Read Proverbs 8 and 9 at Bible Gateway.
The Hebrew paragraph divisions:
Pro 8:1-31 {p} The excellency of wisdom, calling to the sons of men
Pro 8:13a The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; {n}
Pro 8:13b Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverse mouth I hate.
Pro 8:32-9:18 {s} Wisdom and folly alike call out to the simple, to choose life or death
Pro 8 forms a chiastic structure going back to the beginning of the book, which I do not have completed. The structure for Pro 9 (which is also an element in a larger overlapping structure):
1a) Pro 9:1-6, Wisdom calls out to the simple, and her end is life;
1) Pro 9:1-3, Wisdom builds her house on seven pillars/ has prepared a feast for the sons of men;
2) Pro 9:4a, “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!”
3) Pro 9:4b-5, She says to him who lacks understanding: “Come, eat of my bread + drink of my wine;”
4) Pro 9:6, “Forsake foolishness and live/ go in the way of understanding;”
1b) Pro 9:7-9, Scoffers and wise men compared and contrasted;
central axis) Pro 9:10-11, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding; For by me your days will be multiplied, and years of life will be added to you;
2b) Pro 9:12, Wise men and scoffers compared;
2a) Pro 9:13-18, The foolish woman calls out to the simple, but her end is death;
1) Pro 9:13-15, A foolish woman calls out to the sons of men;
2) Pro 9:16a, “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here;”
3) Pro 9:16b-17, She says to him who lacks understanding: “Stolen water is sweet + secret bread is pleasant;”
4) Pro 9:18 {s} He does not know that to embrace folly is death + hell.
What are the seven pillars of wisdom? The first is the fear of the LORD, and the second is the knowledge of the Holy One (vs. 10). To see these two pillars in action, go back to 2 Sam 6. David already possessed the fear of the LORD, the beginning of wisdom; it was out of that trait that he desired to bring the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem in the first place. He used his office to establish the LORD’s presence in His proper exalted place (higher than the king), in the capital seat of Israel. But because he did not yet have the knowledge of the Holy One, the way he brought the ark caused the death of one of the attendants. Because YHVH is holy, His presence can not be transgressed without consequence. We find the same thing over and over again in the Hebrew Scriptures. The next time David brought the ark, he did his research in Torah first – he obtained knowledge of the Holy One – and brought the ark to Jerusalem successfully.
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge …” Hos 4:6
We find a third pillar in this chapter, which is humility:
Do not correct a scoffer, lest he hate you; Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you. Pro 9:8
A wise man receives rebuke, instruction, and correction, because he is not exalted in his own eyes. He knows he still has much to learn. A foolish man resists and rejects rebuke, instruction, and correction, because he thinks he has already arrived, and has attained perfection.
Another way to phrase this pillar, is that wisdom has ears to hear (Deu 6:4, Mat 11:15).
Continuing to the end of the chapter, we see a fourth pillar of wisdom, which is righteousness: acting, behaving, and doing what is right and good for its own sake; keeping in mind its long- term reward, which is life. The fool embraces wickedness for the sake of its short- term reward, a temporary indulgence of the flesh, and does not even consider its long- term reward, which is death.
As we go through Proverbs we will uncover the remaining three pillars of wisdom, Lord willing …
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