Proverbs Chapter 9
Proverbs
Chapter 9
1. Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out its seven pillars. We have delighted to contemplate the divine Savior in his glorious majesty, and especially in his wonderful love to the sons of men (8:22-31). Here his love is poured out before us. The parable of the marriage feast clearly identifies the speaker. Then the King made the feast and sent his servants to invite the guests (Matthew 22:1-4). Here wisdom is a queen, which was the Eastern custom.
Built her house. This is the church of the living God, which is firmly set on the pillars of eternal truth (1 Timothy 3:15; Ephesians 2:20-22; Hebrews 3:3-4). The great sacrifice supplies her feast (1 Corinthians 5:7; Psalm 36:8; Isaiah 25:6).
2. She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine and so has amply provided for her table.
3. Wisdom is attended by her maids.
4. She cries to all who are simple, who are ignorant of their danger (22:3) and easily deceived (14:15), and to those who lack judgment, who have no understanding about their need or desire for the blessing.
"Let all... come in here." Here is a feast not to see, but to enjoy.
5. "Come, eat my food" (the bread of life) "and drink the wine" of the Gospel of grace and joy.
Are not all comers welcome to the gospel feast? The Master's heart flows along with every offer of his grace. His servants are ministers of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-20). Their message is to tell of the bounty of Messiah's house and to invite sinners to him. All the blessings of the Gospel are set before you—love without beginning, end, or change. Honor the liberty of his mercy. Let him have the full glory of his own grace, who invites you to a feast when he might have frowned on you and sent you to hell. Calvin speaks of the pleading invitations of Christ as "his sweet and more than motherly allurements" and beautifully adds, "The word of God is never opened to us, but that he with a motherly sweetness opens his own heart to us." Let this heavenly hope be enthroned in your soul, displacing every subordinate object from its hold on your affections, eclipsing the glories of this present world, absorbing your whole mind, consecrating your whole heart.
6. The very severities of the Gospel prepare the way for its consolations. But these blessings can never be appreciated until the simple leave their ways. You must either leave them or Christ (James 4:4). To live in them is to remain in the company of the dead (21:16). To leave them is to walk in the way of understanding (13:20). Are they more to you than salvation? To be the friend of the world is to be the enemy of God. You must separate yourself from anything that is unholy, so you can be welcomed by the Almighty (2 Corinthians 6:17-18).
7. Wisdom's messengers must discriminate in the proclamation of their message. Though the simple welcome it, a mocker and a wicked man will rebel. You must distinguish between the ignorant and the deliberate mocker. Paul once "acted in ignorance and unbelief" (1 Timothy 1:13). But his fellow countrymen deliberately refused the blessing and shut themselves out from the free offer of salvation (Acts 13:45-46, 50).
One cannot think of the mocker without compassion. Under an assumed happy life, he would envy, as Colonel Gardiner did, his own dog. "I hate life," said Voltaire, "yet I am afraid to die." Such is the bitterness of the soul linked with rebellion against God.
Yet, in dealing with him, Solomon gives us here the rule of Christian prudence. The Gospel is too holy to be exposed to scoffing fools (Matthew 7:6). Why should we correct and rebuke when more harm than good will be the result? Avoid irritations. Wait for the favorable opportunity. Sometimes a sad, serious, intelligible silence is the most effective reproof.
8. A wise man is happy to encourage timely reproof (28:23). Conscious of his own feelings, he will love you, his reprover, as a friend of his best interests.
9. The wise will be instructed and taught from the lowest person, so that he can become wiser still and add to his learning.
Wisely to give and humbly to receive reproof requires much prayer, self-denial, love, and sincerity. Faithful are the wounds of a friend (27:6). Happy is the church that receives the loving admonitions of the Christian pastor with humility and thankfulness. As was observed of Mr. Martyn, "He felt reproof to be 'a duty of unlimited extent and almost insuperable difficulty.' But, he said, 'the way to know when to address men and when to abstain is to love.' And as love is most genuine where the heart is most abased, he resolved not to reprove others when he could conscientiously be silent, except he experienced at the same time a peculiar contrition of spirit."
10. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." The repetition of this weighty sentence (see 1:7) deepens our estimate of its importance.
The fear of the Lord was a lovely grace in the perfect humanity of Jesus (Isaiah 11:2-3). The child of God has only one dread—to offend his Father. The child of God has only one desire—to please and delight in him.
Here the fear of the Lord is combined with knowledge of the Holy One. The parallelism with the former clause seems to demand this meaning. The application of the plural number to the sacred name is used elsewhere by Solomon (1:1-20; Ecclesiastes 12:1) as well as by other inspired writers (Genesis 1:26; Job 35:10; Isaiah 44:5). [Editor's note: Though a plural form in the Hebrew, the word Elohim can be treated as a singular, when it means the one supreme Deity.] Bishop Horsley remarks, "God is the only Being to whom the same name in the singular and in the plural may be indiscriminately applied. And this change from one number to the other, without anything in the principles of language to account for it, is frequent in speaking of God in the Hebrew language." The reason for this strange use of language is obvious to anyone who receives with implicit and reverential faith the scriptural revelation of the divine essence.
If all men knew the Holy One, who would not fear the Lord (Revelation 15:4)?
11. Many... days and years... added to your life were God's reward in the Old Testament (3:2, 16; 4:10; 10:27). The prospect of years being added to your life is unimaginably joyful, as it speaks of endless eternity and being fully satisfied with the enjoyment of heaven.
12. "If you are wise, your wisdom will reward you; if you are a mocker, you alone will suffer." The consequences of our conduct, good or bad, rebound on ourselves. God does not benefit from what we do, and he is beyond the reach of any harm being done to him. The wise man's light is a blessing to the church and to the world (Matthew 5:14,16). And he will receive a reward for his wisdom.
The mocker is a burden to his minister and a stumbling-block to his church. But he hurts nobody more than himself. Everybody must bear his own burden, and whatever a person sows, that will he reap (Galatians 6:5, 7-8).
13. Wisdom's free and gracious invitation has been set before us. And we might almost ask, who could resist it? Now we have an allurement from the opposite direction. For sin is no less keen to destroy than wisdom is to save. The distinct character of Folly as alluded to here can be seen from the previous descriptions of it (chapters 2, 5, 7). The lusts of the body are in open opposition to divine wisdom. "The delight of the soul fixed on anything but God and his grace is spiritual adultery" (Diodati).
14. With utter shamelessness Folly dares to present herself at the highest point of the city.
15. She allures anyone who might pass by, who go straight on their way.
17. May not some stolen water, some secret indulgences, be allowed? Ah, sinner, there is no such thing as secret sin. All is exposed before God's eye.
But the strength of this temptation is that they are forbidden pleasures. Restraint provokes the dormant power of sin, just as children do what is forbidden just because it is forbidden. When Augustine describes how he stole fruit from the pear tree, he says that he did not do it because he was hungry, as he threw away most of the fruit, but for the mere pleasure of sin as sin. He did it to break God's law. It is instructive to see how he traces the sin to its root, as the psalmist also did (51:5). Behold my heart, O Lord, which yon have had pity on in the very depth of the bottomless pit.
18. How will all this end? Satan shows only the sparkling cup and the glaring light. Ask to look into the inner room. The blinded fool has deliberately closed his eyes, or else he would know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of the grave.