James 3:17; Job 28:20; Proverbs 1:1-7
The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of understanding?
The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel; to know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity; to give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels: to understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): The word “wisdom” occurs thirty-seven times in the book of Proverbs.
G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): The title of this book, and the following six verses contain what we today would speak of as preface. That preface first declares the purpose of the book in terms so simple as to need no comment. Then follows a statement of method, which is necessary to a right use of the whole book.
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): In the three sacred books written by Solomon, he sends each forth under three different titles. Here he calls himself “the son of David, king of Israel.” The book of Ecclesiastes, he styles “the words of the Preacher,” and therein he takes the name of “the King of Jerusalem.” And in the Song of Solomon, after speaking in the title page of the excellency of it, he only puts his name of Solomon.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): They are the “proverbs of Solomon.” His name signifies peaceable.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Proverbs, or, Master sentences; maxims, axioms, speeches of special excellence and predominance; received rules that must overrule matters, and mightily prevail in the minds of men.
CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): Solomon is recorded as the wisest of men; a man of wisdom, because he was a man of prayer, 1 Kings 3:1-14; compare Proverbs 2:1-9. His extraordinary wisdom was the admiration of the world, 1 Kings 3:28; 1 Kings 4:34.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The queen of Sheba is also to be admired in that, wishing to learn from Solomon, she asked him many questions—not simply one or two, but many, 1 Kings 10:1-9. Some people say, though I do not know how true it is, that curiosity is largely developed in women. In this case, however, the woman’s curiosity was wise and right, that when she was in the presence of such a man of wisdom, to try to learn all that she could from him and, therefore, she questioned him about all sorts of things.
MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Proverbs are ancient, wise, and short sayings in common use; whereof some are plain and easy, others are intricate and obscure.
ROBERT HAWKER: A proverb is said to be a “dark saying,” intimating that there is much more in it than might at first sight be supposed. Therefore, through the whole of the proverbs, we are taught to be looking beyond the surface for the grand substance that is concealed. And this, if I do not greatly err, we shall find to be Christ. He is the wisdom which is here spoken of, and for which the proverbs are given.
CHARLES BRIDGES: Valuable as are Solomon’s maxims for their wisdom—exceeding the sages of his own or any other time, 1 Kings 4:29-31, they claim our reverence upon infinitely higher ground: “Behold! A greater than Solomon is here,” Matthew 12:42.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): The son of David, king of Israel. These titles are such as belong to the Messiah, Solomon’s antitype, one that is greater than he.
C. H. SPURGEON: Though Solomon was wise, he was not Wisdom itself, and that Jesus is. In the Book of Proverbs Jesus is referred to under the name of Wisdom.
THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Wisdom, in the Proverbs, is put for the person of Christ Himself—see Proverbs Chapter 8. So also Luke 11:49 compared with Luke 7:34,35, wherein Christ, speaking of Himself, says in Luke 11:49, “Therefore also said the Wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles…”—and in Luke 7:34,35, He expressly says, this “Wisdom” is He who was the Son of man.
C. H. SPURGEON: Paul tells us that “He is made of God unto us wisdom,” 1 Corinthians 1:30. They who really know Him know something of how wise He is and how truly He may be called Wisdom. Because He is with the Father and knows the Father, He has such wisdom as no one else can have. “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father. Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomever the Son will reveal Him,” Matthew 11:27. He knows the deep things of God, for He came down from Heaven bringing His Father’s greatest secrets in His heart. To Him, therefore, men ought to come if they wish to be wise, and ought we not to wish for wisdom? To whom else can we go if we go not to Him “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge?” Colossians 2:3.
WILLIAM ARNOT (1808-1875): What is the relation which subsists between the fear of the Lord and true wisdom? The one is the foundation, the other the imposed superstructure; the one is the sustaining root, the other the sustained branches; the one is the living fountain, the other the issuing stream. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,”—the meaning is, he who does not reverentially trust in God, knows nothing yet as he ought to know.
G. CAMPBELL MORGAN: The facts of God, and man’s relation to Him, must be taken for granted if there is to be any true wisdom.
MATTHEW HENRY: Fools—atheists, who have no regard to God—“despise wisdom and instruction;” having no dread at all of God’s wrath, nor any desire of His favour. Those who say to the Almighty, “Depart from us,” who are so far from fearing Him that they set Him at defiance, can excite no surprise if they desire not the knowledge of His ways, but despise that instruction.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): What is wisdom to them?
MATTHEW HENRY: Those are fools who do not fear God and value the scriptures; and though they may pretend to be admirers of wit they are really strangers and enemies to wisdom…They talk of their wisdom, but, “Lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord;” they would not be governed by it, would not follow its direction, would not do what they knew; and then “what wisdom is in them?” None to any purpose; none that will be found to their praise at the great day, however much it is found to their pride now.
C. H. SPURGEON: They despise the wisdom of Christ. If you probe them, you will discover that they were never willing to learn of Him. His own words are, “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven,” Matthew 18:3. The wisdom of Christ cannot be known by those who refuse to be disciples—that is, learners.
H. A. IRONSIDE: Wisdom is “skillfulness”—the ability to use knowledge correctly.
CHARLES BRIDGES: The great end of this inestimable book of Proverbs is to teach, not secular or political wisdom—though many excellent rules of each are interspersed—but that knowledge of God, which, while it “maketh wise unto salvation,” perfects and “furnishes the man of God unto all good works,” 2 Timothy 3:15-17. Its glowing privileges are set forth, Proverbs 3:13-18. It is pressed upon us with intense earnestness, as “the principal thing,” Proverbs 4:7; and our very “life,” Proverbs 4:13,20-23.
JOHN GILL: Moreover, a man who thoroughly understands the things in this book is fit to be a counsellor of others in things human and divine; in things moral, civil, and spiritual.
