the ultimate victory over human mortality. The only other person claiming Yahweh as his "hope" [with this particular Hebrew word] is David under persecution by Saul (<a href='B:230 119:166'>Psa 119:166</a>). In the context of the exiles (see on :1), the hope and help was in the ultimate restoration of the Kingdom and David's throne.</p>


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<p>who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps truth forever-</p><p>As so often in the Psalms, God's creative power is seen as the guarantee that he will keep "truth", His covenant and His promises. It is no hard thing for the creator of all to raise the death (:5) or restore the exiles and His Kingdom. Encoded in creation all around us we therefore see the absolute ability of God to fulfil His promises of salvation. Disbelief in His creative power will therefore mean disbelief in our personal salvation.</p>


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<p>who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. Yahweh frees the prisoners-</p><p>The word is used for the loosing or freeing / deliverance of Joseph by the edict of a powerful king, which looked forward to the deliverance of the captives by the decree of Cyrus (s:w. <a href='B:230 105:20'>Psa 105:20</a>). "Freed" is "loosed". The exiles were prisoners who could have been loosed from Babylon- had they wished. The book of Esther makes clear that the Jews were far from impoverished prisoners. The imagery of being in prison and slavery is therefore in spiritual terms; and most of the exiles refused that great deliverance because they didn't perceive their condition. And that's exactly why folks today turn down the great offer of freedom made to them in Christ.</p>


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<p>Yahweh opens the eyes of the blind, Yahweh raises up those who are bowed down, Yahweh loves the righteous-</p><p>The Psalms were likely rewritten by David over the years. The raising up of the bowed down could have referred initially to how he was exalted from the persecution under Saul, to be king of God's kingdom. It was at that time that he was "bowed down" (s:w. <a href='B:230 57:6'>Psa 57:6</a>). But he was to be a pattern for the exiles, if they followed his later example of repentance and restoration.</p>


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<p>Yahweh preserves the strangers, He upholds the fatherless and widow, but the way of the wicked He turns upside down-</p><p>This parallels <a href='B:230 145:20'>Psa 145:20</a> [see note there]: "Yahweh preserves all those who love Him, but all the wicked He will destroy". Those who love God are the marginal, the foreigners and widows; and in preaching the Gospel in wealthier areas, this truth is realized time and again. In the context of the exiles (see on :1), this was appropriate; for the exiles were treated as strangers in Babylon, and after the horrors of the Babylonian invasion there would have been many widows and fatherless amongst them.</p>&nbsp;


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<p>Yahweh will reign forever; your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise Yah!- </p><p>The exiles (see on :1) were to praise God that the God of Zion, the temple mount, would have an eternal kingdom. They were directed not to rejoice in any particular Davidic king, but in Yahweh who was their ultimate king. But the Psalm was originally David's reflections on his own Kingdom; he correctly perceives Yahweh and not himself as the ultimate king of Israel.</p><p>David saw his sufferings as being bound up with those of Israel; those who hated him hated Zion, those who blessed him blessed Zion, and God's salvation of Israel was being expressed through God's deliverance of him in the daily vicissitudes of life; as God had chosen Zion, so He had David His servant; David's joy was Zion's joy, and her exaltation would be David's&nbsp; (<a href='B:230 51:18'>Psa 51:18</a>; <a href='B:230 69:35'>Psa 69:35</a>; <a href='B:230 87:2'>Psa 87:2</a>; <a href='B:230 106:5'>Psa 106:5</a>; <a href='B:230 121:3-4'>Psa 121:3-4</a>; <a href='B:230 125:1'>Psa 125:1</a>; <a href='B:230 128:5'>Psa 128:5</a>; <a href='B:230 146:10'>Psa 146:10</a>; <a href='B:230 149:2'>Psa 149:2</a>). This is how we are to make sense of suffering- by understanding that it plays a role in the salvation of others, and is part of a wider nexus of Divine operation. We suffer so that we may be able to minister the comfort we receive to others (<a href='B:540 1:4'>2Co 1:4</a>). Job likewise came to realize that his sufferings were not so much for his personal maturing, but for the teaching and salvation of the friends.</p>


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<p>Praise Yah, for it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant and fitting to praise Him-</p><p>The LXX attributes Psalms 146-148 to Haggai and Zechariah. According to the LXX titles, there were certain Psalms which were written for the dedication of the rebuilt temple, and others written by Haggai and Zechariah. They include: Psalms 96, 138, 147, 148. These all seem to speak as if the time of a glorious temple was to be the time of God’s Kingdom; this was the possibility, and it was the prevailing hope in the minds of the faithful minority. But the Psalms had to remain prophecies of the future day of Zion’s glory, for the temple was not rebuilt by the returned exiles according to the specifications of Ezekiel 40-48. Although I suggest they are all initially Psalms of David, relevant to his experiences, but used under inspiration in these later contexts.</p>


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<p>Yahweh builds up Jerusalem, He gathers together the outcasts of Israel-</p><p>The Jews returned from Babylon to the land of their own volition; but it was Yahweh who gathered them back, as if He called them almost of His volition rather than theirs. But the majority resisted this gathering of God and chose to remain in Babylon, for all the strength of His will for their restoration. Just as many do today in their rejection of the Gospel. Those who returned rebuilt Jerusalem; but actually, Yahweh did, through His confirmation of all the freewill effort of men like Haggai and Nehemiah (see on :1).</p><p>This verse is alluded to by the Lord in <a href='B:490 13:34'>Luk 13:34</a>, where He how He would fain have gathered together the children of Jerusalem, “but you would not”. The words of the Psalm speak as if this is what the Lord God is going to do. But Jesus understood it as being impossible of fulfilment if the outcast children would not allow themselves to be gathered. Likewise the statement that the Lord will build up Jerusalem was made in a restoration context; but again, it was dependent upon the Jews’ obedience for its fulfilment. God was and is potentially ready to work with us:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


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<p>He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds-</p><p>The broken hearted and wounded were the exiles; see on :1. But they were comfortable in Baylon-Persia, as the book of Esther confirms. They were no longer broken hearted, and took their healing from material prosperity rather than God's Spirit. They were warned in <a href='B:290 6:10'>Isa 6:10</a> that the potential healing of their hearts would not happen unless they were open to it. The broken hearted were those who had broken their own hearts in recognition of their sins as David had done (<a href='B:230 51:17'>Psa 51:17</a>; <a href='B:230 69:20'>Psa 69:20</a> s:w:), and had followed his path to repentance and restoration. But the exiles generally were impenitent; and so the good news announced to them of healing of broken hearts was rejected (s:w. <a href='B:290 61:1'>Isa 61:1</a>).</p>


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<p>He counts the number of the stars, He calls them all by their names-</p><p>The stars which can't be numbered by man refer to the true seed of Abraham. Each have their own individual name in God's mind, reflecting His appreciation of their unique characteristics. The tragedy was that God called each of the exiles back to the land, desirous to fulfil the promises to Abraham; and the majority of them refused that call.</p>


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<p>Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite-</p><p>This infinite understanding develops the thought of :4; God knew every unique characteristics of His potential people, the stars of Abrahams potential seed. David sees his sins and their consequences as "without number", but he uses the same word for God's "infinite" or "without number" "understanding" (s:w. <a href='B:230 40:12'>Psa 40:12</a>). God understands better than we do the nature of our sins and their consequences. And His power to deal with all that&nbsp; is limitless, as David discovered in his experience with his sin. The exiles too had sinned, and God infinitely understood every nuance of that; but His power was such that He would restore each of them see on :4). But they rejected such mighty power, for He allows it to be circumscribed by human freewill.</p>


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<p>Yahweh upholds the humble; He brings the wicked down to the ground-</p><p>"Brings... down" is the term often used for those humbled by God's condemnation, e.g. the proud who are brought low (<a href='B:100 22:28'>2Sa 22:28</a>; <a href='B:220 40:11'>Job 40:11</a>; <a href='B:230 75:7'>Psa 75:7</a>; <a href='B:230 147:6'>Psa 147:6</a>; <a href='B:240 29:23'>Pro 29:23</a> and very often in the prophets). And yet God by grace remembers and lifts up even those humbled by such condemnation (<a href='B:230 136:23'>Psa 136:23</a>). This is absolute grace; to save even those suffering condemnation for their sins. This was all exactly relevant to the exiles (see on :1).</p><p>Time and again, the Biblical contrasts are between the sinners and the humble- as if humility is the epitome of the acceptable. It is the meek who shall inherit the earth (<a href='B:230 37:11'>Psa 37:11</a>). This is how significant humility Isa. God right now puts down one and lifts up another– all of which He will also due at the last day (<a href='B:230 75:7'>Psa 75:7</a>; <a href='B:490 14:10'>Luk 14:10</a> alludes here). The essence of judgment is ongoing now; “we make the answer now”.</p>


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<p>Sing to Yahweh with thanksgiving, sing praises on the harp to our God-</p><p>LXX "Begin the song with thanksgiving", clearly an indication that this Psalm was to be sung in the sanctuary. This had only just been rebuilt at the time of this Psalm (see on :1).</p>


text:
<p>who covers the sky with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who makes grass grow on the mountains-</p><p>As God prepares the earth for the grass and manipulates the clouds above, so the eretz / land / earth was prepared for the restoration to happen (s:w. <a href='B:290 45:18'>Isa 45:18</a>; <a href='B:290 62:7'>Isa 62:7</a>). The tragedy was that the majority of the exiles preferred to stay in Babylon rather than return to the land prepared for them. By contrast, the land / kingdom was prepared for David (<a href='B:230 119:90'>Psa 119:90</a>) whilst he was in exile, and he received it. The sending of the rain represents the power of God's word of restoration coming down and producing growth (<a href='B:290 55:10-11'>Isa 55:10-11</a>). And yet this was precluded by the exiles, and will come true fully at the last day.</p>


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<p>He provides food for the livestock, and for the young ravens when they call-</p><p>The hint is that if the exiles truly called to God for help, He would respond. The fact He responds to calls for help is encoded throughout creation; for when even the ravens call, God answers their needs. The fact God "provides food" to His people far more than even to "the livestock" means that we should be faithful to covenant with Him (<a href='B:10 28:20'>Gen 28:20</a> s:w:). His provision of food to the natural creation is a reason to praise God for His grace to men (s:w. <a href='B:230 136:25'>Psa 136:25</a>). Constantly, the natural creation is read as an encouragement to faith in God.</p><p>The raven was considered a bad omen. But still God cares for them; and how much more for His people. This is the force of the Lord's argument in <a href='B:490 12:24'>Luk 12:24</a>, "Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them". Clearly God doesn't simplistically punish the evil and bless the righteous immediately in this life. His grace reaches out to all.</p>


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<p>He doesn’t delight in the strength of the horse, He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man-</p><p>The Psalm was in the context of the restoration (see on :1). Perhaps the allusion is how the wicked Haman 'delighted' in the strength of a horse (<a href='B:190 6:9'>Est 6:9</a>; <a href='B:190 6:11'>Est 6:11</a> s:w:). Haman and those like him all came to nothing, and couldn't thwart the glorification of God's captive people.</p>


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<p>Yahweh takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His grace-</p><p>This was originally David who hoped in grace (<a href='B:230 33:18'>Psa 33:18</a>). But the exiles are asked to hope in God's grace (<a href='B:230 130:7'>Psa 130:7</a>); for their restoration was by grace, in that their judgment was absolutely called for.</p>


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<p>Praise Yahweh, Jerusalem! Praise your God, Zion!<strong>- </strong></p><p>The situation in the time of Haggai and Zechariah (see on :1) was not apparently worthy of so much praise. But the Psalm asks the exiles to praise God, as David did, for that which was promised and was yet to come.</p>


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<p>For He has strengthened the bars of your gates, He has blessed your children within you-</p><p>As noted on :1, this Psalm was relevant to the exiles. Nehemiah's record stresses how the exiles themselves strengthened the bars of the gates of Jerusalem; but it was Yahweh working with them to achieve thIsa. But the blessing of their children was only potentially available; for Haggai (see on :1) records how there was much suffering amongst the exiles from famine and plague, because they had not truly returned to their God.</p>


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<p>He makes peace in your borders, He fills you with the finest of the wheat-</p><p>But at the time of Haggai and Zechariah (see on :1) they experienced famine and opposition from within their borders. The great potentials possible for the exiles who returned didn't come about; their impenitence precluded the reestablishment of the Kingdom as was prophetically possible. "Fills you" translates&nbsp; word often used to describe how God's people in His land would be "filled" or satisfied"; if they were obedient to the covenant (<a href='B:50 6:11'>Deu 6:11</a>; <a href='B:50 8:10'>Deu 8:10</a>; <a href='B:50 8:12'>Deu 8:12</a>; <a href='B:50 11:15'>Deu 11:15</a> and very often).</p>


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<p>He sends out His commandment to the earth; His word runs very swiftly-</p><p>LXX "He sends his oracle to the earth: his word will run swiftly"; as in :19 "He sends his word to Jacob". A word running swiftly was an idiom for the fulfilment of that word (see on <a href='B:420 2:2'>Hab 2:2</a>). See too on <a href='B:300 23:18'>Jer 23:18</a>; <a href='B:300 23:22'>Jer 23:22</a>. The idea was that the word of restoration was now coming true for the exiles (see on :1). But tragically their impenitence precluded it coming true at that time as it might have done.</p>


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<p>He gives snow like wool, and scatters frost like ashes-</p><p>The idea is that God turns the water into snow, and then His word melts the snow, and the waters flow. The water changes from one state to another. The idea is that Judah went into captivity by God's word, they were as it were frozen in captivity, but God's word would melt them and change their state, so that they would flow again, back to Zion. But most of them preferred to remain frozen in captivity.</p>


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<p>He hurls down His hail like pebbles-</p><p> who can stand before His cold?<strong>- </strong></p><p>See on :16. "Who can stand before" Yahweh is the language of men facing condemnation (<a href='B:90 6:20'>1Sa 6:20</a>; <a href='B:230 76:7'>Psa 76:7</a>; <a href='B:410 1:6'>Nah 1:6</a>; <a href='B:460 3:2'>Mal 3:2</a>). Only those forgiven by Him can stand before Him (<a href='B:230 130:3'>Psa 130:3</a>). The exiles had been judged, and were now forgiven. As noted on :16, the freezing of the waters into ice was seen as their judgment in Babylon, and God's word of restoration was to change their state (:18). It was Babylon who was now to be unable to stand before Him (s:w. <a href='B:300 49:19'>Jer 49:19</a>; <a href='B:300 50:44'>Jer 50:44</a>):&nbsp;</p>


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<p>He sends out His word and melts them; He causes His wind to blow and the waters flow-</p><p>See on :16. Note the parallel between God's word and His wind / Spirit. The exiles could have been released from their frozen condition in exile, their state could have been changed from snow to flowing waters. The idea of God's wind / Spirit blowing over the waters is that of creation. A new creation could have been brought about; but they refused.</p>


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<p>He shows His word to Jacob, His statutes and His ordinances to Israel-</p><p>As in :15 LXX has "He sends his word to Jacob". The reference there was to how God's prophetic word of restoration could have come true for Jacob / Israel; but they had to be obedient to His statutes. And they were not, for the most part, as the sad record of the restoration makes clear.</p>


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<p>He has not done this for any other nation; they don’t know His ordinances. Praise Yah!- </p><p>The gift of God's laws was not to be perceived as onerous, but the greatest blessing a nation could have. To perceive that God's word is shown to us... leaves us with an awesome impression. This is what grasping the meaning of an inspired Bible should do for each of us. Whoever wishes to believe in that word has had God's word shown to them (:19); and thereby become God's new Israel.</p>


text:
<p>Praise Yah! Praise Yahweh from the heavens! Praise Him in the heights!<strong>- </strong></p><p>The LXX attributes Psalms 146-148 to Haggai and Zechariah. According to the LXX titles, there were certain Psalms which were written for the dedication of the rebuilt temple, and others written by Haggai and Zechariah. They include: Psalms 96, 138, 147, 148. These all seem to speak as if the time of a glorious temple was to be the time of God’s Kingdom; this was the possibility, and it was the prevailing hope in the minds of the faithful minority. But the Psalms had to remain prophecies of the future day of Zion’s glory, for the temple was not rebuilt by the returned exiles according to the specifications of Ezekiel 40-48. Although I suggest they are all initially Psalms of David, relevant to his experiences, but used under inspiration in these later contexts.</p>


text:
<p>Praise Him, all His angels! Praise Him, all His army!<strong>- </strong></p><p>The praise in the context of the exiles (see on :1) was not for what God had already done, but for what they believed and hoped He would do in the ultimate restoration. Because at the time of the restoration, the exiles were experiencing famine and judgment for their impenitence.</p>


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<p>Praise Him, sun and moon! Praise Him, all you shining stars!<strong>- </strong></p><p>The praise is because of their creation by a Divine word (:5). The stars and heavenly bodies were representative of the exiles in <a href='B:230 147:4'>Psa 147:4</a> (see notes there); who were to be part of a new creation according to God's prophetic word of restoration. This is why otherwise inanimate bodies are presented as praising God.</p>


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<p>Praise Him, you heavens of heavens, You waters that are above the skies-</p><p>The "heaven of heavens" seems to refer to the dwelling place of God personally. There was to ecstatic praise there because of how God would restore His people and forge a new creation out of them by the means of His word. That the exiles largely refused this great potential is tragic; the joy of Heaven itself was precluded by their disinterest:&nbsp;</p>


text:
<p>Let them praise the name of Yahweh, for He commanded, and they were created-</p><p>The Genesis creation is unique amongst creation accounts for the way that the true creation was called into being by Divine words. As explained on <a href='B:230 147:18'>Psa 147:18</a>, a new creation was envisaged at the restoration. And the exiles were bidden praise God for this; even though ultimately that restoration to its full extent was not to be at that time, due to their general impenitence.</p>


text:
<p>He has also established them forever and ever. He has made a decree which will not pass away-</p><p>The reestablishment of a new heavens and earth at the time of the return from Babylon is a major theme of the restoration prophets. A Divine decree would eternally establish them. The decree of Cyrus to return and rebuild the temple could have been that decree. But it was not to be, because Israel refused to repent and truly return to their God and their land. Perhaps God did indeed make the decree, and that of Cyrus was a human articulation of it upon earth; but Israel failed to respond, and so God's eternal decree would therefore have a later and different fulfilment.</p>


text:
<p>Praise Yahweh from the earth, you great sea creatures, and all depths!<strong>- </strong></p><p>The "waters" would refer to the Gentiles around Israel; see on <a href='B:730 16:5'>Rev 16:5</a>. LXX "serpents" supports the idea that it is the mythical creatures feared by the Middle Eastern peoples who were finally to praise God. The intention was that the exiles would be restored, judgment would come upon Babylon, and this would lead to Babylon and the other great nations repenting and praising God. Their destruction would be in allusion to God's division of the Red Sea and destruction of the "monsters" of Egypt. The chariots of Pharaoh are likened to sea monsters. The same idea is presented to the exiles in <a href='B:290 51:9'>Isa 51:9</a>. People of the time found the sea mysterious, and believed in a vast sea dragon lurking there which was invincible, rather like folks tend to believe in a supernatural devil figure. The simple point was that God has and can destroy such entities at ease, to the point that effectively God's people need not believe in them.</p>


text:
<p>Lightning and hail, snow and clouds; stormy wind, fulfilling His word-</p><p>LXX "the things that perform His word". Hail and lightning (AV "flaming fire") are the words used for the destruction of Assyria / Babylon (<a href='B:290 30:30'>Isa 30:30</a>; and see on <a href='B:230 105:32'>Psa 105:32</a>). They are also associated with theophany (<a href='B:230 18:12-13'>Psa 18:12-13</a>). Hail and lightning could have been used to destroy Babylon and thereby fulfil God's prophetic word of restoration for the exiles. But these great potentials were not realized because the Jews didn't repent and didn't for the most part actually want the restoration of the Kingdom. They preferred the good life in Persia. Ultimately all the elements of the natural creation will be used in the last days to bring about the reestablishment of the Kingdom, although not exactly in the terms initially envisaged for the restoration of the exiles from Babylon.</p>


text:
<p>mountains and all hills; fruit trees and all cedars-</p><p>The Psalm looks ahead to a time when the entire creation would praise God's Name. This could be simply poetic language representing a general situation of praise. But the restored Kingdom could well be a time when the natural creation realizes some latent spiritual potential within it, and praises God's Name (<a href='B:520 8:22-23'>Rom 8:22-23</a>).</p>


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<p>wild animals and all livestock; small creatures and flying birds-</p><p>See on :9. The list of things which will praise Yahweh's Name here and in :9 is taken from the record of the Genesis 1 creation. Perhaps what is envisaged here is a new creation, where all the components of that creation have a spiritual potential, which is used to praise God's Name (:13).</p>


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<p>kings of the earth and all peoples; princes and all judges of the earth-</p><p>The kings of the eretz promised to Abraham are typically presented in the Bible as being against God's people. But here we have then envisioned as praising Yahweh's Name. Or we could read this Psalm as an invitation to them to do so. The prophetic intention was that the nations in the eretz would repent; this Psalm may be looking forward to that time, or it could be read as an appeal to them to accept Yahweh and praise His Name (:13):&nbsp;</p>


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<p>both young men and young women; old men and children-</p><p>The praise of the entire Gentile society within the eretz promised to Abraham (:11) is to parallel the praise of God's people Israel (:14). The impression given is of Jews and Gentiles united in a new multiracial people of God, giving the same praise to the same God. We note that "children" are equally invited to praise the name of Yahweh (:13); they are felt to be capable of appreciating His Name / characteristics. </p>


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<p>let them praise the name of Yahweh, for His name alone is exalted; His glory is above the earth and the skies-</p><p><a href='B:650 12:8'>Heb 12:8</a>: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to day, and for ever” suggests that the three tenses of the Yahweh Name were&nbsp; supremely manifest in the Lord Jesus. Which is surely why ‘Jesus’ in the NT becomes the Name above every Name (Php_2:9-10; <a href='B:560 1:21'>Eph 1:21</a>); for only ‘Yahweh’ was exalted above every other name (<a href='B:160 9:5'>Neh 9:5</a>; <a href='B:230 148:13'>Psa 148:13</a>). It is praise of Yahweh through the Lord Jesus which will be the scene of the&nbsp; eternally reestablished kingdom of Yahweh.</p><p>This Psalm may well have originated in the victory over Goliath, for it is very similar in spirit to Psalms 8, and here quotes from <a href='B:230 8:1'>Psa 8:1</a>. After that, it was David's name which was much set by (<a href='B:90 18:30'>1Sa 18:30</a>); but David's desire was that it should be Yahweh's Name which was now made majestic after the defeat of Goliath, and not his name.</p>


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<p>He has lifted up the horn of His people-</p><p>The idea of the horn of the righteous being exalted is used about what David envisaged happening for God's people in this life (s:w. <a href='B:230 148:14'>Psa 148:14</a>), although the final fulfilment was to be at the last day, when the horn of the wicked is cut off (<a href='B:230 75:10'>Psa 75:10</a>). But there are potential foretastes of the last day in this life. Jeremiah appears to struggle with the Psalms which taught that the horn of the righteous would be lifted up, lamenting that instead the horn of their enemies had been lifted up (s:w. <a href='B:310 2:17'>Lam 2:17</a>). The truth was that the horn of God's people would only be lifted up if they were identified with the lifting up of the horn which was Messiah (<a href='B:230 89:17'>Psa 89:17</a>; <a href='B:230 89:24'>Psa 89:24</a>). And because this didn't happen, their horn was not exalted.</p><p>David is here alluding to Hannah's prayer (<a href='B:90 2:10'>1Sa 2:10</a>). He appropriates her words to himself personally in <a href='B:230 92:10'>Psa 92:10</a>, but there he also bids all Israel apply the words to themselves every Sabbath (<a href='B:230 92:1'>Psa 92:1</a>). Hence "our horn shall be exalted... his horn shall be exalted" (<a href='B:230 89:17'>Psa 89:17</a>; <a href='B:230 89:24'>Psa 89:24</a>). Israel were to see themselves as somehow "in" David, as we are "in Christ".</p><p>Inspiring the praise of all His saints, even of the children of Israel, a people near to Him. Praise Yah!- </p><p>The reason why space is so deep and huge may simply be because God wants to show us His humility: in that although He is so far from us, He will come to us, such an infinite distance in human terms, and live here with us. And this Almighty, so distant God... describes Israel as "a people near to Him"- using the very word elsewhere translated "near of kin" or "kinsman". This is how close He comes to His people. The Hebrew means literally, 'next to', 'neighbour / relative to'. This is how close God feels to the broken hearted and crushed; and conversely, how far He is from the self satisfied and self congratulatory, 'the strong' in secular terms. It is this feature of Yahweh which makes Him unique; no other God has this characteristic of 'nearness' (s:w. <a href='B:50 4:7'>Deu 4:7</a>).</p>


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<p>Praise Yahweh! Sing to Yahweh a new song, His praise in the assembly of the saints-</p><p>Even in the Old Testament, the idea of living in a spirit of newness of life is to be found. David six times invites us to sing with him “a new song” (<a href='B:230 33:3'>Psa 33:3</a>; <a href='B:230 40:3'>Psa 40:3</a>; <a href='B:230 96:1'>Psa 96:1</a>; <a href='B:230 98:1'>Psa 98:1</a>; <a href='B:230 144:9'>Psa 144:9</a>; <a href='B:230 149:1'>Psa 149:1</a> cp. <a href='B:290 42:10'>Isa 42:10</a>). Invariably these songs are associated with the experience of God’s redemption (cp. <a href='B:730 5:9'>Rev 5:9</a>). Obviously those ‘new songs’ were intended to be repeatedly sung. Our regular experience of forgiveness and redemption should urge us onwards in the spirit of ‘newness of life’. Like Paul we die daily with the Lord, and the power of His resurrection life likewise daily breaks out in us.</p>


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<p>Let Israel rejoice in Him who made him, let the children of Zion be joyful in their King-</p><p>I noted on <a href='B:230 147:4'>Psa 147:4</a>; <a href='B:230 148:3-4'>Psa 148:3-4</a> that there is a major theme of God working a new creation in the restored exiles. In this sense, Israel would be "made" by God (<a href='B:290 44:2'>Isa 44:2</a>; <a href='B:290 51:13'>Isa 51:13</a>), who would then be accepted as the king enthroned in Zion. The exiles resisted this, largely preferring to remain in exile in Babylon-Persia. And so no Davidic king was reestablished as had been potentially possible.</p><p>David saw his sufferings as being bound up with those of Israel; those who hated him hated Zion, those who blessed him blessed Zion, and God's salvation of Israel was being expressed through God's deliverance of him in the daily vicissitudes of life; as God had chosen Zion, so He had David His servant; David's joy was Zion's joy, and her exaltation would be David's&nbsp; (<a href='B:230 51:18'>Psa 51:18</a>; <a href='B:230 69:35'>Psa 69:35</a>; <a href='B:230 87:2'>Psa 87:2</a>; <a href='B:230 106:5'>Psa 106:5</a>; <a href='B:230 121:3-4'>Psa 121:3-4</a>; <a href='B:230 125:1'>Psa 125:1</a>; <a href='B:230 128:5'>Psa 128:5</a>; <a href='B:230 146:10'>Psa 146:10</a>; <a href='B:230 149:2'>Psa 149:2</a>). This is how we are to make sense of suffering- by understanding that it plays a role in the salvation of others, and is part of a wider nexus of Divine operation. We suffer so that we may be able to minister the comfort we receive to others (<a href='B:540 1:4'>2Co 1:4</a>). Job likewise came to realize that his sufferings were not so much for his personal maturing, but for the teaching and salvation of the friends.</p>


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<p>Let them praise His name in the dance! Let them sing praises to Him with tambourine and harp!<strong>- </strong></p><p>David asks Israel to join him in his praise on tambourine and harp (s:w. <a href='B:100 6:5'>2Sa 6:5</a>; <a href='B:100 6:14-16'>2Sa 6:14-16</a>) for the ark returning to Zion. It is based upon Israel's rejoicing after the deliverance from Egypt (<a href='B:20 15:20'>Exo 15:20</a>). But these images all had special relevance to the possibilities at the restoration of the exiles. The young woman taking the timbrel and rejoicing in the dance once again is presented as the epitome of the restoration (<a href='B:300 31:4'>Jer 31:4</a>; <a href='B:300 31:13'>Jer 31:13</a>), after the years of exile when Judah's dance had been turned to mourning (<a href='B:310 5:15'>Lam 5:15</a>). The invitation to "let" this happen confirms the great theme observed so often- that the restoration from Babylon could have led to the restored Kingdom of God, but was precluded by Judah's impenitence. But the Psalm urges them to "let" these things happen by as it were fulfilling the prophecies.</p>


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<p>For Yahweh takes pleasure in His people, He crowns the humble with salvation-</p><p>This renewed "pleasure in His people" suggests the effective remarriage of God and Israel, the exiles, based upon a new covenant seeing they had broken the old covenant (<a href='B:290 54:7-8'>Isa 54:7-8</a>; <a href='B:290 60:10'>Isa 60:10</a>). But they refused that new covenant, seeking justification by the old covenant [the law of Moses] which they had broken. And they never therefore remarried God as intended, and so he turned to form a new people for relationship, the Gentile-Jewish mix of the body of Christ. The crowning or adorning of God's people is that spoken of in the restoration prophecies, when Zion itself would be glorified (<a href='B:290 55:5'>Isa 55:5</a>; <a href='B:290 60:7'>Isa 60:7</a>; <a href='B:290 60:9'>Isa 60:9</a>; <a href='B:290 60:13'>Isa 60:13</a>). But again, this didn't happen at the restoration from Babylon as was potentially possible. The prophecies are rescheduled and reapplied to God's final salvation of a new, multiethnic people in Christ.</p>


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<p>Let the saints rejoice in glory-</p><p>"Rejoice" is s:w. "triumph" in <a href='B:230 94:3'>Psa 94:3</a>, where the psalmist has asked how long shall the wicked triumph. Now finally is the day when the "How long…?" question has been answered.</p><p>Let them sing for joy on their beds-</p><p>David rightly perceived that what a man thinks alone on his bed is a litmus indicator of his essential spirituality&nbsp; (<a href='B:230 4:4'>Psa 4:4</a>; <a href='B:230 149:5'>Psa 149:5</a>), and he condemns Saul for plotting sin on his bed (<a href='B:230 36:4'>Psa 36:4</a>). And yet the same phrase "on his bed" is used for how David plotted the sin with Bathsheba on his bed (<a href='B:100 11:2'>2Sa 11:2</a>). David was surely taught by his sin that he had been too quick to condemn others for their wicked thoughts upon their beds.</p><p>This is all the language of God's Kingdom upon earth, and it has some similarities with how David brought the ark to Zion; see on :3. But it was God who would make this happen (<a href='B:230 132:16'>Psa 132:16</a>), rather than David's manipulation of the physical ark, and getting the people to shout for joy (<a href='B:230 132:8-9'>Psa 132:8-9</a>). But as discussed on <a href='B:230 132:8'>Psa 132:8</a>, David mistakenly thought that merely bringing the ark to Zion meant this would come about.</p>


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<p>May the high praises of God be in their mouths, and a two-</p><p>edged sword in their hand-</p><p>Literally, a two mouthed sword; as if the praise coming out of their mouths was parallel with the mouth of the sword they were wielding. The restoration of the exiles was intended to coincide with the judgment and fall of Babylon, which was to be effected on the ground by a glorified, Spirit empowered, repentant Judah. But they didn't repent, Babylon didn't fall as the "fall of Babylon" prophecies in the restoration prophets envisaged. Instead those prophecies were reapplied and rescheduled to the fall of a latter day Babylon as described in Revelation 18.</p>


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<p>to execute vengeance on the nations, and punishments on the peoples-</p><p>To pray for this to happen was effectively asking for the Kingdom to come. For David is always careful to emphasize that vengeance belongs to God and not man (see on <a href='B:230 94:1'>Psa 94:1</a>). The stress that vengeance belongs to God was of course a major theme with David, in that he refused twice to take Saul's life when he easily could have done- because vengeance belongs to God and not man. And likewise it was stressed to the exiles that vengeance upon the Gentiles who had abused them belonged to God, and they were to pray for the time of His vengeance to come. This time of vengeance could have come at the restoration from Babylon (<a href='B:290 61:2'>Isa 61:2</a>; <a href='B:290 63:4'>Isa 63:4</a>); but most of the exiles preferred to remain in Babylon and were quite comfortable there. And so again, these prophecies were reapplied and rescheduled to the fall of a latter day Babylon as described in Revelation 18:&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


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<p>to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron-</p><p>At the restoration, a revived Judah could have bound their overlords with chains (<a href='B:290 45:14'>Isa 45:14</a>). There was to be a radical inversion; they the prisoners, the bound ones (s:w. <a href='B:230 146:7'>Psa 146:7</a>; <a href='B:290 49:9'>Isa 49:9</a>; <a href='B:290 61:1'>Isa 61:1</a>) were to be loosed from exile, and were instead to bind their captors. But they were themselves the leaders / nobles of Babylon-Persia (as the book of Esther demonstrates) and didn't want at all to come out of Babylon.</p>


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<p>to execute on them the judgment written. All His saints have this honour. Praise Yah!- </p><p>The judgment written was, in the context of the exiles, the judgments upon Babylon written at such length in the restoration prophecies such as Isaiah and Jeremiah. But these prophecies were not fulfilled by the exiles as envisaged. Most of them preferred to remain in Babylon-Persia, and didn't "come out from among them" as commanded. They didn't want the "honour" spoken of here; and so those prophecies were reapplied and rescheduled to the fall of a latter day Babylon as described in Revelation 18:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>Praise Yah! Praise God in His sanctuary! Praise Him in His heavens for His acts of power!-</p><p>We note one of several connections between the sanctuary and the "heavens". The sanctuary was intended to be a shadowy reflection of the heavenly sanctuary (<a href='B:650 9:24'>Heb 9:24</a>). The joy of heaven itself at Israel's final salvation was to be reflected in the restored sanctuary upon earth. The Psalm therefore has relevance to the exiles and their hope and potential for restoring the kingdom of Heaven upon earth in Israel.</p>


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<p>Praise Him for His mighty acts!<strong>- </strong></p><p>The "acts" retold with praise would be of God's saving grace in human history (as in <a href='B:230 145:4'>Psa 145:4</a>; <a href='B:230 145:11-12'>Psa 145:11-12</a>); that will be our talk throughout eternity, and we should begin living the Kingdom life now.</p><p>Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!<strong>- </strong></p><p>The phrase used by David when dedicating the plans for building the first temple (<a href='B:130 29:11'>1Ch 29:11</a>). This makes the Psalm easily usable by the exiles rebuilding that temple.</p>


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<p>Praise Him with the sounding of the trumpet! Praise Him with harp and lyre!<strong>- </strong></p><p>The trumpet was sounded at the proclamation of the feasts (<a href='B:230 81:3'>Psa 81:3</a> s:w:), and this Psalm was likely used on those occasions. The sounding of the trumpet recalls the proclamation of a new king (<a href='B:110 1:39'>1Ki 1:39</a>; <a href='B:120 9:13'>2Ki 9:13</a>). The situation in view may be the final proclamation of Messiah Jesus as King in the Kingdom.</p>


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<p>Praise Him with tambourine and dancing! Praise Him with stringed instruments and flute!<strong>- </strong></p><p>David asks Israel to join him in his praise on tambourine and harp (s:w. <a href='B:100 6:5'>2Sa 6:5</a>; <a href='B:100 6:14-16'>2Sa 6:14-16</a>) for the ark returning to Zion. It is based upon Israel's rejoicing after the deliverance from Egypt (<a href='B:20 15:20'>Exo 15:20</a>). But these images all had special relevance to the possibilities at the restoration of the exiles. The young woman taking the timbrel and rejoicing in the dance once again is presented as the epitome of the restoration (<a href='B:300 31:4'>Jer 31:4</a>; <a href='B:300 31:13'>Jer 31:13</a>), after the years of exile when Judah's dance had been turned to mourning (<a href='B:310 5:15'>Lam 5:15</a>). The invitation to actually do this confirms the great theme observed so often- that the restoration from Babylon could have led to the restored Kingdom of God, but was precluded by Judah's impenitence. But the Psalm urges them to do these things, to "let" these things happen (<a href='B:230 140:3'>Psa 140:3</a>) by as it were fulfilling the prophecies.</p>


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<p>Praise Him with loud cymbals! Praise Him with resounding cymbals!<strong>- </strong></p><p>The reference to cymbals again suggests the bringing of the ark to Zion as the initial reference of this Psalm (s:w. <a href='B:100 6:5'>2Sa 6:5</a>). But it looks ahead to the coming of the Lord Jesus, the ultimate dwelling place of Yahweh, to Zion- and being proclaimed king (see on :3), at His second coming.</p>


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<p>Let everything that has breath praise Yah! Praise Yah!- </p><p>This looks ahead to a time when all that has breath, which includes the natural creation, praising Yahweh. The picture is of all creation being spiritually aware and entering into the conscious spirituality of God's children (<a href='B:520 8:22-23'>Rom 8:22-23</a>).</p><p>The LXX concludes with an extra Psalm:</p><p>"This Psalm is a genuine one of David, though supernumerary, composed when he fought in single combat with Goliad. I was small among my brethren, and youngest in my father's house: I tended my father's sheep:&nbsp;</p><p><a href='B:230 151:2'>Psa 151:2</a>&nbsp; My hands formed a musical instrument, and my fingers tuned a psaltery:&nbsp;</p><p><a href='B:230 151:3'>Psa 151:3</a>&nbsp; And who shall tell my Lord? the Lord himself, he himself hears:&nbsp;</p><p><a href='B:230 151:4'>Psa 151:4</a>&nbsp; He sent forth his angel, and took me from my father's sheep, and he anointed me with the oil of his anointing:&nbsp;</p><p><a href='B:230 151:5'>Psa 151:5</a>&nbsp; My brothers were handsome and tall; but the Lord did not take pleasure in them:&nbsp;</p><p><a href='B:230 151:6'>Psa 151:6</a>&nbsp; I went forth to meet the Philistine; and he cursed me by his idols:&nbsp;</p><p><a href='B:230 151:7'>Psa 151:7</a>&nbsp; But I drew his own sword, and beheaded him, and removed reproach from the children of Israel".</p>


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<p>s 1:1 The proverbs of Solomon-</p><p>Proverbs is a collection of various statements from Solomon, some of which in later chapters were apparently edited in the time of Hezekiah; with the words of Agur added to the anthology. The "Lemuel" of Proverbs 31 may also be Solomon. I will argue that in fact all the chapters are either by or edited by Solomon. They are the result of Solomon being given "wisdom" when he became king. That wisdom was to enable him to govern Yahweh's people Israel, hence they are so practical. However, I will observe time and again that although they are all inspired and true, this Divine truth is used by Solomon to justify himself in his various political tensions with other pretenders to the throne, from the house of Saul and from the supporters of his various half brothers. He comes to elevate his "wisdom", true as it is of itself, far above God's word, and ends up playing God. And this leads to glaring contradictions between the truths and wisdom he writes down, and his personal life. This is especially true in relation to women. And so we have in this book a unique message to those within Christian communities who pride themselves upon "truth" which they have received. The truth of that truth, as it were, is unquestionable. But the lesson is that academic truth and knowledge must be personally applied; and when it isn't, the mere possession of that truth leads to hypocrisy and eventual downfall, of which Solomon is the parade example. The possession of those truths will not of itself save us; and yet Solomon appeared to think that it would, and therefore failed to apply these things to himself personally.</p><p>Are the Proverbs really like precious stones that must be emptied out of the bag and rearranged by theme? In which case, why didn't God do so at the start when inspiring the book? My comments are as follows:</p><p>- Some of the Proverbs are basic truisms and maxims which have equivalents in any culture. Solomon wrote the book at the start of his reign when God gave him his wisdom.</p><p>But Solomon loved Egyptian and Gentile women right from the start of his reign. There are strong similarities both in content and genre between Proverbs and e.g. the Egyptian Instruction of Amenemope. It could be that Solomon took various things from the literature of his father in law in Egypt... or of course it could be that Solomon's book</p><p>of Proverbs was designed to preach to the Egyptians and surrounding nations in their own terms and in a familiar genre. Much is written by Solomon about about the establishment of the throne on the basis of truth and justice; and this is commonly found in Egyptian literature about the Pharaohs.</p><p>- The text hangs together far better in the original Hebrew. Most people were illiterate, and so the book was designed to be memorized:&nbsp; There are many patterns in the book which depend upon the alliteration and rhyming of words and ideas to enable memorization. This was typical of wisdom literature of the time. There are similar initial syllables of words and verses, or beginning with the same letter. There's much word play, similar sounds repeat between verses if read out loud. Thus the root sdq [righteousness] occurs in various words which connect various proverbs which appear unrelated to each other in English translation. These sound patterns form a chain which enables memorization. Thus <a href='B:240 16:27-29'>Pro 16:27-29</a> all begin with the word ish, 'a man'. Catchwords link adjacent verses.</p><p>- Watch out for clusters of verses which do have the same theme; the verses which don't appear to be in a cluster are likely connected by alliteration etc. for easy memorization.</p><p>- My own hunch is that although the Proverbs are inspired by God, they were also presented by Solomon with a strong hint of self-justification. He wrote them when he had just inherited the throne from his father David, whom he idolized and was obsessed with. He sought to justify his father against all the various factions who were in Israel who were not sympathetic to David and therefore to Solomon. Almost every other verse in the book appears to have some such sideways swipe at the likes of Saul, Nabal, Absalom or Joab- whilst presenting Solomon as the wise son with whom alone David was pleased. Solomon should've sought his self-worth and value in God's opinion of him; and he should've trusted the promises to David of God establishing his throne and line, rather than seeking to as it were fulfill them for himself by using God's Truth and Wisdom to establish himself at others' expense.</p><p>The son of David, king of Israel-</p><p>Solomon speaks about him being King in Jerusalem (<a href='B:250 1:1'>Ecc 1:1</a>; <a href='B:250 1:12'>Ecc 1:12</a>; <a href='B:240 1:1'>Pro 1:1</a>) as if this was the ultimate fulfilment of the Davidic promises. Consider the implications of <a href='B:140 1:9'>2Ch 1:9</a>: "O Lord God, let thy promise unto David my father be established: for thou hast made me king over a people like the dust of the earth…give me now wisdom, that I may go out and come in before (i:e. lead) this people". Solomon was asking for wisdom because he thought that he was the Messiah, and he saw wisdom as a Messianic characteristic. He failed to realize that the promises to Abraham and David were only being primarily fulfilled in him (e.g. <a href='B:110 4:20'>1Ki 4:20</a>); he thought that he was the ultimate fulfilment of them (<a href='B:110 8:20'>1Ki 8:20</a> states this in so many words). His lack of faith and vision of the future Kingdom lead him to this proud and arrogant conclusion (cp. building up our own 'Kingdom' in this life through our lack of vision of the Kingdom).</p>


text:
<p>s 1:2 to know wisdom and instruction; to discern the words of understanding-</p><p>Solomon's book of Proverbs is presented by him as having the power to discern truth from "the words of understanding". Whilst indeed the Proverbs do open up the words of God which were then available [mainly the Pentateuch and the book of Job], always in Proverbs we sense Solomon harnessing his wisdom to some more human agenda. Just as we can use God's truth to support our own agendas and personal justification. This opening introduction appears to be saying that this collection of wisdom is necessary in order to know wisdom in toto , and is the crucial key to understanding or discerning God. By setting up the book in this way, Solomon is as it were claiming a personal monopoly over Israel's understanding of God. That understanding could only come through his book. And true and Divinely inspired as everything is in it, Solomon appears here to give a hint of spiritual control over his people which was inappropriate.</p>


text:
<p>s 1:3 to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity<strong>- </strong></p><p>Instruction and wisdom are the terms used by David in <a href='B:230 2:10'>Psa 2:10</a>, where being wise and instructed effectively means to repent. True wisdom is to repent; knowledge in the Hebraic sense refers to relationship with God, rather than technical knowledge of information. In fact the first sin was to partake of the fruit which would apparently make men "wise" (<a href='B:10 3:6'>Gen 3:6</a>). It was a short cut to 'wisdom' in the sense of relationship. And too often the same mistake is made today, whereby knowledge is confused with the wisdom and instruction of repentant relationship with God. And this was the mistake Solomon was to make; he saw "wisdom" as bites of knowledge, like segments of computer memory. All of it was true, but in his own life it didn't come to the synthesis of 'repentant relationship with God' which is true "wisdom".</p>


text:
<p>s 1:4 to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the young man-</p><p>David likens himself to the simple who was made wise by God's word (<a href='B:230 19:7'>Psa 19:7</a>; <a href='B:230 119:130'>Psa 119:130</a>), and was therefore preserved (<a href='B:230 116:6'>Psa 116:6</a>). To be taught by God's word we have to become "simple", unlearning and placing to one side all our perceived knowledge and understandings. Solomon repeats David's theme by saying that wisdom makes wise the simple (<a href='B:240 1:4'>Pro 1:4</a>; <a href='B:240 8:5'>Pro 8:5</a>; <a href='B:240 9:4'>Pro 9:4</a>). But he is equating "wisdom" with the words of God, although for Solomon, "wisdom" seems to be what he personally is saying and teaching. Solomon doesn't direct his listeners back to God's word, as David did, but rather towards loyalty to his teaching. Inspired as it was, his lack of extended reference to God's law places his own teaching of "wisdom" above that law. This is in sharp contrast to David's attitude in Psalms 119, where David gives advice to the simple and the young man- and urges attention to God's word, whereas Solomon directs them instead to his wisdom, inspired as it was.</p>


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<p>s 1:5 that the wise man may be obedient, and increase in learning; that the man of understanding may attain to sound counsel-</p><p>The wise men of understanding may refer to the governors of Israel (s:w. <a href='B:50 1:13'>Deu 1:13</a>; <a href='B:50 1:15'>Deu 1:15</a>; <a href='B:50 16:19'>Deu 16:19</a>). See on :20. They were to learn wisdom in how to judge God's people through all the truths expressed in this book. David had called Solomon a "wise man", and indeed he was made wise by God (s:w. <a href='B:110 2:9'>1Ki 2:9</a>; <a href='B:110 3:12'>1Ki 3:12</a>; <a href='B:110 5:7'>1Ki 5:7</a>). But the logic of what Solomon seems to be saying is that the possession of wisdom makes a man obedient. And this is where he got it wrong; for his mere possession of wisdom didn't do so. And comparing Proverbs with Solomon's personal life as revealed in Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon and the historical records- all indicates that in fact Solomon's possession of wisdom didn't at all make him obedient. Solomon failed to appreciate what David did- that the wise man also dies (<a href='B:230 49:10'>Psa 49:10</a>). What is critical is having the hope of God's Kingdom and the resurrection of the body. But Solomon's possession of "truth" blinded him to this desperate need of all men. The mere possession of wisdom was no guarantee of itself of inheriting glory, as Solomon wrongly thought (<a href='B:240 3:35'>Pro 3:35</a>).</p>


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<p>s 1:6 to understand a proverb, and parables, the words and riddles of the wise-</p><p>This appears to be saying that Solomon's proverbs are required to understand every proverb. The words of the wise are only to be understood through Solomon's proverbs. However this, as noted on :2, appears to be just slightly manipulative; as if Solomon's teaching, inspired as it was, is to be the key to absolutely all understanding and interpretation.</p>


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<p>s 1:7 The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge; but the foolish despise wisdom and instruction-</p><p>Solomon repeats his father David's conclusion that wisdom begins with the fear of Yahweh (<a href='B:230 111:10'>Psa 111:10</a> = <a href='B:240 1:7'>Pro 1:7</a>; <a href='B:240 9:10'>Pro 9:10</a>). This statement is in sharp contrast with the accepted view of the times, that wisdom was held by the sages, and was accessible only by sitting at their feet. But this idea (and it is common enough today too) is subverted by this idea that wisdom begins in each individual heart being in fear of Yahweh- so that wisdom from Him can be personally experienced, taught directly through relationship with Him rather than sitting at the feet of a human sage. "Wisdom" is parallel with getting "a good understanding" by 'doing His work' or obeying His commandments (<a href='B:230 111:10'>Psa 111:10</a> b). The work we are to do for God in obeying His ways is not simply a test of our obedience; it is designed to give us wisdom. Wisdom therefore comes from experience of obedience and relationship with God, rather than from picking up nuggets of 'truth' from human sages:&nbsp;The fear of God is therefore not so much referring to a fear of the consequence of our sins; but the fear or reverence expressed through keeping His commandments (see on <a href='B:230 112:1'>Psa 112:1</a>):&nbsp;</p>


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<p>s 1:8 My son, listen to your father’s instruction, and don’t forsake your mother’s teaching-</p><p>David so often talks about God's "law", using the word torah. But Solomon so often speaks of his own torah, and that of his wife, the mother of "my son" (s:w. <a href='B:240 1:8'>Pro 1:8</a>; <a href='B:240 3:1'>Pro 3:1</a>; <a href='B:240 4:2'>Pro 4:2</a>; <a href='B:240 6:20'>Pro 6:20</a>; <a href='B:240 7:2'>Pro 7:2</a>; <a href='B:240 13:14'>Pro 13:14</a>; <a href='B:240 31:26'>Pro 31:26</a>). Yet elsewhere in the Bible, the well over 200 occurrences of torah are always about God's law. Solomon applies the word to his own teachings and that of his wife, and thereby plays God. whilst it could be argued that Solomon's teachings were Divinely inspired, all the same he ought surely to have spoken of them as God's torah rather than his own torah. This kind of playing God is seen so often in the teachers of God's people. We should note that Solomon's wife, the mother of the sons addressed, as a Gentle and idolater. Solomon says things which are true enough, but there is always an underlying element which is not so spiritual and of integrity when we think how it all applied to him and his family personally.</p>


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<p>s 1:9 for they will be a garland to grace your head, and chains around your neck-</p><p>Again Solomon reasons as if the mere possession of truth is what will adorn us before God. But it is personalization of the wisdom, not mere possession of it, which is required. And Solomon was a stellar example of failure in this. It was rulers who had chains around their necks, and Solomon has himself obliquely in view here; and he considers that the fact he was taught truth by his parents qualifies himself as king. That is not altogether untrue, but his personal example shows that it was not the right attitude.</p>


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<p>1:10 My son, if sinners entice you, don’t consent-</p><p>Solomon's idea of avoiding sin was in resisting the enticement of very sinful people. He pays no attention to the heart, whereas the Biblical message is always that sin is to be avoided in the heart. Spiritual mindedness, rather than mere disassociation from sinners, is of the essence. <a href='B:50 11:16'>Deu 11:16</a> warns that our heart should not be enticed (s:w:); but Solomon sees enticement as merely from very sinful individuals.</p>


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<p>1:11 If they say, Come with us, let’s lay in wait for blood; let’s lurk secretly for the innocent without cause-</p><p>"Lie in wait" is the word for ambush. Solomon often uses the word, as if it is for him a major characteristic of sinners (<a href='B:240 1:11'>Pro 1:11</a>; <a href='B:240 1:18'>Pro 1:18</a>; <a href='B:240 7:12'>Pro 7:12</a>; <a href='B:240 12:6'>Pro 12:6</a>; <a href='B:240 23:28'>Pro 23:28</a>; <a href='B:240 24:15'>Pro 24:15</a>). But it's a rather specific word to use so often. It's as if Solomon is consciously alluding to his father's experiences at the hands of the house of Saul (s:w. <a href='B:230 10:9'>Psa 10:9</a>; <a href='B:230 59:3'>Psa 59:3</a>), whom Solomon considered a threat to his own kingship. And so he seems to rather like using the term about sinners, as if using his wisdom to have a dig at his immediate opposition. "Innocent blood" refers to Saul's persecution of David's "innocent blood" (s:w. <a href='B:90 19:5'>1Sa 19:5</a>).</p>


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<p>1:12 let’s swallow them up alive like Sheol, and whole, like those who go down into the pit-</p><p>The reference may be to Ahithophel's plan to swallow up David at the time of Absalom's rebellion (<a href='B:100 17:12'>2Sa 17:12</a>; <a href='B:100 17:16'>2Sa 17:16</a> s:w:), and to David's prayers of <a href='B:230 35:25'>Psa 35:25</a>; <a href='B:230 69:15'>Psa 69:15</a> against Saul:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>1:13 We’ll find all kinds of wealth. We’ll fill our houses with spoil-</p><p>The wealth or substance of a man's house is the phrase used in <a href='B:240 6:31'>Pro 6:31</a>, of the adulterer who must pay all the wealth of his house. Solomon presents a perhaps simplistic caricature of the wicked; they use violence, steal, commit adultery etc. And the righteous are consistently wise and righteous, according to Proverbs. Whereas in reality, sin and righteousness is far more subtle. A man like Solomon's father David was righteous and yet also sinned.</p>


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<p>1:14 You shall cast your lot among us, we’ll all have one purse-</p><p>The phrase "cast your lot" is always used elsewhere in the Bible, 12 times, for the literal casting of lots. "Purse" is the word for "cup", and it seems there is an allusion to casting lots as to which victim or crime to choose.</p>


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<p>1:15 My son, don’t walk in the way with them. Keep your foot from their path-</p><p>The idea of walking in the way, with feet on the path, is commonly used for walking in the way of God's commandments (<a href='B:50 8:6'>Deu 8:6</a>; <a href='B:50 10:12'>Deu 10:12</a> etc:). David spoke of feet in the pathway of obedience to God's word (<a href='B:230 119:1'>Psa 119:1</a>; <a href='B:230 119:3'>Psa 119:3</a>; <a href='B:230 128:1'>Psa 128:1</a> and very often). But Solomon interprets this as not walking in the way with criminals (<a href='B:240 1:5'>Pro 1:5</a>; <a href='B:240 16:29'>Pro 16:29</a>). That is somewhat easier than personally walking with God in His way. Again, what Solomon says is not untrue; but he is turning personal, internal spirituality and obedience into a matter of simply avoiding external company with gross sinners. And he suggests that walking in the right way is a matter of externally associating with the path of the righteous (<a href='B:240 2:20'>Pro 2:20</a>):&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


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<p>1:16 for their feet run to evil. They hurry to shed blood-</p><p>David's feet almost ran and hasted to evil (s:w. <a href='B:230 73:2'>Psa 73:2</a>). Solomon simplistically condemns this. But this is not how it was in reality with his father David. Solomon's proverbs seem to fail to address this complexity of situations because of his own self-righteousness; and yet all he says is inspired and true so far as it goes. These words are quoted in <a href='B:290 59:17'>Isa 59:17</a> and applied to the wicked amongst the exiles.</p>


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<p>1:17 For in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird-</p><p>David said that the snare was dug "before me" (<a href='B:230 57:6'>Psa 57:6</a>). Solomon alludes to this here. All Solomon says is inspired truth, but clearly he has a subtext of justifying his father David; this was an obsession with him.</p>


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<p>1:18 but these lay wait for their own blood. They lurk secretly for their own lives-</p><p>This repeats the major Biblical theme, that men condemn themselves rather than God forcing condemnation upon them. The trap they set for others is what destroys them. In this sense, judgment day is ongoing now. "We make the answer now".</p>


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<p>1:19 So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain; it takes away the life of its owners-</p><p>In the sense that those "greedy for grain" destroy their own families (s:w. <a href='B:240 15:27'>Pro 15:27</a>). <a href='B:420 2:9'>Hab 2:9</a> likewise speaks of the "greedy for gain" as being so because they wish to enrich their own families. This desire for wealth "for my family" is a very powerful and subtle temptation:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>1:20 Wisdom calls aloud in the street. She utters her voice in the public squares-</p><p>This may be an allusion to Solomon's wisdom being publically taught throughout Israel. For he asked for it in order to teach Israel, and I noted on :5 that the Proverbs were intended for the teachers / governors of Israel:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>1:21 She calls at the head of busy places, at the entrance of the city gates she utters her words-</p><p>See on :20. AV "the chief place of concourse" may refer to the temple, and "the city" would be Jerusalem; as if Solomon's Proverbs were taught there especially.</p>


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<p>1:22 How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? How long will mockers delight themselves in mockery and fools hate knowledge?-</p><p>The "simple" are made wise by God's word, David repeatedly taught in the Psalms, especially Psalms 119. But Solomon seems often to effectively replace God's word with his Proverbs, as if they were all sufficient, and obedience to his teaching was all that was required, rather than directing attention to God's whole body of revelation. The Hebrew for "knowledge" admittedly has a wide range of meaning, but we get the impression that Solomon is advocating hearing academic theory and giving intellectual assent to it. And it was solely doing this, rather than personalizing it, which led to his demise.</p>


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<p>1:23 Turn at my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you, I will make known my words to you-</p><p>This associates a true understanding of God’s word with the action of His spirit upon us- reading the Book without understanding is of no avail, seeing that the spirit/mind of God is not being revealed to us.</p>


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<p>1:24 Because I have called, and you have refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no one has paid attention-</p><p>This is very much the language of the later prophets concerning God's appeals to Israel which were refused. Although I may appear to take a critical approach to Solomon, there is no doubt that what he writes is inspired truth; the problem I am highlighting is in the subtexts he attached to it all, and his slanting of it all towards his own self justification. See on :27.</p>


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<p>1:25 but you have ignored all my counsel, and wished none of my reproof-</p><p>This appears to be an out of context allusion to David's words in <a href='B:230 38:14'>Psa 38:14</a>, reflecting on his sin with Bathsheba, and how he felt unable to give reproof to others: "Yes, I am as a man who doesn’t hear, in whose mouth are no reproofs". Solomon was obsessed with David his father, speaking hundreds of times of "David my father". But he failed to have his humility; he endlessly dishes out reproofs in Proverbs, indeed he sees his Proverbs as reproofs to people (e.g. <a href='B:240 1:25'>Pro 1:25</a>; <a href='B:240 6:23'>Pro 6:23</a>; <a href='B:240 10:17'>Pro 10:17</a>; <a href='B:240 12:1'>Pro 12:1</a>; <a href='B:240 13:18'>Pro 13:18</a>; <a href='B:240 15:5'>Pro 15:5</a>; <a href='B:240 15:31'>Pro 15:31</a>; <a href='B:240 29:15'>Pro 29:15</a>); whereas David humbly felt unable to do so because of his awareness of his sins. And at the time David wrote the Proverbs, when he received wisdom at the start of his reign, he was sinning likewise [in essence] by marrying foreign women:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>1:26 I also will laugh at your disaster. I will mock when calamity overtakes you-</p><p>This sounds out of step with the God who takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, even if it is brought about by the whirlwind of Divine judgment (:27). Again Solomon appears to use his truth, his wisdom, to gleefully condemn those who will not accept it; rather than lament from the heart their refusal.</p>


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<p>1:27 when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when your disaster comes on like a whirlwind; when distress and anguish come on you-</p><p>See on :26. As noted on :24, this is very much the language used by the prophets about Judah's judgment for their refusal of God's word (s:w. <a href='B:290 5:28'>Isa 5:28</a>; <a href='B:290 8:22'>Isa 8:22</a>; <a href='B:290 29:6'>Isa 29:6</a>; <a href='B:300 4:13'>Jer 4:13</a> etc:). Although I may appear to take a critical approach to Solomon, there is no doubt that what he writes is inspired truth; the problem I am highlighting is in the subtexts he attached to it all, and his slanting of it all towards his own self justification.</p>


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<p>1:28 Then will they call on me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me-</p><p>The rejected will want to be accepted. "When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you (quoted in <a href='B:520 2:8'>Rom 2:8</a> about the judgment). Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me" (<a href='B:240 1:27-28'>Pro 1:27-28</a>). The foolish virgins realize the need for prayer all too late; they knocked on the door with great zeal, asking for it to be opened; seeking but not finding. Knocking is sometimes used as a figure for prayer (<a href='B:470 7:7'>Mat 7:7</a>). The basis for these foolish virgins is surely in <a href='B:240 1:28-29'>Pro 1:28-29</a>: "Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer... they shall not find me: for that they hated knowledge". Having a laid back attitude to developing a real knowledge of the Lord through the oil of the word is therefore effectively hating knowledge. As we see the Lord’s coming approaching, our daily Bible ought to be a bare minimum. There must be a feeling of and for those things of which we read, and a holding of them in the heart through the course of each day.</p>


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<p>1:29 because they hated knowledge, and didn’t choose the fear of Yahweh-</p><p>"The fear of Yahweh" is not therefore an involuntary fear of Him, as an emotion. It refers rather to a way of life now which we consciously choose. To "know" God is not therefore the mere receipt of information about Him, which may be given to us whether or not we ask for it; to "know" Him in the Hebraic sense is to have a relationship with Him, to fear / respect Him.</p>


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<p>1:30 They wished for none of my counsel, they despised all my reproof-</p><p>The parallel is with <a href='B:240 12:1'>Pro 12:1</a>: "Whoever loves correction loves knowledge [spoken of in :29], but he who hates reproof is stupid". To really know God is to accept reproof from Him. And this is why people generally refuse the knowledge of God; they may claim they don't understand or agree with the knowledge they find in the Bible, but the subconscious reason is that their pride refuses to accept reproof.</p>


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<p>1:31 Therefore they will eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with the fruit of their own schemes-</p><p>As noted on :18, men condemn themselves rather than God forcing condemnation upon them. The trap they set for others is what destroys them. In this sense, judgment day is ongoing now. "We make the answer now".</p>


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<p>1:32 For the backsliding of the simple will kill them. The careless ease of fools will destroy them-</p><p>"Careless ease", without being bothered by God's moral demands, may appear to be the way to an easy life. The same word is used in <a href='B:300 22:21'>Jer 22:21</a> as the reason why God's people refused to hear His word and repent. And we live in an age which glorifies "careless ease" as no other. But the great paradox is that this way of life is in fact the way to self destruction.</p>


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<p>1:33 But whoever listens to me will dwell securely and will be at ease, without fear of harm-</p><p>'Dwelling securely' appears to be how Solomon understood life now for those who listened to his book of Proverbs. But this phrase is used of the hope of the resurrection of the body (<a href='B:230 16:9'>Psa 16:9</a> "rest in hope"), and of the future Kingdom age (<a href='B:300 23:6'>Jer 23:6</a>; <a href='B:300 33:16'>Jer 33:16</a>). Solomon went wrong in the end because his focus was solely upon the blessings to be enjoyed in this life, with himself as king of Israel; rather than perceiving the eternity ahead, in God's Kingdom, as the ultimate blessing:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>s 2:1 My son, if you will receive my words and store up my commandments within you-</p><p>Solomon seems to allude to David hiding God's word in his heart (<a href='B:230 119:11'>Psa 119:11</a>) by asking his son to hide his word in his heart (s:w. <a href='B:240 2:1'>Pro 2:1</a>; <a href='B:240 7:1'>Pro 7:1</a>). Again Solomon is putting his own words in the place of God's words. Whilst his wisdom was inspired by God, I detect something wrong here. He is effectively playing God, and not directing people to God's word but rather to his own words, true and inspired as they might be. This came to full term in Solomon's attitude that personal loyalty to himself was loyalty to God- even when Solomon was far from God in his ways. And the same trap is fallen into by those who hold parts of 'God's truth'; they can come to thereby play God and demand personal loyalty to themselves rather than to God:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>s 2:2 so as to turn your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding-</p><p>Solomon uses the same phrase "incline your ear" in appealing for his son to incline his ear to Solomon's words (<a href='B:240 4:20'>Pro 4:20</a>). Solomon came to see himself as the embodiment of wisdom, and came to assume that whatever he said or thought must be right because he possessed wisdom. This comes to a peak in <a href='B:240 5:1'>Pro 5:1</a> - "attend [s:w. "incline" in 2:2] unto my wisdom, bow your ear to my understanding". Solomon made the classic mistake of assuming that his will and word were effectively equivalent to the word of God. In <a href='B:240 6:21'>Pro 6:21</a> he speaks of the need to bind the law about your heart and neck; but in <a href='B:260 8:6'>Son 8:6</a> he asks his Gentile lover to “set me as a seal upon thine heart” and arm. And often in Proverbs he uses the language of the blessings for keeping God’s law and turns them into the blessings for keeping his law; e.g.&nbsp; “My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye. Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart” (<a href='B:240 7:1-2'>Pro 7:1-2</a>). And we all do the same in essence, whenever we assume that our consciences are effectively the will of God; when we ‘play God’ by allowing our words and will to count as if they are His word.</p><p>As noted on <a href='B:230 119:36'>Psa 119:36</a>; <a href='B:230 141:4'>Psa 141:4</a>, David believed that God could act deep within the psychology or heart of man, to incline us toward righteousness and away from evil. This is how the Holy Spirit works today. Solomon believed the same (s:w. <a href='B:110 8:58'>1Ki 8:58</a>), but only in theory; for his Gentile wives inclined or turned away his heart from God (s:w. <a href='B:110 11:3'>1Ki 11:3</a>; <a href='B:110 11:9'>1Ki 11:9</a>). God will not turn our hearts anywhere we ourselves don't want to go. Solomon often appeals for us to incline our hearts to wisdom (s:w. <a href='B:240 2:2'>Pro 2:2</a>; <a href='B:240 4:20'>Pro 4:20</a>; <a href='B:240 5:1'>Pro 5:1</a>; <a href='B:240 22:17'>Pro 22:17</a>), but he himself was inclined to apostasy (s:w. <a href='B:110 11:3'>1Ki 11:3</a>; <a href='B:110 11:9'>1Ki 11:9</a>). All his emphasis is upon the need to incline ourselves, whereas his father David trusted in the work of the Spirit to incline his heart to good and away from evil (<a href='B:230 141:4'>Psa 141:4</a>; <a href='B:230 119:36'>Psa 119:36</a> etc:):&nbsp;</p><p>If we "attend" to God's word (<a href='B:240 2:2'>Pro 2:2</a>; <a href='B:240 4:1'>Pro 4:1</a>; <a href='B:240 7:24'>Pro 7:24</a>), then He will "attend" to our word, of prayer (<a href='B:230 55:2'>Psa 55:2</a> and often in the Psalms). There is thereby a mutuality between God and man. Our attitude to His word becomes reflected in His attitude to our words in prayer; for God and man are in dialogue.</p>


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<p>s 2:3 yes, if you cry out for wisdom, and lift up your voice for understanding-</p><p>These are the very words used of how wisdom and understanding cry out and lift up their voice (<a href='B:240 8:1'>Pro 8:1</a>). The idea is that God's wisdom and understanding is crying out to those who are crying out for it. There is thus a mutuality between God and man. And the old Yiddish proverb comes true: "And going out to find Him / I met Him coming towards me". God is in search of man, and true man is in search for God. And when they meet, there is that electric spark, parties in Heaven celebrating the reconnection.</p>


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<p>s 2:4 if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures-</p><p>Man's search for God is indeed to be more important than his plans to acquire wealth. But again we sense a subtext of self justification in Solomon; for his choice of wisdom rather than wealth was commended by God, and wealth was added to him because of it. The search for hidden treasure is an image picked up by the Lord and applied to our search for the Kingdom of God (<a href='B:470 13:44'>Mat 13:44</a>), which requires the sacrifice of all our wealth in response to finding it. That sacrifice of wealth can therefore be interpreted as meaning our resignation of the search for it.</p>


text:
<p>s 2:5 then you will understand the fear of Yahweh, and find the knowledge of God-</p><p>If we seek and cry out for wisdom and knowledge / relationship with God (:2-4), then we will find it. God is not playing hard to get, facing off against man over an open Bible. He earnestly seeks relationship with us. And it is that process of seeking and crying out for Him which of itself leads us to "understand" Him.</p>


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<p>s 2:6 For Yahweh gives wisdom. Out of His mouth comes knowledge and understanding-</p><p>But knowledge in the sense of relationship with God is not the same thing as the words of God, as we have them in the Bible, which come from His mouth. The gift of relationship is more subtle than that. But as so often, Solomon appears to assume that mere possession of God's truth, in the form of inspired words, means that we have knowledge / relationship with God.</p>


text:
<p>s 2:7 He lays up sound wisdom for the upright-</p><p>The implication could be that there is personal "wisdom" laid up for every upright man, which he must find for himself.</p><p>He is a shield to those who walk in integrity-</p><p>The allusion may be to how Yahweh was a "shield" to Abraham (<a href='B:10 15:1'>Gen 15:1</a>). But Solomon misses the point, that Abraham like David his father was not always a man of integrity. We think of Abraham's weakness in not leaving Ur nor Lot when he should have done, and his poor behaviour towards Sarai and Hagar. Again Solomon is too simplistically dividing God's people into abject sinners on one hand, and stellar examples of integrity on the other.</p>


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<p>s 2:8 that He may guard the paths of justice, and preserve the way of His saints-</p><p>"Preserves the way" is s:w. <a href='B:10 3:24'>Gen 3:24</a>; <a href='B:10 28:20'>Gen 28:20</a>; <a href='B:20 23:20'>Exo 23:20</a>; <a href='B:230 91:11'>Psa 91:11</a>. These verses suggest God keeps us in the way by Angelic involvement. The cherubim would keep [s:w. preserve] the way to the tree of life- this is a promise of Divine care to lead His people to that tree, rather than a judgment against man. But we on our side must also keep the way of the Lord (<a href='B:10 18:19'>Gen 18:19</a>; <a href='B:70 2:22'>Jdg 2:22</a>; <a href='B:50 8:2'>Deu 8:2</a>; <a href='B:50 8:6'>Deu 8:6</a>; <a href='B:50 11:22'>Deu 11:22</a>; <a href='B:50 30:16'>Deu 30:16</a> etc:). The way God 'preserved [Israel] in the way' through the wilderness to the promised land (<a href='B:60 24:17'>Jos 24:17</a>) looks forward to how we are potentially kept in the way through the wilderness after baptism towards the Kingdom. David could say that he had preserved the way (<a href='B:100 22:22'>2Sa 22:22</a>) and he asks Solomon to keep / preserve the way (<a href='B:110 2:3-4'>1Ki 2:3-4</a>); but here Solomon puts the emphasis on the promise that God will keep us in the way, rather than upon our need to preserve the way. Likewise he overlooked the conditional aspect of the promises about David's Son being Messiah. God directly told Solomon at least twice that he must make effort to keep the way (<a href='B:110 3:14'>1Ki 3:14</a>; <a href='B:110 11:38'>1Ki 11:38</a>), but he misquotes this in <a href='B:110 8:25'>1Ki 8:25</a> to the effect that God would keep His people in the way, by inclining their hearts to do so (<a href='B:110 8:58'>1Ki 8:58</a>). David had spoken of God's ability to direct hearts into keeping His way (<a href='B:230 119:5'>Psa 119:5</a>), but this was not the blank cheque assurance which Solomon seems to have take it as; David speaks of the effort he had to make to keep himself in the way (<a href='B:230 39:1'>Psa 39:1</a>). Worse still, Solomon told his children to keep / preserve his way (<a href='B:240 8:32'>Pro 8:32</a>), again confusing himself with God.</p>


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<p>s 2:9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path-</p><p>Again it seems Solomon is dividing people into those who resist wisdom on one hand, and those on the other who understand everything perfectly, and are totally obedient to it. But this is simply not the case. There seems little humility in his worldview; for who understands God's righteousness and justice completely. David his father confessed so often that the knowledge of these things was far above him.</p>


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<p>2:10 For wisdom will enter into your heart, knowledge will be pleasant to your soul-</p><p>Solomon often emphasized the importance of keeping the heart (<a href='B:240 2:10-16'>Pro 2:10-16</a>; <a href='B:240 3:5-6'>Pro 3:5-6</a>; <a href='B:240 4:23'>Pro 4:23</a> to <a href='B:240 5:5'>Pro 5:5</a>; <a href='B:240 6:23-26'>Pro 6:23-26</a>); he had foreseen that the essential sin of God’s people was “the plague of his own heart” (<a href='B:110 8:46'>1Ki 8:46</a>), and he imagined how for this sin God’s people would later pray towards the temple. And yet his wives turned away his heart (<a href='B:110 11:13'>1Ki 11:13</a>), for all this awareness that the heart must be kept. It was as if the more he knew the truth of something, the more he wanted to do the very opposite. And this is exactly true of our natures. It’s why we ourselves can discern the same perversity in our lives. Perhaps with Solomon he reasoned that in his case, foreign wives wouldn’t turn away his heart. Just as our flesh thinks ‘Yes, but it can’t happen to me’. Perhaps too he reasoned that if the temple somehow could bring forgiveness for the plague of the heart, his heart was incorruptible because of the temple:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


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<p>2:11 Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you-</p><p>Again Solomon veers towards believing that intellectual understanding is all that is required, along with avoiding the worst of sinners (:12). This lack of appreciation of personal spirituality, spiritual mindedness, is what led Solomon himself to fall away completely, and to exhibit remarkable hypocrisy. Solomon was commanded to personally keep or watch over [s:w:] the commandments (<a href='B:110 3:14'>1Ki 3:14</a> and often); but he seemed to think that possession of intellectual understanding would keep / watch over him and of itself keep him in the way (<a href='B:240 2:11'>Pro 2:11</a>). This is the temptation for all who pride themselves on possession of academic knowledge of Divine truth.</p>


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<p>2:12 to deliver you from the way of evil, from the men who speak perverse things-</p><p>Solomon understands the way of evil as association with perverse men. His focus is upon the external, rather than the internal. And this is the dangerous tendency of all who believe in guilt by association, contamination by communion, call it what you will. Those false ideas tend against personal spiritual mindedness.</p>


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<p>2:13 who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness-</p><p>As in <a href='B:240 15:10'>Pro 15:10</a>, Solomon sees the wicked as those who once knew the right path and have left it. He contrasts the path of uprightness and that of darkness (<a href='B:240 2:13'>Pro 2:13</a>). But life is not so clear cut. The same phrase is used of how Job felt he was walking the path of darkness (<a href='B:220 19:8'>Job 19:8</a>). David, Solomon's father, likewise partially strayed from the path. This inability to recognize that spiritual life is not so black and white led to Solomon assuming he was totally on the way of righteousness. He was unable therefore to appreciate that he himself failed at some points at some times. And this is true for those who have a similarly black and white view of people and spirituality. They never know the wonder of arising from our knees knowing we are forgiven, full of grace and renewed devotion to by all means serve the Lord again with all we have.</p>


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<p>2:14 who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the perverseness of evil-</p><p>The only other occurrence of the phrase "rejoice to do evil" is in David's reflections upon the coalition of haters who joined Absalom in trying to overthrow him (<a href='B:230 35:26'>Psa 35:26</a>). Solomon speaks the truth, but he does so with an eye on justifying himself against his brother Absalom and those who had followed him. Always Solomon is harnessing 'truth' to an agenda of self-justification; and we must be warned by this.</p>


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<p>2:15 who are crooked in their ways, and wayward in their paths-</p><p>See on :14. Solomon rightly emphasizes that the "wayward" are wayward in their hearts (<a href='B:240 11:20'>Pro 11:20</a>; <a href='B:240 17:20'>Pro 17:20</a>), leading to wayward ways in practice (<a href='B:240 2:15'>Pro 2:15</a>); but he repeats his father's mistake, in saying he will have nothing to do with those who are wayward in their hearts (s:w. <a href='B:230 101:4'>Psa 101:4</a>). The mistake was in assuming that he could judge human hearts. It continues the far over simplified view of people which Solomon has; the righteous have pure hearts, always obedient; and wicked have bad hearts. But the Bible warns that all of us have hearts which are fountains of evil thoughts (<a href='B:480 7:15'>Mar 7:15</a>; <a href='B:480 7:21-23'>Mar 7:21-23</a> etc:).</p>


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<p>2:16 to deliver you from the Gentile woman, even from the foreigner who flatters with her words-</p><p>Solomon married "strange women" i:e. Gentiles (<a href='B:110 11:1'>1Ki 11:1</a>) and was led astray by them. Yet at the very time he was marrying them, he wrote in his wisdom that the words of wisdom would preserve / keep / defend a Jewish man from being damaged by them (<a href='B:240 2:16'>Pro 2:16</a>; <a href='B:240 6:24'>Pro 6:24</a>; <a href='B:240 7:5'>Pro 7:5</a>). The connection would seem to suggest that Solomon reasoned that because he had wisdom, because he had 'the truth', he could therefore enjoy these "strange women" without them corrupting his heart; because he had wisdom. Thus he thought that mere possession of Divine truth was some kind of insurance policy against moral sin being counted to him. And so many have gone down this road; so many who knew more true theology than many have at the same time made an awful mess of their personal lives, just as Solomon did. This is why the higher one goes in the echelons of Christian organizations, the greater the learning and knowledge a person has, the more powerful is the tendency towards gross hypocrisy in moral terms. The point is, of course, that all the knowledge of God which we quite rightly seek after must be personally applied. The very possession of it and teaching of it to others can of itself make a man or woman demotivated to personally apply it. He foretold that the people would sign when a wicked man ruled them (<a href='B:240 29:2'>Pro 29:2</a> RV)- and they did "sigh" because of the heavy burdens he placed upon them (<a href='B:110 12:4'>1Ki 12:4</a>). He imposed the "yoke" of tribute upon the people (<a href='B:140 10:4'>2Ch 10:4</a>), whereas he himself had warned that a king that imposes tribute on his people "overthrows" a country (<a href='B:240 29:4'>Pro 29:4</a> RV mg:). He saw it all as true- and yet it was far from him personally.</p>


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<p>2:17 who forsakes the friend of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God-</p><p>Solomon&nbsp;was aware, at least theoretically, of the foolish path&nbsp; he was going down with the Gentile women he was involved with at the time he was given the wisdom which is codified in the book of Proverbs. God had inspired him with the wisdom of <a href='B:240 2:16-17'>Pro 2:16-17</a>, which warned that wisdom would save a man from the Gentile woman who made a covenant with the God of Israel in her youth (in order to marry an Israelite, by implication), but soon forgot it. This was exactly the case of Solomon; yet he just&nbsp;couldn't see the personal relevance of his own wisdom to himself.</p>


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<p>2:18 for her house leads down to death, her paths to the dead-</p><p>Yet Solomon built houses for his pagan, Gentile wives. He did this at the beginning of his reign, at the very time he was writing up his book of Proverbs as a result of the wisdom given him at that time. And he followed their paths to spiritual death, in the end.</p>


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<p>2:19 None who go to her return again, neither do they attain to the paths of life-</p><p>Solomon reasoned that he would walk the path to life, whilst his wives walked the path to death (:18). He emphasizes these two paths throughout Proverbs. But his simplistic assumption was that he was on the path to life simply because he possessed academic, abstract truth and "wisdom". He was Divinely inspired with his wisdom, but surely he is also drawing on observation- that those who went to the house of the Gentile woman never spiritually returned. He had seen it happen in the paths of so many of God's people; but assumed that he was different, that it wouldn't happen to him.</p>


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<p>2:20 that you may walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous-</p><p>Solomon's prophetic sonship of David was conditional upon him preserving or observing Yahweh's ways (<a href='B:110 2:4'>1Ki 2:4</a>; <a href='B:130 22:13'>1Ch 22:13</a>; <a href='B:140 7:17'>2Ch 7:17</a>); but he didn't preserve of observe them (<a href='B:110 11:10-11'>1Ki 11:10-11</a>); despite David praying that Solomon would be given a heart to observe them (<a href='B:130 29:19'>1Ch 29:19</a>). We can pray for God to work upon the hearts of others, but He will not force people against their own deepest will and heart position. Solomon stresses overmuch how God would keep or preserve the righteous (<a href='B:240 2:8'>Pro 2:8</a>; <a href='B:240 3:26'>Pro 3:26</a>), without recognizing the conditional aspect of this. Why did Solomon go wrong? His Proverbs are true enough, but he stresses that obedience to his wisdom and teaching would preserve his hearers (<a href='B:240 4:4'>Pro 4:4</a>; <a href='B:240 6:22'>Pro 6:22</a>; <a href='B:240 7:1'>Pro 7:1</a>; <a href='B:240 8:32'>Pro 8:32</a>; <a href='B:240 15:5'>Pro 15:5</a>), preservation was through following the example of the wise (<a href='B:240 2:20'>Pro 2:20</a>); rather than stressing obedience to God's ways, and replacing David his father's simple love of God with a love of academic wisdom: "Yahweh preserves all those who love Him" (<a href='B:230 145:20'>Psa 145:20</a>).</p><p>The idea of walking in the way, with feet on the path, is commonly used for walking in the way of God's commandments (<a href='B:50 8:6'>Deu 8:6</a>; <a href='B:50 10:12'>Deu 10:12</a> etc:). David spoke of feet in the pathway of obedience to God's word (<a href='B:230 119:1'>Psa 119:1</a>; <a href='B:230 119:3'>Psa 119:3</a>; <a href='B:230 128:1'>Psa 128:1</a> and very often). But Solomon interprets this as not walking in the way with criminals (<a href='B:240 1:5'>Pro 1:5</a>; <a href='B:240 16:29'>Pro 16:29</a>). That is somewhat easier than personally walking with God in His way. Again, what Solomon says is not untrue; but he is turning personal, internal spirituality and obedience into a matter of simply avoiding external company with gross sinners. And he suggests that walking in the right way is a matter of externally associating with the path of the righteous (<a href='B:240 2:20'>Pro 2:20</a>).</p>


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<p>2:21 For the upright will dwell in the land; the perfect will eternally remain in it-</p><p>Again, Solomon over simplifies things. The old covenant clearly taught that all Israel would be exiled from their land if they broke the covenant. Solomon's dedication of the temple seemed to assume that only the wicked would be exiled from the land, and the temple would stand eternally; to express repentance in exile, they just needed to pray towards it (<a href='B:110 8:48'>1Ki 8:48</a>). But all Israel were sent into exile, and his temple was razed to the ground. But Solomon's belief that "The upright will dwell in the land; the perfect will eternally remain in it" meant that he totally refused to accept the extent of judgment predicted in the curses of Deuteronomy 28. All Israel would be exiled from their land. He liked to assume that his Kingdom would eternally endure; because of his lack of faith in the nature of the future Kingdom, and his mistaken imagination that he was the eternal Messianic king. He refused to recognize that his father David in Psalms 72 had wrongly imagined that he would be that eternal king, and disregarded the conditionality of the promises made to him:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>2:22 But the wicked will be cut off from the land, the deceitful will be rooted out of it-</p>&nbsp;<p>"Transgressors" or "traitors" is the term used by David of Saul and his supporters (<a href='B:230 25:3'>Psa 25:3</a>; <a href='B:230 59:5'>Psa 59:5</a>; <a href='B:230 119:158'>Psa 119:158</a>). Solomon uses this term, teaching that "transgressors" must be rooted out of the earth / eretz promised to Abraham (<a href='B:240 2:22'>Pro 2:22</a>), and that the "transgressors" are to face judgment (<a href='B:240 11:3'>Pro 11:3</a>; <a href='B:240 11:6'>Pro 11:6</a>; <a href='B:240 13:2'>Pro 13:2</a>; <a href='B:240 21:18'>Pro 21:18</a>; <a href='B:240 22:12'>Pro 22:12</a>; <a href='B:240 23:28'>Pro 23:28</a>; <a href='B:240 25:19'>Pro 25:19</a>). All Solomon says is true, but he clearly has in view the house and supporters of Saul, who were a group he felt he needed to repress in order to keep his own kingdom and power intact.</p>


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<p>s 3:1 My son, don’t forget my teaching but let your heart keep my commandments-</p><p>David so often talks about God's "law", using the word torah. But Solomon so often speaks of his own torah, and that of his wife, the mother of "my son" (s:w. <a href='B:240 1:8'>Pro 1:8</a>; <a href='B:240 3:1'>Pro 3:1</a>; <a href='B:240 4:2'>Pro 4:2</a>; <a href='B:240 6:20'>Pro 6:20</a>; <a href='B:240 7:2'>Pro 7:2</a>; <a href='B:240 13:14'>Pro 13:14</a>; <a href='B:240 31:26'>Pro 31:26</a>). Yet elsewhere in the Bible, the well over 200 occurrences of torah are always about God's law. Solomon applies the word to his own teachings and that of his wife, and thereby plays God. whilst it could be argued that Solomon's teachings were Divinely inspired, all the same he ought surely to have spoken of them as God's torah rather than his own torah. This kind of playing God is seen so often in the teachers of God's people.</p>


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<p>s 3:2 for length of days and years of life, and peace, will they add to you-</p><p>Length of days was promised for obedience to the covenant, but Solomon appropriates this language to the reward for obedience to his book of Proverbs. He appears to effectively replace God's word with his own words, although his words were indeed Divinely inspired. But he came to ignore the rest of God's revelation, with the result that he was absolutely disobedient to the Mosaic words about not multiplying horses, marrying foreign wives etc. See on :3.</p>


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<p>s 3:3 Don’t let grace and truth forsake you-</p><p>David saw "mercy [s:w. "grace"] and truth" as something given by God's grace to him, an unworthy sinner (<a href='B:230 40:11'>Psa 40:11</a>); whereas Solomon assumes that they are with him and his son. The phrase often refers to God's covenant promises with David; and we note this is particularly addressed to Solomon's son. Solomon perceived the conditionality of the promises when it came to his son; but refused to perceive this concerning himself.</p><p>Bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart-</p><p>The idea is that devotion to the covenant should be externally visible as well as in the heart. But the New Testament emphasizes that it is God who writes upon the table of the human heart by His Spirit (<a href='B:540 3:3'>2Co 3:3</a>). Solomon assumes that by intellectual effort, man can do this to himself. There could be the implication that Solomon considered that his Proverbs had now replaced the tables of the covenant; the same word is used. See on :1,2.</p>


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<p>s 3:4 So you will find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man-</p><p>Quoted in <a href='B:490 2:52'>Luk 2:52</a> about the Lord Jesus, who fulfilled all the advice to the "son" who is addressed in this part of Proverbs.</p>


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<p>s 3:5 Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding-</p><p>Trust in God is indeed predicated upon some form of "understanding", although not necessarily of the abstract, academic type which Solomon had in view. Trusting and leaning are parallel; to trust in Yahweh requires "understanding" of Him. For faith must have some basis, there are things which need to be believed before "faith" can be faith. Thus David predicates "trust" (s:w:) upon knowing Yahweh's Name, His character (<a href='B:230 9:10'>Psa 9:10</a>). But David's "trust" in God was connected with his trust or belief in God's mercy to him regarding his sins (<a href='B:230 13:5'>Psa 13:5</a>; <a href='B:230 21:7'>Psa 21:7</a>; <a href='B:230 32:10'>Psa 32:10</a> s:w:). But Solomon doesn't seem to have had any conscience of personal sin, and so trust in the Yahweh whose lead characteristic is grace and forgiveness was not elicited within him:&nbsp;</p><p>LXX "be not exalted in thine own wisdom" is precisely what Solomon did; he disobeyed his own teaching. Just as he did regarding marrying Gentiles.</p>


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<p>s 3:6 In all your ways acknowledge Him-</p><p>Relationship with God is to affect all our ways, not merely some of them; just as the regulations concerning offerings required that every part of the animal [representative of the offerer] be given to Him.</p><p>And He will make your paths straight-</p><p>We must ‘rightly divide’, or cut straight, the word of truth in our preaching of it (<a href='B:620 2:15'>2Ti 2:15</a>). The LXX uses the same word in <a href='B:240 3:6'>Pro 3:6</a>: “He will make straight your paths”. We are to offer people a clear, straight way to the Kingdom; to span that gulf between the word of God and the mind of man. And this is why simple, direct preaching of Gospel truths is always the most successful.</p>


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<p>s 3:7 Don’t be wise in your own eyes. Fear Yahweh, and depart from evil-</p><p>Not being 'wise in our own eyes' is a major theme of Solomon's Proverbs (<a href='B:240 3:7'>Pro 3:7</a>; <a href='B:240 12:15'>Pro 12:15</a>; <a href='B:240 26:12'>Pro 26:12</a>; <a href='B:240 26:16'>Pro 26:16</a>; <a href='B:240 28:11'>Pro 28:11</a>). We are to recognize that there is no inherent wisdom in man; it must be taught to us from God's word. And yet we live in a postmodern world, where what seems or feels good to our own gut is taken to be the highest personal truth. This was what led Judah to condemnation (s:w. <a href='B:290 5:21'>Isa 5:21</a>), because trusting in their own opinions and gut feelings left them insensitive to God's word. Paul quotes the idea in <a href='B:520 12:16'>Rom 12:16</a>; to be wise in our own eyes means that we ignore those whom we naturally consider worthy of being ignored. But that is not necessarily the way of the Spirit. But when Solomon lost his faith, he comments that whether a man has wise eyes or not (s:w:) is irrelevant in the face of death (<a href='B:250 2:14'>Ecc 2:14</a>). He clearly conceived wisdom as only helpful for this life; he had no real personal faith in the resurrection of the dead or the establishment of the future Kingdom of God. And this led him to ultimately despise his own wisdom as futile:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>s 3:8 It will be health to your body, and nourishment to your bones-</p><p>Solomon may have the idea here that there will be literal blessings to our health if God's laws are obeyed; and that may also be hinted at in <a href='B:20 15:26'>Exo 15:26</a>; <a href='B:50 7:15'>Deu 7:15</a>. But true as this may have been in a way under the old covenant, this fails to appreciate that bad things have always happened to good people. Material blessings and lack of trials simply haven't been the consistent experience of God's people; for none have been completely righteous. But Solomon had a black and white view of things, and his own apparent good health made him incline the more towards it.</p>


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<p>s 3:9 Honour Yahweh with your substance, with the first fruits of all your increase-</p><p>This is true enough, but Solomon has a subtext it seems. He was obsessed with building the temple, and as the Israelites had 'honoured Yahweh with their substance' in their contributions towards making the tabernacle, so they were asked to do so for the building of the temple. The firstfruits were to be given to the priests for them to live off, but perhaps Solomon is implying they should be given to the king to help the building of the temple. In this case he would be subtly changing the Mosaic law to his own advantage.</p>


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<p>3:10 so your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine-</p><p>As noted on :8, this may be true in the sense that the old covenant promised such blessings. But spiritual reality is far more nuanced than that. The Lord told a parable of the unbelieving Jew whose barns were so filled with plenty that he had to build greater barns (<a href='B:490 12:18'>Luk 12:18</a>). But this was not due to his honouring Yahweh as required (:9). Perhaps this was the Lord's way of pointing out that things simply aren't as black and white as Solomon was perhaps suggesting:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>3:11 My son, don’t despise Yahweh’s discipline, neither be weary of His reproof-</p><p>Proverbs is a book full of Solomon's reproof of others. And yet he veers towards playing God, by equating his reproofs with those of Yahweh. What he said was indeed Divinely inspired, but his later apostasy had its roots in this kind of playing God. Yet these words are true, and quoted in Hebrews as encouragement to every true child of God (<a href='B:650 12:5-6'>Heb 12:5-6</a>). Indeed Solomon is quoting here from <a href='B:220 5:17'>Job 5:17</a>. Those were the words of Eliphaz, who said many things which were untrue. We have here an insight into the nature of Divine inspiration. The Bible is indeed wholly inspired as a record of the words and deeds of men; but there is a difference between inspiration of the record, and revelation- in the sense of a "Thus says the Lord". Not all that Eliphaz said was true, and he is rebuked by God for not speaking rightly at the end of the book. But this particular observation was true enough, and given to Solomon as inspired wisdom from God, and likewise quoted under inspiration in Hebrews.</p>


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<p>3:12 for whom Yahweh loves, He reproves; even as a father reproves the son in whom he delights-</p><p>This is true, and is quoted as true in Hebrews. But Solomon was 'the one whom Yahweh loves' (<a href='B:100 12:24'>2Sa 12:24</a>; the same words are used), and there is a subtext here of self justification. Solomon therefore considers himself the son of God in whom God supremely delighted. He uses a Hebrew for "reproves" which can also means "justifies". It is perhaps in commentary upon Solomon's mistaken ideas about himself that Messiah is called the one whom Yahweh loves (<a href='B:290 48:14'>Isa 48:14</a>), the one in whom He supremely delighted (<a href='B:290 42:1'>Isa 42:1</a>). David perceived that Yahweh's delight is in those who hope for His mercy and grace after they have sinned (<a href='B:230 147:11'>Psa 147:11</a>); but Solomon seems to have known nothing of personal sin and the receipt of grace upon forgiveness.</p>


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<p>3:13 Happy is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gets understanding-</p><p>This is true on one level, but it is a simplistic position. The same words are used in the book of Job for how wisdom in its ultimate sense cannot be "found", but rather must be taught and given by the experience of God's grace through affliction (<a href='B:220 28:12'>Job 28:12</a>; <a href='B:220 32:13'>Job 32:13</a>). Solomon often alludes to the book of Job (see on :15), yet he chooses to disregard this. Again Solomon is assuming that there exists "wisdom" as in a set of absolute truth which is attainable by God's people if they listen to the right teachers and intellectually master the system. This is an attitude found in many fundamentalist Christians:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>3:14 For her good profit is better than getting silver, and her return is better than fine gold-</p><p>This is true, but Solomon is again hinting at his own justification; for God had commended him for not seeking wealth but wisdom. And yet he seems to relish the fact that God added wealth to him despite not asking for it; for he teaches in :16 that wisdom gives wealth. But the wealth given to Solomon was by pure Divine grace; and yet he sees it rather as an outcome of his own wisdom.</p>


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<p>3:15 She is more precious than rubies. None of the things you can desire are to be compared to her-</p><p>The words of <a href='B:220 28:18'>Job 28:18</a> are repeatedly quoted in Proverbs (<a href='B:240 3:15'>Pro 3:15</a>; <a href='B:240 8:11'>Pro 8:11</a>; <a href='B:240 20:15'>Pro 20:15</a>). "Wisdom" in Proverbs refers not so much to nuggets of isolated truth, but to a way of life in relationship with God; for that is the context in the source passage in <a href='B:220 28:18'>Job 28:18</a> cp. 28:&nbsp;I noted on :13 that although Solomon was clearly aware of Job 28, he chose to only quote what was appealing to him, and ignores that which is inconvenient to his agendas.</p>


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<p>3:16 Length of days is in her right hand, in her left hand are riches and honour-</p><p>Length of days was offered as a gift from God in the old covenant; but in return for not having a heart which turned aside to idols (<a href='B:50 30:17'>Deu 30:17</a>; <a href='B:50 30:20'>Deu 30:20</a>). Solomon seems to imply that this "length of days" comes instead from merely possessing "wisdom". And because of this, his heart did indeed turn away to idols. Solomon has just said that wisdom is far better than riches (see on :14), but now he claims that wisdom gives wealth. It doesn't, and the Bible is clear enough about that. In his case, his choice of wisdom over wealth led to God blessing him with wealth, but by His grace alone. Solomon seems to wrongly extrapolate from his own experience to a more general principle which is wrong. He saw his wealth as due to his wisdom, rather than due to God's grace; and he ends up wrongly implying that the path to wealth is through loving wisdom.</p>


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<p>3:17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, all her paths are peace-</p><p>Again, Solomon presents a simplistic view. For the lives of those who follow God are rarely those of idyllic peace. The seed of the woman and that of the serpent are ever in conflict. He fails to appreciate that final peace is only possible in God's future Kingdom, rather than solely by following his rule book as presented in the book of Proverbs.</p>


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<p>3:18 She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her. Happy is each one who retains her-</p><p>The way to the tree of life is what we are currently travelling. But Eden is not yet restored. Again, whilst Solomon's words are true as far as they go, they imply a lack of faith and understanding of the future Kingdom of God. He liked to think that he was the Messianic ruler of Psalms 72, as his father had unwisely enthused and fantasized about.</p>


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<p>3:19 By wisdom Yahweh founded the earth, by understanding He established the heavens-</p><p>Here and in :20 we have more allusions to the book of Job. This and the Pentateuch were likely the only scriptures possessed by him and his father. As David often alludes to Job, so does Solomon; and we suspect that in this we see a living out of parental expectation, a worshipping of the dominant father figure, rather than personal faith. It was by God's word that the earth was created (<a href='B:230 33:6'>Psa 33:6</a>), but Solomon says it was by wisdom. This is also true (<a href='B:300 10:12'>Jer 10:12</a>), but by "wisdom" Solomon appears to have in view specifically the wisdom he is teaching in this book. And thus he makes his Proverbs effectively the entire word of God, when they are only part of His total revelation. Solomon alludes to the book of Job, but not to those parts which don't quite fit with his simplistic views. For <a href='B:220 38:4'>Job 38:4</a> leaves Job humbled that he doesn't in fact know anything about the founding of the earth, neither does he have such "understanding". But Solomon is saying that the same Divine understanding which was the blueprint for creation is in fact in us all if we accept the wisdom and understanding of the book of Proverbs. This is only partially true; man's lack of understanding and wisdom is a feature of Job, but is not at all reflected in Solomon's thinking.</p>


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<p>3:20 By His knowledge the depths were broken up and the skies drop down the dew-</p><p>See on :19. Solomon will go on to now claim that this same knowledge is within us (:21). His claims to hold absolute truth lead him to minimize the wonder of creation, rather than being humbled by it as were David and Job. The breaking up of the depths is the phrase used about the flood (<a href='B:10 7:11'>Gen 7:11</a>). Solomon seems to be saying that we can have the same knowledge as God in judging others; and this is inappropriate for us as fellow sinners who are not to condemn others:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>3:21 My son, let them not depart from your eyes. Keep sound wisdom and discretion-</p><p>See on :19,20. <a href='B:240 4:21'>Pro 4:21</a> develops this thought, interpreting the eyes as the heart: "Let them not depart from your eyes. Keep them in the midst of your heart". "Discretion" really means plans or intentions. Our entire mindset, intentions, dreams, hopes are to be dominated by wisdom. This is the essence of the spiritual life; to be spiritually minded. But we live in an age which like no others seeks to dominate our thinking with unspiritual things:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>3:22 so they will be life to your soul, and grace for your neck-</p><p>The idea is perhaps that what we think internally within our "soul" will be displayed outwardly as well, like a chain around our neck; see on <a href='B:240 1:9'>Pro 1:9</a>. True spirituality is not just a matter of the mind; it will be outwardly revealed. A city set on a hill cannot be hid; there is to always be some external manifestation of our inward faith and belief. Yet Solomon reasons as if the mere possession of truth is what will adorn us before God. But it is personalization of the wisdom, not mere possession of it, which is required. And Solomon was a stellar example of failure in this. It was rulers who had chains around their necks, and Solomon has himself obliquely in view here; and he considers that the fact he was taught truth by his parents qualifies himself as king. That is not altogether untrue, but his personal example shows that it was not the right attitude.</p>


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<p>3:23 Then you shall walk in your way securely; your foot won’t stumble-</p><p>The idea is taken from <a href='B:230 91:12'>Psa 91:12</a>, where the Angels "will bear you up in their hands, so that you won’t dash your foot against a stone". The same words are used. The potential for Joshua is true for us all. "Guard" is the same word used in <a href='B:10 3:24'>Gen 3:24</a>, and thus alludes to the Angels keeping&nbsp; men in the way to the tree of life- not only physically but spiritually preserving them. The figure of dashing the foot against a stone suggests the idea of spiritual stumbling against a "rock of offence" or stumblingstone (s:w. <a href='B:300 13:16'>Jer 13:16</a>, of how the exiles refused this potential help and did stumble). The Angels bore up the Lord Jesus (to whom <a href='B:230 91:12'>Psa 91:12</a> refers) to help Him avoid these. But only because He Himself wished for that strength, and avoided the temptation He faced to abuse it and wrongly use it.</p>


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<p>3:24 When you lie down, you will not be afraid. Yes, you will lie down, and your sleep will be sweet-</p><p>This repeats the theme of many Psalms of David his father when under persecution. But David attributed this to his faith in God's grace and sustenance (<a href='B:230 3:5'>Psa 3:5</a>); whereas Solomon appears to attribute it to the mere possession of wisdom, rather than personal faith:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>3:25 Don’t be afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked when it comes-</p><p>Again, this is true but only to an extent. "Sudden fear" is a phrase only used about the experience of Job (<a href='B:220 22:10'>Job 22:10</a>). He was a righteous man, yet afflicted with "sudden fear". Solomon presents a too simplistic view, whereby the righteous live a charmed life of every blessing. And he seems to think that the mere possession of wisdom frees us from any fear of condemnation, the "desolation of the wicked" which is to come. It was this which led Solomon to fail so badly; he had no sense of the conditionality of his relationship with God, no sense of the eternal future he might miss.</p>


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<p>3:26 for Yahweh will be your confidence, and will keep your foot from being taken-</p><p>Solomon's prophetic sonship of David was conditional upon him preserving or observing Yahweh's ways (<a href='B:110 2:4'>1Ki 2:4</a>; <a href='B:130 22:13'>1Ch 22:13</a>; <a href='B:140 7:17'>2Ch 7:17</a>); but he didn't preserve of observe them (<a href='B:110 11:10-11'>1Ki 11:10-11</a>); despite David praying that Solomon would be given a heart to observe them (<a href='B:130 29:19'>1Ch 29:19</a>). We can pray for God to work upon the hearts of others, but He will not force people against their own deepest will and heart position. Solomon stresses overmuch how God would keep or preserve the righteous (<a href='B:240 2:8'>Pro 2:8</a>; <a href='B:240 3:26'>Pro 3:26</a>), without recognizing the conditional aspect of this. Why did Solomon go wrong? His Proverbs are true enough, but he stresses that obedience to his wisdom and teaching would preserve his hearers (<a href='B:240 4:4'>Pro 4:4</a>; <a href='B:240 6:22'>Pro 6:22</a>; <a href='B:240 7:1'>Pro 7:1</a>; <a href='B:240 8:32'>Pro 8:32</a>; <a href='B:240 15:5'>Pro 15:5</a>), preservation was through following the example of the wise (<a href='B:240 2:20'>Pro 2:20</a>); rather than stressing obedience to God's ways, and replacing David his father's simple love of God with a love of academic wisdom: "Yahweh preserves all those who love Him" (<a href='B:230 145:20'>Psa 145:20</a>).</p>


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<p>3:27 Don’t withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in the power of your hand to do it-</p><p>This is a powerful, incisive challenge to us in our approach to generosity. But again we note how Solomon fences it with the comment "to whom it is due". He sees generosity as predicated upon the worthiness of the recipient. Grace doesn't think like that. He may have in view the payment of wages (<a href='B:50 24:15'>Deu 24:15</a>).</p>


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<p>3:28 Don’t say to your neighbour, Go, and come again; tomorrow I will give it to you, when you have it by you-</p><p>There is a tendency in human nature to play for time, to not say "Yes straight away" to the calls of Divinely inspired conscience. We see throughout scripture the theme of immediate response, not least in the immediate baptisms of those who heard the Gospel in the Acts of the Apostles. Our nature is the source of our temptations, and there is always the voice of the flesh which urges us to perform our devotions tomorrow and not today. The LXX adds "For thou knowest not what the morrow may bring forth". We may not have the opportunity tomorrow, so, do it today; but that only makes sense if we are possessed of a basic desire to be generous. Solomon may here be interpreting further <a href='B:50 24:15'>Deu 24:15</a>. In this case, paying a worker on time is a form of doing good (:27):&nbsp;</p>


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<p>3:29 Don’t devise evil against your neighbour, since he dwells securely by you-</p><p>"Devise" is literally to plough (as <a href='B:240 6:14'>Pro 6:14</a>). The idea is that bad attitudes to others are a sowing of sin (<a href='B:240 22:8'>Pro 22:8</a>). Solomon so often has a subtext of justifying his father David and his own rulership, seeing there were initially other contenders for the throne. Many of those pretensions to David's throne arose from the fact that David's "neighbour" did "evil" to him by taking his wives at the time of Absalom's rebellion (s:w. <a href='B:100 12:11'>2Sa 12:11</a>). This "evil" was brought about by God, and yet Solomon condemns those who did it. That may be fair enough, but again we have to note that David is ever seeking to whitewash David and Bathsheba, Solomon's mother, regarding their sin.</p>


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<p>3:30 Don’t strive with a man without cause if he has done you no harm-</p><p>To strive or plead a cause is the very phrase used of the opposition of Saul (<a href='B:90 24:15'>1Sa 24:15</a>) and Nabal to David (<a href='B:90 25:39'>1Sa 25:39</a>); and in both cases, David had done them "no harm", the phrase used of David's innocence before Nabal (<a href='B:90 25:21'>1Sa 25:21</a>; <a href='B:90 25:28'>1Sa 25:28</a>) and Saul (<a href='B:90 24:11'>1Sa 24:11</a>). Clearly Solomon has these incidents in view, and again his statements of truth have a subtext of justifying his father David, with whom he was psychologically obsessed.</p>


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<p>3:31 Don’t envy the man of violence; choose none of his ways-</p><p>David had calmly urged not to be envious of the wicked (s:w. <a href='B:230 37:1'>Psa 37:1</a>), but he himself almost failed in this (<a href='B:230 73:3'>Psa 73:3</a> s:w:). We can profess clearly how much we are not envious of others; and then find ourselves like David, caught in a pang of crisis when we wonder why our lives cannot be like those of the world around us. Solomon simplistically commanded not to be envious of the wicked, drawing a simple contrast between the wicked, and the righteous who are not envious of them (<a href='B:240 3:31'>Pro 3:31</a>; <a href='B:240 23:17'>Pro 23:17</a>; <a href='B:240 24:1'>Pro 24:1</a>; <a href='B:240 24:19'>Pro 24:19</a> s:w:). But this is not how it was in reality with his father David, who admits to almost having given in to envy of the wicked (<a href='B:230 73:3'>Psa 73:3</a>) despite his earlier simplistic condemnation of such envy (<a href='B:230 37:1'>Psa 37:1</a>), and was only saved from that by God's gracious action on his heart (<a href='B:230 73:2'>Psa 73:2</a>). Solomon's proverbs seem to fail to address this complexity of situations because of his own self-righteousness; and yet all he says is inspired and true so far as it goes.</p>


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<p>3:32 For the perverse person is an abomination to Yahweh, but His friendship is with the upright-</p><p>The Hebrew for "perverse" is literally 'the one who turns aside', implying they were once on the right path but had left it. It would seem that Solomon has in view the house of Saul, who were potential contenders for his throne. "Friendship" is AV "secret", a term sometimes used of God's revealed word (<a href='B:370 3:7'>Amo 3:7</a>; <a href='B:220 15:8'>Job 15:8</a>; <a href='B:300 23:18'>Jer 23:18</a>; <a href='B:300 23:22'>Jer 23:22</a>). In this case, Solomon is again veering towards saying that mere possession of God's word of truth is what makes people "upright".</p>


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<p>3:33 Yahweh’s curse is in the house of the wicked, but He blesses the habitation of the righteous-</p><p>Here as in <a href='B:240 14:11'>Pro 14:11</a>, Solomon again fails to have the subtlety he ought to have learnt from the book of Job. For Job was righteous but his "house" was overthrown, and the house of the wicked apparently prospered at the time of his affliction. Spiritual reality is that things are far more nuanced than the simplistic picture Solomon presents, true as it is in outline and ultimate terms:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>3:34 Surely He mocks the mockers-</p><p>But this is not quite how God is, even to those who are against Him. Solomon should again have learned the lesson of Job, who was taught that "God despises not any" (<a href='B:220 36:5'>Job 36:5</a>).</p><p>But He gives grace to the humble-</p><p>This is quoted in <a href='B:660 4:5'>Jas 4:5</a>; <a href='B:670 5:5'>1Pe 5:5</a>. But the quotation follows the LXX, which appears to correct Solomon's incorrect statement in the first half of the verse. God "resists the proud", but not with the mockery which Solomon's arrogance liked to impute to God.</p>


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<p>3:35 The wise will inherit glory, but shame will be the promotion of fools-</p><p>David had called Solomon a "wise man", and indeed he was made wise by God (s:w. <a href='B:110 2:9'>1Ki 2:9</a>; <a href='B:110 3:12'>1Ki 3:12</a>; <a href='B:110 5:7'>1Ki 5:7</a>). But the logic of what Solomon seems to be saying is that the possession of wisdom makes a man obedient. And this is where he got it wrong; for his mere possession of wisdom didn't do so. And comparing Proverbs with Solomon's personal life as revealed in Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon and the historical records- all indicates that in fact Solomon's possession of wisdom didn't at all make him obedient. Solomon failed to appreciate what David did- that the wise man also dies (<a href='B:230 49:10'>Psa 49:10</a>). What is critical is having the hope of God's Kingdom and the resurrection of the body. But Solomon's possession of "truth" blinded him to this desperate need of all men. The mere possession of wisdom was no guarantee of itself of inheriting glory, as Solomon wrongly thought.</p>


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<p>s 4:1 Listen, sons, to a father’s instruction. Pay attention and know understanding-</p><p>If we "attend" to God's word (<a href='B:240 2:2'>Pro 2:2</a>; <a href='B:240 4:1'>Pro 4:1</a>; <a href='B:240 7:24'>Pro 7:24</a>), then He will "attend" to our word, of prayer (<a href='B:230 55:2'>Psa 55:2</a> and often in the Psalms). There is thereby a mutuality between God and man. Our attitude to His word becomes reflected in His attitude to our words in prayer; for God and man are in dialogue.</p>


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<p>s 4:2 for I give you sound learning. Don’t forsake my law-</p><p>Solomon condemns those who "forsake the law" (<a href='B:240 4:2'>Pro 4:2</a>; <a href='B:240 28:4'>Pro 28:4</a>), and he likely has the house of Saul in view as his father David when using this phrase (<a href='B:230 119:53'>Psa 119:53</a>). But he speaks here in <a href='B:240 4:2'>Pro 4:2</a> of those who forsook his law; as if he was playing God, considering any inattention to himself as inattention to God. David by contrast continually emphasizes the need not to forsake God's law:&nbsp;</p><p>David so often talks about God's "law", using the word torah. But Solomon so often speaks of his own torah, and that of his wife, the mother of "my son" (s:w. <a href='B:240 1:8'>Pro 1:8</a>; <a href='B:240 3:1'>Pro 3:1</a>; <a href='B:240 4:2'>Pro 4:2</a>; <a href='B:240 6:20'>Pro 6:20</a>; <a href='B:240 7:2'>Pro 7:2</a>; <a href='B:240 13:14'>Pro 13:14</a>; <a href='B:240 31:26'>Pro 31:26</a>). Yet elsewhere in the Bible, the well over 200 occurrences of torah are always about God's law. Solomon applies the word to his own teachings and that of his wife, and thereby plays God. Whilst it could be argued that Solomon's teachings were Divinely inspired, all the same he ought surely to have spoken of them as God's torah rather than his own torah. This kind of playing God is seen so often in the teachers of God's people.</p>


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<p>s 4:3 For I was a son to my father, tender and an only child in the sight of my mother-</p><p>David had taught his children with the words: “Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord” (<a href='B:230 34:11'>Psa 34:11</a> - did David say this to his children every evening?). And Solomon uses just the same words, even whilst disobeying God’s law at the same time in his own life: “Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father</p><p> I give you good doctrine</p><p> for I was my father’s son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments and live” (<a href='B:240 4:1-4'>Pro 4:1-4</a> AV). And so Solomon taught his kids with the same outward form of words, although the personal reality of wisdom was lost on him.</p><p>David&nbsp; took time out from his busy schedule to spend&nbsp; time&nbsp; instructing&nbsp; his&nbsp; special,&nbsp; beloved&nbsp; son. And David wasn't&nbsp; just&nbsp; playing&nbsp; Scrabble with Solomon in the evenings; he was&nbsp; really&nbsp; drumming&nbsp; into&nbsp; that&nbsp; lad&nbsp; vital&nbsp; spiritual values. Solomon&nbsp; really&nbsp; respected&nbsp; David&nbsp; and&nbsp; loved his mother; he was without&nbsp; doubt&nbsp; the&nbsp; blue&nbsp; eyed&nbsp; boy&nbsp; to&nbsp; her,&nbsp; and&nbsp; he&nbsp; reacted accordingly:&nbsp; We&nbsp; have seen how in Proverbs 31 she lays the law down with him about his girlfriends, about not marrying Gentiles, and about&nbsp; not&nbsp; drinking, yet in <a href='B:260 3:11'>Son 3:11</a> we see Bathsheba with all her&nbsp; motherly pride crowning Solomon on the day of engagement to that&nbsp; Egyptian&nbsp; girl&nbsp; who&nbsp; was&nbsp; to&nbsp; be his downfall. Like David, Bathsheba&nbsp; taught&nbsp; Solomon the principles with great enthusiasm, but&nbsp;&nbsp; she&nbsp; allowed&nbsp; parental&nbsp; pride&nbsp; to&nbsp; make&nbsp; her&nbsp; dismiss&nbsp; the possibility&nbsp; that&nbsp; her&nbsp; son&nbsp; was seriously going astray.</p><p>Here again, Solomon justifies himself by implying that he was David's only son. He wasn't, and his half brothers were in bitter competition with him. And so he uses his wisdom to just get the point in that he was the only legitimate heir to the throne.</p>


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<p>s 4:4 He taught me, and said to me: Let your heart retain my words. Keep my commandments, and live-</p><p>Solomon's prophetic sonship of David was conditional upon him preserving or observing Yahweh's ways (<a href='B:110 2:4'>1Ki 2:4</a>; <a href='B:130 22:13'>1Ch 22:13</a>; <a href='B:140 7:17'>2Ch 7:17</a>); but he didn't preserve of observe them (<a href='B:110 11:10-11'>1Ki 11:10-11</a>); despite David praying that Solomon would be given a heart to observe them (<a href='B:130 29:19'>1Ch 29:19</a>). We can pray for God to work upon the hearts of others, but He will not force people against their own deepest will and heart position. Solomon stresses overmuch how God would keep or preserve the righteous (<a href='B:240 2:8'>Pro 2:8</a>; <a href='B:240 3:26'>Pro 3:26</a>), without recognizing the conditional aspect of this. Why did Solomon go wrong? His Proverbs are true enough, but he stresses that obedience to his wisdom and teaching would preserve his hearers (<a href='B:240 4:4'>Pro 4:4</a>; <a href='B:240 6:22'>Pro 6:22</a>; <a href='B:240 7:1'>Pro 7:1</a>; <a href='B:240 8:32'>Pro 8:32</a>; <a href='B:240 15:5'>Pro 15:5</a>), preservation was through following the example of the wise (<a href='B:240 2:20'>Pro 2:20</a>); rather than stressing obedience to God's ways, and replacing David his father's simple love of God with a love of academic wisdom: "Yahweh preserves all those who love Him" (<a href='B:230 145:20'>Psa 145:20</a>).</p>


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<p>s 4:5 Get wisdom. Get understanding. Don’t forget, neither swerve from the words of my mouth-</p><p>"Swerve" is the word for "incline" or "decline", used by David of how he himself inclined his heart to God's word (<a href='B:230 119:51'>Psa 119:51</a>; <a href='B:230 119:112'>Psa 119:112</a>; <a href='B:230 119:157'>Psa 119:157</a>). But David prayed that God would incline his heart towards His word (<a href='B:230 119:36'>Psa 119:36</a>) and away from sin (<a href='B:230 141:4'>Psa 141:4</a>). This is how the Holy Spirit works to this day- we are confirmed in the psychological attitudes we ourselves choose to have. The word is used of God's mighty "stretched out" arm and "strong hand" in human affairs (<a href='B:230 136:12'>Psa 136:12</a> and often in Isaiah). This powerful hand of God is at work in human hearts, confirming us in the psychological way in which we ourselves wish to go. In this sense God turns or inclines the heart where He wishes (<a href='B:240 21:1'>Pro 21:1</a>). Solomon in the Proverbs places all the emphasis upon a person themselves in their own strength inclining their heart toward his teaching (<a href='B:240 2:2'>Pro 2:2</a>; <a href='B:240 4:5'>Pro 4:5</a>; <a href='B:240 4:20'>Pro 4:20</a>; <a href='B:240 5:1'>Pro 5:1</a>). He fails to appreciate what David his father did; that God's word is His word and not that of the human channel through which it comes. And he totally puts the emphasis upon human strength of will, self inclination towards God's word, rather than perceiving as David did that without God's psychological help in this, we shall ultimately fail. As Solomon himself did.</p>


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<p>s 4:6 Don’t forsake her, and she will preserve you. Love her, and she will keep you-</p><p>David sees God Himself as preserving and keeping him, by His grace (s:w. <a href='B:230 12:7'>Psa 12:7</a>; <a href='B:230 140:4'>Psa 140:4</a>), whereas Solomon sees our keeping and preservation as predicted upon our keeping and preserving of wisdom (s:w. <a href='B:240 5:2'>Pro 5:2</a>). He reasons as did the brethren with misplaced ideals who told me to keep and preserve "the truth" delivered to me as a teenager, and I would be fine in the end. Intellectual maintenance of theological positions will not save in the end; it is God's grace by faith, as David learned by experience.</p>


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<p>s 4:7 Wisdom is supreme. Get wisdom. Yes, though it costs all your possessions, get understanding-</p><p>It is possible that he asked for wisdom only because his father David had taught him to ask for it, just as he taught his children (<a href='B:240 4:5-7'>Pro 4:5-7</a>). Again Solomon alludes to how he was commended for choosing wisdom over wealth, as ever justifying himself.</p>


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<p>s 4:8 Esteem her, and she will exalt you. She will bring you to honour when you embrace her-</p><p><a href='B:50 17:17-20'>Deu 17:17-20</a> is a warning to the King of Israel not to multiply horses and wives, lest his heart be turned away. It’s a conscious prediction of Solomon’s apostasy. But one result of such behaviour would be that the King’s heart would be “lifted up” or exalted above his brethren (<a href='B:50 17:20'>Deu 17:20</a>)- and this is exactly what happened to Solomon. He came to see himself as somehow above the rest of humanity, to the extent that he was convinced that he was acceptable to God, and that he could abuse his brethren because</p><p> he had wisdom. Significantly, Solomon uses the same Hebrew word translated “lifted up” in <a href='B:50 17:20'>Deu 17:20</a> in <a href='B:240 4:8'>Pro 4:8</a>, when he speaks of how the possession of wisdom will “exalt” or lift up a person. He came to think that his mere possession of true wisdom gave him a superiority over others, and thus he was lifted up above his brethren. There are major warnings here for those who consider that they possess more Bible truth than any other church on earth. It has, sadly, led to a lifting up of many hearts above their fellow man and even their fellow brethren.</p>


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<p>s 4:9 She will give to your head a garland of grace. She will deliver a crown of splendour to you-</p><p>Again Solomon reasons as if the mere possession of truth is what will adorn us before God. But it is personalization of the wisdom, not mere possession of it, which is required. And Solomon was a stellar example of failure in this.</p>


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<p>4:10 O my son, receive my sayings; and the years of your life shall be many-</p><p>This is alluding to the promise of long life for the obedient to God’s laws; but never does Solomon make the admission that his laws are only a repetition of God’s laws. He was playing God by implying that his words carried the weight of God’s words. He taught his son obedience to him as a father, but not to God Himself.</p>


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<p>4:11 I have taught you in the way of wisdom, I have led you in straight paths-</p><p>He is repeating the words of David in <a href='B:230 32:8'>Psa 32:8</a>: “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye”. But those words in their context were wrung from a David desperately grateful for God’s forgiveness of his sin with Bathsheba. Solomon hadn’t gone through this contrition- he was a self-justified womanizer, and yet he used the same outward form of words as his father. Solomon assumes he is going in the right way when he says: “I have led thee in right paths” (<a href='B:240 4:11'>Pro 4:11</a> AV), in subtle contrast to the way David repeatedly asks to be led in the right way by God Almighty (<a href='B:230 23:3'>Psa 23:3</a>; <a href='B:230 25:4-5'>Psa 25:4-5</a>).</p>


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<p>4:12 When you go, your steps will not be hampered. When you run, you will not stumble-</p><p>Again Solomon presents a simplistic picture of the life of wisdom as running without stumbling. The only other reference to steps not being hampered is when the phrase is used about Job in <a href='B:220 18:7'>Job 18:7</a>. The reality of spiritual life is that there are times when the steps of the righteous are hampered, and even a righteous man like David stumbled in his path (s:w. <a href='B:230 31:10'>Psa 31:10</a>, and again about Job in <a href='B:220 4:4'>Job 4:4</a>):&nbsp;</p>


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<p>4:13 Take firm hold of instruction. Don’t let her go. Keep her, for she is your life-</p><p>This is the language of <a href='B:50 31:17'>Deu 31:17</a>; <a href='B:50 31:20'>Deu 31:20</a>, which taught that if Israel's heart did not decline to idols, then Yahweh Himself would "be your life". Solomon's heart did decline to idols. Because he appropriates the language of personal relationship with God to intellectual acceptance of abstract truth and wisdom. And so many in fundamentalist Christian circles have made the same mistake.</p>


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<p>4:14 Don’t enter into the path of the wicked. Don’t walk in the way of evil men-</p><p>This is of course true, but Solomon is also making a swipe as his competitor and potential usurper Jeroboam, who is described as walking in the way of evil (s:w. <a href='B:110 13:33'>1Ki 13:33</a>). It seems that always Solomon uses Divine truth to his own self justification, as we can.</p>


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<p>4:15 Avoid it, and don’t pass by it; turn from it, and pass on-</p><p>Throughout Proverbs, Solomon assumes that he, his sons and his audience are already on the right path, and must not turn aside to the way of the wicked. There is no search for the right way by Solomon, because he assumes that the gift of theoretical truth and "wisdom" to him meant that he personally was walking the path of that truth. But it is one thing to know truth and another to walk the talk. And he totally failed in this, disobeying his own wisdom about women whilst writing it.</p>


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<p>4:16 For they don’t sleep, unless they do evil. Their sleep is taken away, unless they make someone fall-</p><p>This is all true, it is Divinely inspired wisdom. But 'being made to fall' is the word used of David after his sin with Bathsheba, Solomon's mother (<a href='B:230 31:10'>Psa 31:10</a>), and he appears to want to whitewash this by blaming it upon evil men who made David do it.</p>


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<p>4:17 For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence-</p><p>The contrast is with the invitation of wisdom to eat her bread and drink her wine (<a href='B:240 9:5'>Pro 9:5</a>). Solomon again presents life as being of diametrical opposites, with people within Israel divided between the desperately, criminally wicked- and the spotlessly wise and righteous. But this is simply not true to reality. Human thought and behaviour within the people of God is more mixed than that. Bread and wine even in Old Testament times were of sacramental significance. The wicked are presented as not offering true sacrifice, but a fake appearance of it, to the praise and glory of wickedness and violence. Whereas the wise offer perfectly acceptable sacrifice.</p>


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<p>4:18 But the path of the righteous is like the light of the dawn, that shines more and more until the perfect day-</p><p>As often noted on Proverbs, Solomon sees the righteous as having an unrealistically glorious path towards "the perfect day", their way ever brighter, never stumbling, with no darkness. But as noted on :12 that is simply not the case. The language here is very similar to that in <a href='B:100 23:4'>2Sa 23:4</a>, where David speaks of his Messianic son as being as the ever brighter shining light of the dawn. His hope was of course that Solomon would be that Messianic son, and he expresses that hope in his Psalm for Solomon in Psalms 72. So again, Solomon speaks global truths about the righteous, but always seems to have himself in view as the parade example. When in fact at the very time he was writing down this Divine wisdom, he was living in an utterly opposite way by marrying pagan women.</p><p>We may interpret this verse as meaning that the dawn of the sun of righteousness at the Lord's second coming is in fact presaged by the bursting of light upon His people in the lead up to it. This would make "the perfect day" equivalent to the future Kingdom. But I doubt this is what Solomon himself had in mind; because he considered himself as the Messianic ruler, and his kingdom to be the Kingdom of God. He has nothing much to say about the hope of the resurrection of the body and the coming of the Kingdom; he considered that his possession of wisdom meant that he had the glory of the Kingdom in this life. And it was this refusal to accept the gospel of a future Kingdom of God which was his moral undoing:&nbsp;</p><p>"Perfect" is the word translated "establish" concerning the establishment of the Kingdom of David's son (<a href='B:100 7:12'>2Sa 7:12</a>). Solomon understood this to mean that he was indeed the Messianic son, he saw no future greater son of David than himself. He saw the righteous as slowly attaining to his own great light, climaxing in his kingdom becoming the full Kingdom of God on earth. But his apostacy meant that this was not to be, and the dawning of Zion's light is yet future (s:w. <a href='B:290 60:3'>Isa 60:3</a>; <a href='B:290 60:19'>Isa 60:19</a>). He refused to accept that the eternal "establishment" of his kingdom was dependent upon his personal obedience (<a href='B:130 28:7'>1Ch 28:7</a>):&nbsp;</p>


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<p>4:19 The way of the wicked is like darkness-</p><p>This is so, but as it is baldly presented here, it fails to reflect the nuance of spiritual life in practice. Solomon considered himself absolutely and totally right, and all who followed his wisdom would never know darkness. But the righteous man Job had darkness set in his way by God (<a href='B:220 19:8'>Job 19:8</a>), and every truly sensitive believer will go through times when the darkness s such that we can't find our paths:&nbsp;</p><p>They don’t know what they stumble over-</p><p>"Stumble" is the word for "fall" in :16. The wicked make others fall, and they themselves fall. The idea is that they want to bring down others with them. This is a basic human desire; to make others like ourselves, to not sin alone.</p>


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<p>4:20 My son, attend to my words. Turn your ear to my sayings-</p><p>See on :5; <a href='B:240 2:2'>Pro 2:2</a>. As noted on <a href='B:230 119:36'>Psa 119:36</a>; <a href='B:230 141:4'>Psa 141:4</a>, David believed that God could act deep within the psychology or heart of man, to incline us toward righteousness and away from evil. This is how the Holy Spirit works today. Solomon believed the same (s:w. <a href='B:110 8:58'>1Ki 8:58</a>), but only in theory; for his Gentile wives inclined or turned away his heart from God (s:w. <a href='B:110 11:3'>1Ki 11:3</a>; <a href='B:110 11:9'>1Ki 11:9</a>). God will not turn our hearts anywhere we ourselves don't want to go. Solomon often appeals for us to incline our hearts to wisdom (s:w. <a href='B:240 2:2'>Pro 2:2</a>; <a href='B:240 4:20'>Pro 4:20</a>; <a href='B:240 5:1'>Pro 5:1</a>; <a href='B:240 22:17'>Pro 22:17</a>), but he himself was inclined to apostasy (s:w. <a href='B:110 11:3'>1Ki 11:3</a>; <a href='B:110 11:9'>1Ki 11:9</a>). All his emphasis is upon the need to incline ourselves, whereas his father David trusted in the work of the Spirit to incline his heart to good and away from evil (<a href='B:230 141:4'>Psa 141:4</a>; <a href='B:230 119:36'>Psa 119:36</a> etc:).</p>


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<p>4:21 Let them not depart from your eyes. Keep them in the midst of your heart-</p><p>Our entire mindset, intentions, dreams, hopes are to be dominated by wisdom. This is the essence of the spiritual life; to be spiritually minded. But we live in an age which like no others seeks to dominate our thinking with unspiritual things. See on <a href='B:240 3:21'>Pro 3:21</a>. </p>


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<p>4:22 For they are life to those who find them, and health to their whole body-</p><p>Life and health are here made dependent upon Solomon's words (:20). He has again subverted the teachings about God's words and applied them to his words. Even though they were divinely inspired, he speaks as if his book of Proverbs eclipses all other Divine revelation. See on <a href='B:240 15:4'>Pro 15:4</a>.</p>


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<p>4:23 Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it is the wellspring of life-</p><p>Solomon often emphasized the importance of keeping the heart (<a href='B:240 2:10-16'>Pro 2:10-16</a>; <a href='B:240 3:5-6'>Pro 3:5-6</a>; <a href='B:240 4:23'>Pro 4:23</a> to <a href='B:240 5:5'>Pro 5:5</a>; <a href='B:240 6:23-26'>Pro 6:23-26</a>); he had foreseen that the essential sin of God’s people was “the plague of his own heart” (<a href='B:110 8:46'>1Ki 8:46</a>), and he imagined how for this sin God’s people would later pray towards the temple. And yet his wives turned away his heart (<a href='B:110 11:13'>1Ki 11:13</a>), for all this awareness that the heart must be kept. It was as if the more he knew the truth of something, the more he wanted to do the very opposite. And this is exactly true of our natures. It’s why we ourselves can discern the same perversity in our lives. Perhaps with Solomon he reasoned that in his case, foreign wives wouldn’t turn away his heart. Just as our flesh thinks ‘Yes, but it can’t happen to me’. Perhaps too he reasoned that if the temple somehow could bring forgiveness for the plague of the heart, his heart was incorruptible because of the temple:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>4:24 Put away from yourself a perverse mouth, put corrupt lips far from you-</p><p>The idea may be that Solomon was the ultimate mouth of wisdom; see on <a href='B:240 15:2'>Pro 15:2</a>; <a href='B:240 15:4'>Pro 15:4</a>. And he is warning against listening to any other teachers. Always he seems to have a subtext of commending himself. The only other usage of the term "perverse mouth" is about those whom Solomon considered to be the wicked within Israel (<a href='B:240 6:12'>Pro 6:12</a>). Again, Solomon's idea of spirituality is avoiding false teachers and mixing with sinners- rather than internal spirituality and personal relationship with God.</p>


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<p>4:25 Let your eyes look straight ahead-</p><p>The ways of man are "before" or "straight ahead" of Yahweh's eyes (<a href='B:240 5:21'>Pro 5:21</a> s:w:), and our eyes are to likewise "look straight ahead" (<a href='B:240 4:25'>Pro 4:25</a> s:w:). Our perspective and vision is to be His. We are to see life as He does. And He looks in the perspective of eternity, His Kingdom on earth which is to dominate the vast majority of our eternal existence. This is the meaning of faith in practice.</p><p>Fix your gaze directly before you-</p><p>Solomon thinks of the righteous as walking unflinchingly forward in wisdom, never turning to the right or left, refusing to be distracted by any wicked person who suggests walking another way (<a href='B:240 9:15'>Pro 9:15</a> "to call travellers who go directly on their way"). This approach fails to take account of the simple fact that righteous people sin and stray from the direct path every day, and are saved finally into God's Kingdom by grace alone. That is all something Solomon failed to have any grasp of, whereas David his father did. <a href='B:240 11:5'>Pro 11:5</a> makes the somewhat tautological statement that "the righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way", s:w. <a href='B:240 4:25'>Pro 4:25</a> "fix your gaze directly before you". This contrasts with how David uses the word in <a href='B:230 5:8'>Psa 5:8</a>: "Lead me, O Yahweh... make Your way straight [s:w. direct] before my face". The same statement of God directing in the straight way is found in <a href='B:290 45:13'>Isa 45:13</a>; <a href='B:300 18:4'>Jer 18:4</a> s:w. Solomon didn't see this need for the Spirit of God to direct his path because he assumed that mere possession of Divine truth would itself keep him in the way; hence he teaches that "understanding" makes a man walk "directly" (<a href='B:240 15:21'>Pro 15:21</a>). And he failed miserably because of that arrogant position:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>4:26 Make the path of your feet level. Let all of your ways be established-</p><p>If a man prepares his way after God’s principles (<a href='B:140 27:6'>2Ch 27:6</a>; <a href='B:240 4:26'>Pro 4:26</a>), then God will ‘prepare’ that man’s way too (<a href='B:230 37:23'>Psa 37:23</a>; <a href='B:230 119:5'>Psa 119:5</a>), confirming him in the way of escape.</p><p>When Solomon teaches that God must be allowed to establish or direct our way (<a href='B:240 4:26'>Pro 4:26</a>; <a href='B:240 16:29'>Pro 16:29</a>), he is using the same Hebrew words as in <a href='B:230 37:23'>Psa 37:23</a> and <a href='B:230 119:5'>Psa 119:5</a>, when David says the same. It’s as if he was given God’s truth and yet he never quite made it his very own- he still articulated it in terms of the faith of his fathers. And thus he lost it in the end:&nbsp; One cannot help notice the great stress placed by Solomon on teaching his children, as David had taught him. It could be that there was too much emphasis on theory, thinking that by merely teaching the Law, the children would turn out OK. But <a href='B:50 6:1-7'>Deu 6:1-7</a> taught that Israel must “do” the commandments of the Lord “so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes</p><p>these words</p><p>you shall teach them diligently to your sons”. It was by the parents both doing and teaching the Law that their children would “do” it too. Behaviour patterns are learnt by observation and experience of parents, not by mere theoretical inculcation. So could it not be that there is a lesson here for us- that the diligent teaching of the Law, as David did to Solomon and as Solomon so proudly did to his children, actually has no lasting effect unless that Law is lived out in a daily life. It seems to me that the Western Christian attitude and program for child-rearing is based very much on the assumption that both parents are believers, marry in their 20s, mother raises the kids and father brings in the money, with the result that the children will in due time also be baptized and repeat the cycle. This is all well and good. But the reality is that less than 7% of America’s population fits the traditional nuclear family profile. “Today’s family can be a single parent with one or more children, a two-career couple with no children, a female breadwinner with child and househusband, or a blended family that consists of a previously married couple and a combination of children from those two previous marriages” (John Naisbitt, Megatrends, NY: Warner Books, 1984 p. 261). Our style of Sunday School material and teaching needs to be appropriate to this reality, if we seek to win this world for Christ rather than just reproduce within the existing Western community. The brethren and sisters of our community and ecclesias must be the de facto spiritual parents of many of our children. Mere doctrinal teaching alone is not enough- it must be seen regularly and meaningfully and relevantly to be lived out in transformed lives. Solomon’s Proverbs, although inspired by God, have so many similarities with the Psalms of his father David. It seems to me that although he was of course inspired in writing Proverbs, he chose to articulate the wisdom given him in terms which his father had used in his songs, prayers and Psalms.</p>


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<p>4:27 Don’t turn to the right hand nor to the left-</p><p>The Angel put Balaam in a position where he couldn't turn to the right hand nor the left, and thereby he was forced to face up to his sin (s:w. <a href='B:40 22:26'>Num 22:26</a>). But this was of God's providence, attempting to bring the man to repentance. Whereas Solomon seems to assume that the power to not turn to the right nor left is solely within the steel will of the individual. He totally denies God's action in human life and hearts, just as many self congratulatory legalists do today.</p><p>Remove your foot from evil-</p><p>Removing or departing from evil is a major theme of Proverbs (<a href='B:240 13:19'>Pro 13:19</a>; <a href='B:240 14:16'>Pro 14:16</a>; <a href='B:240 16:6'>Pro 16:6</a>; <a href='B:240 16:17'>Pro 16:17</a>). Solomon uses the same phrase in <a href='B:250 11:10'>Ecc 11:10</a>, but he gives the reason as being because youth is vanity; old age will prove that there is no point in not departing from evil, and going the way of evil, like going the way of righteousness, is all the same vanity. This nihilistic approach is because Solomon failed to discern that the end point of the path of righteousness, departing or removing our foot from the way of evil, is the redemption of the body in God's future Kingdom. But because he failed to understand that, he ends up concluding as he gets older that the choice between evil and good is all the same vain and meaningless. It is the hope of the resurrection of the body, the reality of judgment to come and the future Kingdom of God, which make morality of so much meaning today. We may also note again Solomon's overly simplistic idea that if a man removes himself from evil, all will go wonderfully for him in life. The same phrase is used of how Job removed himself from, or "eschewed", evil; but his life was traumatic and without all the blessings for wisdom which Solomon liked to imagine:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>s 5:1</p><p>My son, pay attention to my wisdom, turn your ear to my understanding-</p><p>See on <a href='B:240 2:2'>Pro 2:2</a>. As noted on <a href='B:230 119:36'>Psa 119:36</a>; <a href='B:230 141:4'>Psa 141:4</a>, David believed that God could act deep within the psychology or heart of man, to incline us toward righteousness and away from evil. This is how the Holy Spirit works today. Solomon believed the same (s:w. <a href='B:110 8:58'>1Ki 8:58</a>), but only in theory; for his Gentile wives inclined or turned away his heart from God (s:w. <a href='B:110 11:3'>1Ki 11:3</a>; <a href='B:110 11:9'>1Ki 11:9</a>). God will not turn our hearts anywhere we ourselves don't want to go. Solomon often appeals for us to turn our ears / incline our hearts to wisdom (s:w. <a href='B:240 2:2'>Pro 2:2</a>; <a href='B:240 4:20'>Pro 4:20</a>; <a href='B:240 5:1'>Pro 5:1</a>; <a href='B:240 22:17'>Pro 22:17</a>), but he himself was inclined to apostasy (s:w. <a href='B:110 11:3'>1Ki 11:3</a>; <a href='B:110 11:9'>1Ki 11:9</a>). All his emphasis is upon the need to incline ourselves, whereas his father David trusted in the work of the Spirit to incline his heart to good and away from evil (<a href='B:230 141:4'>Psa 141:4</a>; <a href='B:230 119:36'>Psa 119:36</a> etc:):&nbsp;</p><p>"Turn your ear" is the word for "incline", used by David of how he himself inclined his heart to God's word (<a href='B:230 119:51'>Psa 119:51</a>; <a href='B:230 119:112'>Psa 119:112</a>; <a href='B:230 119:157'>Psa 119:157</a>). But David prayed that God would incline his heart towards His word (<a href='B:230 119:36'>Psa 119:36</a>) and away from sin (<a href='B:230 141:4'>Psa 141:4</a>). This is how the Holy Spirit works to this day- we are confirmed in the psychological attitudes we ourselves choose to have. The word is used of God's mighty "stretched out" arm and "strong hand" in human affairs (<a href='B:230 136:12'>Psa 136:12</a> and often in Isaiah). This powerful hand of God is at work in human hearts, confirming us in the psychological way in which we ourselves wish to go. In this sense God turns or inclines the heart where He wishes (<a href='B:240 21:1'>Pro 21:1</a>). Solomon in the Proverbs places all the emphasis upon a person themselves in their own strength inclining their heart toward his teaching (<a href='B:240 2:2'>Pro 2:2</a>; <a href='B:240 4:5'>Pro 4:5</a>; <a href='B:240 4:20'>Pro 4:20</a>; <a href='B:240 5:1'>Pro 5:1</a>). He fails to appreciate what David his father did; that God's word is His word and not that of the human channel through which it comes. And he totally puts the emphasis upon human strength of will, self inclination towards God's word, rather than perceiving as David did that without God's psychological help in this, we shall ultimately fail. As Solomon himself did.</p>


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<p>s 5:2 that you may maintain discretion, that your lips may preserve knowledge-</p><p>David sees God Himself as preserving and keeping him, by His grace (s:w. <a href='B:230 12:7'>Psa 12:7</a>; <a href='B:230 140:4'>Psa 140:4</a>), whereas Solomon sees our keeping and preservation as predicted upon our keeping and preserving of wisdom (<a href='B:240 4:6'>Pro 4:6</a> s:w. <a href='B:240 5:2'>Pro 5:2</a>). He reasons as did the brethren with misplaced ideals who told me to keep and preserve "the truth" delivered to me as a teenager, and I would be fine in the end. Intellectual maintenance of theological positions will not save in the end; it is God's grace by faith, as David learned by experience.</p>


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<p>s 5:3 For the lips of an adulteress drip honey. Her mouth is smoother than oil-</p><p>The&nbsp; blindness&nbsp; of&nbsp; Solomon&nbsp; is&nbsp; driven&nbsp; home time and again. The&nbsp; strange woman has words like a honeycomb (<a href='B:240 5:3'>Pro 5:3</a>); and&nbsp; yet&nbsp; this&nbsp; is&nbsp; exactly&nbsp; how Solomon found his woman's words (<a href='B:260 4:11'>Son 4:11</a>):&nbsp;</p>


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<p>s 5:4 but in the end she is as bitter as wormwood, and as sharp as a two-edged sword-</p><p>He personally rejected this wisdom and only came to agree with it through doing just what he here condemns (<a href='B:250 7:26'>Ecc 7:26</a>).</p>


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<p>s 5:5 Her feet go down to death, her steps lead straight to Sheol-</p><p>The idea is that the beginning of the relationship would appear sweet, but in the very end, it would lead to death, paralleled here with sheol, the grave. And this was exactly the experience with Solomon's Gentile wives. Only in his old age did his chosen path lead him to turn his heart away from God and face an eternal grave. He disobeyed his own wisdom to an extraordinary degree. He clearly considered all the truths he knew as merely ideas in his mind, thereby assuring him of acceptability with God; he never personalized any of it.</p>


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<p>s 5:6 She gives no thought to the way of life. Her ways are crooked, and she doesn’t know it-</p><p>The following of the path to death (:5) is done unconsciously, because of a total lack of self awareness and self examination. And yet this was precisely what Solomon did; see on :5.</p>


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<p>s 5:7 Now therefore, my sons, listen to me. Don’t depart from the words of my mouth-</p><p>He spoke of his law as giving life and blessing, appropriating the very terms of Deuteronomy about the blessings of obedience to God’s law. Wisdom said: “Now therefore my sons, hearken unto me: for blessed are they that keep my ways” (<a href='B:240 8:32'>Pro 8:32</a> RV). Yet these are the very words Solomon uses when talking to his kids: “Now therefore my sons, hearken unto me” (<a href='B:240 5:7'>Pro 5:7</a>; <a href='B:240 7:24'>Pro 7:24</a>). Conclusion? Solomon sees the woman “Wisdom” as a personification of himself:&nbsp;&nbsp; It was really Solomon's self-justification. He personally was wisdom, so he thought. This is how self-exalted his possession of true wisdom made him. And of course, his kids didn’t listen to wisdom’s way. In passing, I have noted that those raised ‘in the truth’ often find it very hard to take criticism in later life. They find tolerance of others’ views hard; they perceive themselves to be right to an intolerant extent. Is this not a little bit of the Solomon syndrome?&nbsp;</p>


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<p>s 5:8 Remove your way far from her. Don’t come near the door of her house-</p><p>Solomon had Gentile wives and built them houses (<a href='B:110 11:7-8'>1Ki 11:7-8</a>). His wisdom was given to him as a young man, and the book of Proverbs appears to be collections of the various statements of that wisdom. But about the same time, he also got involved with multiple Gentile women who led him astray from God and to idolatry. The very warnings he gives against the adulteress and Gentile woman were ignored by him; he became the young man who went wrong with women. His girlfriend speaks in the very language of the Gentile woman of Proverbs: "I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house... into her chamber" (<a href='B:260 3:4'>Son 3:4</a>). Compare this with "She caught him... come not near the door of her house... her house... the chambers of death" (<a href='B:240 7:13'>Pro 7:13</a>; <a href='B:240 7:27'>Pro 7:27</a>; <a href='B:240 5:8'>Pro 5:8</a>). We see here the warning for all time; that we can know God's ways in theory, whilst disobeying them in practice, absolutely to the letter. Indeed it may be so that the more we know them, the more strongly we are tempted by our nature to break them.</p>


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<p>s 5:9 lest you give your honour to others, and your years to the cruel one-</p><p>The word for "honour" is used at times specifically of the honour or majesty of kingship (<a href='B:230 21:5'>Psa 21:5</a>; <a href='B:230 45:3'>Psa 45:3</a>; <a href='B:300 22:18'>Jer 22:18</a>; <a href='B:450 6:13'>Zec 6:13</a>). Solomon warns his son that the kingship would be taken from the Davidic line if he married Gentiles. His years, his life, would be given to "the cruel", a word associated with idolatry in <a href='B:50 32:22'>Deu 32:22</a>, although "the cruel" is a frequent designation of the Gentile powers in the prophets. All this is precisely what happened to Solomon. He married Gentiles, and finally was led to waste his life through turning to their idols:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>5:10 lest foreigners feast on your wealth, and your labours enrich another man’s house-</p><p>The allusion may be to the way that the family of Shechem thought they would get Jacob's wealth if their daughters married the sons of Israel. In <a href='B:250 2:18-19'>Ecc 2:18-19</a> Solomon laments that his&nbsp; labours will achieve nothing; doubtless alluding back to&nbsp; his&nbsp; words in <a href='B:240 5:10'>Pro 5:10</a>, where he says that the Gentile wife will make the young Israelite's labours meaningless.</p>


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<p>5:11 You will groan at your latter end, when your flesh and your body are consumed-</p><p>It would not be unreasonable to interpret the book of Ecclesiastes as Solomon's groaning at his latter end, as his physical faculties declined. Constantly we see him as the parade example of a man whose very knowledge of God's truth led him to live in the very opposite manner; because he refused to personalize it, and assumed that the very possession of such truth justified him.</p>


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<p>5:12 and say, How I have hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof-</p><p>Solomon here quotes his father's words in <a href='B:230 50:17'>Psa 50:17</a> "since you hate instruction". Solomon thus accuses any who refuse his Proverbs of doing just this, hating instruction, which in the context of <a href='B:230 50:17'>Psa 50:17</a> means 'You are condemned' (s:w. <a href='B:240 5:12'>Pro 5:12</a>; <a href='B:240 12:1'>Pro 12:1</a>; <a href='B:240 15:10'>Pro 15:10</a>).</p>


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<p>5:13 neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor turned my ear to those who instructed me!-</p><p>This is true, but Solomon is addressing his son, whom he has taught. He is strongly implying that any refusal to accept his teaching would call down terrible curses. His focus instead should have been upon God's total revelation, and upon God as the ultimate teacher and instructor.</p>


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<p>5:14 I have come to the brink of utter ruin, in the midst of the gathered assembly-</p><p>David felt that his repentance of his sins with Bathsheba would lead him to praise God in the midst of the congregation (<a href='B:230 22:22'>Psa 22:22</a>; <a href='B:230 40:10'>Psa 40:10</a>); by contrast Solomon is more concerned with being shamed in the midst of the congregation. David was unashamed of his shame, because he was repentant. The record presents Solomon as obsessed with "my father David", and yet failing to emulate his humility and attitudes:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>5:15 Drink water out of your own cistern, springing water out of your own spring-</p><p>There is no doubt that we can be counted responsible for making another brother sin, even though he too bears responsibility for that sin. The man who commits adultery causes his ex-wife to commit adultery too, the Lord observed (<a href='B:470 5:32'>Mat 5:32</a>). Her sin remains her sin, but he too is guilty. <a href='B:240 5:15-16'>Pro 5:15-16</a> (NIV) teach likewise: that a man should drink the waters of his own well, i:e. take sexual fulfilment from his own wife, otherwise his waters (i:e. the sexuality of his wife) will overflow into the streets for all and sundry. She will turn to other men due to his unfaithfulness. Sin thus has so many aspects. We may reason that if we fail to upbuild a brother, or preach, then God will somehow do it anyway. But this doesn’t seem to be the spirit of <a href='B:330 3:18'>Eze 3:18</a>: “When... thou givest him not warning…he shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thy hand”.</p>


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<p>5:16 Should your springs overflow in the streets, streams of water in the public squares?-</p><p>As explained on :15, Solomon is saying that a man's sexuality should be channeled through his wife, and not overflow to loose women standing in public places. LXX "Let not thy waters flow beyond thy fountain" supports this.</p>


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<p>5:17 Let them be for yourself alone, not for strangers with you-</p><p>Sexuality shouldn't be shared with "strangers", as noted on :15, although the word often refers to Gentiles. Yet Solomon was busy acquiring 1000 wives / concubines at the beginning of his reign, when he wrote up the Divine wisdom he was endowed with in the form of the book of Proverbs. This incredible hypocrisy arose from a lack of personal consciousness of sin, an inability to personalize God's truth, and a total wilful ignorance of the conditional nature of all God's purposes with him. He is a major example to all who pride themselves upon knowing God's truth.</p>


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<p>5:18 Let your spring be blessed. Rejoice in the wife of your youth-</p><p>See on :15-17. Solomon failed to do so, not restraining his lust for women, as he explains in Ecclesiastes, and marrying 1000 wives / concubines. Despite his ravishment&nbsp; with Pharaoh's daughter as outlined in the Song, she never&nbsp; fulfilled him; indeed, none of his women did. In the Song he speaks&nbsp; of&nbsp; how&nbsp; he&nbsp; was&nbsp; ravished&nbsp; with this Egyptian girl, especially with her breasts (<a href='B:260 2:7'>Son 2:7</a>; <a href='B:260 3:5'>Son 3:5</a>; <a href='B:260 4:9'>Son 4:9</a>; <a href='B:260 8:14'>Son 8:14</a>). Alluding to&nbsp; this&nbsp; he&nbsp; could confidently exhort in <a href='B:240 5:18-20'>Pro 5:18-20</a> AV: "Rejoice with&nbsp; the&nbsp; wife&nbsp; of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe (Song of Solomon language); let her breasts satisfy thee... be&nbsp; thou&nbsp; ravished&nbsp; always&nbsp; with&nbsp; her love... And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange (i:e. Gentile) woman?". How,&nbsp; indeed?&nbsp; But 999 women later, it was a different story for Solomon:&nbsp; Solomon&nbsp; writes&nbsp; in <a href='B:240 5:18-20'>Pro 5:18-20</a> as if it is of course unthinkable&nbsp; that&nbsp; he&nbsp; should&nbsp; have&nbsp; been&nbsp; ravished by a Gentile woman;&nbsp; but&nbsp; he&nbsp; had been. He spoke to others with absolutely no thought&nbsp; as&nbsp; to whether his words had an application to himself. Effectively&nbsp; he was kidding himself, on a deeply internal level, that&nbsp; he hadn't married out of the faith. The obviousness of all&nbsp; this&nbsp; is&nbsp; in&nbsp; order&nbsp; to drum the warning home to us. How tragic&nbsp; that&nbsp; Solomon&nbsp; should go on to comment that such a person would die&nbsp; for&nbsp; want&nbsp; of&nbsp; instruction (<a href='B:240 5:23'>Pro 5:23</a>). Solomon had all the instruction&nbsp; he could wish for; but he didn't allow it to really sink&nbsp; home&nbsp; one&nbsp; little&nbsp; bit. He&nbsp; hit&nbsp; out&nbsp; on&nbsp; the search for an ultimately satisfying woman, but out of the 1000 he had he never found one (<a href='B:250 7:28'>Ecc 7:28</a>), even when he sat down and analyzed each of them. And even politically, his marriages with all those Gentile women&nbsp; didn't&nbsp; seem&nbsp; to&nbsp; achieve him the support he desired from their&nbsp; home&nbsp; countries; Egypt gave refuge to Jeroboam, Solomon's main rival (<a href='B:110 11:40'>1Ki 11:40</a>), even though he always acquiesced to his wives and even in his very old age he still didn’t destroy the idol temples he built for them (<a href='B:120 23:13'>2Ki 23:13</a>).</p>


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<p>5:19 A loving doe and a graceful deer- let her breasts satisfy you at all times. Be captivated always with her love-</p><p>The idea is "don't be ravished with the breasts of a Gentile and don't have many wives; be content with your first wife". But Solomon was (<a href='B:260 4:9'>Son 4:9</a>; <a href='B:260 7:3'>Son 7:3</a>), and he had many wives; he totally refused to see the personal relevance of the truth and wisdom he taught.</p>


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<p>5:20 For why should you, my son, be captivated with an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another?-</p><p>See on <a href='B:250 7:26'>Ecc 7:26</a>. The&nbsp; blindness&nbsp; of&nbsp; Solomon&nbsp; is&nbsp; driven&nbsp; home time and again; he knew Divine truth, but the more he knew it, the more he lived the very opposite, failing to grasp the deeply personal relevance of truth to himself. A whole string of passages in Proverbs warn&nbsp;of&nbsp; the&nbsp; "strange" &nbsp;(AV) woman&nbsp; (<a href='B:240 2:16'>Pro 2:16</a>; <a href='B:240 5:20'>Pro 5:20</a>; <a href='B:240 6:24'>Pro 6:24</a>; <a href='B:240 7:5'>Pro 7:5</a>; <a href='B:240 20:16'>Pro 20:16</a>; <a href='B:240 23:27'>Pro 23:27</a>; <a href='B:240 27:13'>Pro 27:13</a>). Yet the very same word (translated "outlandish", AV) is&nbsp; used&nbsp; in&nbsp; <a href='B:160 13:26'>Neh 13:26</a> concerning&nbsp; the women Solomon married. The antidote&nbsp;to&nbsp; succumbing to the wicked woman was to have wisdom- according to Proverbs. And Solomon apparently had wisdom. Yet he succumbed to the wicked woman. He was writing Song of Solomon at the same time as Proverbs. The reason for this must be that Solomon didn't really have wisdom. Yet we know that he was given it in abundance. The resolution of this seems to be that Solomon asked&nbsp; for&nbsp; wisdom &nbsp;in&nbsp; order&nbsp; to&nbsp; lead&nbsp; Israel&nbsp; rather than for himself,&nbsp; he used that wisdom to judge Israel and to educate the surrounding&nbsp; nations:&nbsp; But&nbsp; none of it percolated to himself. As custodians&nbsp; of&nbsp; true&nbsp; doctrine-&nbsp; for&nbsp; that is what we are- we are likely to suffer from over familiarity with it. We can become so accustomed&nbsp; to 'handling' it, as we strengthen each other, as we preach,&nbsp; that&nbsp; the personal bearing of the Truth becomes totally lost&nbsp; upon us, as it was totally lost upon Solomon.</p>


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<p>5:21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of Yahweh, He examines all his paths-</p><p>The ways of man are "before" or "straight ahead" of Yahweh's eyes (<a href='B:240 5:21'>Pro 5:21</a> s:w:), and our eyes are to likewise "look straight ahead" (<a href='B:240 4:25'>Pro 4:25</a> s:w:). Our perspective and vision is to be His. We are to see life as He does. And He looks in the perspective of eternity, His Kingdom on earth which is to dominate the vast majority of our eternal existence. This is the meaning of faith in practice.</p><p>"The ways of man are before the eyes (angels) of the Lord, and He pondereth all his goings" (<a href='B:240 5:21'>Pro 5:21</a> AV). God pondering us (root 'to roll flat') is surely the language of limitation, and applicable to the Angels. God’s Angels are pondering us, as they did Abraham, Job etc.</p>


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<p>5:22 The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare him. The cords of his sin hold him firmly-</p><p>This continues the huge Biblical theme that sin is its own judgment; the wicked are more self condemned than condemned by God. In seeking to avoid the ties that bind in domestic and sexual life (see on :15-18), a man is tied by the cords of his own list. And again was absolutely fulfilled in Solomon. Once he began taking other wives, he lost all self restraint. And was held by the cords of those sins. "Hold" is the word just used in :5 of how the sinful woman herself 'takes hold' of the grave; and she will bring her men down there along with her. The imagery attributes to women a great power, which in Solomon's time was unheard of; for society considered men to be all powerful. It was perhaps this kind of thinking which led Solomon to ignore any possibility that mere women, as he saw them, could have such great hold on him and his destiny.</p>


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<p>5:23 He will die for lack of instruction. In the greatness of his own folly he will go astray-</p><p>"Instruction" is here put for 'receipt of instruction'. But Solomon has Saul in view, his father's great enemy. It was he who greatly went astray (s:w. <a href='B:90 26:21'>1Sa 26:21</a> and see on <a href='B:230 119:21'>Psa 119:21</a>). Always there is the subtext in Solomon's words of justifying his father, and justifying himself against any potential opposition to his kingship, such as that from the house of Saul. But "astray" is also the word just used for a man being "ravished" by inappropriate women (:19,20). The person in view in this chapter is always the man who has inappropriate relationships with women other than the wife of his youth. Again, Solomon is presented as the one who went astray in this way more than any other; and it was his wrong attitude to his possession of Divine truth which led him to it.</p>


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<p>s 6:1 My son, if you have become collateral for your neighbour, if you have struck your hands in pledge for a stranger-</p><p>The law of Moses didn't forbid giving or taking collateral for loans, it accepted this would happen (<a href='B:20 22:25-27'>Exo 22:25-27</a>). But Solomon in the Proverbs is quite obsessed with forbidding it in very strong terms (<a href='B:240 6:1-3'>Pro 6:1-3</a>; <a href='B:240 11:15'>Pro 11:15</a>; <a href='B:240 17:18'>Pro 17:18</a>; <a href='B:240 20:16'>Pro 20:16</a>; <a href='B:240 22:26'>Pro 22:26</a>; <a href='B:240 27:13'>Pro 27:13</a> - all quite some emphasis). Perhaps Solomon recalled some bad experience in his family because of this. There is the otherwise curious statement in <a href='B:90 17:18'>1Sa 17:18</a> that David's brothers, Solomon's uncles, were to return a collateral. Perhaps this ruined the family and Solomon's wisdom has some human element in it, reflecting his own bad experiences in his family life. But there is nothing wrong with giving or taking collateral for a loan; what is condemned in God's law is the abuse of the debtor and the abuse of the situation. Indeed David and Hezekiah ask God to be collateral for their needs and debts in various ways (<a href='B:230 119:122'>Psa 119:122</a>; <a href='B:290 38:14'>Isa 38:14</a>). And God gives the Holy Spirit in our hearts as collateral on His debt, as He sees it, to save us (<a href='B:540 1:22'>2Co 1:22</a>; <a href='B:540 5:5'>2Co 5:5</a>; <a href='B:560 1:14'>Eph 1:14</a>); and in response we give our hearts as a pledge to Him (<a href='B:300 30:21'>Jer 30:21</a> Heb:). So forbidding the practice seems out of step with the spirit of grace. It would mean asking of God what we are unprepared to do for others. Solomon had not known need, neither material nor spiritual, and it shows in his attitude to this matter. It makes hollow all Solomon's exhortations to be generous to your poor neighbour and to be a brother in adversity to your neighbour (<a href='B:240 14:21'>Pro 14:21</a>; <a href='B:240 17:17'>Pro 17:17</a>). Solomon is here reasoning from the viewpoint of secular wisdom:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>s 6:2 you are trapped by the words of your mouth. You are ensnared with the words of your mouth-</p><p><a href='B:240 5:22'>Pro 5:22</a> uses this language about those snared by major sins. As noted on :1, Solomon appears to be quite obsessively outlawing the giving of collateral for loans. And he doesn't leave it as mere advice, but presses the point that to disagree with him on this is a heinous sin- and yet this is a matter which has to be judged one case at a time. We again get the impression that he presents a narrative whereby people are either spotlessly perfect, or awful sinners. This is not a mature spiritual position. Any disagreement with his advice makes a person a wicked sinner. Even on such a delicate personal matter, where cases will always be different, and God's law allowed the use of collateral.</p>


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<p>s 6:3 Do this now my son and deliver yourself, since you have come into the hand of your neighbour. Go, humble yourself. Press your plea with your neighbour-</p><p>As noted on :1,2, Solomon is making a huge issue over this matter of obeying his advice [for in such a nuanced matter it can be no more than that] regarding collateral. He sees humility as humility to his advice and positions, rather than before God.</p>


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<p>s 6:4 Give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids-</p><p>The&nbsp; words of Proverbs 6 show that Solomon's motivation for teaching God's&nbsp; ways&nbsp; to&nbsp; his&nbsp; son (Rehoboam) was because this is how his father&nbsp; had&nbsp; taught&nbsp; him. “Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids”, he exhorts his son (<a href='B:240 6:4'>Pro 6:4</a>), in the very language used to describe his father’s zeal for the building of the temple (<a href='B:230 132:4'>Psa 132:4</a>). Solomon prayed to God in the terms and language of his father (<a href='B:140 6:41-42'>2Ch 6:41-42</a> cp. <a href='B:230 132:1'>Psa 132:1</a>; <a href='B:230 132:8-9'>Psa 132:8-9</a>). He was familiar with his father’s Psalms- after all, all Israel sung them. It must have been like being the son of a world-famous singer. The words were even in Solomon’s subconscious it seems, for when he tells his son “Give not sleep to thine eyes nor slumber to thine eyelids” (<a href='B:240 6:4'>Pro 6:4</a>) he is alluding unconsciously, it seems (in that it is out of context) to David’s promise not to give sleep to his eyes until he had found a resting place for the ark (<a href='B:230 132:4'>Psa 132:4</a>). But Solomon's spirituality was finally revealed as merely living out parental expectation.</p>


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<p>s 6:5 Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler-</p><p>As explained on :2, Solomon elsewhere uses this language about those snared by major sins. For him it was a heinous sin to disagree with his attitude to the difficult and very personal matter of giving collateral.</p>


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<p>s 6:6 Go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider her ways, and be wise-</p><p>The Proverbs contain repeated condemnation of laziness. Lack of a zealous work ethic is a rejection of wisdom, according to Solomon. As Solomon explains in Ecclesiastes 1, he was an active person, not lazy by nature. And yet he lacked spirituality. He claimed that his service of God was due to his spirituality, but it was in reality merely a semblance of serving God when it was really just reinforcing his own personality type. His mocking of the "sluggard" or "lazy one" is so frequent (<a href='B:240 6:6'>Pro 6:6</a>; <a href='B:240 6:9'>Pro 6:9</a>; <a href='B:240 10:26'>Pro 10:26</a>; <a href='B:240 13:4'>Pro 13:4</a>; <a href='B:240 15:19'>Pro 15:19</a>; <a href='B:240 19:24'>Pro 19:24</a>; <a href='B:240 20:4'>Pro 20:4</a>; <a href='B:240 21:25'>Pro 21:25</a>; <a href='B:240 22:13'>Pro 22:13</a>; <a href='B:240 24:30'>Pro 24:30</a>; <a href='B:240 26:13-16'>Pro 26:13-16</a>). But it is a reflection of his own works-based approach to righteousness; the 'wise' "do" good things, and the wicked don't do enough good things. Personal spiritual mindedness and relationship with God are simply not emphasized:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>s 6:7 which having no chief, overseer or ruler-</p><p>Solomon taught that if the ants can be so zealous, well why can’t the ecclesia of God be zealous [for it was ‘believers’ that he was teaching]. The ants scurry around, working as if there is no tomorrow, to build up something so precarious that is in any case so tragically short lived. Can’t we be yet more zealous, with a like loving co-operation, building the eternal things that we are (<a href='B:240 6:6-7'>Pro 6:6-7</a>)? And Solomon pressed the point further, in that ants are self-motivated; they need no “guide, overseer or ruler”. This was surely a reference to the complex system of overseers which Solomon had to place over Israel in order to build the temple and build up the Kingdom. The same Hebrew word for “overseer” is found in <a href='B:130 23:4'>1Ch 23:4</a>; <a href='B:130 26:29'>1Ch 26:29</a>:&nbsp; Yet ideally, he seems to be saying, every Israelite ought to be a zealous worker. <a href='B:240 12:24'>Pro 12:24</a> says the same: “The hand of the diligent [whoever he / she is] shall bear rule [in practice]” [s:w. <a href='B:240 6:7'>Pro 6:7</a> “ruler”]. And we must ask ourselves, whether for whatever reason the new Israel hasn’t slumped into the same problem, of lack of self-motivation, waiting to be asked to do something before we do it, over-relying upon our “overseers”. The ants aren’t like this. They see the job to be done, and naturally get on with it.</p><p>The self-motivated example of the ant should inspire our service and operations. They need no “guide, overseer or ruler”. But these are the very words used about Solomon’s elaborate hierarchy of foremen and slave drivers whom he used to ‘get the job done’ in his kingdom. He rejected his own wisdom.</p>


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<p>s 6:8 yet provides her bread in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest-</p><p>See on :7. This again glorifies works and hard work inappropriately. Good harvests were God's blessing for obedience to the covenant; bad harvests were judgment for breaking the covenant (<a href='B:300 5:17'>Jer 5:17</a> s:w:). But Solomon assumes that hard work will bring good harvests. Again, real spirituality is ignored, and the conditional nature of Divine blessing is also overlooked, just as Solomon did in his own life.</p>


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<p>s 6:9 How long will you sleep, lazy one? When will you arise out of your sleep?-</p><p>See on :6. This despising of sleep is in contrast to the spiritual maturity of David, who understood that true blessing comes from God alone and not from human works, and God gives His beloved sleep, in contrast to vainly rising early and working late to achieve blessing (<a href='B:230 127:2'>Psa 127:2</a>). Time and again, we find Solomon glorifying "my father David", seeking to live out parental expectations; and yet quite out of step with David's spirituality.</p>


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<p>6:10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep-</p><p>I have suggested on :9 that this condemnation of sleep and laziness is part of a works based mentality that at best is not very spiritually mature. It is therefore significant that when these words are repeated in <a href='B:240 24:33'>Pro 24:33</a>, Solomon doesn't claim this to be part of the package of Divine wisdom given to him; rather he says he worked this out from his own observations of broken down houses and farmsteads, and in mock humility claims to have thereby "received instruction" (<a href='B:240 24:32'>Pro 24:32</a>).</p>


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<p>6:11 so your poverty will come as a robber, and your scarcity as an armed man-</p><p>Solomon repeatedly sees poverty as being the fault of the poor, and their refusal of his teaching of wisdom (s:w. <a href='B:240 6:11'>Pro 6:11</a>; <a href='B:240 10:4'>Pro 10:4</a>; <a href='B:240 10:15'>Pro 10:15</a>; <a href='B:240 13:7-8'>Pro 13:7-8</a>; <a href='B:240 13:18'>Pro 13:18</a>; <a href='B:240 13:23'>Pro 13:23</a>; <a href='B:240 24:34'>Pro 24:34</a>; <a href='B:240 28:19'>Pro 28:19</a>; <a href='B:240 31:7'>Pro 31:7</a>). Many of these passages are effectively mocking the poor, which Solomon condemns in <a href='B:240 17:5'>Pro 17:5</a>. He fails to take his own wisdom, as we also see in his behaviour with foreign women. Again we see Solomon's works based approach to righteousness, and lack of grace; refusing to accept that we are all poor men before God, as David himself exemplified when he cried to God as a poor man (<a href='B:230 34:6'>Psa 34:6</a>). But his much beloved father David was unashamed to say he was a materially "poor man" (<a href='B:90 18:23'>1Sa 18:23</a>); and Uriah, whom he wronged, is described also as a "poor man" (<a href='B:100 12:1'>2Sa 12:1</a>). The poor were to be defended and given to (<a href='B:230 82:3'>Psa 82:3</a>), and the Bible is clear that poverty isn't necessarily a result of sin or unwisdom. But Solomon fails to appreciate this, so obsessed is he with works, and the idea that obedience to his anthology of Proverbs will make the poor prosperous, as if God's truth is a kind of wealth creation scheme:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>6:12 A worthless person, a man of iniquity, is he who walks with a perverse mouth-</p><p>True as the Proverbs are which condemn "a worthless / wicked person" (<a href='B:240 6:12'>Pro 6:12</a>; <a href='B:240 16:27'>Pro 16:27</a>; <a href='B:240 19:28'>Pro 19:28</a>), again we have a subtext of Solomon seeking to justify himself and his father David, and to criticize the various competitors to Solomon's throne. "A worthless person" is the term used for Nabal (<a href='B:90 25:17'>1Sa 25:17</a>), those in David's camp who were not fully supportive of David (<a href='B:90 30:22'>1Sa 30:22</a>), Sheba who plotted to overthrow the Davidic line as king (<a href='B:100 20:1'>2Sa 20:1</a>), and particularly of those who wanted to overthrow Solomon as king (<a href='B:140 13:7'>2Ch 13:7</a>):&nbsp;</p>


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<p>6:13 who winks with his eyes, who signals with his feet, who motions with his fingers-</p><p>The body language of sinners is commented upon several times in the Bible. This is the degree to which God observes human behaviour. And we have wonderful insights into that of the Lord Jesus; His eyes and hands are often as it were zoomed in upon in the Gospel records. Body language is indeed a "signal" of our innermost heart; and for the wicked, they yield all the members of their bodies to work unrighteousness (<a href='B:520 6:19'>Rom 6:19</a>).</p>


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<p>6:14 in whose heart is perverseness, who devises evil continually, who always sows discord-</p><p>Solomon here reasons as if any of his opponents (see on :12) are wrong because they "sow discord". This has ever been an argument deployed by autocratic rulers- any criticism or opposition is wrong because it undermines "unity".</p>


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<p>6:15 Therefore his calamity will come suddenly. He will be broken suddenly, and that without remedy-</p><p>Being broken without remedy (as in <a href='B:240 29:1'>Pro 29:1</a>) suggests that what is in view is an earthen vessel smashed, a figure used in the prophets of the last judgment. Israel were likewise smitten without remedy at the hands of their invaders (s:w. <a href='B:140 36:16'>2Ch 36:16</a>; <a href='B:300 8:15'>Jer 8:15</a>; <a href='B:300 14:19'>Jer 14:19</a>). Many of Solomon's warnings of judgments in the Proverbs come exactly true for the Israel whom he wrongly assumed would be his eternal kingdom. The "remedy" Solomon has in mind is giving heed to wisdom. The "sudden" nature of condemnation is also a Biblical theme. The Bible is very clear about what will lead to condemnation, and yet when it comes, the condemned will as it were be taken by surprise. For they have ignored all the teaching about judgment and assumed it doesn't apply to them.</p>


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<p>6:16 There are six things which Yahweh hates; yes, seven which are an abomination to Him-</p><p>"Abomination" is the common word for idols (e.g. <a href='B:50 7:25-26'>Deu 7:25-26</a>). Idolatry is here interpreted as things like pride and telling lies (:17). These seven things are the essence of idolatry. There is a recurring nature to them, just as idols got a grip on the mind of the worshipper. Solomon often uses the word for quiet, secret sins, words and the matters of the heart, internal attitudes and judgments (<a href='B:240 11:1'>Pro 11:1</a>; <a href='B:240 11:20'>Pro 11:20</a>; <a href='B:240 12:22'>Pro 12:22</a>; <a href='B:240 13:19'>Pro 13:19</a>; <a href='B:240 15:26'>Pro 15:26</a>; <a href='B:240 16:5'>Pro 16:5</a>; <a href='B:240 17:15'>Pro 17:15</a>; <a href='B:240 20:10'>Pro 20:10</a>; <a href='B:240 20:23'>Pro 20:23</a>; <a href='B:240 24:9'>Pro 24:9</a>; <a href='B:240 26:25'>Pro 26:25</a>; <a href='B:240 28:9'>Pro 28:9</a>; <a href='B:240 29:27'>Pro 29:27</a>). And this of course is the essence of idolatry in our age; this is the practical force to us of all Biblical teaching about idolatry:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>6:17 proud eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood-</p><p>David's prayer of repentance and request to be saved from "blood guiltiness" (<a href='B:230 51:14'>Psa 51:14</a>) is literally 'from blood'. He was a man of blood and was guilty of Uriah's innocent blood. David had asked for 'men of blood' to be slain (<a href='B:230 55:23'>Psa 55:23</a> s:w:), those who had taken the blood of the innocent (<a href='B:230 94:21'>Psa 94:21</a>), and for 'men of blood' to be expelled from his presence (<a href='B:230 139:19'>Psa 139:19</a>). And it is not at all clear whether all those Psalms were written before his sin with Bathsheba. God was trying to teach David that he was the type of person whom he condemned. And yet it is unclear if he learned that lesson. Solomon liberally condemns the man who sheds innocent blood (<a href='B:240 6:17'>Pro 6:17</a>; <a href='B:240 28:17'>Pro 28:17</a>), refusing to recognize that his much lauded father had done just this, and was only saved by grace and not by any obedience to wisdom. There is so little grace in the book of Solomon's Proverbs because Solomon had failed to perceive the grace shown to his father. An example of indirect reference to Solomon's pride is found in the way the record points a similarity between Paul and Solomon. Each was given wisdom, and each was given a Satan to humble them because of the way wisdom bloats a man's ego. The fact that we have 'the truth' in basic doctrinal terms - plus a fair bit of other Divine wisdom - really will tempt us to be proud. This is the sort of thing we individually and collectively need to exhort ourselves strongly about:&nbsp;&nbsp;Like us, Solomon knew theoretically the paramount danger of pride;&nbsp; he lists it as the most fundamental of the seven things God hates (<a href='B:240 6:17'>Pro 6:17</a> cp. 16:5,18). Indeed, Solomon correctly implies in <a href='B:240 28:25'>Pro 28:25</a> that pride is an outcome of lack of faith, and this was exactly true in Solomon's case. His lack of faith in the future kingdom led him to be proud:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>We note here and in <a href='B:230 119:69'>Psa 119:69</a>; <a href='B:230 119:78'>Psa 119:78</a> and elsewhere that pride is associated with slandering others. This inflated self importance is what leads pride people to do others down by slandering them, that they may appear higher:&nbsp;"Innocent blood" refers to Saul's persecution of David's "innocent blood" (s:w. <a href='B:90 19:5'>1Sa 19:5</a>). "A proud look" is exactly what Solomon's father David didn't have (s:w. <a href='B:230 131:1'>Psa 131:1</a>).</p>


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<p>6:18 a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are swift in running to mischief-</p><p>As so often in the Bible, action is presented as the direct result of thought. This was a conception foreign to their contemporary belief systems, where all that mattered was external behaviour. The Lord's "sermon on the mount" develops this teaching as the essence of all spiritual life. Israel were condemned by God specifically for their wicked schemes / imaginations (s:w. <a href='B:290 55:7'>Isa 55:7</a>; <a href='B:290 59:7'>Isa 59:7</a>; <a href='B:300 4:14'>Jer 4:14</a>). <a href='B:290 59:7'>Isa 59:7</a> repeats this verse about Judah generally. The Proverbs so often end up descriptions of the house of Judah in their later history; whereas Solomon liked to think that his kingdom would be eternal, governed according to his principles as taught in the book of Proverbs.</p>


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<p>6:19 a false witness who utters lies, and he who sows discord among brothers-</p><p>This is true, and needs to be given its due weight by those who divide brethren in Christ. But Solomon also doubtless has in view the discord between him and his half brothers, who were contenders for his throne. He considers the cause of the divisions to be "lies", a slander campaign against him and his father. But the division amongst David's sons was a direct fulfilment of Nathan's prediction of the consequence of David's sins associated with Bathsheba. But Solomon seeks to whitewash David, considering any friction arising from his father's sins as mere slander. He doesn't follow David in openly confessing sin and rejoicing in Divine grace.</p>


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<p>6:20 My son, keep your father’s commandment, and don’t forsake your mother’s teaching-</p><p>David so often talks about God's "law", using the word torah. But Solomon so often speaks of his own torah, and that of his wife, the mother of "my son" (s:w. <a href='B:240 1:8'>Pro 1:8</a>; <a href='B:240 3:1'>Pro 3:1</a>; <a href='B:240 4:2'>Pro 4:2</a>; <a href='B:240 6:20'>Pro 6:20</a>; <a href='B:240 7:2'>Pro 7:2</a>; <a href='B:240 13:14'>Pro 13:14</a>; <a href='B:240 31:26'>Pro 31:26</a>). Yet elsewhere in the Bible, the well over 200 occurrences of torah are always about God's law. Solomon applies the word to his own teachings and that of his wife, and thereby plays God. whilst it could be argued that Solomon's teachings were Divinely inspired, all the same he ought surely to have spoken of them as God's torah rather than his own torah. This kind of playing God is seen so often in the teachers of God's people.</p><p>Solomon exhorted&nbsp; others to keep the law of their mother, so that&nbsp; it&nbsp; would&nbsp; keep&nbsp; the from the attractive Gentile girl. And don't&nbsp; think, he went on, that in this context you can take fire into&nbsp; your&nbsp; hands&nbsp; and&nbsp; not be burnt. You can't play around with your &nbsp;own&nbsp; sexuality&nbsp; without&nbsp; it&nbsp; having&nbsp; a permanent spiritual effect&nbsp; upon&nbsp; you&nbsp; (6:27). But dear Bathsheba's words to Solomon warning&nbsp; against&nbsp; the Gentile woman in Proverbs 31 were completely forgotten by him:&nbsp;</p><p>Solomon told his son, and presumably all his sons, to keep their father’s commandment and not forsake the teaching of their mother. In this he was just blindly repeating his own experience of youth, and yet the way he repeated it was irrelevant seeing that his wives were largely Gentiles. To tell them to follow the laws of their mothers was hardly good advice. But he said it because it seemed the right thing, it was what he had been told as a child. David&nbsp; was&nbsp; motivated&nbsp; by a desire to fulfil&nbsp;&nbsp; the&nbsp;&nbsp; Law's&nbsp;&nbsp; command&nbsp;&nbsp; that&nbsp;&nbsp; the&nbsp;&nbsp; word&nbsp;&nbsp; should&nbsp; be enthusiastically taught by parents to their children. Externally, Solomon&nbsp; likewise&nbsp; obeyed the command. But he did so as a result of&nbsp; living out parental expectation; he did what his parents had done&nbsp; to&nbsp; him. Yet Rehoboam didn't really take Divine principles very&nbsp; seriously&nbsp; in&nbsp; his later life, although there is reason to think&nbsp; that&nbsp; he did so originally. And so he too lived&nbsp; out&nbsp; the&nbsp; spiritual experience of his father Solomon; the rot&nbsp;&nbsp; of&nbsp;&nbsp; only&nbsp;&nbsp; external&nbsp; spirituality&nbsp; snaked&nbsp; through&nbsp; those generations,&nbsp; until&nbsp; the&nbsp; real spirit of the Truth was lost, and only&nbsp; an&nbsp; external&nbsp; shell remained. There is ample evidence that this&nbsp;&nbsp; is&nbsp; exactly&nbsp; the&nbsp; situation&nbsp; in many areas today.</p>


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<p>6:21 Bind them continually on your heart. Tie them around your neck-</p><p>Solomon made the classic mistake of assuming that his will and word were effectively equivalent to the word of God. In <a href='B:240 6:21'>Pro 6:21</a> he speaks of the need to bind the law about your heart and neck; but in <a href='B:260 8:6'>Son 8:6</a> he asks his Gentile lover to “set me as a seal upon your heart” and arm. And often in Proverbs he uses the language of the blessings for keeping God’s law and turns them into the blessings for keeping his law.</p>


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<p>6:22 When you walk, it will lead you. When you sleep, it will watch over you. When you awake, it will talk with you-</p><p>Solomon's prophetic sonship of David was conditional upon him preserving or observing Yahweh's ways (<a href='B:110 2:4'>1Ki 2:4</a>; <a href='B:130 22:13'>1Ch 22:13</a>; <a href='B:140 7:17'>2Ch 7:17</a>); but he didn't preserve of observe them (<a href='B:110 11:10-11'>1Ki 11:10-11</a>); despite David praying that Solomon would be given a heart to observe them (<a href='B:130 29:19'>1Ch 29:19</a>). We can pray for God to work upon the hearts of others, but He will not force people against their own deepest will and heart position. Solomon stresses overmuch how God would keep or preserve the righteous (<a href='B:240 2:8'>Pro 2:8</a>; <a href='B:240 3:26'>Pro 3:26</a>), without recognizing the conditional aspect of this. Why did Solomon go wrong? His Proverbs are true enough, but he stresses that obedience to his wisdom and teaching would preserve his hearers (<a href='B:240 4:4'>Pro 4:4</a>; <a href='B:240 6:22'>Pro 6:22</a>; <a href='B:240 7:1'>Pro 7:1</a>; <a href='B:240 8:32'>Pro 8:32</a>; <a href='B:240 15:5'>Pro 15:5</a>), preservation was through following the example of the wise (<a href='B:240 2:20'>Pro 2:20</a>); rather than stressing obedience to God's ways, and replacing David his father's simple love of God with a love of academic wisdom: "Yahweh preserves all those who love Him" (<a href='B:230 145:20'>Psa 145:20</a>).</p>


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<p>6:23 For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light. Reproofs of instruction are the way of life-</p><p>The connection is with <a href='B:230 119:105'>Psa 119:105</a>: "Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light for my path". The "word" in view was the prophetic word that David would be king and Saul would be destroyed. Solomon reapplied this in <a href='B:240 6:23'>Pro 6:23</a>; but his legalism comes out, in that he changed "Your word" (of promise) to "the law" and the "commandments".</p>


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<p>6:24 to keep you from the immoral woman, from the flattery of the wayward wife’s tongue-</p><p>The&nbsp; blindness&nbsp; of&nbsp; Solomon&nbsp; is&nbsp; driven&nbsp; home time and again; he knew Divine truth, but the more he knew it, the more he lived the very opposite, failing to grasp the deeply personal relevance of truth to himself. A whole string of passages in Proverbs warn&nbsp;of&nbsp; the "strange" (AV) woman&nbsp; (<a href='B:240 2:16'>Pro 2:16</a>; <a href='B:240 5:20'>Pro 5:20</a>; <a href='B:240 6:24'>Pro 6:24</a>; <a href='B:240 7:5'>Pro 7:5</a>; <a href='B:240 20:16'>Pro 20:16</a>; <a href='B:240 23:27'>Pro 23:27</a>; <a href='B:240 27:13'>Pro 27:13</a>). Yet the very same word (translated "outlandish", AV) is&nbsp; used&nbsp; in&nbsp; <a href='B:160 13:26'>Neh 13:26</a> concerning&nbsp; the women Solomon married. The antidote&nbsp;to&nbsp; succumbing to the wicked woman was to have wisdom- according to Proverbs. And Solomon apparently had wisdom. Yet he succumbed to the wicked woman. He was writing Song of Solomon at the same time as Proverbs. The reason for this must be that Solomon didn't really have wisdom. Yet we know that he was given it in abundance. The resolution of this seems to be that Solomon asked&nbsp; for&nbsp; wisdom &nbsp;in&nbsp; order&nbsp; to&nbsp; lead&nbsp; Israel&nbsp; rather than for himself,&nbsp; he used that wisdom to judge Israel and to educate the surrounding&nbsp; nations:&nbsp; But&nbsp; none of it percolated to himself. As custodians&nbsp; of&nbsp; true&nbsp; doctrine-&nbsp; for&nbsp; that is what we are- we are likely to suffer from over familiarity with it. We can become so accustomed&nbsp; to 'handling' it, as we strengthen each other, as we preach,&nbsp; that&nbsp; the personal bearing of the Truth becomes totally lost&nbsp; upon us, as it was totally lost upon Solomon.</p>


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<p>6:25 Don’t lust after her beauty in your heart, neither let her captivate you with her eyelids-</p><p>The&nbsp; blindness&nbsp; of&nbsp; Solomon&nbsp; is&nbsp; driven&nbsp; home time and again. He warned&nbsp; the&nbsp; typical&nbsp; young&nbsp; man&nbsp; about&nbsp; being captivated by the eyelids of the Gentile woman (<a href='B:240 6:25'>Pro 6:25</a>); yet it was the eyes of Miss&nbsp; Egypt&nbsp; that&nbsp; he openly admitted stole his heart (<a href='B:260 4:9'>Son 4:9</a>; <a href='B:260 6:5'>Son 6:5</a>):&nbsp;</p><p>Solomon often emphasized the importance of keeping the heart (<a href='B:240 2:10-16'>Pro 2:10-16</a>; <a href='B:240 3:5-6'>Pro 3:5-6</a>; <a href='B:240 4:23'>Pro 4:23</a> to <a href='B:240 5:5'>Pro 5:5</a>; <a href='B:240 6:23-26'>Pro 6:23-26</a>); he had foreseen that the essential sin of God’s people was “the plague of his own heart” (<a href='B:110 8:46'>1Ki 8:46</a>), and he imagined how for this sin God’s people would later pray towards the temple. And yet his wives turned away his heart (<a href='B:110 11:13'>1Ki 11:13</a>), for all this awareness that the heart must be kept. It was as if the more he knew the truth of something, the more he wanted to do the very opposite. And this is exactly true of our natures. It’s why we ourselves can discern the same perversity in our lives. Perhaps with Solomon he reasoned that in his case, foreign wives wouldn’t turn away his heart. Just as our flesh thinks ‘Yes, but it can’t happen to me’. Perhaps too he reasoned that if the temple somehow could bring forgiveness for the plague of the heart, his heart was incorruptible because of the temple:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


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<p>6:26 For a prostitute reduces you to a piece of bread. The adulteress hunts for your precious life-</p><p>Truth&nbsp; flowed&nbsp; through&nbsp; Solomon's&nbsp; mouth&nbsp; with ease, but took no lodgment at all in his heart. Truth, absolute and pure, flows through our hands in such volume. Bible study after Bible study, chapter&nbsp; after&nbsp; chapter... But does it mean anything&nbsp; at&nbsp; all&nbsp; to us? <a href='B:240 6:26'>Pro 6:26</a> warns the young man that the Gentile woman will take his money and leave him destitute at the end. These words seem to be alluded to by Solomon years later in <a href='B:250 6:2'>Ecc 6:2</a>, where he laments that despite his wealth and success, a Gentile&nbsp; would have it all after his death. He saw in later life that&nbsp; his&nbsp; warnings&nbsp; to&nbsp; the young men of Israel had been in the form of painting a picture of a typical young man who epitomized youthful&nbsp; folly;&nbsp; but&nbsp; now&nbsp; he&nbsp; saw&nbsp; that&nbsp; he&nbsp; had been making a detailed prophecy of himself.</p>


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<p>6:27 Can a man scoop fire into his lap, and his clothes not be burned?-</p><p>He soberly warns against the strange (i:e. Gentile) woman, observing that a man cannot take this kind of fire into his bosom and not be burned by it. Yet this is exactly what he was doing at the time he wrote that. His public removal of his Egyptian wife from the house of David "because the places are holy" (<a href='B:140 8:11'>2Ch 8:11</a>) is therefore to be seen as spiritual pride, appearing to do the right thing, when his heart was far from it. Burning clothes is the phrase used about what was to be done to the leper (<a href='B:30 13:52'>Lev 13:52</a>; <a href='B:30 13:57'>Lev 13:57</a>). The adulterer would be treated by others as a leper.</p>


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<p>6:28 Or can one walk on hot coals, and his feet not be scorched?-</p><p>This is exactly what Solomon thought he could do with women. And he was scorched, a figure for condemnation. "Hot coals" is the word used to figuratively describe condemnation (<a href='B:230 120:4'>Psa 120:4</a>; <a href='B:230 140:10'>Psa 140:10</a>; <a href='B:240 25:22'>Pro 25:22</a>; <a href='B:240 26:21'>Pro 26:21</a>). The man who gets involved with sexual sin reasons that he can tip toe over condemnation without being destroyed or his clothes catching fire (<a href='B:240 6:27'>Pro 6:27</a>). A sober warning of the psychology of all human sin.</p>


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<p>6:29 So is he who goes in to his neighbour’s wife-</p><p>When he warns his son not to go in to his neighbour’s wife, this may be thought to be looking back to his parents’ failure; for Bathsheba was the literal neighbour to David, living next door to his palace. But Solomon so glorifies his parents that I wonder if in fact he had so whitewashed their behaviour in his own mind that he is, as it were, unaware of how he was sounding. He may have been genuinely convinced they had done nothing wrong, and it was all a case of fake news and slander. Despite David's psalms of penitence.</p><p>Whoever touches her will not be unpunished-</p><p>The book of Proverbs outlines the basis upon which Solomon was to judge Israel. This can be read as Solomon warning that he would not show any grace to a man who went in to his neighbour's wife. But he was only conceived by David because God had not punished David as that iniquity deserved. We see here Solomon's utter refusal to accept grace, or to reflect the grace shown to his family to others. His harsh legalism leads me to conclude that he had [in his own mind] whitewashed his parents as if their sin had never happened.</p>


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<p>6:30 Men don’t despise a thief, if he steals to satisfy himself when he is hungry-</p><p>Solomon is arguing that there is utterly no excuse for adultery, and therefore he will always prosecute it to the ultimate term; he is arguing that adultery with the woman next door is just inexcusable for any reason. As noted on :29, he is totally hardened by his legalism to any kind of grace; were it not for the grace shown to his father, David would have died before Solomon was even conceived.</p>


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<p>6:31 but if he is found, he shall restore seven times. He shall give all the wealth of his house-</p><p>The wealth or substance of a man's house is the phrase used in <a href='B:240 1:13'>Pro 1:13</a>, of those who fill their houses with wealth by violence. Solomon presents a perhaps simplistic caricature of the wicked; they use violence, steal, commit adultery etc. And the righteous are consistently wise and righteous, according to Proverbs. Whereas in reality, sin and righteousness is far more subtle. A man like Solomon's father David was righteous and yet also sinned.</p>


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<p>6:32 He who commits adultery with a woman is void of understanding. He who does it destroys his own soul-</p><p>Solomon didn't commit adultery, but he sinned sexually by taking 1000 wives / concubines, who were Gentiles and idolaters. As so often happens, people who fail in the general area of sexuality love to focus upon the specific sins of others in that general area which they themselves have not committed. This is classic human psychology. Solomon is ever glorifying his father David, and he appears to not consider David and his own mother to have committed adultery. Yet he so openly justifies David, whilst condemning adultery in the strongest terms. It seems to me that he had found a way of whitewashing his parents' sin, as so many tend to do in various areas. Solomon simply fails to perceive that God's true people sin as do other sinners; it is faith in grace which makes the difference. But Solomon doesn't perceive this critical nuance. His father David had understanding, but committed adultery. So Solomon's simplistic worldview, whereby the world is divided between stellar examples of spirituality on one hand and vile criminal sinners on the other, is shown to be bankrupt and at best unrealistic.</p>


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<p>6:33 He will get wounds and dishonour, his reproach will not be wiped away-</p><p>This is indeed what happened to Solomon's father David; but I have argued on :29-32 that Solomon doesn't consciously have David's experience in view. His Proverbs often subtly criticize his half brothers and all who had been problematic for David after his sin with Bathsheba. Solomon sees their behaviour as solely their fault and lack of wisdom. He doesn't accept any of that behaviour was in fact provoked by the sins of David his father.</p>


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<p>6:34 For jealousy arouses the fury of the husband. He won’t spare in the day of vengeance-</p><p>Solomon seems to be saying that such refusal by the husband to pity / spare in the day of judgment is the attitude he will uphold as the judge (see on :29). Solomon is out of step with his father David, who spared Saul and his family (s:w. <a href='B:90 23:21'>1Sa 23:21</a>; <a href='B:100 21:7'>2Sa 21:7</a>); and was condemned because he showed no pity / sparing to Uriah in taking his wife (s:w. <a href='B:100 12:4'>2Sa 12:4</a>; <a href='B:100 12:6'>2Sa 12:6</a>). Refusal to accept the reality of sin and God's consequent grace makes people harsh in their judgments.</p>


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<p>6:35 He won’t regard any ransom, neither will he rest content, though you give many gifts-</p><p>I suggested on :34 that Solomon is saying that the husband's insistence upon the death penalty rather than any "ransom" will be eagerly upheld by him in judgment (:29). David his father committed murder, for which no ransom was to be accepted (s:w. <a href='B:40 35:31'>Num 35:31</a>). But God spared David by grace. And God does constantly ransom / redeem hopeless sinners from condemnation; this was what led Him to give His Son for the world's redemption. "Ransom" is a form of the Hebrew word for covering or atonement. But the very core of God's gracious operation with men was not appreciated by Solomon at all, and his technical wisdom only led him to deny this grace.</p>


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<p>s 7:1 My son, keep my words. Lay up my commandments within you-</p><p>Proverbs contains a number of Samson allusions (16:32; 25:28). But the most powerful are in 7:1,5,22,25-27, where the young Israelite is commended to God's word, because this will keep him from falling to the wiles of the Gentile woman, who throws down strong men into the way of miserable death. Solomon evidently writes with allusion to Samson; that here was the man who loved God's word, and yet went so astray with women. And tragically enough, Solomon himself did just the same! He realized and lamented the tragedy of Samson, as a lover of the word who fell for the Gentile woman; and then, with all his wisdom, he did the very same thing! Here, for all to see, is the crucial difference between knowledge and faith. </p><p>Solomon seems to allude to David hiding God's word in his heart (<a href='B:230 119:11'>Psa 119:11</a>) by asking his son to hide his word in his heart (s:w. <a href='B:240 2:1'>Pro 2:1</a>; <a href='B:240 7:1'>Pro 7:1</a>). Again Solomon is putting his own words in the place of God's words. Whilst his wisdom was inspired by God, I detect something wrong here. He is effectively playing God, and not directing people to God's word but rather to his own words, true and inspired as they might be. This came to full term in Solomon's attitude that personal loyalty to himself was loyalty to God- even when Solomon was far from God in his ways. And the same trap is fallen into by those who hold parts of 'God's truth'; they can come to thereby play God and demand personal loyalty to themselves rather than to God:&nbsp;</p><p>Solomon's prophetic sonship of David was conditional upon him preserving or observing Yahweh's ways (<a href='B:110 2:4'>1Ki 2:4</a>; <a href='B:130 22:13'>1Ch 22:13</a>; <a href='B:140 7:17'>2Ch 7:17</a>); but he didn't preserve of observe them (<a href='B:110 11:10-11'>1Ki 11:10-11</a>); despite David praying that Solomon would be given a heart to observe them (<a href='B:130 29:19'>1Ch 29:19</a>). We can pray for God to work upon the hearts of others, but He will not force people against their own deepest will and heart position. Solomon stresses overmuch how God would keep or preserve the righteous (<a href='B:240 2:8'>Pro 2:8</a>; <a href='B:240 3:26'>Pro 3:26</a>), without recognizing the conditional aspect of this. Why did Solomon go wrong? His Proverbs are true enough, but he stresses that obedience to his wisdom and teaching would preserve his hearers (<a href='B:240 4:4'>Pro 4:4</a>; <a href='B:240 6:22'>Pro 6:22</a>; <a href='B:240 7:1'>Pro 7:1</a>; <a href='B:240 8:32'>Pro 8:32</a>; <a href='B:240 15:5'>Pro 15:5</a>), preservation was through following the example of the wise (<a href='B:240 2:20'>Pro 2:20</a>); rather than stressing obedience to God's ways, and replacing David his father's simple love of God with a love of academic wisdom: "Yahweh preserves all those who love Him" (<a href='B:230 145:20'>Psa 145:20</a>).</p>


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<p>s 7:2 Keep my commandments and live! Guard my teaching as the apple of your eye-</p><p>David so often talks about God's "law", using the word torah. But Solomon so often speaks of his own torah, and that of his wife, the mother of "my son" (s:w. <a href='B:240 1:8'>Pro 1:8</a>; <a href='B:240 3:1'>Pro 3:1</a>; <a href='B:240 4:2'>Pro 4:2</a>; <a href='B:240 6:20'>Pro 6:20</a>; <a href='B:240 7:2'>Pro 7:2</a>; <a href='B:240 13:14'>Pro 13:14</a>; <a href='B:240 31:26'>Pro 31:26</a>). Yet elsewhere in the Bible, the well over 200 occurrences of torah are always about God's law. Solomon applies the word to his own teachings and that of his wife, and thereby plays God. whilst it could be argued that Solomon's teachings were Divinely inspired, all the same he ought surely to have spoken of them as God's torah rather than his own torah. This kind of playing God is seen so often in the teachers of God's people.</p><p>David had taught his children with the words: “Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord” (<a href='B:230 34:11'>Psa 34:11</a> - did David say this to his children every evening?). And Solomon uses just the same words, even whilst disobeying God’s law at the same time in his own life. He repeats these very words of David when teaching his own son: “My son, keep [retain] my words</p><p> keep my commandments and live” (<a href='B:240 7:1-2'>Pro 7:1-2</a>). The idea of keeping commandments in order to live is a reference back to the many Deuteronomy passages where Moses pleads with Israel to keep God’s commands and live. But Solomon came to perceive his father David’s commands as those of God, and in his generation he watered this down in his own mind until he assumed that his commands to his children were to be treated by them as the law of God- no matter how far he had strayed himself from God’s law. It’s a gripping, frightening psychology.</p>


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<p>s 7:3 Bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart-</p><p>Often in Proverbs Solomon uses the language of the blessings for keeping God’s law and turns them into the blessings for keeping his law; e.g. “My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye. Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart” (<a href='B:240 7:1-3'>Pro 7:1-3</a> AV). And we all do the same in essence, whenever we assume that our consciences are effectively the will of God; when we ‘play God’ by allowing our words and will to count as if they are His word.</p><p>The idea is that devotion to the covenant should be externally visible as well as in the heart. But the New Testament emphasizes that it is God who writes upon the table of the human heart by His Spirit (<a href='B:540 3:3'>2Co 3:3</a>). Solomon assumes that by intellectual effort, man can do this to himself. There could be the implication that Solomon considered that his Proverbs had now replaced the tables of the covenant; the same word is used. See on <a href='B:240 3:1-2'>Pro 3:1-2</a>.</p>


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<p>s 7:4 Tell wisdom, You are my sister. Call understanding your relative-</p><p>"Relative" translates a Hebrew word which occurs only in <a href='B:80 2:1'>Rth 2:1</a> about a relative who has the power to redeem. Solomon misses the point that redemption is by grace through faith, as explained on <a href='B:240 6:35'>Pro 6:35</a>. He thinks that the mere possession of intellectual truth, what he terms "wisdom", will be enough to redeem a person. This attitude to Divine truth led him to personal spiritual disaster, as it has so many.</p>


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<p>s 7:5 that they may keep you from the strange woman, from the foreigner who flatters with her words-</p><p>The&nbsp; blindness&nbsp; of&nbsp; Solomon&nbsp; is&nbsp; driven&nbsp; home time and again; he knew Divine truth, but the more he knew it, the more he lived the very opposite, failing to grasp the deeply personal relevance of truth to himself. A whole string of passages in Proverbs warn&nbsp;of&nbsp; the&nbsp; "strange" woman&nbsp; (<a href='B:240 2:16'>Pro 2:16</a>; <a href='B:240 5:20'>Pro 5:20</a>; <a href='B:240 6:24'>Pro 6:24</a>; <a href='B:240 7:5'>Pro 7:5</a>; <a href='B:240 20:16'>Pro 20:16</a>; <a href='B:240 23:27'>Pro 23:27</a>; <a href='B:240 27:13'>Pro 27:13</a>). Yet the very same word (translated "outlandish", AV) is&nbsp; used&nbsp; in&nbsp; <a href='B:160 13:26'>Neh 13:26</a> concerning&nbsp; the women Solomon married. The antidote&nbsp;to&nbsp; succumbing to the wicked woman was to have wisdom- according to Proverbs. And Solomon apparently had wisdom. Yet he succumbed to the wicked woman. He was writing Song of Solomon at the same time as Proverbs. The reason for this must be that Solomon didn't really have wisdom. Yet we know that he was given it in abundance. The resolution of this seems to be that Solomon asked&nbsp; for&nbsp; wisdom &nbsp;in&nbsp; order&nbsp; to&nbsp; lead&nbsp; Israel&nbsp; rather than for himself,&nbsp; he used that wisdom to judge Israel and to educate the surrounding&nbsp; nations:&nbsp; But&nbsp; none of it percolated to himself. As custodians&nbsp; of&nbsp; true&nbsp; doctrine-&nbsp; for&nbsp; that is what we are- we are likely to suffer from over familiarity with it. We can become so accustomed&nbsp; to 'handling' it, as we strengthen each other, as we preach,&nbsp; that&nbsp; the personal bearing of the Truth becomes totally lost&nbsp; upon us, as it was totally lost upon Solomon.</p><p>Solomon here argues as if mere intellectual assent to the truths he was teaching would keep a man safe from sexual temptation. But Solomon himself possessed all this truth and failed miserably in this area (see on :21).</p>


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<p>s 7:6 For at the window of my house I looked out through my lattice-</p><p>Solomon here claims that he had come to his conclusions by his observations, although one wonders if he is speaking literal truth about the incident he claims to be reporting. It is perhaps significant that he doesn't claim this to be part of the package of Divine wisdom given to him; rather he says he worked this out from his own observations. He does the same in <a href='B:240 24:30-32'>Pro 24:30-32</a>, where his conclusions [see notes there] were not correct. We may conclude that in this anthology he is mixing Divine wisdom with his own pet issues.</p><p>Solomon in <a href='B:240 7:6'>Pro 7:6</a> likens himself to a wise man looking out through his lattice window and noticing a man going astray with a woman. But the precise figure is used in <a href='B:260 2:9'>Son 2:9</a> for how his illicit, paganic Gentile girlfriend found his doing this to be so attractive, if not somehow erotic. The connection shows how totally confused Solomon was in his personal spirituality.</p>


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<p>s 7:7 I saw among the simple ones. I discerned among the youths a young man void of understanding-</p><p>This singles out a particular "young man" [s:w. "child"] who was lacking in "heart", whose folly stood out from that of the other "simple ones". These may well refer to the 200 'simple ones' who went with Absalom in his rebellion against David (<a href='B:100 15:11'>2Sa 15:11</a>). One of them was particularly singled out here by Solomon as being foolish. And it's no accident that David calls Absalom "the young man [s:w. "child"] Absalom" (<a href='B:100 14:21'>2Sa 14:21</a>; <a href='B:100 18:5'>2Sa 18:5</a>; <a href='B:100 18:12'>2Sa 18:12</a>; <a href='B:100 18:29'>2Sa 18:29</a>; <a href='B:100 18:32'>2Sa 18:32</a>). "Young man" was perhaps David's term of endearment for Absalom. The same "young man" [s:w. "child"] may be in view also in <a href='B:240 22:15'>Pro 22:15</a> - see notes there.</p>


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<p>s 7:8 passing through the street near her corner, he went the way to her house-</p><p>The idea is of furtive movement; and she herself lurked at the corners (:12). The impression is that he met her on the corner, and they arranged to meet later at her house that evening.</p>


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<p>s 7:9 in the twilight, in the evening of the day, in the middle of the night and in the darkness-</p><p>Solomon is therefore claiming that he made these observations throughout a period of many hours, stretching from evening to midnight (:6):&nbsp;</p>


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<p>7:10 Behold, there a woman met him with the attire of a prostitute, and with crafty intent-</p><p>AV "subtil of heart". This is a phrase used positively a heart which keeps to God's word (<a href='B:230 119:69'>Psa 119:69</a>; <a href='B:240 3:1'>Pro 3:1</a>; <a href='B:240 4:23'>Pro 4:23</a>; <a href='B:240 23:26'>Pro 23:26</a> etc:). The idea is being developed that this sinful woman is a parody of the righteous woman called wisdom:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>7:11 She is loud and defiant. Her feet don’t stay in her house-</p><p>Just as the woman wisdom "loudly" proclaims her truths on the streets. This woman is a conscious parody of the righteous woman. We note that Solomon considered that the wise woman does stay in her house, whereas the sinful woman doesn't. This appears to be Solomon's chauvinism rather than true wisdom. For he then presents the woman wisdom as being publically on the streets pleading with men to turn in to her wisdom.</p>


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<p>7:12 Now she is in the streets, now in the squares, and lurking at every corner-</p><p>See on :8,11. "Lie in wait" is the word for ambush. Solomon often uses the word, as if it is for him a major characteristic of sinners (<a href='B:240 1:11'>Pro 1:11</a>; <a href='B:240 1:18'>Pro 1:18</a>; <a href='B:240 7:12'>Pro 7:12</a>; <a href='B:240 12:6'>Pro 12:6</a>; <a href='B:240 23:28'>Pro 23:28</a>; <a href='B:240 24:15'>Pro 24:15</a>). But it's a rather specific word to use so often. It's as if Solomon is consciously alluding to his father's experiences at the hands of the house of Saul (s:w. <a href='B:230 10:9'>Psa 10:9</a>; <a href='B:230 59:3'>Psa 59:3</a>), whom Solomon considered a threat to his own kingship. And so he seems to rather like using the term about sinners, as if using his wisdom to have a dig at his immediate opposition.</p>


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<p>7:13 So she caught him, and kissed him. With an impudent face she said to him-</p><p>See on :27. She catches him in parody of how the good woman wisdom takes hold of righteous men (as in Php_3:12). Likewise "impudent" is the word for 'to strengthen', used in <a href='B:250 7:19'>Ecc 7:19</a> of how wisdom strengths the wise.</p>


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<p>7:14 Sacrifices of peace offerings are with me. This day I have paid my vows-</p><p>Her references to her obedience to the Mosaic law are understandable once we perceive how she is a parody of the wise woman "wisdom" (see on :11,13,15-17,19,20; <a href='B:240 9:17'>Pro 9:17</a>). Her attraction is because she claims to be obedient to the requirements of Israel's God. I will note throughout the Song of Solomon that Solomon likewise sees his idolatrous, Gentile girlfriend as righteous, presenting her in the terms of Israel; when her heart was far from it. And this was what finally led the young man Solomon to his destruction. Again and again, we see Solomon going the way of the foolish which he laments and points out at such length. He failed to personalize wisdom, to see the conditional nature of his standing before God, and his possession of theoretical truth led him to never examine himself.</p>


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<p>7:15 Therefore I came out to meet you, to diligently seek your face, and I have found you-</p><p>This again parodies the way wisdom seeks and finds wise men (s:w. <a href='B:240 8:17'>Pro 8:17</a>); or rather they seek and find her. But Solomon appears to draw a contrast between the whore seeking and finding the man, and the wise woman being sought and found by men. But Solomon fails to perceive that God by grace is in search of man, and indeed He had searched for and found Solomon's father David (<a href='B:230 89:20'>Psa 89:20</a>). Solomon really understands nothing of the grace by which God works constantly in practice. See on :18.</p>


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<p>7:16 I have spread my couch with carpets of tapestry, with striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt-</p><p>This woman Solomon warns of appears to want to serve Yahweh, and presents herself in the very language of the tabernacle (<a href='B:240 7:14'>Pro 7:14</a>; <a href='B:240 7:16-17'>Pro 7:16-17</a>). And yet Solomon goes and falls for just such a woman. One can only conclude that the more true spiritual knowledge we have, the more prone we are to do the very opposite. Such is our nature.</p>


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<p>7:17 I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon-</p><p>The Proverbs so frequently refer to the dangers of the house of the Gentile woman; yet the Song shows the Egyptian girl dearly wishing that Solomon would come with her into her house. And&nbsp; Solomon,&nbsp; just&nbsp; like&nbsp; the foolish young man he wrote about, went right ahead down the road to spiritual disaster he so often warned others about. He warns the young man of the dangers of the Egyptian woman who perfumes her bed with myrrh (<a href='B:240 7:16-17'>Pro 7:16-17</a>)- and then falls for just such a woman (<a href='B:230 45:8'>Psa 45:8</a>).</p>


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<p>7:18 Come, let’s take our fill of loving until the morning. Let’s solace ourselves with loving-</p><p>The whore offers her "love" to the man, whereas Solomon presents the wise woman wisdom as only loving those who first love her (<a href='B:240 8:17'>Pro 8:17</a>; see on :15). Again, Solomon has it all wrong. It is not man's search for intellectual truth about God which is the initial spark in the Divine-human encounter. The opposite is the case. It is not that we loved God first, but rather that God first loved us (<a href='B:690 4:19'>1Jn 4:19</a>).</p>


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<p>7:19 For my husband isn’t at home. He has gone on a long journey-</p><p>Verse 11 has described the woman as not staying at home. Solomon's idea is that the woman who has no husband at home will go out of her home to look for sex. This could reflect a rather crude chauvinism. Perhaps he ignored the Biblical warnings that women would turn away his heart from God because he considered that women had no real power. He built houses for his wives and made them stay at home. The man who goes away on a long journey is used by the Lord for the basis of His parables of the man who goes to a far country (<a href='B:470 21:33'>Mat 21:33</a>; <a href='B:470 25:14'>Mat 25:14</a>). This continues the theme developed in earlier verses, that this woman is a parody of true spirituality. But there is a twist; see on :20.</p>


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<p>7:20 He has taken a bag of money with him; he will come home at the full moon-</p><p>I suggested on :19 that the Lord in His parables of the man taking a journey was as it were deconstructing the language here, to confirm that the woman is a fake believer. In His stories, the man doesn't take his money with him, but rather gives it to his servants to manage (<a href='B:470 25:14'>Mat 25:14</a>). The woman gives the impression that her husband has taken money with him to enjoy himself, perhaps with other women, and again the Lord may have this in mind in the construction of the parable of the prodigal son who likewise leaves his home with money. The promise that he will return "at the full moon" suggests this family is observant of the Mosaic feasts. Again, the woman gives the impression of spirituality and devotion to the Mosaic law, externally. See on :14.</p>


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<p>7:21 With persuasive words she led him astray-</p><p>"Persuasive words" is the word usually translated doctrine or teaching, always used about the teaching of wisdom (<a href='B:240 1:5'>Pro 1:5</a>; <a href='B:240 4:2'>Pro 4:2</a>; <a href='B:240 9:9'>Pro 9:9</a>; <a href='B:240 16:21'>Pro 16:21</a> etc:). Again, the woman is presented as the antithesis of the wise woman wisdom. They both teach, but the whore's teaching leads astray. This contrast between such women is found in Revelation, where the whore is the antithesis of the bride of Christ. "Led him astray" is the very term used of how Solomon's wives turned his heart astray from God (<a href='B:110 11:4'>1Ki 11:4</a>; <a href='B:110 11:9'>1Ki 11:9</a>). The more Solomon knew Divine truth, the more he seems to have considered himself free to ignore it and in fact do the very opposite. He clearly thought that mere possession of that truth was the basis for his justification, and dismissed any idea of self examination or awareness that he might in fact personally fail in obedience.</p><p>With the flattering of her lips, she seduced him-</p><p>Solomon in :5 argues as if mere intellectual assent to the truths he was teaching would keep a man safe from sexual temptation and the flattery of bad women. But Solomon himself possessed all this truth and failed miserably in this area. The Hebrew literally refers to the smoothness of her lips; and Solomon admired the smoothness of the lips of his illicit Gentile girlfriend (s:w. <a href='B:260 4:3'>Son 4:3</a>; <a href='B:260 4:11'>Son 4:11</a>; <a href='B:260 7:9'>Son 7:9</a>). Again we see Solomon doing the exact opposite of the wisdom and theoretical truth he was blessed with.</p>


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<p>7:22 He followed her immediately, as an ox goes to the slaughter, as a fool stepping into a noose-</p><p>As explained on :21, this is exactly what happened to Solomon. AV "As a fool to the correction of the stocks". Solomon has so much to say about "correction" or instruction coming from the possession of wisdom (<a href='B:240 8:10'>Pro 8:10</a>; <a href='B:240 8:33'>Pro 8:33</a>; <a href='B:240 10:17'>Pro 10:17</a>; <a href='B:240 12:1'>Pro 12:1</a>; <a href='B:240 13:1'>Pro 13:1</a>; <a href='B:240 13:24'>Pro 13:24</a>; <a href='B:240 15:5'>Pro 15:5</a>; <a href='B:240 15:10'>Pro 15:10</a>; <a href='B:240 15:32'>Pro 15:32</a>; <a href='B:240 16:22'>Pro 16:22</a>; <a href='B:240 19:20'>Pro 19:20</a>; <a href='B:240 19:27'>Pro 19:27</a>; <a href='B:240 22:15'>Pro 22:15</a>; <a href='B:240 23:12-13'>Pro 23:12-13</a>). But in the end he chastised or corrected his people by whipping them (s:w. <a href='B:110 12:11'>1Ki 12:11</a>; <a href='B:110 12:14'>1Ki 12:14</a>). Solomon initially asked for wisdom in order to guide his people, but he ended up whipping / physically chastising them into conformity with his wishes rather than allowing wisdom to correct. Again, he was playing God; for it is God through His wisdom who chastises, and not man. But Solomon thought he was effectively God to his people. This is why Solomon argues that servants cannot be corrected by words (<a href='B:240 29:19'>Pro 29:19</a> s:w:), and a child must be physically chastised (s:w. <a href='B:240 19:18'>Pro 19:18</a>; <a href='B:240 29:17'>Pro 29:17</a> cp. <a href='B:240 13:24'>Pro 13:24</a>; <a href='B:240 23:13'>Pro 23:13</a>), regardless of his screams of pain. This kind of thing is a denial of his claims elsewhere that it is Divine wisdom which chastises / corrects, and such correction is from God and not man. Solomon's final description of himself as an old and foolish king who refuses to be admonished says it all (<a href='B:250 4:13'>Ecc 4:13</a>); he admonishes others (s:w. <a href='B:250 12:12'>Ecc 12:12</a>), but refuses to be admonished or corrected by his own wisdom. He failed to personalize it.</p>


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<p>7:23 Until an arrow strikes through his liver, as a bird hurries to the snare, and doesn’t know that it will cost his life-</p><p>The language of snares alludes to Solomon's father David, asking to be saved from such snares (<a href='B:230 141:9'>Psa 141:9</a>) and rejoicing that he and God's people had been (<a href='B:230 124:7'>Psa 124:7</a>). The initial reference may have been to Saul laying snares for David through getting him to marry his daughters and thereby seeking to kill him; and in <a href='B:230 119:110'>Psa 119:110</a> David is proud he has not fallen into those snares. Solomon likewise is hinting that the family of Saul, who were still his political opponents, were not better than gentile whores, and he didn't want his own family to intermarry with them. But Psalms 119 finishes with David saying bluntly that he has "gone astray" (<a href='B:230 119:176'>Psa 119:176</a>), as if to say that earlier he had far overrated his own obedience to God's law.</p><p>In Proverbs, Solomon is continually alluding positively to his father's words. But in <a href='B:250 9:12'>Ecc 9:12</a> he alludes to those words cynically. Solomon seems to be cynically commenting that all men are finally snared in death. Earlier Solomon had warned about avoiding spiritual snares (<a href='B:240 7:23'>Pro 7:23</a>; <a href='B:240 22:5'>Pro 22:5</a>), but finally in <a href='B:250 9:12'>Ecc 9:12</a> he concludes that death is the unavoidable snare; and therefore all attempts to avoid being morally snared into sin are ultimately vain. He came to this perspective because he failed to fully grasp the hope of the resurrection of the body at the last day. He thought he would have the Kingdom now, and this led to his rejection of the Gospel of the Kingdom and its moral implications:&nbsp;</p><p>In <a href='B:250 9:12'>Ecc 9:12</a>&nbsp; he&nbsp; says&nbsp; that he suffered the fate of all men in that soon&nbsp; he would die, he would suddenly be caught like a bird in a snare,&nbsp; although&nbsp; he knew not his time. These are the very ideas of&nbsp; <a href='B:240 7:23'>Pro 7:23</a> AV&nbsp; concerning the snaring of the simple young man by the&nbsp; Gentile woman: "As a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life". But here he presents the Gentile woman is a snare leading to death. But <a href='B:250 9:12'>Ecc 9:12</a> shows Solomon claiming that death is a&nbsp; snare brought about by time and chance; he thereby minimalized the sin of marriage out of&nbsp; the faith:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>7:24 Now therefore, sons, listen to me. Pay attention to the words of my mouth-</p><p>If we "attend" to God's word (<a href='B:240 2:2'>Pro 2:2</a>; <a href='B:240 4:1'>Pro 4:1</a>; <a href='B:240 7:24'>Pro 7:24</a>), then He will "attend" to our word, of prayer (<a href='B:230 55:2'>Psa 55:2</a> and often in the Psalms). There is thereby a mutuality between God and man. Our attitude to His word becomes reflected in His attitude to our words in prayer; for God and man are in dialogue.</p><p>He spoke of his law as giving life and blessing, appropriating the very terms of Deuteronomy about the blessings of obedience to God’s law. Wisdom said: “Now therefore my sons, hearken unto me: for blessed are they that keep my ways” (<a href='B:240 8:32'>Pro 8:32</a> RV). Yet these are the very words Solomon uses when talking to his kids: “Now therefore my sons, hearken unto me” (<a href='B:240 5:7'>Pro 5:7</a>; <a href='B:240 7:24'>Pro 7:24</a>). Conclusion? Solomon sees the woman “Wisdom” as a personification of himself:&nbsp;&nbsp; It was really Solomon's self-justification. He personally was wisdom, so he thought. This is how self-exalted his possession of true wisdom made him. And of course, his kids didn’t listen to wisdom’s way. In passing, I have noted that those raised ‘in the truth’ often find it very hard to take criticism in later life. They find tolerance of others’ views hard; they perceive themselves to be right to an intolerant extent. Is this not a little bit of the Solomon syndrome?&nbsp;</p>


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<p>7:25 Don’t let your heart turn to her ways. Don’t go astray in her paths-</p><p>The young man's heart&nbsp; was made to go astray because of her, and her house&nbsp; led him to death (<a href='B:240 7:27'>Pro 7:27</a>). Miss Egypt caused Solomon's heart&nbsp; to&nbsp; go astray (<a href='B:110 11:1-4'>1Ki 11:1-4</a>), he built her a house, and her house became an idol temple which destroyed Solomon's faith. Yet&nbsp; Solomon&nbsp; warned&nbsp; the&nbsp; young men of Israel all about this in Proverbs 7; and he even pointed out that such a woman would have all the&nbsp; outward&nbsp; trappings&nbsp; of&nbsp; Yahweh&nbsp; worship; she would claim an enthusiasm&nbsp; for&nbsp; keeping&nbsp; peace&nbsp; offerings and vows (<a href='B:240 7:14'>Pro 7:14</a>). Solomon&nbsp; was&nbsp; the&nbsp; young&nbsp; man&nbsp; whose picture he was painting.</p>


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<p>7:26 for she has thrown down many wounded. Yes, all her slain are a mighty army-</p><p>Solomon had seen many good men destroyed by bad women, a whole army of them. And yet he went that same way. Knowledge of theoretical truth, observation of the sad path of others... is all not enough. There must be a humble personalization of wisdom, which only comes from throwing ourselves upon God's grace, experiencing that grace, and wanting to respond to it in a life and thought pattern in conformity to His will and way. But Solomon hadn't known any of that.</p>


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<p>7:27 Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the rooms of death-</p><p>Solomon's wisdom was given to him as a young man, and the book of Proverbs appears to be collections of the various statements of that wisdom. But about the same time, he also got involved with multiple Gentile women who led him astray from God and to idolatry. The very warnings he gives against the adulteress and Gentile woman were ignored by him; he became the young man who went wrong with women. His girlfriend speaks in the very language of the Gentile woman of Proverbs: "I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house... into her chamber" (<a href='B:260 3:4'>Son 3:4</a>). Compare this with "She caught him... come not near the door of her house... her house... the chambers of death" (<a href='B:240 7:13'>Pro 7:13</a>; <a href='B:240 7:27'>Pro 7:27</a>; <a href='B:240 5:8'>Pro 5:8</a>). We see here the warning for all time; that we can know God's ways in theory, whilst disobeying them in practice, absolutely to the letter. Indeed it may be so that the more we know them, the more strongly we are tempted by our nature to break them.</p>


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<p>s 8:1 Doesn’t wisdom cry out? Doesn’t understanding raise her voice?-</p><p>These are the very words used of how man is to cry out and raise his voice for wisdom and understanding (<a href='B:240 2:3'>Pro 2:3</a>). The idea is that God's wisdom and understanding is crying out to those who are crying out for it. There is thus a mutuality between God and man. And the old Yiddish proverb comes true: "And going out to find Him / I met Him coming towards me". God is in search of man, and true man is in search for God. And when they meet, there is that electric spark, parties in Heaven celebrating the reconnection.</p>


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<p>s 8:2 On the top of high places by the way, where the paths meet, she stands-</p><p>The crying out of wisdom in Proverbs is alluded to by the Lord as the pattern for our appealing to men and women. A feast is prepared by wisdom, and she sends out people to invite others to come in to it (<a href='B:240 9:1-3'>Pro 9:1-3</a>)- clearly the basis for the Lord's parable about the King's feast. Those who reject these invitations sin against their own souls (<a href='B:240 8:36'>Pro 8:36</a>)- just as those who reject our witness reject the appeal of God against themselves (<a href='B:490 7:30'>Luk 7:30</a>). Wisdom appeals to people "where the paths meet" (<a href='B:240 8:2'>Pro 8:2</a> RV), just as the Lord taught that our witness to people places them at a 'crossroad', whereby they have to decide for or against their God. In this context my point is that the appeal of "wisdom" in Proverbs is in a spirit of urgency- an urgency inspired by the ultimate seriousness of the message, and the fact that there are only two paths in Proverbs which men can chose. It's either eternal life or eternal death, the way of wisdom or folly, obedience to the call of the woman wisdom or to the call of the harlot. There's no third way- and this should be the spirit of our witness. Insofar as we appreciate the ultimate eternity of the issues we're preaching about, so we will find a power of urgency that somehow appeals to people and compels them.</p>


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<p>s 8:3 Beside the gates, at the entry of the city, at the entry doors, she cries aloud-</p><p>The wise woman wisdom is presented here as the antithesis of the whore described in Proverbs 7, who is also seen outside, crying aloud to men. They both teach, but the whore's teaching leads astray. This contrast between such women is found in Revelation, where the whore is the antithesis of the bride of Christ:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>s 8:4 To you people I call! I send my voice to the sons of mankind-</p><p>The call or cry of wisdom is presented as in response to the cry of the believer for wisdom (s:w. <a href='B:240 2:3'>Pro 2:3</a>; <a href='B:240 7:4'>Pro 7:4</a>). There is a mutuality between God and man. We search for God, yet God is in search of man. And when we meet, there is that electric spark spoken of in the parables of Luke 15, whereby Heaven and earth are united together in an electric spark of joy at finding each other. Solomon parallels "the sons of mankind", people generally, with simple fools (:5). Whilst there is an element of truth in this from a spiritual angle, we also get the impression that Solomon despises people generally, leading him to abuse his own people at the end of his reign, whipping them into submission, as they were to complain of at his death.</p>


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<p>s 8:5 You simple, understand prudence. You fools, be of an understanding heart-</p><p>See on :4. David likens himself to the simple who was made wise by God's word (<a href='B:230 19:7'>Psa 19:7</a>; <a href='B:230 119:130'>Psa 119:130</a>), and was therefore preserved (<a href='B:230 116:6'>Psa 116:6</a>). To be taught by God's word we have to become "simple", unlearning and placing to one side all our perceived knowledge and understandings. Solomon repeats David's theme by saying that wisdom makes wise the simple (<a href='B:240 1:4'>Pro 1:4</a>; <a href='B:240 8:5'>Pro 8:5</a>; <a href='B:240 9:4'>Pro 9:4</a>). But he is equating "wisdom" with the words of God, although for Solomon, "wisdom" seems to be what he is saying and teaching. Solomon doesn't direct his listeners back to God's word, as David did, but rather towards loyalty to his teaching. Inspired as it was, his lack of extended reference to God's law places his own teaching of "wisdom" above that law. This is in sharp contrast to David's attitude in Psalms 119.</p>


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<p>s 8:6 Hear, for I will speak excellent things. The opening of my lips is for right things-</p><p>The woman wisdom's lips and words are contrasted with those of the whore in <a href='B:240 7:21'>Pro 7:21</a>. See on :3. "Excellent" translates a Hebrew term usually referring to a ruler or prince, the very term used of Solomon as king (<a href='B:110 1:35'>1Ki 1:35</a>; <a href='B:240 28:16'>Pro 28:16</a>). Again, we see Solomon assuming that the words of wisdom are the words of himself as king. He failed to appreciate the degree to which he was merely a channel for God's truth, and came to assume that his words and positions were on the same level as God's. He therefore ended up playing God, assuming that submission to himself was submission to Divine wisdom. And this is an abiding temptation for all who are used as channels for God's truth. Solomon liked to imagine that he was perfectly obedient to his mother's command to open his lips in right judgment (s:w. <a href='B:240 31:9'>Pro 31:9</a>). But he went further, to assume that whatever he spoke in whatever context was right and true (see on <a href='B:240 8:6-8'>Pro 8:6-8</a>).</p>


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<p>s 8:7 For my mouth speaks truth. Wickedness is an abomination to my lips-</p><p>As noted on :6, Solomon's personification of wisdom ends up with him effectively considering that it is his own mouth which speaks truth, and his lips simply cannot utter wickedness. And so he went wrong; he assumed that because he did speak Divine truths, therefore all his words and positions were those of wisdom. He thereby lost any sense of personal self examination, or awareness of his own possibility of personal failure. And again we see this repeated in the lives of others who know and teach God's truth.</p>


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<p>s 8:8 All the words of my mouth are in righteousness. There is nothing crooked or perverse in them-</p><p>As noted on :6,7, Solomon takes this personification of wisdom too far- in that he ends up thinking all the words of his mouth must be right just because he was chosen as the channel for God's words. The "crooked and perverse" are those David his father saw as being condemned (s:w. <a href='B:230 18:26'>Psa 18:26</a>), in contrast to "the pure". Solomon wrongly assumed that his knowledge of Divine truth made him "pure" of itself.</p>


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<p>s 8:9 They are all plain to him who understands, right to those who find knowledge-</p><p>The implication is that anyone who disagreed with or misunderstood what Solomon said was not really seeking knowledge. And yet there is, as always, a general truth here; that God's words are "plain" and clear to those who love Him. Those who wish to do God's will can easily discern doctrine / teaching (<a href='B:500 7:17'>Joh 7:17</a>). Much [although not all] 'misunderstanding' or complaint that the Bible is hard to understand is rooted in a refusal to do God's will. People often do not understand because they don't want to. All is plain and clear to those of a humble heart:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>8:10 Receive my instruction rather than silver; knowledge rather than choice gold-</p><p>Solomon has so much to say about "correction" or "instruction" coming from the possession of wisdom (<a href='B:240 8:10'>Pro 8:10</a>; <a href='B:240 8:33'>Pro 8:33</a>; <a href='B:240 10:17'>Pro 10:17</a>; <a href='B:240 12:1'>Pro 12:1</a>; <a href='B:240 13:1'>Pro 13:1</a>; <a href='B:240 13:24'>Pro 13:24</a>; <a href='B:240 15:5'>Pro 15:5</a>; <a href='B:240 15:10'>Pro 15:10</a>; <a href='B:240 15:32'>Pro 15:32</a>; <a href='B:240 16:22'>Pro 16:22</a>; <a href='B:240 19:20'>Pro 19:20</a>; <a href='B:240 19:27'>Pro 19:27</a>; <a href='B:240 22:15'>Pro 22:15</a>; <a href='B:240 23:12-13'>Pro 23:12-13</a>). But in the end he chastised or corrected his people by whipping them (s:w. <a href='B:110 12:11'>1Ki 12:11</a>; <a href='B:110 12:14'>1Ki 12:14</a>). Solomon initially asked for wisdom in order to guide his people, but he ended up whipping / physically chastising them into conformity with his wishes rather than allowing wisdom to correct. Again, he was playing God; for it is God through His wisdom who chastises, and not man. But Solomon thought he was effectively God to his people. This is why Solomon argues that servants cannot be corrected by words (<a href='B:240 29:19'>Pro 29:19</a> s:w:), and a child must be physically chastised (s:w. <a href='B:240 19:18'>Pro 19:18</a>; <a href='B:240 29:17'>Pro 29:17</a> cp. <a href='B:240 13:24'>Pro 13:24</a>; <a href='B:240 23:13'>Pro 23:13</a>), regardless of his screams of pain. This kind of thing is a denial of his claims elsewhere that it is Divine wisdom which chastises / corrects, and such correction is from God and not man. Solomon's final description of himself as an old and foolish king who refuses to be admonished says it all (<a href='B:250 4:13'>Ecc 4:13</a>); he admonishes others (s:w. <a href='B:250 12:12'>Ecc 12:12</a>), but refuses to be admonished or corrected by his own wisdom. He failed to personalize it.</p>


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<p>8:11 For wisdom is better than rubies. All the things that may be desired can’t be compared to it-</p><p>The words of <a href='B:220 28:18'>Job 28:18</a> are repeatedly quoted in Proverbs (<a href='B:240 3:15'>Pro 3:15</a>; <a href='B:240 8:11'>Pro 8:11</a>; <a href='B:240 20:15'>Pro 20:15</a>). "Wisdom" in Proverbs refers not so much to nuggets of truth, but to a way of life in relationship with God; for that is the context in the source passage in <a href='B:220 28:18'>Job 28:18</a> cp. 28:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>8:12 I, wisdom, have made prudence my dwelling. Find out knowledge and discretion-</p><p>The emphasis of Solomon is always upon needing to "find out knowledge" through accepting the wisdom he taught. This is no bad exhortation of itself. But it is not the accent given by an understanding of God's grace. Through intellectual searching, we will not find out God, i:e. build relationship with Him- as Job concluded. The Bible is not a riddle to be solved, with relationship with God waiting there as a reward for getting things right. Bible study alone doesn't lead a man to God; or else this would be reason for boasting in intellectual prowess. The Divine-human encounter and relationship is instead predicated upon His prevenient grace, His initiative in seeking us. And so it is not so much a question of us knowing God, but of His knowing us (<a href='B:550 4:9'>Gal 4:9</a>). We love because He first loved us (<a href='B:690 4:19'>1Jn 4:19</a>):&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


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<p>8:13 The fear of Yahweh is to hate evil. I hate pride, arrogance, the evil way, and the perverse mouth-</p><p>Solomon, as often, repeats his father's phrases. Here he has in mind <a href='B:230 97:10'>Psa 97:10</a> "You that love Yahweh, hate evil". But Solomon replaces loving Yahweh with fearing Yahweh. and he gives far stronger accent to the aspect of 'hating' evil and evil people. This is not merely Solomon wishing to put everything in black and white terms; but through that, he is seeking to use God's truth as a vehicle through which to express hatred against others, rather than love. And this is related to why he thinks in terms of fearing God rather than loving Him.</p>


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<p>8:14 Counsel and sound knowledge are mine. I have understanding and power-</p><p>The word translated "power" is frequently used of the power of a king, which is the context of the following verses. Solomon is justifying himself, arguing that he has power to act as he likes because he has wisdom. And the same abuse of possession of Divine truth has so often been seen. By contrast, David often uses this word for "power" about God's power, and the way He uses it to save people, by grace (<a href='B:230 106:8'>Psa 106:8</a> etc:). But Solomon speaks of such "power" as being possessed by kings [he has himself in view], predicated upon the possession of wisdom.</p>


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<p>8:15 By me kings reign, and princes decree justice-</p><p>Solomon is again justifying himself. He had been given wisdom in order to reign over Israel on God's behalf, but from that good basis he had slipped into considering himself as therefore automatically just and right in whatever abuse of power he chose to exercise (see on :14). And he ends his reign abusing and whipping his people. He maintained his intellectual grasp of wisdom to the end (<a href='B:250 2:9'>Ecc 2:9</a>), but he didn't reign nor live by it. He is proof enough that mere intellectual assent to God's truth is not going to save anyone:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>8:16 By me princes rule; nobles, and all the righteous rulers of the earth-</p><p>By "the earth", Solomon has in view the eretz promised to Abraham. The local rulers he had established were to teach his wisdom and judge and rule according to it. But again, Solomon's personification of wisdom gets confused with himself personally. For it was he who had appointed the various rulers, princes and nobles of Israel, as the historical records record. But he says here that wisdom had done that.</p>


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<p>8:17 I love those who love me. Those who seek me diligently will find me-</p><p>The Lord Jesus taught that we should love our enemies, and not fall into the trap of only loving those who love us (<a href='B:470 5:44-46'>Mat 5:44-46</a>). He seems to be alluding here to Solomon’s claim that wisdom says: “I love them that love me” (<a href='B:240 8:17'>Pro 8:17</a>). It seems likely that He was consciously showing that God’s grace is in fact the very opposite of what Solomon thought. God loves His enemies, and doesn’t only love those who love Him; and this is to be our credo likewise:&nbsp;</p><p>The woman wisdom is the opposite of the whore in Proverbs 7, who likewise says she seeks and finds men (<a href='B:240 7:15'>Pro 7:15</a>). But Solomon appears to draw a contrast between the whore seeking and finding the man, and the wise woman being sought and found by men. But Solomon fails to perceive that God by grace is in search of man, and indeed He had searched for and found Solomon's father David (<a href='B:230 89:20'>Psa 89:20</a>). Solomon really understands nothing of the grace by which God works constantly in practice.</p>


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<p>8:18 With me are riches, honour, enduring wealth, and prosperity-</p><p>This, again, is true, but not quite so simply as Solomon likes to present it. It is true that he chose wisdom rather than wealth, and was rewarded for that with great and enduring wealth. But many of God's wise people have been poor, or lost their wealth and honour; His Son being the parade example (<a href='B:540 8:9'>2Co 8:9</a>). Yet Solomon failed to realize that his wealth was given to him by grace, and not because he was wise. And so he makes the false step further, to say that if we have wisdom, we will then have wealth. And logically, any who are poor are so because they have refused wisdom. And that is simply a wrong conclusion. The Gospel has ever been "good news for the poor", rather than a rebuke of them for their poverty.</p>


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<p>8:19 My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold; my yield than choice silver-</p><p>This as it were seeks to qualify the simplistic conclusion offered in :18, that wisdom leads to wealth. Solomon has indeed just said that, but now he says that the fruit of wisdom is even more valuable than the material wealth which he thinks wisdom will give to the wise. Solomon's father David concluded that the law of God was better than gold and solver (s:w. <a href='B:230 119:72'>Psa 119:72</a>). But as so often in the book of Proverbs, Solomon speaks of the wisdom he was teaching in the same terms as the Bible elsewhere speaks of God's entire revelation. And he saw fit to flout God's law. It was as if his obsession with the wisdom material he was teaching had led him to effectively replace God's laws with his own. He saw the particular Divine truths he had been given as eclipsing the rest of God's revelation; a mistake we see commonly made.</p>


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<p>8:20 I walk in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of justice-</p><p>Again it seems that Solomon's personification of wisdom leads him to come out with things which he clearly enough saw as descriptions of himself. He saw himself as wisdom personified, walking always in the right way, and always judging justly. And the one who walked in "the way of righteousness" would never die (<a href='B:240 12:28'>Pro 12:28</a> s:w:). Solomon saw his possession of Divine truths as the guarantee of itself that he was the eternal Messianic king. He had been warned that he must walk in the way of God if he was to have long life (s:w. <a href='B:110 3:14'>1Ki 3:14</a>); but he assumed that the mere possession of Divine wisdom meant he was in that "way". As he got older and was reminded of his own mortality, he would have realized that he had to recalculate his position; and he ended up with the cynicism about his own wisdom seen in Ecclesiastes:&nbsp; And yet his injustice to his own people was evidence enough that he didn't do this in reality, but only in his own mind (<a href='B:110 12:11'>1Ki 12:11</a>).</p>


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<p>8:21 that I may give wealth to those who love me. I fill their treasuries-</p><p>I discussed on :18 how this is not totally true. Often Solomon’s Proverbs bring out the tension between wealth and wisdom, and the need to choose wisdom (<a href='B:240 8:11'>Pro 8:11</a>; <a href='B:240 16:16'>Pro 16:16</a>). But whilst he was inspired to write this, and true as it all was, it is inevitable that Solomon said all this with his mind on the way that he had rejected wealth for wisdom when asked by God for his wish. He thought that his right choice in early life [cp. Christian baptism] justified him in later loving wealth rather than wisdom. He taught that wisdom filled the treasuries of the wise (<a href='B:240 8:21'>Pro 8:21</a> RV)- just as his treasuries were filled with wealth.</p>


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<p>8:22 Yahweh possessed me in the beginning of His work, before His deeds of old-</p><p>LXX has "created" for "possessed". Wisdom was "set up" (:23), "brought forth" (:24,25). Wisdom is presented as having been 'created' by God, right at the beginning, before the present world was made. Any attempt to use this passage to prove the eternal preexistence of the Lord Jesus is doomed to failure, therefore. It is true that the passage in <a href='B:500 1:1-3'>Joh 1:1-3</a> about the logos or "word" existing in the beginning, on account of whom all was made, may be alluding here. But clearly enough in this passage, "wisdom" is personified, just as the "word" is in <a href='B:500 1:1-3'>Joh 1:1-3</a>. The Lord Jesus didn't physically, personally exist before His conception. The word, or wisdom / logos, became flesh in Him (<a href='B:500 1:14'>Joh 1:14</a>). And indeed He thereby became the living embodiment of the word / wisdom, and can therefore truly be called "Christ... the wisdom of God" (<a href='B:530 1:24'>1Co 1:24</a>; <a href='B:530 1:30'>1Co 1:30</a>). But this is not to say that He personally existed in Solomon's time. To insist on reading the text like this is to miss the point that the language of personification and preexistence "with God" is common in Jewish and indeed all Semitic writings. See on :23.</p>


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<p>8:23 I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, before the earth existed-</p><p>This kind of language is common in the literature of the time; see on :22. But it is primitive to suggest that there was a literal personal being called wisdom who existed at the beginning, just as it is to suggest this person was the Lord Jesus. The records of His birth leave out any possibility for His personal preexistence. Thus chapter 42 of the Book of Enoch likewise speaks of the personality and preexistence of Wisdom: "Wisdom found no place where she could dwell; therefore was her dwelling in heaven. Wisdom came forth in order to dwell among the sons of men, and found no habitation; then she returned to her place, and took her seat among the angels". Likewise Wis_8:3: "In that she dwelleth with God, she magnifieth her nobility". This is the language of personification; in no way is a literal being in view.</p>


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<p>8:24 When there were no depths, I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water-</p><p>The specific references to the waters are because the Genesis creation is spoken of as happening after a point at which the earth was covered with deep waters (<a href='B:10 1:2'>Gen 1:2</a>). But before that point, wisdom was there, God's plan, His ways. LXX "Before the springs of the waters came forward" would be a reference to the opening up of the fountains at the flood (<a href='B:10 7:11'>Gen 7:11</a>).</p>


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<p>8:25 Before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was brought forth-</p><p>The language of <a href='B:230 90:2'>Psa 90:2</a> about God Himself, who existed before the mountains were settled. But again we note that "wisdom" was brought forth; it had a beginning. Whereas God has no beginning. We cannot simply equate wisdom with God. There is a marked difference between them. Any attempt to prove "Jesus = God" because He is called the wisdom of God is therefore simplistic and lacking in attention to what the text is saying:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>8:26 while as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields-</p><p>The distinction is between the areas used by man and those not. LXX "The Lord made countries and uninhabited places".</p><p>Nor the beginning of the dust of the world-</p><p>This could be an oblique reference to the seed of Abraham, who were to multiply as the dust- if they followed the way of wisdom. Or "The highest part of the dust of the world" could refer to the creation of man from the dust, the rosh or head of all creation (<a href='B:10 3:19'>Gen 3:19</a>; <a href='B:250 3:20'>Ecc 3:20</a>):&nbsp;</p>


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<p>8:27 When He established the skies, I was there; when He set a circle on the surface of the deep-</p><p>Here as in <a href='B:220 22:14'>Job 22:14</a>, the reference is to the idea that there was a dome like vault called "heaven", imagined as resting on an ocean which surrounds the earth. As with the language of demons in the New Testament, wrong ideas aren't necessarily corrected in the Biblical record. People had these ideas, but believed that God was behind them. And the overall form [belief, faith in God as creator] was more significant to God than the exact content. Human attempts at religion have emphasized the opposite.</p>


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<p>8:28 when He established the clouds above, when the springs of the deep became strong-</p><p>This may be a reference to the events of the flood, when the springs of the deep were unleashed (<a href='B:10 7:11'>Gen 7:11</a>). The flood, therefore, was an outcome of "wisdom", it was according to God's plan and in line with His principles, and not some senseless pouring out of Divine anger. LXX "When he made secure the fountains of the earth beneath the heaven" would continue the allusions to current conceptions of creation and cosmology, however incorrect (see on :27).</p>


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<p>8:29 when He gave to the sea its boundary, that the waters should not violate His commandment, when He marked out the foundations of the earth-</p><p>The reference may be to the earth / land promised to Abraham. The sea of Gentile nations were given a boundary beyond which they could not pass in their aggression toward Israel (<a href='B:300 5:22'>Jer 5:22</a>). This was all by the Divine grace which is such an integral part of His "wisdom", His purpose, His word from the beginning:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>8:30 then I was the craftsman by His side. I was a delight day by day, always rejoicing before Him-</p><p>This again is the language of personification and not to be taken literally. And such language is found in contemporary writings, with no hint that a literal person is to be imagined. Thus in Wis_7:22, Wisdom is called "the worker of all things... from the beginning". And indeed the whole of creation was according to God's wisdom (<a href='B:240 3:19'>Pro 3:19</a>); God spoke, and the creation came about. Creation is presented in Genesis as by the spoken word of God, but that "word" reflected His wisdom, the logos which was from the beginning.</p>


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<p>8:31 rejoicing in His whole world. My delight was with the sons of men-</p><p>The joy of God and the Angels in creation is elsewhere mentioned (<a href='B:220 38:7'>Job 38:7</a>; <a href='B:230 104:31'>Psa 104:31</a>). In this sense, "wisdom" rejoiced. God's special joy was in the creation and salvation of men- according to the principles of His wisdom:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>8:32 Now therefore, my sons, listen to me, for blessed are those who keep my ways-</p><p>Solomon's prophetic sonship of David was conditional upon him preserving or observing Yahweh's ways (<a href='B:110 2:4'>1Ki 2:4</a>; <a href='B:130 22:13'>1Ch 22:13</a>; <a href='B:140 7:17'>2Ch 7:17</a>); but he didn't preserve of observe them (<a href='B:110 11:10-11'>1Ki 11:10-11</a>); despite David praying that Solomon would be given a heart to observe them (<a href='B:130 29:19'>1Ch 29:19</a>). We can pray for God to work upon the hearts of others, but He will not force people against their own deepest will and heart position. Solomon stresses overmuch how God would keep or preserve the righteous (<a href='B:240 2:8'>Pro 2:8</a>; <a href='B:240 3:26'>Pro 3:26</a>), without recognizing the conditional aspect of this. Why did Solomon go wrong? His Proverbs are true enough, but he stresses that obedience to his wisdom and teaching would preserve his hearers (<a href='B:240 4:4'>Pro 4:4</a>; <a href='B:240 6:22'>Pro 6:22</a>; <a href='B:240 7:1'>Pro 7:1</a>; <a href='B:240 8:32'>Pro 8:32</a>; <a href='B:240 15:5'>Pro 15:5</a>), preservation was through following the example of the wise (<a href='B:240 2:20'>Pro 2:20</a>); rather than stressing obedience to God's ways, and replacing David his father's simple love of God with a love of academic wisdom: "Yahweh preserves all those who love Him" (<a href='B:230 145:20'>Psa 145:20</a>).</p><p>He spoke of his law as giving life and blessing, appropriating the very terms of Deuteronomy about the blessings of obedience to God’s law. Wisdom said: “Now therefore my sons, hearken unto me: for blessed are they that keep my ways” (<a href='B:240 8:32'>Pro 8:32</a> RV). Yet these are the very words Solomon uses when talking to his kids: “Now therefore my sons, hearken unto me” (<a href='B:240 5:7'>Pro 5:7</a>; <a href='B:240 7:24'>Pro 7:24</a>). Conclusion? Solomon sees the woman “Wisdom” as a personification of himself:&nbsp;&nbsp; It was really Solomon's self-justification. He personally was wisdom, so he thought. This is how self-exalted his possession of true wisdom made him. And of course, his kids didn’t listen to wisdom’s way. In passing, I have noted that those raised ‘in the truth’ often find it very hard to take criticism in later life. They find tolerance of others’ views hard; they perceive themselves to be right to an intolerant extent. Is this not a little bit of the Solomon syndrome?&nbsp;</p>


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<p>8:33 Hear instruction, and be wise. Don’t refuse it-</p><p>The same power of wisdom in the natural creation just described can be articulated to men who accept wisdom, thereby forming a new creation (<a href='B:540 5:17'>2Co 5:17</a>).</p>


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<p>8:34 Blessed is the man who hears me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at my door posts-</p><p>This may be an intentional contrast with the bad woman if Proverbs 7, who tempts men to furtively enter the doors and gates of her house. And Solomon failed in this; for the Song of Solomon speaks of the "gates" of his illicit Gentile girlfriend (<a href='B:260 7:13'>Son 7:13</a>), outside which Solomon waited secretly at night (<a href='B:260 5:2'>Son 5:2</a>; <a href='B:260 5:4'>Son 5:4</a>). The language of doors, posts and gates recurs in the descriptions of Solomon's temple. The subtext could be that Solomon considered that building to be the repository of wisdom, in that from there he taught wisdom; whereas the true abode of wisdom is in human hearts.</p>


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<p>8:35 For whoever finds me finds life, and will obtain favour from Yahweh-</p><p>True as this is, as noted on :12, through intellectual searching, we will not find out God, i:e. build relationship with Him- as Job concluded. The Bible is not a riddle to be solved, with relationship with God waiting there as a reward for getting things right and our intellectual search ending in 'finding'. Bible study alone doesn't lead a man to God; or else this would be reason for boasting in intellectual prowess. The Divine-human encounter and relationship is instead predicated upon His prevenient grace, His initiative in seeking us. And so it is not so much a question of us knowing God, but of His knowing us (<a href='B:550 4:9'>Gal 4:9</a>). We love because He first loved us (<a href='B:690 4:19'>1Jn 4:19</a>.</p><p>God's "favour" isn't predicated upon our intellectual prowess in mastering "wisdom" (<a href='B:240 8:35'>Pro 8:35</a>) nor upon our good works (<a href='B:240 12:2'>Pro 12:2</a>). Academic truth and / or good living isn't as it were the key which opens up access to God's grace. For otherwise Divine "favour" would be a reward, and grace would no longer be grace. See on :36.</p>


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<p>8:36 But he who sins against me wrongs his own soul. All those who hate me love death-</p><p>"Sins" is the word for 'missing', and is the antithesis of 'finding' wisdom in :35. But whilst this may be true in a sense, Solomon has the idea that those who seek wisdom but miss finding her will be punished for it. The truth is that God is in search of man, and finally all we have to do is say "yes" to His approach. Intellectual failure will not of itself mean that we have 'missed' God; for He is right on course for us. The Divine-human encounter I discussed on :12 will surely happen; for God is coming out to meet us, and is focused upon us. The sin, the failure, is to refuse His approach. But Solomon, like many fundamentalists, puts the failure on missing wisdom, not finding truth, for whatever reason.</p>


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<p>s 9:1 Wisdom has built her house, she has carved out her seven pillars-</p><p>See on <a href='B:240 8:2'>Pro 8:2</a>. Solomon's great obsession had been the building of the temple, replete with pillars. I have noted on Proverbs 8 that his personification of "wisdom" is to the point that he speaks of himself as "wisdom" personified. So here, his picture of wisdom building her grand and glorious house is in fact referring to his building of grandiose houses, both for God and for himself and his wives.</p>


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<p>s 9:2 she has prepared her bread, she has mixed her wine. She has also set her table-</p><p>A table with bread and wine on it is the language of the altar, the table of Yahweh. As noted on :1, Solomon presents the house wisdom built as the temple which he had built.</p>


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<p>s 9:3 she has sent out her maidens, she cries from the highest places of the city-</p><p>The call or cry of wisdom is presented as in response to the cry of the believer for wisdom (s:w. <a href='B:240 2:3'>Pro 2:3</a>; <a href='B:240 7:4'>Pro 7:4</a>). There is a mutuality between God and man. We search for God, yet God is in search of man. And when we meet, there is that electric spark spoken of in the parables of Luke 15, whereby Heaven and earth are united together in an electric spark of joy at finding each other.</p>


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<p>s 9:4 Whoever is simple, let him turn in here! As for him who is void of understanding, she says to him-</p><p>David likens himself to the simple who was made wise by God's word (<a href='B:230 19:7'>Psa 19:7</a>; <a href='B:230 119:130'>Psa 119:130</a>), and was therefore preserved (<a href='B:230 116:6'>Psa 116:6</a>). To be taught by God's word we have to become "simple", unlearning and placing to one side all our perceived knowledge and understandings. Solomon repeats David's theme by saying that wisdom makes wise the simple (<a href='B:240 1:4'>Pro 1:4</a>; <a href='B:240 8:5'>Pro 8:5</a>; <a href='B:240 9:4'>Pro 9:4</a>). But he is equating "wisdom" with the words of God, although for Solomon, "wisdom" seems to be what he is saying and teaching. Solomon doesn't direct his listeners back to God's word, as David did, but rather towards loyalty to his teaching. Inspired as it was, his lack of extended reference to God's law places his own teaching of "wisdom" above that law. This is in sharp contrast to David's attitude in Psalms 119.</p>


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<p>s 9:5 Come, eat some of my bread, drink some of the wine which I have mixed!-</p><p>The contrast is with the invitation of wicked men to eat their bread and drink their wine of wickedness and violence (<a href='B:240 4:17'>Pro 4:17</a>). Solomon again presents life as being of diametrical opposites, with people within Israel divided between the desperately, criminally wicked- and the spotlessly wise and righteous. But this is simply not true to reality. Human thought and behaviour within the people of God is more mixed than that. Bread and wine even in Old Testament times were of sacramental significance. The wicked are presented as not offering true sacrifice, but a fake appearance of it, to the praise and glory of wickedness and violence. Whereas the wise offer perfectly acceptable sacrifice.</p>


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<p>s 9:6 Leave your simple ways, and live. Walk in the way of understanding-</p><p>These are the words used by David in <a href='B:230 119:37'>Psa 119:37</a>: "Revive me in Your ways". This idea of living in God's ways was a promised blessing for remaining in the covenant (<a href='B:50 5:33'>Deu 5:33</a>; <a href='B:50 30:16'>Deu 30:16</a>). Solomon here uses the phrase for living in the way of understanding, but the difference with his father David was that David asks to be "revived" or made to live in those ways; whereas Solomon exhorts people to attempt to do this in their own strength and steel willpower. And this ultimately fails, as it did with Solomon.</p>


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<p>s 9:7 He who corrects a mocker invites insult; he who reproves a wicked man invites abuse-</p><p>What is said in :7-9 is true enough, but it presupposes that we judge who is a mocker or scoffer (:8) before sharing with them the reproof and hope of true wisdom. This is out of step with God's universal appeal to "all men" as sinners to repent and accept His grace; wise and unwise, mockers and spiritual enthusiasts alike, are all sinners and in that sense unwise. And the records of the "insults" and "abuse" suffered by the Lord Jesus and His apostles are evidence enough that they did not seek to avoid these things by only selectively witnessing to only some men- those they judged wise.</p>


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<p>s 9:8 Don’t reprove a scoffer, lest he hate you-</p><p>As noted on :7, this may be true, but it is not an approach of love. Job's friends were scoffers (s:w. <a href='B:220 16:20'>Job 16:20</a>), but still they were reproved by him and God. Our appeal to others should not be made selectively, based upon the likely response we think they will make. Thus it is quite wrong to reason that a person should not be baptized because they may fall away, or it may divide the church. We think of how John the Baptist rebuked Herod, and was hated for it by Herodias.</p><p>Reprove a wise man, and he will love you-</p><p>Solomon may be justifying his father David's response to Nathan the prophet.</p>


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<p>s 9:9 instruct a wise man, and he will be still wiser. Teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning-</p><p>This is true, but as noted on :7,8, it rather presupposes that we can somehow judge the spiritual nature of our audience before we begin sharing instruction / wisdom with them. It is indeed so that there is an upward spiral in spiritual life, whereby the wise become wiser. But our motive for wanting to share wisdom ought to be to make the foolish wise, rather than confirm the wise in their wisdom.</p>


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<p>9:10 The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom, the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding-</p><p>Solomon repeats his father David's conclusion that wisdom begins with the fear of Yahweh (<a href='B:230 111:10'>Psa 111:10</a> = <a href='B:240 1:7'>Pro 1:7</a>; <a href='B:240 9:10'>Pro 9:10</a>). This statement is in sharp contrast with the accepted view of the times, that wisdom was held by the sages, and was accessible only by sitting at their feet. But this idea (and it is common enough today too) is subverted by this idea that wisdom begins in each individual heart being in fear of Yahweh- so that wisdom from Him can be personally experienced, taught directly through relationship with Him rather than sitting at the feet of a human sage. "Wisdom" is parallel with getting "a good understanding" by 'doing His work' or obeying His commandments (<a href='B:230 111:10'>Psa 111:10</a> b). The work we are to do for God in obeying His ways is not simply a test of our obedience; it is designed to give us wisdom. Wisdom therefore comes from experience of obedience and relationship with God, rather than from picking up nuggets of 'truth' from human sages:&nbsp;The fear of God is therefore not so much referring to a fear of the consequence of our sins; but the fear or reverence expressed through keeping His commandments (see on <a href='B:230 112:1'>Psa 112:1</a>):&nbsp;</p><p>"Holy One" can as well be translated "the assembly", the 'holy ones', as if Solomon saw wisdom as held by a group of holy people.</p>


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<p>9:11 For by me your days will be multiplied. The years of your life will be increased-</p><p>Solomon claims that the righteous / wise live long lives, and therefore the unwise have shorter lives. This was the promise for obedience to the old covenant (s:w. <a href='B:50 11:21'>Deu 11:21</a>). But it is not always the case, as Job learned (s:w. <a href='B:220 29:18'>Job 29:18</a>). And it was so with the Lord Jesus. And faithful men often lament that the wicked seem to get long life, whilst the righteous don't. The answer to that conundrum is that final blessing of long life is at the resurrection, at the last day; and not in this life. But Solomon didn't see that; he thought that long life now was the only reward. He failed to perceive the real meaning of the Gospel of the Kingdom:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>9:12 If you are wise, you are wise for yourself. If you mock, you alone will bear it-</p><p>Solomon presents wisdom as of great personal benefit, indeed it is "for yourself"; and folly likewise is to your loss. But this presents a somewhat selfish view of wisdom. Solomon had been granted wisdom not for himself, but because he wanted to know how best to rule God's great people (<a href='B:110 3:9'>1Ki 3:9</a>). But once he has the wisdom, he becomes exalted by it, and concludes that wisdom is essentially for the personal benefit of those who have it, "you are wise for yourself" (<a href='B:240 9:12'>Pro 9:12</a>). Whatever truths are revealed to us are so that we might use them to the glory of God with others, and not to merely keep them for our own personal benefit.</p>


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<p>9:13 The foolish woman is loud, undisciplined, and knows nothing-</p><p>Just as the woman wisdom "loudly" proclaims her truths on the streets. This woman is a conscious parody of the righteous woman of Proverbs 8. This contrast between such women is found in Revelation, where the whore is the antithesis of the bride of Christ:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>9:14 She sits at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city-</p><p>We note that Solomon considered that the wise woman does stay in her house, whereas the sinful woman doesn't. This appears to be Solomon's chauvinism rather than true wisdom. For he then presents the woman wisdom as being publically on the streets pleading with men to turn in to her wisdom.</p><p>The&nbsp;blindness&nbsp;of&nbsp;Solomon is driven&nbsp;home time and again:&nbsp; The&nbsp; wicked&nbsp; Gentile&nbsp; woman is associated with a large&nbsp;&nbsp; house&nbsp; in&nbsp; a&nbsp; high&nbsp; place, in&nbsp; the&nbsp; temple&nbsp; area. But this is exactly where Solomon built his Egyptian wife a&nbsp;house!&nbsp;</p>


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<p>9:15 to call to those who pass by, who go straight on their ways-</p><p>Solomon thinks of the righteous as walking unflinchingly forward in wisdom, never turning to the right or left, refusing to be distracted by any wicked person who suggests walking another way (<a href='B:240 9:15'>Pro 9:15</a> "to call travellers who go directly on their way"). This approach fails to take account of the simple fact that righteous people sin and stray from the direct path every day, and are saved finally into God's Kingdom by grace alone. That is all something Solomon failed to have any grasp of, whereas David his father did. <a href='B:240 11:5'>Pro 11:5</a> makes the somewhat tautological statement that "the righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way", s:w. <a href='B:240 4:25'>Pro 4:25</a> "fix your gaze directly before you". This contrasts with how David uses the word in <a href='B:230 5:8'>Psa 5:8</a>: "Lead me, O Yahweh... make Your way straight [s:w. direct] before my face". The same statement of God directing in the straight way is found in <a href='B:290 45:13'>Isa 45:13</a>; <a href='B:300 18:4'>Jer 18:4</a> s:w. Solomon didn't see this need for the Spirit of God to direct his path because he assumed that mere possession of Divine truth would itself keep him in the way; hence he teaches that "understanding" makes a man walk "directly" (<a href='B:240 15:21'>Pro 15:21</a>). And he failed miserably because of that arrogant position.</p>


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<p>9:16 Whoever is simple, let him turn in here. As for him who is void of understanding, she says to him-</p><p>Again, this is a parody of the woman wisdom, who likewise gives teaching to "the simple". The person without / lacking or void of understanding is typically the adulterer or sexual sinner (s:w. <a href='B:240 6:32'>Pro 6:32</a>; <a href='B:240 7:7'>Pro 7:7</a>; <a href='B:240 9:4'>Pro 9:4</a>; <a href='B:240 9:16'>Pro 9:16</a>). But Solomon failed with women, despite priding himself on his wisdom. So by 'having understanding' he seems to refer to the mere intellectual possession of it. He thought this would alone preserve men from temptation and sin; but he utterly failed to personalize wisdom. Possession of Divine truth does not of itself preserve from sin; and Solomon is the parade example of this.</p>


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<p>9:17 Stolen water is sweet. Food eaten in secret is pleasant-</p><p>"Water" is euphemism for semen, confirming that illicit sexual behaviour is in view, which agrees with the context. The idea of secret bread may allude to the shewbread, and I suggested on <a href='B:240 7:14'>Pro 7:14</a> that this bad woman portrays herself in the language of the Mosaic law. This was the basis of her attraction to a young Israelite man.</p>


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<p>9:18 But he doesn’t know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol-</p><p>The idea is that they are in a living death; her house is the house of the grave. "Guests" is literally "called / invited ones". They responded to her call, which is a parody and antithesis of the call of wisdom. And indeed there are only two ways before us in life, the call of the word of God and that of the flesh, personified here as a whore.</p>


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<p>10:1 The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes a glad father; but a foolish son brings grief to his mother-</p><p>Although this is all inspired wisdom, Solomon does seem to have his mind on his own self-justification in the way he expresses it. All his many references to "David my father" suggest his spirituality was a living out of parental expectation. He had been called the "wise son" of David (<a href='B:110 5:7'>1Ki 5:7</a>; <a href='B:140 2:12'>2Ch 2:12</a>) even before David died, and he clearly wanted to live out that expectation by asking for wisdom and implying his father would've been so happy with him. Yet his heart was far from personal wisdom, as he later admits in Ecclesiastes.</p><p>He says that a wise son makes a glad father, so intent was he on living out his father’s expectations even after David’s death. Because of this he teaches that the King must always be right and be respected, whatever happens (<a href='B:240 16:10-15'>Pro 16:10-15</a>). He saw himself as the Messianic King and therefore infallible. He again and again failed to realize the conditionality of all God has promised.</p>


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<p>10:2 Treasures of wickedness profit nothing, but righteousness delivers from death-</p><p>"Treasures" is Heb. storehouses. Solomon built these for his horses and his wealth. We have a tendency to do the very thing we know is wrong, just as Solomon married Gentile women despite all his warnings against doing so. This is one window on the ability of religious people to be the worse hypocrites.</p><p>David appealed to God's righteousness for deliverance from the consequence of his sins (<a href='B:230 71:2'>Psa 71:2</a>). This was appropriate, seeing that David had been saved from death by God's imputation of His righteousness to David (<a href='B:230 32:1-4'>Psa 32:1-4</a>), by grace through faith; seeing David's sins left him with no righteousness of his own. And it was on this basis that David believed he would continue to be saved / delivered / rescued (s:w. <a href='B:230 51:14'>Psa 51:14</a> in the Bathsheba context). But Solomon failed to learn from his mother and father's experience of grace, teaching instead that personal righteousness is what saves (<a href='B:240 10:2'>Pro 10:2</a>; <a href='B:240 11:4'>Pro 11:4</a>; <a href='B:240 11:6'>Pro 11:6</a>).</p>


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<p>10:3 Yahweh will not allow the soul of the righteous to go hungry, but He thrusts away the desire of the wicked-</p><p>In the court of Heaven, God “thrusteth away the desire of the wicked” (<a href='B:240 10:3'>Pro 10:3</a> RV)- as if their prayers are rejected there. And yet Solomon appears to simplistically assume that the righteous never suffer, which the book of Job and other scripture show quite simply not to be the case. It is however true that the righteous would not starve to death; God would always provide for them. And this should be of huge strength to us in our battle against the fears which arise from living in a materialistic society.</p>


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<p>10:4 He becomes poor who works with a lazy hand, but the hand of the diligent brings wealth-</p><p>Solomon repeatedly sees poverty as being the fault of the poor, and their refusal of his teaching of wisdom (s:w. <a href='B:240 6:11'>Pro 6:11</a>; <a href='B:240 10:4'>Pro 10:4</a>; <a href='B:240 10:15'>Pro 10:15</a>; <a href='B:240 13:7-8'>Pro 13:7-8</a>; <a href='B:240 13:18'>Pro 13:18</a>; <a href='B:240 13:23'>Pro 13:23</a>; <a href='B:240 24:34'>Pro 24:34</a>; <a href='B:240 28:19'>Pro 28:19</a>; <a href='B:240 31:7'>Pro 31:7</a>). Many of these passages are effectively mocking the poor, which Solomon condemns in <a href='B:240 17:5'>Pro 17:5</a>. He fails to take his own wisdom, as we also see in his behaviour with foreign women. Again we see Solomon's works based approach to righteousness, and lack of grace; refusing to accept that we are all poor men before God, as David himself exemplified when he cried to God as a poor man (<a href='B:230 34:6'>Psa 34:6</a>). But his much beloved father David was unashamed to say he was a materially "poor man" (<a href='B:90 18:23'>1Sa 18:23</a>); and Uriah, whom he wronged, is described also as a "poor man" (<a href='B:100 12:1'>2Sa 12:1</a>). The poor were to be defended and given to (<a href='B:230 82:3'>Psa 82:3</a>), and the Bible is clear that poverty isn't necessarily a result of sin or unwisdom. But Solomon fails to appreciate this, so obsessed is he with works, and the idea that obedience to his anthology of Proverbs will make the poor prosperous, as if God's truth is a kind of wealth creation scheme:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>10:5 He who gathers in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during the harvest is a son who causes shame-</p><p>Solomon contrasts wisdom with shame. But he goes too far in saying that the wise gather in harvest time; for that is what most people do, wise or unwise. He seems over enthusiastic to paint those without the wisdom he taught as lazy and shameful. But there are many who reject Divine wisdom who are zealous gatherers of their harvest, and hard workers. As noted elsewhere in Proverbs, it could be that the Lord's parable of the rich fool with great harvests is intended to correct some of these images. For He there presents the man with good harvests as foolish, and lacking wisdom; whereas Solomon claims that good harvests are the reward for the wise, and the foolish don't enjoy that.</p>


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<p>10:6 Blessings are on the head of the righteous, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked-</p><p>Solomon repeatedly condemns "the mouth of the wicked" (<a href='B:240 10:6'>Pro 10:6</a>; <a href='B:240 10:11'>Pro 10:11</a>; <a href='B:240 10:32'>Pro 10:32</a>; <a href='B:240 11:11'>Pro 11:11</a>; <a href='B:240 12:6'>Pro 12:6</a>; <a href='B:240 15:28'>Pro 15:28</a>; <a href='B:240 19:28'>Pro 19:28</a>). All he says is true enough, but he clearly enough has in view how his father David had condemned the supporters of Saul and Absalom as having "the mouth of the wicked" (<a href='B:230 109:2'>Psa 109:2</a>). And these were the groups who were threatening his power and throne. Solomon presents himself by implication as having the mouth of the just / righteous. And yet we must note that David too had spoken multiple words of deceit in relation to the murder of Uriah. Indeed the phrase is used in <a href='B:290 53:9'>Isa 53:9</a> as if the Lord Jesus was the only man who didn't have a "mouth of deceit". Solomon like David was in denial of the fact that we all sin with our mouths, as James makes clear in <a href='B:660 3:1-3'>Jas 3:1-3</a>.</p>


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<p>10:7 The memory of the righteous is blessed, but the name of the wicked will rot-</p><p>The Hebrew idea of 'name' is of reputation, and that is demonstrated here by being paralleled with 'memory'. Who we are and what we spiritually achieve will be eternally remembered. Careers, attainment of wealth etc. will fade away [AV "rot"].</p>


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<p>10:8 The wise in heart accept commandments, but a chattering fool will fall-</p><p>The same words are used about Moses receiving commandments on Sinai (<a href='B:20 34:4'>Exo 34:4</a>). This is one of many times when the average Israelite was encouraged to rise up to the spirit of Moses. The contrast is between receiving God's word and thus getting into an upward spiral of spirituality; and talking so much that we don't receive God's words. That same tension is found in :14.</p>


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<p>10:9 He who walks blamelessly walks surely, but he who perverts his ways will be found out-</p><p>Again Solomon presents life as polar opposites, with the righteous "blameless", walking surely on the path of righteousness; and the wicked whose ways are perverted. But this is not how spiritual reality is; nobody is blameless, the righteous don't walk surely all the time, but slip from the path as David did. And yet this doesn't make them perverts of the way. It was this overly simplistic view of things which led Solomon to assume himself to be a stellar example of spirituality, assured of acceptance with God; and thereby failing to appreciate that for all his wisdom and professed faith, his behaviour was disobedient and hypocritical. This led to him finally turning away from Yahweh. If he had maintained a more realistic and humble view of human spirituality, his own included, then he could have avoided this:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>10:10 One winking with the eye causes sorrow, and a chattering fool will fall-</p><p>The body language of sinners is commented upon several times in the Bible. This is the degree to which God observes human behaviour. And we have wonderful insights into that of the Lord Jesus; His eyes and hands are often as it were zoomed in upon in the Gospel records. Body language is indeed a "signal" of our innermost heart; and for the wicked, they yield all the members of their bodies to work unrighteousness (<a href='B:520 6:19'>Rom 6:19</a>).</p>


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<p>10:11 The mouth of the righteous is a spring of life, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked-</p><p>See on :6. Solomon uses&nbsp;the figure of a well of living water to describe spiritual words&nbsp;and&nbsp;thinking (<a href='B:240 10:11'>Pro 10:11</a>; <a href='B:240 13:14'>Pro 13:14</a>; <a href='B:240 14:27'>Pro 14:27</a>; <a href='B:240 16:22'>Pro 16:22</a>). Yet this is&nbsp;the&nbsp;very&nbsp;figure which he uses concerning his worldly bride (<a href='B:260 4:15'>Son 4:15</a>):&nbsp;It could be argued that this typifies the massive imputation of righteousness&nbsp;which the Lord Jesus grants to us, His worldly Gentile bride. But I would rather see it as an example of how he chose to justify his love for worldly women by as it were clothing those women in his own mind with the imagery of spirituality.</p>


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<p>10:12 Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all wrongs-</p><p>"Covers", not in the sense of turning a blind eye, but of forgiving just as God covers or deals with / atones [Heb. 'covers'] for sin. The "strife" is defined as that between brothers arising from lies (s:w. <a href='B:240 6:19'>Pro 6:19</a>). This is true, and needs to be given its due weight by those who divide brethren in Christ. But Solomon also doubtless has in view the discord between him and his half brothers, who were contenders for his throne. He considers the cause of the divisions to be "lies", a slander campaign against him and his father; and even if there were truth in any of it, he orders it to be covered by love. But the division amongst David's sons was a direct fulfilment of Nathan's prediction of the consequence of David's sins associated with Bathsheba. But Solomon seeks to whitewash David, considering any friction arising from his father's sins as mere slander. He doesn't follow David in openly confessing sin and rejoicing in Divine grace.</p>


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<p>10:13 Wisdom is found on the lips of him who has discernment, but a rod is for the back of him who is void of understanding-</p><p>LXX "He that brings forth wisdom from his lips smites the fool with a rod". Solomon has himself in view, but now instead of attributing wisdom to Divine inspiration, he starts to consider that it emanated from himself. When he died, the people complained that he had whipped [Heb. 'beaten'] them unreasonably (<a href='B:110 12:11'>1Ki 12:11</a>). It was Solomon's false view of his wisdom which led him to do this. He assumed that he must be right, he was infallible, because of his possession of Divine truths. He justified indulging his natural human tendency to be overly harsh on others because he claimed he was the source of all wisdom. And again we see a parallel in fundamentalist Christian groups; where the more dogmatic are the claimants to possession of absolute truth about everything, the more they tend to abuse others and show no mercy to any who fail to attain to their supposed wisdom:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>10:14 Wise men lay up knowledge, but the mouth of the foolish is near ruin-</p><p>"Knowledge" is presented as accumulating progressively, as a witness to the acceptability of the wise. But knowledge in this sense is not the basis of justification with God, contrary to what Solomon [and many fundamentalists] liked to think.</p>


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<p>10:15 The rich man’s wealth is his fortified city; the destruction of the poor is their poverty-</p><p>This seems to reason as if wealth is a strong city to the wise and righteous of :14, and poverty is the fault of the poor, who are the foolish and wicked of :16. And yet there simply isn't such a direct correlation between wisdom and wealth for the believer; the book of Job and so much Biblical revelation make it clear that the poor are those who tend to respond more to the Gospel (<a href='B:490 7:22'>Luk 7:22</a>). Solomon's choice of wisdom over wealth was indeed pleasing to God, and so he was given wealth by God. But that was a gift by grace. Yet it led Solomon to assume that his wisdom [which was anyway not his own, but God's gift to him] was the basis for his wealth; and that therefore possession of Divine wisdom meant wealth, and thereby poverty was a punishment of God upon the foolish. This is simply not the case.</p>


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<p>10:16 The labour of the righteous leads to life; the increase of the wicked leads to sin-</p><p>"Life" and "sin" are placed in antithesis. We would rather read "death" instead of "sin", as death is the opposite of life. But sin can be put for death in that "the wages of sin is death" (<a href='B:520 6:23'>Rom 6:23</a>). But Solomon here veers towards belief in salvation by works, or "labour". Paul explains that this is simply not the case. "Life" is by grace, through faith and not of works (<a href='B:520 4:6'>Rom 4:6</a>). But the wonder of grace was unknown to Solomon.</p>


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<p>10:17 He is in the way of life who heeds correction, but he who forsakes reproof leads others astray-</p><p>This appears to be an out of context allusion to David's words in <a href='B:230 38:14'>Psa 38:14</a>, reflecting on his sin with Bathsheba, and how he felt unable to give reproof to others: "Yes, I am as a man who doesn’t hear, in whose mouth are no reproofs". Solomon was obsessed with David his father, speaking hundreds of times of "David my father". But he failed to have his humility; he endlessly dishes out reproofs in Proverbs, indeed he sees his Proverbs as reproofs to people (e.g. <a href='B:240 1:25'>Pro 1:25</a>; <a href='B:240 6:23'>Pro 6:23</a>; <a href='B:240 10:17'>Pro 10:17</a>; <a href='B:240 12:1'>Pro 12:1</a>; <a href='B:240 13:18'>Pro 13:18</a>; <a href='B:240 15:5'>Pro 15:5</a>; <a href='B:240 15:31'>Pro 15:31</a>; <a href='B:240 29:15'>Pro 29:15</a>); whereas David humbly felt unable to do so because of his awareness of his sins. And at the time David wrote the Proverbs, when he received wisdom at the start of his reign, he was sinning likewise [in essence] by marrying foreign women:&nbsp;See on <a href='B:240 7:22'>Pro 7:22</a>.</p>


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<p>10:18 He who hides hatred has lying lips; he who utters a slander is a fool-</p><p>Whether we speak the slander or think it and keep our mouth tactfully shut- it's all the same before God. Nicespeak and tact aren't the same as the true spirituality which includes the love which thinks no evil. See on :20. Perhaps Solomon has in view the "hatred" of his brother Amnon (<a href='B:100 13:15'>2Sa 13:15</a>). The word for "hatred" is used by David in the Psalms, about both the house of Saul and also Solomon's half brothers (see on <a href='B:230 25:19'>Psa 25:19</a>; <a href='B:230 103:9'>Psa 103:9</a>; <a href='B:230 109:5'>Psa 109:5</a>). All these were contenders to Solomon's throne, and he appears to here condemn them as fools who shall therefore be condemned. This constant focus upon the judgment of others led Solomon to be quite unaware of his personal responsibility to judgment himself:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>10:19 In the multitude of words there is no lack of disobedience, but he who restrains his lips does wisely-</p><p>"The multitude of words" is a phrase quoted from <a href='B:220 11:2'>Job 11:2</a>, one of the scriptures which would have been available to Solomon. And the conclusion is that Job's multitude of words was not altogether right, and he would have been wiser to restrain his lips, as he himself realizes at the end.</p>


text:
<p>10:20 The tongue of the righteous is like choice silver; the heart of the wicked is of little worth-</p><p>The tongue and the heart / mind are paralleled- thoughts are as bad as words. See on :18. I will suggest on :21 and :31 that the "tongue" effectively means 'the teaching'. Solomon's utilitarian attitude still comes through, in his description of the heart of the wicked as 'worth little', whereas the teaching of the righteous is precious as silver. A wicked heart is abomination to God, and not merely 'worth little'.</p>


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<p>10:21 The lips of the righteous feed many, but the foolish die for lack of understanding-</p><p>"Feed" is the word for "pastors" in <a href='B:300 12:10'>Jer 12:10</a>. The idea is that "the righteous" are those with "understanding", and it is this understanding which feeds and gives life to others. This is true enough; our sharing with others and influence upon them can indeed lead them to life and not to die eternally. But Solomon appears to again have his own self justification in view; for he considered that he was the preeminently righteous because he was the teacher of Israel, giving them the wisdom given him. But Solomon fell away from Yahweh, even though he says his wisdom remained with him (<a href='B:250 2:9'>Ecc 2:9</a>), and he continued to teach others that wisdom to the end of his life (<a href='B:250 12:9'>Ecc 12:9</a>). And so it was simply not true that teaching others makes a person righteous, as Solomon supposed often in Proverbs (e.g. <a href='B:240 10:21'>Pro 10:21</a>):&nbsp; .</p>


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<p>10:22 Yahweh’s blessing brings wealth, and He adds no trouble to it-</p><p>Again Solomon presents the advantage of accepting his wisdom as being in that it will give genuine wealth now. But that is not always the case, as so many Biblical characters came to realize. However we can read "The blessing of the Lord has nothing added to it by human toil" (<a href='B:240 10:22'>Pro 10:22</a> RVmg:). But just because we don’t have to do it, we do. This is the power of grace; it doesn’t force us to monotonous service, but should be a wellspring of fresh motivation, to do perhaps the same things with an ever fresh spirit.</p>


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<p>10:23 It is a fool’s pleasure to do wickedness, but wisdom is a man of understanding’s pleasure-</p><p>Solomon sees wisdom as the way to wealth and "pleasure" in this life, and that is the basis for his appeal to men to be wise and accept his wisdom (<a href='B:240 10:23'>Pro 10:23</a>). But David uses the word only of the "pleasure" of the future, restored Kingdom of God on earth (<a href='B:230 126:2'>Psa 126:2</a>); whereas Solomon wanted it all now, just as the 'prosperity gospel' likewise does. And yet as he got older, Solomon realized that such "pleasure" from material things is not in fact pleasure, and he uses the word several times in Ecclesiastes of how pleasure in this life is vain (<a href='B:250 2:2'>Ecc 2:2</a>; <a href='B:250 7:3'>Ecc 7:3</a>; <a href='B:250 10:19'>Ecc 10:19</a>). This approach is in fact a contradiction of his seeking after "pleasure" in Proverbs. He came to this nihilistic position because he failed to perceive that the true "pleasure" is not now, but in the future Kingdom.</p>


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<p>10:24 What the wicked fear will overtake them, but the desire of the righteous will be granted-</p><p>This is true in ultimate terms at the day of judgment. But that doesn't seem to be what Solomon has in view. He sees the whirlwind of judgment coming in this life (:25), because he had no clear view of the future Kingdom and judgment. But the book of Job ought to have led Solomon to a more subtle view of the difference between the wicked and the righteous. The thing righteous Job greatly feared came upon him (<a href='B:220 3:25'>Job 3:25</a>), as did the whirlwind of apparent judgment (:25):&nbsp;</p>


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<p>10:25 When the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more; but the righteous stand firm forever-</p><p>'Have an eternal foundation'. Who we are now is the basis of who we will eternally be. Hence the supreme importance of character formation and personality developed in this life. See on :24; <a href='B:230 35:5'>Psa 35:5</a>.</p>


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<p>10:26 As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to those who send him-</p><p>The Proverbs contain repeated condemnation of laziness. Lack of a zealous work ethic is a rejection of wisdom, according to Solomon. As Solomon explains in Ecclesiastes 1, he was an active person, not lazy by nature. And yet he lacked spirituality. He claimed that his service of God was due to his spirituality, but it was in reality merely a semblance of serving God when it was really just reinforcing his own personality type. His mocking of the "sluggard" or "lazy one" is so frequent (<a href='B:240 6:6'>Pro 6:6</a>; <a href='B:240 6:9'>Pro 6:9</a>; <a href='B:240 10:26'>Pro 10:26</a>; <a href='B:240 13:4'>Pro 13:4</a>; <a href='B:240 15:19'>Pro 15:19</a>; <a href='B:240 19:24'>Pro 19:24</a>; <a href='B:240 20:4'>Pro 20:4</a>; <a href='B:240 21:25'>Pro 21:25</a>; <a href='B:240 22:13'>Pro 22:13</a>; <a href='B:240 24:30'>Pro 24:30</a>; <a href='B:240 26:13-16'>Pro 26:13-16</a>). But it is a reflection of his own works-based approach to righteousness; the 'wise' "do" good things, and the wicked don't do enough good things. Personal spiritual mindedness and relationship with God are simply not emphasized.</p>


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<p>10:27 The fear of Yahweh prolongs days, but the years of the wicked shall be shortened-</p><p>Solomon claims that the righteous / wise live long lives, and therefore the unwise have shorter lives (<a href='B:240 9:11'>Pro 9:11</a>; <a href='B:240 10:27'>Pro 10:27</a>). This was the promise for obedience to the old covenant (s:w. <a href='B:50 11:21'>Deu 11:21</a>). But it is not always the case, as Job learned (s:w. <a href='B:220 29:18'>Job 29:18</a>); righteous men like David and Hezekiah felt their days had been shortened (s:w. <a href='B:230 89:45'>Psa 89:45</a>; <a href='B:230 102:23'>Psa 102:23</a>). And it was so with the Lord Jesus. And faithful men often lament that the wicked seem to get long life, whilst the righteous don't. The answer to that conundrum is that final blessing of long life is at the resurrection, at the last day; and not in this life. But Solomon didn't see that; he thought that long life now was the only reward. He failed to perceive the real meaning of the Gospel of the Kingdom. </p>


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<p>10:28 The prospect of the righteous is joy, but the hope of the wicked will perish-</p><p>David's "hope / expectation" in the context of <a href='B:230 62:5'>Psa 62:5</a> was the continuation of his own kingdom, despite all the threats against it from the likes of Saul, Absalom and others who would usurp his Davidic kingship and kingdom. Solomon likely uses the word for "expectation" with the same subtext; that all opposition to him was based upon a false expectation which would be dashed by God (s:w. <a href='B:240 10:28'>Pro 10:28</a>; <a href='B:240 11:7'>Pro 11:7</a>; <a href='B:240 11:23'>Pro 11:23</a>; <a href='B:240 23:18'>Pro 23:18</a>; <a href='B:240 24:14'>Pro 24:14</a>).</p>


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<p>10:29 The way of Yahweh is a stronghold to the upright, but it is a destruction to the workers of iniquity-</p><p>The very process of walking in the right way, in the hour by hour business of spiritual life, indeed confirms us in that way. God's way is designed to confirm those who walk in it; and those who work iniquity are caused to stumble further by it into destruction. "The workers of iniquity" is a phrase repeatedly used by Solomon's father David concerning the supporters of Saul, and also those supporting David's half brothers- all of which were groups who were potential contenders for Solomon's throne. See notes on <a href='B:230 5:5'>Psa 5:5</a>; <a href='B:230 6:8'>Psa 6:8</a>; <a href='B:230 14:4'>Psa 14:4</a>; <a href='B:230 28:3'>Psa 28:3</a>; <a href='B:230 36:12'>Psa 36:12</a>; <a href='B:230 53:4'>Psa 53:4</a>; <a href='B:230 59:2'>Psa 59:2</a>; <a href='B:230 64:2'>Psa 64:2</a>; <a href='B:230 92:7'>Psa 92:7</a>; <a href='B:230 92:9'>Psa 92:9</a>; <a href='B:230 94:4'>Psa 94:4</a>; <a href='B:230 94:16'>Psa 94:16</a>; <a href='B:230 101:8'>Psa 101:8</a>; <a href='B:230 125:5'>Psa 125:5</a>; <a href='B:230 141:4'>Psa 141:4</a>; <a href='B:230 141:9'>Psa 141:9</a>. So whilst Solomon speaks truly, so far as it goes, he uses language which subtly condemns his political opponents. Thus he harnessed God's truth towards his own self justification, as many do today.</p>


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<p>10:30 The righteous will never be removed, but the wicked will not dwell in the land-</p><p>David in his earlier Psalms exalts and boasts to God that his feet have not slipped, indeed he was overly confident that his feet would never slip / "be moved" (<a href='B:230 17:5'>Psa 17:5</a>; <a href='B:230 21:7'>Psa 21:7</a>; <a href='B:230 55:22'>Psa 55:22</a>; <a href='B:230 62:2'>Psa 62:2</a>; <a href='B:230 62:6'>Psa 62:6</a>; <a href='B:230 125:1'>Psa 125:1</a>). His more mature reflection is that he had wrongly said "I shall never slip [AV "be moved"]" (<a href='B:230 30:6'>Psa 30:6</a>), and his feet had indeed slipped, not least over the Bathsheba incident (<a href='B:230 38:16'>Psa 38:16</a>; <a href='B:230 94:18'>Psa 94:18</a>). Solomon didn't learn this lesson, for he likewise assumed that the righteous would never be moved / slip (<a href='B:240 10:30'>Pro 10:30</a>), although he appears to accept that even a righteous man like his father had indeed slipped (<a href='B:240 25:26'>Pro 25:26</a>). And Solomon himself did so, not learning the lesson from his father's mistaken assumption that the righteous can never slip.</p><p>"He will never be shaken" is spoken in <a href='B:230 112:6'>Psa 112:6</a> in the context of the outcome of the final judgment. Being unmoved or never shaken is a major theme of the Psalms of David. Human beings naturally seek for stability, but look for it in the wrong places, imagining that their idols shall never be shaken (s:w. <a href='B:290 40:20'>Isa 40:20</a>; <a href='B:290 41:7'>Isa 41:7</a>). It is only the receipt of eternal salvation at the last day which means we shall never be moved; that is the only ultimate stability (<a href='B:230 62:2'>Psa 62:2</a>; <a href='B:230 62:6'>Psa 62:6</a> s:w:). Their stability will be associated with that of God's eternal Kingdom to be centered upon Zion (s:w. <a href='B:230 125:1'>Psa 125:1</a>). For in secular life under the sun, the righteous do suffer and their lives are "shaken". Solomon's statements that the righteous shall never be shaken / moved (<a href='B:240 10:30'>Pro 10:30</a>; <a href='B:240 12:3'>Pro 12:3</a>) are only ultimately true in this sense; but whether he spoke them with that understanding is debatable:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>10:31 The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom, but the perverse tongue will be cut off-</p><p>This again is true as it stands, but Solomon puts all the focus upon holding true wisdom / teaching, and then teaching it. He sees this as the basis for being righteous. Solomon of course was the one who had the wisdom and taught it, so he is justifying himself as "righteous" thereby. But he was not a spiritual person, he lived otherwise to that wisdom, and fell away from his faith in Yahweh. The problem with holding and teaching Divine truth is that we are tempted to think that this thereby justifies us. But alone, it doesn't. See on :32.</p>


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<p>10:32 The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked is perverse-</p><p>See on :6,31. Solomon again presents an overly simplistic position; the lips of the righteous are good, and those of the wicked are bad. But the reality is that righteous people say some bad things at times, and are saved by grace. James is far closer to spiritual reality when he writes that the tongue is an uncontrollable evil, and none of us succeed in not offending any by our words, and in this context of the tongue, "in many things we offend all" (<a href='B:660 3:2'>Jas 3:2</a>). The conclusion therefore is that we must cast ourselves upon God's grace. But this was something Solomon knew nothing about.</p>


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<p>11:1 A false balance is an abomination to Yahweh, but accurate weights are His delight-</p><p>See on <a href='B:470 6:26'>Mat 6:26</a>. "Abomination" is the common word for idols (e.g. <a href='B:50 7:25-26'>Deu 7:25-26</a>). Idolatry is here interpreted as things like pride and telling lies (:17). These seven things are the essence of idolatry. There is a recurring nature to them, just as idols got a grip on the mind of the worshipper. Solomon often uses the word for quiet, secret sins, words and the matters of the heart, internal attitudes and judgments (<a href='B:240 11:1'>Pro 11:1</a>; <a href='B:240 11:20'>Pro 11:20</a>; <a href='B:240 12:22'>Pro 12:22</a>; <a href='B:240 13:19'>Pro 13:19</a>; <a href='B:240 15:26'>Pro 15:26</a>; <a href='B:240 16:5'>Pro 16:5</a>; <a href='B:240 17:15'>Pro 17:15</a>; <a href='B:240 20:10'>Pro 20:10</a>; <a href='B:240 20:23'>Pro 20:23</a>; <a href='B:240 24:9'>Pro 24:9</a>; <a href='B:240 26:25'>Pro 26:25</a>; <a href='B:240 28:9'>Pro 28:9</a>; <a href='B:240 29:27'>Pro 29:27</a>). And this of course is the essence of idolatry in our age; this is the practical force to us of all Biblical teaching about idolatry.</p>


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<p>11:2 When pride comes then comes shame, but with humility comes wisdom-</p><p>This is true, but Solomon seems to be also implying that anyone who doesn't accept his wisdom by which he ruled Israel was therefore proud. Autocratic rulers like Solomon often use appeals to humility to quash any dissent; and he ended up whipping and abusing his people. Pride is the opposite of being shamed; the proud person will be brought down to shame even in this life, according to Solomon. Whereas the Bible often teaches that the proud apparently prosper, and are only brought to shame at the day of final judgment; and this perspective wasn't what Solomon accepted, as he liked to think of himself as the Messiah figure.</p>


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<p>11:3 The integrity of the upright shall guide them, but the perverseness of the treacherous shall destroy them-</p><p>"Transgressors" or "traitors" is the term used by David of Saul and his supporters (<a href='B:230 25:3'>Psa 25:3</a>; <a href='B:230 59:5'>Psa 59:5</a>; <a href='B:230 119:158'>Psa 119:158</a>). Solomon uses this term, teaching that "transgressors" must be rooted out of the earth / eretz promised to Abraham (<a href='B:240 2:22'>Pro 2:22</a>), and that the "transgressors" are to face judgment (<a href='B:240 11:3'>Pro 11:3</a>; <a href='B:240 11:6'>Pro 11:6</a>; <a href='B:240 13:2'>Pro 13:2</a>; <a href='B:240 21:18'>Pro 21:18</a>; <a href='B:240 22:12'>Pro 22:12</a>; <a href='B:240 23:28'>Pro 23:28</a>; <a href='B:240 25:19'>Pro 25:19</a>). All Solomon says is true, but he clearly has in view the house and supporters of Saul, who were a group he felt he needed to repress in order to keep his own kingdom and power intact.</p>


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<p>11:4 Riches don’t profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death-</p><p>“Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death” (<a href='B:240 11:4'>Pro 11:4</a>). Riches kept in hand will not help us through the day of judgment. But righteousness, which in the Hebraic parallel in this verse refers to the correct use of riches, will deliver us from eternal death.</p><p>David appealed to God's righteousness for deliverance from the consequence of his sins (<a href='B:230 71:2'>Psa 71:2</a>). This was appropriate, seeing that David had been saved from death by God's imputation of His righteousness to David (<a href='B:230 32:1-4'>Psa 32:1-4</a>), by grace through faith; seeing David's sins left him with no righteousness of his own. And it was on this basis that David believed he would continue to be saved / delivered / rescued (s:w. <a href='B:230 51:14'>Psa 51:14</a> in the Bathsheba context). But Solomon failed to learn from his mother and father's experience of grace, teaching instead that personal righteousness is what saves (<a href='B:240 10:2'>Pro 10:2</a>; <a href='B:240 11:4'>Pro 11:4</a>; <a href='B:240 11:6'>Pro 11:6</a>).</p>


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<p>11:5 The righteousness of the blameless will direct his way, but the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness-</p><p>Solomon thinks of the righteous as walking unflinchingly forward in wisdom, never turning to the right or left, refusing to be distracted by any wicked person who suggests walking another way (<a href='B:240 9:15'>Pro 9:15</a> "to call travellers who go directly on their way"). This approach fails to take account of the simple fact that righteous people sin and stray from the direct path every day, and are saved finally into God's Kingdom by grace alone. That is all something Solomon failed to have any grasp of, whereas David his father did. <a href='B:240 11:5'>Pro 11:5</a> makes the somewhat tautological statement that "the righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way", s:w. <a href='B:240 4:25'>Pro 4:25</a> "fix your gaze directly before you". This contrasts with how David uses the word in <a href='B:230 5:8'>Psa 5:8</a>: "Lead me, O Yahweh... make Your way straight [s:w. direct] before my face". The same statement of God directing in the straight way is found in <a href='B:290 45:13'>Isa 45:13</a>; <a href='B:300 18:4'>Jer 18:4</a> s:w. Solomon didn't see this need for the Spirit of God to direct his path because he assumed that mere possession of Divine truth would itself keep him in the way; hence he teaches that "understanding" makes a man walk "directly" (<a href='B:240 15:21'>Pro 15:21</a>). And he failed miserably because of that arrogant position.</p>


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<p>11:6 The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them, but the unfaithful will be trapped by evil desires-</p><p>"Destructive" or "wickedness" is the word used of the wickedness of Ahithophel and Absalom (<a href='B:230 55:11'>Psa 55:11</a>). Solomon's Proverbs seem in places a justification of himself as king over his brother Absalom. He uses the same word to speak of "transgressors are taken in their own wickedness / destructiveness" (<a href='B:240 11:6'>Pro 11:6</a>); how a liar [Absalom] listens to a 'destructive' tongue [in taking advice from Ahithophel] (<a href='B:240 17:4'>Pro 17:4</a>); and how a foolish son [Absalom] is the calamity or destruction of his father (<a href='B:240 19:13'>Pro 19:13</a>).</p>


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<p>11:7 When a wicked man dies, hope perishes, and expectation of power comes to nothing-</p><p>David's "expectation" in the context of <a href='B:230 62:5'>Psa 62:5</a> was the continuation of his own kingdom, despite all the threats against it from the likes of Saul, Absalom and others who would usurp his Davidic kingship and kingdom. Solomon likely uses the word for "expectation" with the same subtext; that all opposition to him was based upon a false expectation which would be dashed by God (s:w. <a href='B:240 10:28'>Pro 10:28</a>; <a href='B:240 11:7'>Pro 11:7</a>; <a href='B:240 11:23'>Pro 11:23</a>; <a href='B:240 23:18'>Pro 23:18</a>; <a href='B:240 24:14'>Pro 24:14</a>).</p>


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<p>11:8 A righteous person is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked walks into it in his place-</p><p>LXX "A righteous man escapes from a snare, and the ungodly man is delivered up in his place". The allusion may be to David's frequent references to having been saved from the snares of Saul. But David prayed for those deliverances from snares according to God's grace; whereas Solomon sees them as due to righteousness.</p>


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<p>11:9 With his mouth the godless man destroys his neighbour, but the righteous will be delivered through knowledge-</p><p>It is indeed true that words have great power, as seen in the 'destruction' of Job by his friends. The tongue is indeed a destructive fire (<a href='B:660 3:5-6'>Jas 3:5-6</a>). But it is not the case that "knowledge" delivers the righteous. Deliverance / salvation is by grace through faith. Solomon had all the knowledge, but it didn't save him. This is the myth of the idea of "saving truth"; intellectual purity of understanding will not of itself save.</p>


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<p>11:10 When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices. When the wicked perish, there is shouting-</p><p>This had various historical fulfillments, not least in the destruction of Haman and exaltation of Mordecai (<a href='B:190 8:15'>Est 8:15</a>; <a href='B:120 11:20'>2Ki 11:20</a>; <a href='B:140 23:21'>2Ch 23:21</a>). But again Solomon is rather simplistic. When the wicked Absalom perished, David mourned, and likewise for Saul.</p>


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<p>11:11 By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked-</p><p>Solomon repeatedly condemns "the mouth of the wicked" (<a href='B:240 10:6'>Pro 10:6</a>; <a href='B:240 10:11'>Pro 10:11</a>; <a href='B:240 10:32'>Pro 10:32</a>; <a href='B:240 11:11'>Pro 11:11</a>; <a href='B:240 12:6'>Pro 12:6</a>; <a href='B:240 15:28'>Pro 15:28</a>; <a href='B:240 19:28'>Pro 19:28</a>). All he says is true enough, but he clearly enough has in view how his father David had condemned the supporters of Saul and Absalom as having "the mouth of the wicked" (<a href='B:230 109:2'>Psa 109:2</a>). And these were the groups who were threatening his power and throne. Solomon presents himself by implication as having the mouth of the just / righteous. And yet we must note that David too had spoken multiple words of deceit in relation to the murder of Uriah. Indeed the phrase is used in <a href='B:290 53:9'>Isa 53:9</a> as if the Lord Jesus was the only man who didn't have a "mouth of deceit". Solomon like David was in denial of the fact that we all sin with our mouths, as James makes clear in <a href='B:660 3:1-3'>Jas 3:1-3</a>.</p>


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<p>11:12 One who despises his neighbour is without wisdom, but a man of understanding holds his peace-</p><p>The person without / lacking or void of understanding is typically the adulterer or sexual sinner (s:w. <a href='B:240 6:32'>Pro 6:32</a>; <a href='B:240 7:7'>Pro 7:7</a>; <a href='B:240 9:4'>Pro 9:4</a>; <a href='B:240 9:16'>Pro 9:16</a>). So the despising of the neighbour particularly refers to adultery with his wife. I have noted that in previous verses, Solomon is seeking to justify his father David and the Davidic succession through himself. But he overlooks how David sinned with Bathsheba. Or, he is indeed alluding to it, but is saying that although his father lacked wisdom at that point, the man of understanding / wisdom will say nothing about it.</p>


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<p>11:13 One who brings gossip betrays a confidence, but one who is of a trustworthy spirit is one who keeps a secret-</p><p>David frequently complains in his Psalms about gossip about him, both at the time of Saul's persecution of him and of Absalom's rebellion and putsch. "Keeps a secret" is AV "concealeth the matter", and may continue the theme of :12; that despite David's unwisdom in sleeping with Bathsheba [which is still whitewashing David, as what he did was a major sin and not just a lack of wisdom], the faithful will conceal the matter instead of gossiping about. Which is clearly what happened amongst those who were to become contenders against Solomon for the throne.</p>


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<p>11:14 Where there is no wise guidance the nation falls, but in the multitude of counsellors there is victory-</p><p>"The nation" is better "the people". And the people of Israel fell in war with the Philistines, under Saul's unwise leadership (s:w. <a href='B:100 1:4'>2Sa 1:4</a>; <a href='B:100 1:12'>2Sa 1:12</a>). Whereas under David, they were led to victory. Always Solomon seems to want to justify his father David. "Victory" is AV "safety", and may allude to how the lives of Solomon and David were saved by wise counsellors (s:w. <a href='B:110 1:12'>1Ki 1:12</a>). Solomon may also be having a swipe at Ahithophel, the grandfather of his mother Bathsheba, who began as a wise counsellor but then became an unwise counsellor when he turned against David.</p>


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<p>11:15 He who is collateral for a stranger will suffer for it, but he who refuses pledges of collateral is secure-</p><p>The law of Moses didn't forbid giving or taking collateral for loans, it accepted this would happen (<a href='B:20 22:25-27'>Exo 22:25-27</a>). But Solomon in the Proverbs is quite obsessed with forbidding it in very strong terms (<a href='B:240 6:1-3'>Pro 6:1-3</a>; <a href='B:240 11:15'>Pro 11:15</a>; <a href='B:240 17:18'>Pro 17:18</a>; <a href='B:240 20:16'>Pro 20:16</a>; <a href='B:240 22:26'>Pro 22:26</a>; <a href='B:240 27:13'>Pro 27:13</a> - all quite some emphasis). Perhaps Solomon recalled some bad experience in his family because of this. There is the otherwise curious statement in <a href='B:90 17:18'>1Sa 17:18</a> that David's brothers, Solomon's uncles, were to return a collateral. Perhaps this ruined the family and Solomon's wisdom has some human element in it, reflecting his own bad experiences in his family life. But there is nothing wrong with giving or taking collateral for a loan; what is condemned in God's law is the abuse of the debtor and the abuse of the situation. Indeed David and Hezekiah ask God to be collateral for their needs and debts in various ways (<a href='B:230 119:122'>Psa 119:122</a>; <a href='B:290 38:14'>Isa 38:14</a>). And God gives the Holy Spirit in our hearts as collateral on His debt, as He sees it, to save us (<a href='B:540 1:22'>2Co 1:22</a>; <a href='B:540 5:5'>2Co 5:5</a>; <a href='B:560 1:14'>Eph 1:14</a>); and in response we give our hearts as a pledge to Him (<a href='B:300 30:21'>Jer 30:21</a> Heb:). So forbidding the practice seems out of step with the spirit of grace. It would mean asking of God what we are unprepared to do for others. Solomon had not known need, neither material nor spiritual, and it shows in his attitude to this matter. It makes hollow all Solomon's exhortations to be generous to your poor neighbour and to be a brother in adversity to your neighbour (<a href='B:240 14:21'>Pro 14:21</a>; <a href='B:240 17:17'>Pro 17:17</a>). Solomon is here reasoning from the viewpoint of secular wisdom.</p>


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<p>11:16 A gracious woman obtains honour, but violent men obtain riches-</p><p>"Violent men" is AV "strong men". The idea seems to be that grace and strength are associated with the wisdom which Solomon sees as bringing honour and wealth. But the word for "obtains" is used by David always with the sense that it is God who obtains / establishes / holds up the righteous, by grace (s:w. <a href='B:230 16:5'>Psa 16:5</a>; <a href='B:230 17:5'>Psa 17:5</a>; <a href='B:230 41:12'>Psa 41:12</a>; <a href='B:230 63:8'>Psa 63:8</a>). Although Solomon is obsessed with "David my father" and forever justifying him, he totally fails to have the perspective of grace and humility which characterized him.</p>


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<p>11:17 The merciful man does good to his own soul, but he who is cruel troubles his own flesh-</p><p>This continues the theme of :16, that the advantage of wisdom is that it benefits you in this life; and the unwise are only hurting themselves. Whilst this is true, it seems an altogether human and secular approach to God's truth. Because the purpose of our believing, obedient lives is for God's wider glory, and to pave the way for life in His Kingdom in the future. But these things seem almost unknown to Solomon. "The merciful man" may be a reference to Solomon's ancestor Boaz (s:w. <a href='B:80 2:20'>Rth 2:20</a>). This kind of self-justification of his ancestral line is seen so often in Solomon's words.</p>


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<p>11:18 Wicked people earn deceitful wages, but one who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward-</p><p>Reading this verse along with :19 leads us to conclude that the wages in view are life for the righteous, seen as a just reward; and death for the wicked. But as noted on :19, this is not really true to spiritual reality. For all men sin, there is not one righteous, as David realized (<a href='B:520 3:10'>Rom 3:10</a>). Later, Solomon cynically concludes that the wicked and the righteous all die the same death, and so, he concludes, there is no great advantage in righteousness (<a href='B:250 9:2'>Ecc 9:2</a>). This contrasts with Solomon's huge emphasis in Proverbs upon the difference between the wicked and the righteous (e.g. <a href='B:240 11:18'>Pro 11:18</a>). But it seems he got to that wrong conclusion because he assumes that the blessing for righteousness is in this life, and likewise the curses for wickedness. He totally fails to think in terms of the future judgment and eternal life of God's future kingdom. And so as he himself got older and approached death, he concluded that death means that all effort towards righteousness is therefore vain. He made the same mistake as the false teachers of <a href='B:530 15:19'>1Co 15:19</a>, who likewise considered that "hope in Christ" was only helpful for "this life", because they rejected the resurrection of the body and future judgment and reward:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>11:19 He who is truly righteous gets life; he who pursues evil gets death-</p><p>The LXX implies that the righteous are born that way and shall inherit eternal life simply because of their pedigree; and Solomon was the classic case of this, totally overlooking the conditional nature of the promises made to David about him: "A righteous son is born for life: but the persecution of the ungodly&nbsp;ends&nbsp;in death". Whilst these things are true in a sense, Paul in Romans 1-8 points out the obvious truth than no man apart from the Lord Jesus "is truly righteous", and eternal life is a gift by grace. And "the wages of sin is death" (<a href='B:520 6:23'>Rom 6:23</a>) for us all, and not just those who "pursue evil"; for all have sinned. The life and death in view here are perhaps the "wages" of :18.</p>


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<p>11:20 Those who are perverse in heart are an abomination to Yahweh, but those whose ways are blameless are His delight-</p><p>Solomon rightly emphasizes that the "perverse" or "wayward" are wayward in their hearts (<a href='B:240 11:20'>Pro 11:20</a>; <a href='B:240 17:20'>Pro 17:20</a>), leading to wayward ways in practice (<a href='B:240 2:15'>Pro 2:15</a>); but he repeats his father's mistake, in saying he will have nothing to do with those who are wayward in their hearts (s:w. <a href='B:230 101:4'>Psa 101:4</a>). The mistake was in assuming that he could judge human hearts. It continues the far over simplified view of people which Solomon has; the righteous have pure hearts, always obedient; and wicked have bad hearts. But the Bible warns that all of us have hearts which are fountains of evil thoughts (<a href='B:480 7:15'>Mar 7:15</a>; <a href='B:480 7:21-23'>Mar 7:21-23</a> etc:).</p>


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<p>11:21 Most certainly, the evil man will not be unpunished, but the seed of the righteous will be delivered-</p><p>The contrast is between the evil man [who is punished] and the seed of the righteous [who is saved]. Salvation is thereby predicated upon being the seed of the righteous. Solomon speaks hundreds of time of "David my father"; he considered his salvation was assured because of his father. But again, this is not fully the case. Personal spirituality is required.</p>


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<p>11:22 Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout, so is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion-</p><p>The same term is used of Tamar, daughter of Solomon's half brother Absalom (<a href='B:100 14:27'>2Sa 14:27</a>), whose family would have been potential contenders with Solomon for the throne. He as ever is using Divine truth in a way which knocks back his enemies and portrays himself as justified. "Beautiful woman" is the term Solomon uses about his illicit Gentile girlfriend (<a href='B:260 1:8'>Son 1:8</a>), and it is the term sarcastically used about her by Israelite competitors (<a href='B:260 5:9'>Son 5:9</a>; <a href='B:260 6:1'>Son 6:1</a>). Seeing Solomon's wives were idolaters, they lacked discretion; and yet Solomon loved them and married them. He behaved with women completely opposite to his own teachings.</p>


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<p>11:23 The desire of the righteous is only for good; the expectation of the wicked is wrath-</p><p>This again seems rather simplistic, drawing a dualistic picture of the righteous who seek only good, whereas the wicked can only expect the wrath of Divine judgment. Yet "there is none righteous" (<a href='B:520 3:10'>Rom 3:10</a>), and our desires are not only and solely for good. There are mixed motives in even the best of us. We are saved from wrath by grace and being counted righteous by that grace, as Paul makes clear (<a href='B:520 5:9'>Rom 5:9</a>).</p>


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<p>11:24 There is one who scatters, and increases yet more. There is one who withholds more than is appropriate, but gains poverty-</p><p>The one who scatters widely is the generous (:25); and Solomon sees generosity as sure to bring more wealth. But if this is the motive for our generosity, then this isn't surely the kind of self-sacrificial giving until it costs us which God wishes of us. It all fits with the same theme, of righteousness having advantage in this life, and surely bringing wealth. But as I have commented elsewhere, this just isn't the case. And the mean often do not find poverty, but rather apparent wealth. This surely was the intention of the Lord's parable of the rich fool, which can be read as a correction of Solomon's perspective. The difference between the generous and the mean will only be finally articulated in the judgment of the last day, and not in this life. But Solomon refused to be aware of that, and therefore as he came nearer to his own death, he lost his faith and wrote the rejection of wisdom we have in Ecclesiastes.</p>


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<p>11:25 The generous soul shall be made fat; he who waters shall be watered also himself-</p><p>As discussed on :24, Solomon sees the advantage of generosity and wisdom generally as being for this life. He totally lacks any sense of a judgment and Kingdom yet to come. And this was the root of his own spiritual undoing. David saw himself as being "made fat" by God's grace (<a href='B:230 23:5'>Psa 23:5</a>, s:w. "anoint"), whereas Solomon sees this as a direct result of the good deeds of the righteous, such as generosity (<a href='B:240 11:25'>Pro 11:25</a>) and hard work (<a href='B:240 13:4'>Pro 13:4</a>). This is exactly the kind of justification by works which Paul argues against in Romans.</p>


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<p>11:26 People curse someone who withholds grain, but blessing will be on the head of him who sells it-</p><p>The allusion may be to Joseph selling the grain he had stored. But Solomon sees the motivation for such behaviour as being to get a blessing from people. To do good is seen as the way to get favour or blessing from men (:27). And yet the Biblical emphasis is upon the blessing of Divine grace, a teaching found right back in the covenant with Abraham. At this point, Solomon is heavily pushing a works-based righteousness, whose end is in having a good life right now. Again, the perspective of the future Kingdom is totally absent.</p>&nbsp;


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<p>11:27 He who diligently seeks good seeks favour, but he who searches after evil, it shall come to him-</p><p>As noted on :26, the idea is that one should do good because this is the way to favour or blessing from men. But David emphasizes the need to receive favour / acceptance from God, which is granted by His grace in response to repentance (<a href='B:230 30:5'>Psa 30:5</a>; <a href='B:230 30:7'>Psa 30:7</a>; <a href='B:230 51:18'>Psa 51:18</a>; <a href='B:230 69:13'>Psa 69:13</a>; <a href='B:230 106:4'>Psa 106:4</a>).</p>


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<p>11:28 He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous shall flourish as the green leaf-</p><p>The same words as in David's vision of how Solomon's kingdom would be in <a href='B:230 72:7'>Psa 72:7</a>: "In his days, the righteous shall flourish". So Solomon's later statement here that the righteous would flourish is therefore a reference to this, assuming that David's fantasy of Solomon having an eternal kingdom was going to be fulfilled in him. In <a href='B:230 92:11-12'>Psa 92:11-12</a>, David thinks that he himself will see the righteous flourishing (s:w. <a href='B:230 72:7'>Psa 72:7</a>). So he may be imagining that he would somehow be resurrected and see this happening in Solomon's reign. His hope will come ultimately true, but through the kingdom of the Lord Jesus and not Solomon.</p>


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<p>11:29 He who troubles his own house shall inherit the wind. The foolish shall be servant to the wise of heart-</p><p>Solomon appears to be overlooking how his father David had troubled his own house, according to the condemnation of Nathan. Such a person will inherit nothing; whereas Solomon liked to think that the Davidic line through him would inherit everything. It appears that Solomon had a blindness to the nature of his parents' sin, and whitewashed them in his own mind, rather than presenting them [as David would have wished] as the parade example of Divine grace.</p>


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<p>11:30 The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; he who is wise wins souls-</p><p>This is true insofar as we really can be the source of life for others. But access to the tree of life has been taken away because of human sin; only in the restored Eden of the Kingdom of God on earth will we be able to eat the fruit of the tree of life. Indeed God in His grace and wisdom barred access to the tree of life, knowing that eternity in our present state would be a curse. But Solomon likes to think that his kingdom is the Kingdom of God, and the life according to his wisdom was effectively the life eternal. Again we see a failure in Solomon to perceive that the true life and restoration of Eden was yet future. This would explain why as he got older and approached death, he became disillusioned; for clearly his life had not been the life of the Kingdom.</p>


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<p>11:31 Behold, the righteous shall be repaid in the earth; how much more the wicked and the sinner!-</p><p>LXX "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?". The righteous remnant who spoke often to one another about Yahweh will only be "spared" by God's grace (<a href='B:460 3:17'>Mal 3:17</a>). The accepted will feel so certain of this that they will almost argue with the Lord Jesus at the day of judgment that He hasn't made the right decision concerning them (<a href='B:470 25:37-40'>Mat 25:37-40</a>). It's only a highly convicted man who would dare do that. Thus the Father will have to comfort the faithful in the aftermath of the judgment, wiping away the tears which will then (see context) be in our eyes, and give us special help to realize that our sinful past has now finally been overcome (<a href='B:730 21:4'>Rev 21:4</a>). We will be like the labourers in the parable who walk away clutching their penny, thinking "I really shouldn't have this. I didn't work for a day, and this is a day's pay".</p><p>Peter quotes this in <a href='B:670 4:18'>1Pe 4:18</a>, although he quotes liberally and mixing quotation with interpretation. Peter never introduces his quotations as Paul does, with an "It is written...". And he always quotes from the LXX, and often in a rather loose way. Peter was illiterate, and would have known the LXX quotations by memory, recollecting how they had been read to him, rather than having read them with his own eyes and memorized them. And this shows in the way he quotes the Old Testament- although the whole process and final product was Divinely inspired.</p>


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<p>12:1 Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid-</p><p>Solomon here quotes his father's words in <a href='B:230 50:17'>Psa 50:17</a> "since you hate instruction". Solomon thus accuses any who refuse his Proverbs of doing just this, hating instruction, which in the context of <a href='B:230 50:17'>Psa 50:17</a> means 'You are condemned' (s:w. <a href='B:240 5:12'>Pro 5:12</a>; <a href='B:240 12:1'>Pro 12:1</a>; <a href='B:240 15:10'>Pro 15:10</a>).</p>


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<p>12:2 A good man shall obtain favour from Yahweh, but He will condemn a man of wicked devices-</p><p>God's "favour" isn't predicated upon our intellectual prowess in mastering "wisdom" (<a href='B:240 8:35'>Pro 8:35</a>) nor upon our good works (<a href='B:240 12:2'>Pro 12:2</a>). Academic truth and / or good living isn't as it were the key which opens up access to God's grace. For otherwise Divine "favour" would be a reward, and grace would no longer be grace.</p>


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<p>12:3 A man shall not be established by wickedness, but the root of the righteous shall not be moved-</p><p>"Not... moved" is alluding to how David considered that his inheritance and dynasty would not be moved (<a href='B:230 16:8'>Psa 16:8</a>). The context is of David's desire to take the hill of Zion from the Jebusites, and for it to become his by conquest. He was confident he could do this in God's strength, and by saying "I shall not be moved" he identifies himself with Zion which "shall not be moved" (<a href='B:230 46:5'>Psa 46:5</a>). And indeed God came through for David. Because he put Yahweh "always before me", he was given mount Zion and established his kingdom there; but he looked forward to resurrection as the ultimate means of receiving the inheritance (<a href='B:230 16:8-10'>Psa 16:8-10</a>). This passage is then quoted about the Lord Jesus- who likewise shall establish His Kingdom upon David's throne in Zion (<a href='B:490 1:34-35'>Luk 1:34-35</a>) because of His trust in Yahweh. But Solomon, as the son of David, liked to imagine that his dynasty would continue unmoved anyway; he failed to perceive that the unmoved dynasty was due only to God's grace through the Lord Jesus.</p><p>"He will never be shaken" is spoken in <a href='B:230 112:6'>Psa 112:6</a> in the context of the outcome of the final judgment. Being unmoved or never shaken is a major theme of the Psalms of David. Human beings naturally seek for stability, but look for it in the wrong places, imagining that their idols shall never be shaken (s:w. <a href='B:290 40:20'>Isa 40:20</a>; <a href='B:290 41:7'>Isa 41:7</a>). It is only the receipt of eternal salvation at the last day which means we shall never be moved; that is the only ultimate stability (<a href='B:230 62:2'>Psa 62:2</a>; <a href='B:230 62:6'>Psa 62:6</a> s:w:). Their stability will be associated with that of God's eternal Kingdom to be centered upon Zion (s:w. <a href='B:230 125:1'>Psa 125:1</a>). For in secular life under the sun, the righteous do suffer and their lives are "shaken". Solomon's statements that the righteous shall never be shaken / moved (<a href='B:240 10:30'>Pro 10:30</a>; <a href='B:240 12:3'>Pro 12:3</a>) are only ultimately true in this sense; but whether he spoke them with that understanding is debatable:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>12:4 A worthy woman is the crown of her husband, but a disgraceful wife is as rottenness in his bones-</p><p>This is true, but as ever Solomon has his own self justification in view. For "a worthy woman" is the term used of his ancestor Ruth (<a href='B:80 3:11'>Rth 3:11</a>), and he uses it of his mother Bathsheba (<a href='B:240 31:10'>Pro 31:10</a>). The wife who brings disgrace may refer to David's wife Michal, Saul's daughter, whom he divorced:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>12:5 The thoughts of the righteous are just, but the advice of the wicked is deceitful-</p><p>True enough, but probably another swipe at David's advisor Ahithophel, Solomon's great grandfather.</p>


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<p>12:6 The words of the wicked are about lying in wait for blood, but the speech of the upright rescues them-</p><p>"Lie in wait" is the word for ambush. Solomon often uses the word, as if it is for him a major characteristic of sinners (<a href='B:240 1:11'>Pro 1:11</a>; <a href='B:240 1:18'>Pro 1:18</a>; <a href='B:240 7:12'>Pro 7:12</a>; <a href='B:240 12:6'>Pro 12:6</a>; <a href='B:240 23:28'>Pro 23:28</a>; <a href='B:240 24:15'>Pro 24:15</a>). But it's a rather specific word to use so often. It's as if Solomon is consciously alluding to his father's experiences at the hands of the house of Saul (s:w. <a href='B:230 10:9'>Psa 10:9</a>; <a href='B:230 59:3'>Psa 59:3</a>), whom Solomon considered a threat to his own kingship. And so he seems to rather like using the term about sinners, as if using his wisdom to have a dig at his immediate opposition.</p><p>Solomon repeatedly condemns "the mouth of the wicked" (<a href='B:240 10:6'>Pro 10:6</a>; <a href='B:240 10:11'>Pro 10:11</a>; <a href='B:240 10:32'>Pro 10:32</a>; <a href='B:240 11:11'>Pro 11:11</a>; <a href='B:240 12:6'>Pro 12:6</a>; <a href='B:240 15:28'>Pro 15:28</a>; <a href='B:240 19:28'>Pro 19:28</a>). All he says is true enough, but he clearly enough has in view how his father David had condemned the supporters of Saul and Absalom as having "the mouth of the wicked" (<a href='B:230 109:2'>Psa 109:2</a>). And these were the groups who were threatening his power and throne. Solomon presents himself by implication as having the mouth of the just / righteous. And yet we must note that David too had spoken multiple words of deceit in relation to the murder of Uriah. Indeed the phrase is used in <a href='B:290 53:9'>Isa 53:9</a> as if the Lord Jesus was the only man who didn't have a "mouth of deceit". Solomon like David was in denial of the fact that we all sin with our mouths, as James makes clear in <a href='B:660 3:1-3'>Jas 3:1-3</a>.</p>


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<p>12:7 The wicked are overthrown, and are no more, but the house of the righteous shall stand-</p><p>The implication is that the house of the wicked is overthrown, but the house of the righteous is established. True as this is, the subtext is that Solomon is reflecting upon how the house of Saul and other opponents was "no more", but the house of David through himself was established.</p>


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<p>12:8 A man shall be commended according to his wisdom, but he who has a warped mind shall be despised-</p><p>Solomon of course was the man well known for his wisdom. But that wisdom had been given him by God for the purpose of leading Israel. But Solomon went on to conclude that there mere possession of wisdom is what commends a man personally; and all others are therefore "warped" and to be "despised". His possession of wisdom didn't save him personally. This problem is commonly experienced especially in small time Protestant groups; the assumption is that there mere possession of Divine truth is enough to justify a man and commend him before God and man.</p>


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<p>12:9 Better is he who is lightly esteemed and has a servant, than he who honours himself, and lacks bread-</p><p>Perhaps a reference to David, who considered himself "lightly esteemed" (<a href='B:90 18:23'>1Sa 18:23</a>). We could translate "the lightly esteemed servant", as David was at that time to Saul. The only other reference to a man who "lacks bread" is David's curse upon Joab (<a href='B:100 3:29'>2Sa 3:29</a> s:w:), whose family were contenders against Solomon for the throne. So the unsuccessful power grab by Joab is alluded to, and Solomon hints that any who tried to take the throne from him were merely honouring themselves in their own minds.</p>


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<p>12:10 A righteous man respects the life of his animal, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel-</p><p>Solomon may have in view Balaam's unreasonable beating of his donkey. What he writes is true, but it reflects his simplistic, dualistic view; even when a wicked man [as Solomon defines him] shows tender mercy to his animal, Solomon sees that as cruelty. He utterly fails to recognize that human behaviour is a jagged graph, good people sin, and bad people do good things; we are saved not by consistent, stellar living before God, but by faith in His grace. But he fails to perceive this, when he should have learnt it from his father's experiences and his Psalms.</p>


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<p>12:11 He who tills his land shall have plenty of bread, but he who chases fantasies is void of understanding-</p><p>Solomon speaks often of how hard work will "satisfy with bread" (<a href='B:240 12:11'>Pro 12:11</a>; <a href='B:240 20:13'>Pro 20:13</a>; <a href='B:240 28:19'>Pro 28:19</a>). David his father uses the phrase in the context of saying that being 'satisfied with bread' is part of God's gracious blessing (<a href='B:230 132:15'>Psa 132:15</a>). We see here how Solomon became focused upon works, rather than faith in the blessings which come from Divine grace. And yet he uses the words his father had used; but he interprets them as justification of works rather than acceptance of grace.</p>


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<p>12:12 The wicked desires the plunder of evil men, but the root of the righteous flourishes-</p><p>Solomon may be using "root" in the sense of 'the offspring of the root', for the root of David is his Messianic descendant (<a href='B:290 11:10'>Isa 11:10</a>; <a href='B:730 5:5'>Rev 5:5</a>; <a href='B:730 22:16'>Rev 22:16</a>). And this was who Solomon wrongly perceived himself to be. He could have been the offspring of that root, but that was conditional upon his personal spirituality. But he considered that mere descent by the flesh was enough; an error made by Israel throughout their history.</p>


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<p>12:13 An evil man is trapped by the sinfulness of his lips, but the righteous shall come out of trouble-</p><p>As noted on :10 and often, Solomon assumes the righteous never sin with their lips. Whereas <a href='B:660 3:1-5'>Jas 3:1-5</a> explains what we all sadly know from honest experience; that nobody fails to sin with their lips, even the best of us. He utterly fails to recognize that human behaviour is a jagged graph, good people sin, and bad people do good things; we are saved not by consistent, stellar living before God, but by faith in His grace. But he fails to perceive this, when he should have learnt it from his father's experiences and his Psalms. The righteous don't always come out of trouble in this life, the Lord Jesus being the parade example. Their victory is only ultimately in the future day of judgment and the Kingdom, which concepts Solomon chose not to understand, as he assumed that his kingdom was God's Kingdom, and he was Messiah.</p>


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<p>12:14 A man shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth; the work of a man’s hands shall be rewarded to him-</p><p>Solomon correctly parallels words and actions, as the Scriptures often do. But as noted on :13, he assumes the righteous never sin with their lips. Whereas <a href='B:660 3:1-5'>Jas 3:1-5</a> explains what we all sadly know from honest experience; that nobody fails to sin with their lips, even the best of us. And he continues to teach justification by the works of human hands. We shall indeed be given as our works shall be (<a href='B:730 22:12'>Rev 22:12</a>), but not in this life; only at the day of final judgment.</p>


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<p>12:15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who is wise listens to counsel-</p><p>Not being 'wise in our own eyes' is a major theme of Solomon's Proverbs (<a href='B:240 3:7'>Pro 3:7</a>; <a href='B:240 12:15'>Pro 12:15</a>; <a href='B:240 26:12'>Pro 26:12</a>; <a href='B:240 26:16'>Pro 26:16</a>; <a href='B:240 28:11'>Pro 28:11</a>). We are to recognize that there is no inherent wisdom in man; it must be taught to us from God's word. And yet we live in a postmodern world, where what seems or feels good to our own gut is taken to be the highest personal truth. This was what led Judah to condemnation (s:w. <a href='B:290 5:21'>Isa 5:21</a>), because trusting in their own opinions and gut feelings left them insensitive to God's word. Paul quotes the idea in <a href='B:520 12:16'>Rom 12:16</a>; to be wise in our own eyes means that we ignore those whom we naturally consider worthy of being ignored. But that is not necessarily the way of the Spirit. But when Solomon lost his faith, he comments that whether a man has wise eyes or not (s:w:) is irrelevant in the face of death (<a href='B:250 2:14'>Ecc 2:14</a>). He clearly conceived wisdom as only helpful for this life; he had no real personal faith in the resurrection of the dead or the establishment of the future Kingdom of God. And this led him to ultimately despise his own wisdom as futile:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>12:16 A fool shows his annoyance the same day, but one who overlooks an insult is prudent-</p><p>There's a definite link between shame and anger. Take a man whose mother yelled at him because as a toddler he ran out onto the balcony naked, and shamed him by her words. Years later on a hot Summer evening the man as an adult walks out on a balcony with just his underpants on. An old woman yells at him from the yard below that he should be ashamed of himself. And he's furiously angry with her- because of the shame given him by his mother in that incident 20 years ago. Shame and anger are clearly understood by God as being related, because His word several times connects them: "A fool's anger is immediately known; but a prudent man covers his shame" (<a href='B:240 12:16'>Pro 12:16</a>); A king's anger is against a man who shames him (<a href='B:240 14:35'>Pro 14:35</a>). Or consider <a href='B:90 20:34'>1Sa 20:34</a>: "So Jonathan arose from the table in fierce anger, and did eat no meat the second day of the month... because his father had done him shame". Job's anger was related to the fact that he felt that ten times the friends had shamed him in their speeches (<a href='B:220 19:3'>Job 19:3</a>). Frequently the rejected are threatened with both shame and anger / gnashing of teeth; shame and anger are going to be connected in that awful experience. They will "curse [in anger]... and be ashamed" (<a href='B:230 109:28'>Psa 109:28</a>). The final shame of the rejected is going to be so great that "they shall be greatly ashamed... their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten" (<a href='B:300 20:11'>Jer 20:11</a>). Seeing they will be long dead and gone, it is us, the accepted, who by God's grace will recall the terrible shame of the rejected throughout our eternity. Their shame will be so terrible; and hence their anger will likewise be. Because Paul's preaching 'despised' the goddess Diana, her worshippers perceived that she and they were somehow thereby shamed; and so "they were full of wrath, and cried out, saying, Great is Diana of the Ephesians" (<a href='B:510 19:27-28'>Act 19:27-28</a>). It's perhaps possible to understand the wrath of God in this way, too. For His wrath is upon those who break His commands; and by breaking them we shame God (<a href='B:520 2:23'>Rom 2:23</a>); we despise his desire for our repentance (<a href='B:520 2:4'>Rom 2:4</a>).</p>


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<p>12:17 He who is truthful testifies honestly, but a false witness lies-</p><p>This may sound like a pointless statement of the obvious an axiomatic. But we likely need to read in an ellipsis; the truthful always testify honestly, and liars always lie. But this is simply not the case. Solomon utterly fails to recognize that human behaviour is a jagged graph, good people sin, and bad people do good things; we are saved not by consistent, stellar living before God, but by faith in His grace. But he fails to perceive this, when he should have learnt it from his father's experiences and his Psalms.</p>


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<p>12:18 There is one who speaks rashly like the piercing of a sword, but the tongue of the wise heals-</p><p>This uses the language of David, in complaining that his opponents in the house of Saul and the followers of Solomon's half brother Absalom have tongues which pierce like swords (<a href='B:230 57:4'>Psa 57:4</a>; <a href='B:230 64:3'>Psa 64:3</a>). Again, what Solomon says is true, but he is using Divine truth to have a dig at his potential competitors for the throne, and to historically justify his father David:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>12:19 Truth’s lips will be established forever, but a lying tongue is only momentary-</p><p>"Established forever" is the language of the eternal establishment of the Davidic line through his Messianic son; which Solomon wrongly assumed must automatically refer to himself. David led him into this wrong assumption by dedicating "Kingdom" Psalms like Psalms 72 to Solomon. Solomon's fulfilment of the role of David's greater prophetic son was strictly conditional; and he failed totally to meet those conditions. But he uses his possession of wisdom, and teaching of it with his lips, as a reason to wrongly think that he fulfilled the role (<a href='B:240 12:19'>Pro 12:19</a>; <a href='B:240 29:14'>Pro 29:14</a>).</p>


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<p>12:20 Deceit is in the heart of those who plot evil, but joy comes to the promoters of peace-</p><p>"Plot evil" is the phrase used of Saul's plots against David (<a href='B:90 23:9'>1Sa 23:9</a>). Saul likely still had his supporters even in Solomon's time, and Solomon came to the throne after&nbsp; period of continual attempts to take the throne from the Davidic line through Absalom. And he uses his Proverbs, true as they are, to do down any potential opposition, and to present support of him as the only way to national peace and unity- an old ploy.</p>


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<p>12:21 No mischief shall happen to the righteous, but the wicked shall be filled with evil-</p><p>Again Solomon presents an over simplistic picture. Mischief / evil does happen to the righteous, and the sufferings of the Lord Jesus are the parade example. David also had suffered much evil. And the wicked prosper in this life. These words are only true within the perspective of a future judgment and a future Kingdom of God on earth when the eternal outcomes of human behaviour will be manifest. But Solomon refused to factor this in, and saw wisdom as having an immediate effect and reward in this life. He had totally refused to learn the lessons of the book of Job, which was extant scripture at his time.</p>


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<p>12:22 Lying lips are an abomination to Yahweh, but those who do the truth are His delight-</p><p>"Abomination" is the common word for idols (e.g. <a href='B:50 7:25-26'>Deu 7:25-26</a>). Idolatry is here interpreted as things like pride and telling lies (:17). These seven things are the essence of idolatry. There is a recurring nature to them, just as idols got a grip on the mind of the worshipper. Solomon often uses the word for quiet, secret sins, words and the matters of the heart, internal attitudes and judgments (<a href='B:240 11:1'>Pro 11:1</a>; <a href='B:240 11:20'>Pro 11:20</a>; <a href='B:240 12:22'>Pro 12:22</a>; <a href='B:240 13:19'>Pro 13:19</a>; <a href='B:240 15:26'>Pro 15:26</a>; <a href='B:240 16:5'>Pro 16:5</a>; <a href='B:240 17:15'>Pro 17:15</a>; <a href='B:240 20:10'>Pro 20:10</a>; <a href='B:240 20:23'>Pro 20:23</a>; <a href='B:240 24:9'>Pro 24:9</a>; <a href='B:240 26:25'>Pro 26:25</a>; <a href='B:240 28:9'>Pro 28:9</a>; <a href='B:240 29:27'>Pro 29:27</a>). And this of course is the essence of idolatry in our age; this is the practical force to us of all Biblical teaching about idolatry.</p>


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<p>12:23 A prudent man keeps his knowledge, but the hearts of fools proclaim foolishness-</p><p>We may be intended to understand the silence of the lips of the prudent as contrasted with the heart of the foolish speaking freely. In this case, the heart and the tongue are paralleled, as often in scripture; for out of the heart, the mouth speaks (<a href='B:490 6:45'>Luk 6:45</a>):&nbsp;</p>


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<p>12:24 The hands of the diligent ones shall rule, but laziness ends in slave labour-</p><p>See on <a href='B:240 6:7'>Pro 6:7</a>. Solomon's reign concluded with him putting people into slave labour and whipping them. He sees this as fair punishment for their laziness. But by enslaving people and whipping them for their supposed laziness, he was acting like Pharaoh.</p>


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<p>12:25 Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down, but a kind word makes it glad-</p><p>"Weights it down" is the usual word for 'to bow down', and may continue the theme of :24; that the diligent Solomon would have men down to him, although he considers that his words could also lift them up with gladness. Again, these things are all true, but they are being used to justify Solomon's rulership style, which was far from spiritual and was often abusive, especially at the end of his reign.</p>


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<p>12:26 A righteous person is cautious in friendship, but the way of the wicked leads them astray-</p><p>The need to choose friends wisely is true, and yet it would appear justification for how Solomon filled his cabinet with "yes men".</p>


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<p>12:27 The slothful man doesn’t roast his game, but the possessions of diligent men are prized-</p><p>The slothful man catcheth / roasteth not that which he &nbsp;took in hunting” (<a href='B:240 12:27'>Pro 12:27</a> RVmg:) may be one of the Proverbs’ historical commentaries- in this case, on Jacob. The implication would be that Jacob was lazy in staying in the tent and not hunting. But again we see a glorification of works, rather than of grace and faith.</p>


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<p>12:28 In the way of righteousness is life; in its path there is no death-</p><p>LXX "In the ways of righteousness is life; but the ways of those that remember injuries&nbsp;lead&nbsp;to death". This is true, but Solomon would be hinting that any legitimate complaints about the behaviour of himself or his father were wrong because love doesn't remember past abuses. That argument is faulty on various counts, but the point is that Solomon is yet again seeking to whitewash his father and himself, and place them beyond any criticism.</p><p>The term "way of righteousness" is found in <a href='B:240 8:20'>Pro 8:20</a> "I walk in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of justice". Again it seems that Solomon's personification of wisdom leads him to come out with things which he clearly enough saw as descriptions of himself. He saw himself as wisdom personified, walking always in the right way, and always judging justly. And the one who walked in "the way of righteousness" would never die (<a href='B:240 12:28'>Pro 12:28</a> s:w:). Solomon saw his possession of Divine truths as the guarantee of itself that he was the eternal Messianic king. He had been warned that he must walk in the way of God if he was to have long life (s:w. <a href='B:110 3:14'>1Ki 3:14</a>); but he assumed that the mere possession of Divine wisdom meant he was in that "way". As he got older and was reminded of his own mortality, he would have realized that he had to recalculate his position; and he ended up with the cynicism about his own wisdom seen in Ecclesiastes:&nbsp; And yet his injustice to his own people was evidence enough that he didn't do this in reality, but only in his own mind (<a href='B:110 12:11'>1Ki 12:11</a>).</p>


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<p>13:1 A wise son listens to his father’s instruction, but a scoffer doesn’t listen to rebuke-</p><p>The book of Job makes it clear that it is the content of an elder's instruction which should govern whether or not it is accepted. But Solomon demands submission to him simply because he is a king and a father. Being "wise" is predicated therefore upon accepting Solomon's truths; personal behaviour and spirituality doesn't come into the picture with Solomon, and his own apostasy shows the end of this line of thinking.</p>


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<p>13:2 By the fruit of his lips, a man enjoys good things; but the unfaithful crave violence-</p><p>"Transgressors" or "traitors" is the term used by David of Saul and his supporters (<a href='B:230 25:3'>Psa 25:3</a>; <a href='B:230 59:5'>Psa 59:5</a>; <a href='B:230 119:158'>Psa 119:158</a>). Solomon uses this term, teaching that "transgressors" must be rooted out of the earth / eretz promised to Abraham (<a href='B:240 2:22'>Pro 2:22</a>), and that the "transgressors" are to face judgment (<a href='B:240 11:3'>Pro 11:3</a>; <a href='B:240 11:6'>Pro 11:6</a>; <a href='B:240 13:2'>Pro 13:2</a>; <a href='B:240 21:18'>Pro 21:18</a>; <a href='B:240 22:12'>Pro 22:12</a>; <a href='B:240 23:28'>Pro 23:28</a>; <a href='B:240 25:19'>Pro 25:19</a>). All Solomon says is true, but he clearly has in view the house and supporters of Saul, who were a group he felt he needed to repress in order to keep his own kingdom and power intact.</p>


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<p>13:3 He who guards his mouth guards his soul; one who opens wide his lips comes to ruin-</p><p>This continues the common theme of Proverbs, that the advantage of wisdom is that it benefits you in this life; and the unwise are only hurting themselves. Whilst this is true, it seems an altogether human and secular approach to God's truth. Because the purpose of our believing, obedient lives is for God's wider glory, and to pave the way for life in His Kingdom in the future. But these things seem almost unknown to Solomon.</p>


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<p>13:4 The soul of the sluggard desires, and has nothing, but the desire of the diligent shall be fully satisfied-</p><p>The Proverbs contain repeated condemnation of laziness. Lack of a zealous work ethic is a rejection of wisdom, according to Solomon. As Solomon explains in Ecclesiastes 1, he was an active person, not lazy by nature. And yet he lacked spirituality. He claimed that his service of God was due to his spirituality, but it was in reality merely a semblance of serving God when it was really just reinforcing his own personality type. His mocking of the "sluggard" or "lazy one" is so frequent (<a href='B:240 6:6'>Pro 6:6</a>; <a href='B:240 6:9'>Pro 6:9</a>; <a href='B:240 10:26'>Pro 10:26</a>; <a href='B:240 13:4'>Pro 13:4</a>; <a href='B:240 15:19'>Pro 15:19</a>; <a href='B:240 19:24'>Pro 19:24</a>; <a href='B:240 20:4'>Pro 20:4</a>; <a href='B:240 21:25'>Pro 21:25</a>; <a href='B:240 22:13'>Pro 22:13</a>; <a href='B:240 24:30'>Pro 24:30</a>; <a href='B:240 26:13-16'>Pro 26:13-16</a>). But it is a reflection of his own works-based approach to righteousness; the 'wise' "do" good things, and the wicked don't do enough good things. Personal spiritual mindedness and relationship with God are simply not emphasized.</p><p>Solomon sees the advantage of generosity and wisdom generally as being for this life. He totally lacks any sense of a judgment and Kingdom yet to come. And this was the root of his own spiritual undoing. David saw himself as being "made fat" by God's grace (<a href='B:230 23:5'>Psa 23:5</a>, s:w. "anoint"), whereas Solomon sees this as a direct result of the good deeds of the righteous, such as generosity (<a href='B:240 11:25'>Pro 11:25</a>) and hard work (<a href='B:240 13:4'>Pro 13:4</a>). This is exactly the kind of justification by works which Paul argues against in Romans.</p>


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<p>13:5 A righteous man hates lies, but a wicked man brings shame and disgrace-</p><p>Again, Solomon is justifying his father David, who uses these words to describe how he "hates lies" (<a href='B:230 119:104'>Psa 119:104</a>; <a href='B:230 119:128'>Psa 119:128</a>; <a href='B:230 119:163'>Psa 119:163</a>). The reality was that David had brought shame and disgrace through his sin with Solomon's mother, Bathsheba. But Solomon seems at pains to make a case that the righteous don't do this kind of thing, and the shame and disgrace which arose was due to Solomon's half brothers and court politics. Whereas Nathan is clear that it all came as a consequence for David's sin.</p>


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<p>13:6 Righteousness guards the way of integrity, but wickedness overthrows the sinner-</p><p>David by contrast felt he was kept or guarded in the way of integrity by God constantly pointing out that way to him (s:w. <a href='B:230 119:33'>Psa 119:33</a>). Solomon seems to think that mere possession of Divine truth made him "righteous", and this of itself kept him in the way. He has none of the constant desire to be taught which David had, because he assumed he had received total truth. Those who consider they hold "the truth" as a package of doctrinally correct propositions can make the same mistake as Solomon.</p>


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<p>13:7 There are some who are made rich, yet have nothing. There are some who are made poor, yet have great wealth-</p><p>The Hebrew grammar makes these reflexive verbs, as if the making rich or poor are done to the person by themselves, possibly referring simply to their own perceptions of themselves. Solomon's own words were so true of him: “There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing [quoted in <a href='B:730 3:17'>Rev 3:17</a> about the rejected]: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great wealth” (<a href='B:240 13:7'>Pro 13:7</a> AV). This last phrase is quoted about the Lord Jesus, who made Himself poor on the cross (<a href='B:540 8:9'>2Co 8:9</a>). And yet Solomon, who made himself rich, is the very anti-Christ, the only specific person associated in the Bible with the number 666 (<a href='B:110 10:14'>1Ki 10:14</a>).</p>


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<p>13:8 The ransom of a man’s life is his riches, but the poor hear no threats-</p><p><a href='B:240 13:8'>Pro 13:8</a> speaks of how our attitude to wealth is a crucial factor in our eternal destiny: “The ransom of a man’s life are his riches”. Just prior to that we read in <a href='B:240 13:7'>Pro 13:7</a>: “There is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches”. This verse is actually part quoted in <a href='B:540 8:9'>2Co 8:9</a> and Php_2:7, about how on the cross, the Lord Jesus made himself poor, of no reputation, and now has been so highly exalted. Our living out of the Lord’s cross is shown in our making of ourselves poor. That is surely the unmistakable teaching of this allusion. But Solomon may have had in view the way that rich people were held to ransom to part with their riches for the sake of their lives being spared, whereas the poor don't have this problem. He may be thereby implying that wealth is the most important thing a man has after his physical life. This accords with his mistaken view that the wise get wealth and the foolish are poor.</p>


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<p>13:9 The light of the righteous shines brightly, but the lamp of the wicked is snuffed out-</p><p>"The righteous" in :5 and elsewhere in Proverbs refers to David, and Solomon was the "lamp" or descendent given to David, shining brightly in his kingdom (<a href='B:110 15:4'>1Ki 15:4</a>). But Solomon was not the Messianic "lamp" of David in its ultimate term (<a href='B:230 132:17'>Psa 132:17</a>). He failed to fulfil the conditions to become the Messianic son of David. But he prides himself that he is shining brightly, whereas all other contenders for the throne had been snuffed out. Again, what he says is true, but is harnessed to his own personal self-justification.</p>


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<p>13:10 Pride only breeds quarrels, but with ones who take advice is wisdom-</p><p>Again this is true, but almost every verse in this section has included some self justification. "Quarrels" is the word used in the parable about the strivings between David's sons (<a href='B:100 14:6'>2Sa 14:6</a>). He is implying that all the quarrels about his being the one to have the throne merely came from pride, and the wise will accept Solomon's kingship.</p>


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<p>13:11 Wealth gained dishonestly dwindles away, but he who gathers by hand makes it grow-</p><p>Solomon believed that his own wealth was a result of his wisdom. But wealth is given by God, and in his case, he was told that right at the start of his reign. It didn't come from his own hard work, but from God's gracious gift, in recognition of his desire for wisdom to teach Israel. And again, the Lord's parable of the rich fool shows that the rich sometimes take their wealth to the grave. But the ultimate perspective upon wealth is that it cannot affect in any way our eternity, nor be taken into God's Kingdom. Indeed, it must be shed if we are to enter the needle gate into the Kingdom- whether or not the wealth was attained by our hard work or by dishonesty.</p>


