Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Proverbs 2:2

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

The rewards of seeking wisdom (2:1-22)

People must spare no effort in diligently searching for wisdom. At the same time they must remember that the true goal of their search is not academic achievement but spiritual growth through knowing God better (2:1-5). However, when they obtain this wisdom, they cannot claim to have achieved it by their own abilities; it is the gift of God. He rewards those who seek genuinely (6).
Not only does God give wisdom to those who earnestly seek it, but he also watches over them (7-8). He gives them inner satisfaction through their greater understanding of what is right (9-10). This enlightened understanding helps protect them from those who have scheming minds and find pleasure in wrongdoing (11-15). Also it will save them from falling to the temptations of immoral women. These women, in making prostitutes of themselves, have left their husbands, despised God and bought lasting damage to themselves and their lovers (16-19). By contrast, those who obtain wisdom have useful lives that bring lasting benefits to all (20-22).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

THE SEEKER OF WISDOM MAY FIND GOD

"My son, if thou wilt receive my words, And lay up my commandments with thee; So as to incline thine ear unto wisdom, And apply thy heart to understanding; Yea, if thou cry after discernment, And lift up thy voice for understanding; If thou seek her as silver, And search for her as for hid treasures: Then shalt thou understand the fear of Jehovah, And find the knowledge of God. For Jehovah giveth Wisdom; Out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding: He layeth up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to them that walk in integrity; That he may guard the paths of justice, And preserve the way of his saints."

"My son" "This address occurs thirteen times in the first seven chapters of Proverbs,"Wycliffe Old Testament Commentary, p. 559. not only indicating the unity of this section, but also revealing the format here as a succession of speeches to a young person by some teacher.

"Incline thine ear to wisdom… thy heart to understanding" The use of the words wisdom and understanding without the possessive pronouns `my' and `her' make it clear that, "Wisdom is no longer personified in this passage and regarded as the speaker."The Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 9, p. 33.

"Yea, if thou cry after knowledge" "The seeker after wisdom must be earnest and sincere, as indicated by these words."Ibid., p. 34. Furthermore, he must extend himself diligently and search for true wisdom with the same abandon and exertion that men devote to the seeking of earthly treasures. (See under Proverbs 2:6.)

"How do men seek money? What will they not do to get rich? Reader, seek the salvation of thy soul as earnestly as the covetous man seeks wealth; and be ashamed of thyself, if thou be less in earnest after the true riches than he is after the wealth that perishes."Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (London: T. Mason and G. Lane, 1837), Vol. III, p. 705. "This paragraph underlines the involvement and effort needed both to obtain and retain wisdom."The New Layman's Bible Commentary, p. 707.

"Then shalt thou understand the fear of Jehovah, and find the knowledge of God" "The deeper religious element of wisdom appears in this verse, i.e., the fundamental conception of Hebrew prophecy that the knowledge of God is the supreme good."Arthur S. Peake, A Commentary on the Bible (London: T. C. and E. C. Jack, Ltd., 1924), p. 398.

"There are two coefficients to our receiving wisdom from God, namely, our efforts and God's assistance,"The Pulpit Commentary, op. cit., p. 35. as noted in the next verse.

"Jehovah giveth wisdom" George DeHoff has these priceless lines on this verse. "God gives wisdom only to those who search for it. Often in the Bible, God is pictured as giving something when he merely makes it available. He gave the city of Jericho to Joshua; but it was necessary for Joshua and his soldiers to obey God's instructions before they could possess it. God gave manna to Israel in the wilderness; but they had to go and gather it up (Numbers 11). Christ gave the blind man his sight; but he received it only when he went and washed in the Pool of Siloam. God gives men wisdom; but much diligent study is required in order to receive it."George DeHoff's Commentary, op. cit., p. 254. Likewise, salvation itself is the free gift of God; but it is given conditionally. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark 16:16). "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 7:21).

"That he may… preserve the way of his saints" "Only here in the book of Proverbs do we find this remarkable word `saints'."The Pulpit Commentary, op. cit., p. 37. And is it really true that God preserves the way of his saints? The answer is affirmative. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, due to (1) the activities of Satan, (2) the freedom of the human will, (3) the curse upon the earth for Adam's sake, (4) the element of chance, and (5) the mysterious `chastening' that falls upon every true child of God. Our Lord himself promised that his faithful servants, "Shall receive in this present life a hundred fold, and in the world to come, eternal life" (Mark 10:30). How does God accomplish such a thing as this? (1) The angels of heaven do service for them that shall be the heirs of eternal life (Hebrews 1:14). (2) Christ himself will be with his church even unto the end of the world (Matthew 28:18-20). (3) God will avenge his elect (Luke 28:7-8).

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 2

My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with you; So that you incline your ear unto wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; Yes, if you cry after knowledge, and lift up your voice for understanding; If you seek after her as silver, and you search for her as for a hidden treasure; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to him that walks uprightly. He keeps the paths of judgment, and preserves the way of his saints. Then shall you understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yes, every good path. When wisdom entered this into your heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto your soul; Discretion will preserve you, understanding will keep you: And they will deliver you from the way of the evil man, and from the man that speaks froward things ( Proverbs 2:1-12 );

The word froward is a word that means perverse. The Hebrew word is perverse things.

Who leaves the paths of the uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness; Who rejoices to do evil, and delights in the perverseness of the wicked; Whose ways are crooked, and they pervert their own paths: To deliver you from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flatters with her words; Who has forsaken the husband of her youth, and has forgotten the covenant that she made before God. For her house inclines unto death, her paths unto the dead. None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life. That thou mayest walk in the ways of good men, keep the paths of the righteous. For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it. But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it ( Proverbs 2:13-22 ).

So the instructions of a father to a son. I think that so many times as fathers we probably don't take enough time to just really sit down with our sons and talk to them about life and the issues of life. The importance of seeking after the knowledge of God and the wisdom of God. Seeking it diligently just like you would seek for prosperity from silver or anything else. Hidden treasures. For the treasures of the wisdom and the knowledge, the treasures that they bring to a man who possesses them.

And then the warning against the adulterous woman. How that wisdom will lead you from her, deliver you from her who flatters with her words. As most women know, men are real suckers for flattery. "Oh, you're so strong. Can you open this jar for me, you know? Oh, you're strong, you know." And men are just... they eat it up.

Now, unfortunately, our wives are many times more honest with us. And they, so many times, are just blunt. "Sometimes I think you're so dumb. How can you do such stupid things?" And here the stranger comes along and with her flattery says, "Oh, you're so smart! My, where did you learn all of that? I've never met a man as clever as you," and the flattery. How many men have been trapped by that? And so the warning is against the adulterous woman who flatters with her lips. Be careful of that.

The Bible says that she has forsaken the covenant that she made before God, the marriage vows, the husband of her youth. She has left him. And now she is looking for a prey. She's looking for security. And she comes along with her flattering words and like poor Samson, through her flattering lips the strongest man can be brought down to a crust of bread.

And so here is just a father warning his son, "Be careful for these gals, son, who come along with their flatteries and all. Who can turn and twist your judgment because their path is the path of death. You go into their houses, you don't come out again. There's destruction in their ways." And so the dad warning his son, and we need to be warned of the folly of forsaking the covenants that we have made in our own marriage vows in order to listen to the words of a flatterer. "None that go in unto her return again, neither do they take hold of the path of life." "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The difficulty of obtaining Wisdom 2:1-5

Even though Wisdom wants people to adopt her (Proverbs 1:20-33), she is hard to obtain. The person who wants her has to work hard for her (Proverbs 2:3). If understanding does not come easily, one should work harder to obtain it. [Note: See Julius H. Greenstone, Proverbs with Commentary, p. 17.] He or she must start with revelation, and study it diligently, in order to obtain spiritual rather than merely academic wisdom. The "fear of the Lord" emphasizes awe, and the "knowledge of God" stresses intimacy. [Note: For a synthesis of what the Book of Proverbs reveals about God, see Zuck, pp. 238-39.]

"If you want wisdom, you must listen to God attentively (Matthew 13:9), obey Him humbly (John 7:17), ask Him sincerely (James 1:5), and seek Him diligently (Isaiah 55:6-7), the way a miner searches for silver and gold.

"Obtaining spiritual wisdom isn’t a once-a-week hobby, it is the daily discipline of a lifetime. But in this age of microwave ovens, fast foods, digests, and numerous ’made easy’ books, many people are out of the habit of daily investing time and energy in digging deep into Scripture and learning wisdom from the Lord. Thanks to television, their attention span is brief; thanks to religious entertainment that passes for worship, their spiritual appetite is feeble and spiritual knowledge isn’t ’pleasant to [their] soul’ (Proverbs 2:10). It’s no wonder fewer and fewer people ’take time to be holy’ and more and more people fall prey to the enemies that lurk along the way." [Note: Wiersbe, p. 36.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

3. Wisdom as a treasure ch. 2

Chapter 2 is a discourse that sets forth the blessings that wisdom confers.

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

So that thou incline thine ear unto Wisdom,.... Hearken to Wisdom, that is, Christ; or rather to the instruction of Wisdom, which is the Gospel; so called, because it is the produce of divine wisdom, what the wisdom of man could never have devised, and which it opposes; and in which there is a most glorious display of the wisdom of God, in the justification and salvation of his people by Christ, 1 Corinthians 2:6; and is worth listening unto with the greatest attention, which is what is designed by this expression;

[and] apply thine heart to understanding; to a spiritual and experimental understanding of the Gospel, and the truths of it: for an inclination of the ear, without an application of the heart, which signifies the intenseness of the mind, an earnest and hearty desire after knowledge, will signify nothing; a hypocrite may seemingly hear with great attention, and show much affection, and yet his heart be after the world and the things of it, Ezekiel 33:31; see Psalms 119:112.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee;   2 So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding;   3 Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding;   4 If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;   5 Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.   6 For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.   7 He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.   8 He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints.   9 Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path.

      Job had asked, long before this, Where shall wisdom be found? Whence cometh wisdom? (Job 28:12; Job 28:20) and he had given this general answer (Job 28:23; Job 28:23), God knoweth the place of it; but Solomon here goes further, and tells us both where we may find it and how we may get it. We are here told,

      I. What means we must use that we may obtain wisdom.

      1. We must closely attend to the word of God, for that is the word of wisdom, which is able to make us wise unto salvation,Proverbs 2:1; Proverbs 2:2. (1.) We must be convinced that the words of God are the fountain and standard of wisdom and understanding, and that we need not desire to be wiser than they will make us. We must incline our ear and apply our hearts to them, as to wisdom or understanding itself. Many wise things may be found in human compositions, but divine revelation, and true religion built upon it, are all wisdom. (2.) We must, accordingly, receive the word of God with all readiness of mind, and bid it welcome, even the commandments as well as the promises, without murmuring or disputing. Speak, Lord, for thy servant hears. (3.) We must hide them with us, as we do our treasures, which we are afraid of being robbed of. We must not only receive, but retain, the word of God, and lodge it in our hearts, that it may be always ready to us. (4.) We must incline our ear to them; we must lay hold on all opportunities of hearing the word of God, and listen to it with attention and seriousness, as those that are afraid of letting it slip. (5.) We must apply our hearts to them, else inclining the ear to them will stand us in no stead.

      2. We must be much in prayer, Proverbs 2:3; Proverbs 2:3. We must cry after knowledge, as one that is ready to perish for hunger begs hard for bread. Faint desires will not prevail; we must be importunate, as those that know the worth of knowledge and our own want of it. We must cry, as new-born babes, after the sincere milk of the word.1 Peter 2:2. We must lift our voice for understanding lift it up to heaven; thence these good and perfect gifts must be expected, James 1:17; Job 38:34. We must give our voice to understanding (so the word is), speak for it, vote for it, submit the tongue to the command of wisdom. We must consecrate our voice to it; having applied our heart to it, we must employ our voice in seeking for it. Solomon could write probatum est--a tried remedy, upon this method; he prayed for wisdom and so obtained it.

      3. We must be willing to take pains (Proverbs 2:4; Proverbs 2:4); we must seek it as silver, preferring it far before all the wealth of this world, and labouring in search of it as those who dig in the mines, who undergo great toil and run great hazards, with indefatigable industry and invincible constancy and resolution, in pursuit of the ore; or as those who will be rich rise up early, and sit up late, and turn every stone to get money and fill their treasures. Thus diligent must we be in the use of the means of knowledge, following on to know the Lord.

      II. What success we may hope for in the use of these means. Our labour shall not be in vain; for, 1. We shall know how to maintain our acquaintance and communion with God: "Thou shalt understand the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 2:5; Proverbs 2:5), that is, thou shalt know how to worship him aright, shalt be led into the meaning and mystery of every ordinance, and be enabled to answer the end of its institution." Thou shalt find the knowledge of God, which is necessary to our fearing him aright. It concerns us to understand how much it is our interest to know God, and to evidence it by agreeable affections towards him and adorations of him. 2. We shall know how to conduct ourselves aright towards all men (Proverbs 2:9; Proverbs 2:9): "Thou shalt understand, by the word of God, righteousness, and judgment, and equity, shalt learn those principles of justice, and charity, and fair dealing, which shall guide and govern thee in the whole course of thy conversation, shall make thee fit for every relation, every business, and faithful to every trust. It shall give thee not only a right notion of justice, but a disposition to practise it, and to render to all their due; for those that do not do justly do not rightly understand it." This will lead them in every good path, for the scripture will make the man of God perfect. Note, Those have the best knowledge who know their duty, Psalms 111:10.

      III. What ground we have to hope for this success in our pursuits of wisdom; we must take our encouragement herein from God only, Proverbs 2:6-8; Proverbs 2:6-8.

      1. God has wisdom to bestow, Proverbs 2:6; Proverbs 2:6. The Lord not only is wise himself, but he gives wisdom, and that is more than the wisest men in the world can do, for it is God's prerogative to open the understanding. All the wisdom that is in any creature is his gift, his free gift, and he gives it liberally (James 1:5), has given it to many, and is still giving it; to him therefore let us apply for it.

      2. He has blessed the world with a revelation of his will. Out of his mouth, by the law and the prophets, by the written word and by his ministers, both which are his mouth to the children of men, come knowledge and understanding, such a discovery of truth and good as, if we admit and receive the impressions of it, will make us truly knowing and intelligent. It is both an engagement and encouragement to search after wisdom that we have the scriptures to search, in which we may find it if we seek it diligently.

      3. He has particularly provided that good men, who are sincerely disposed to do his will, shall have that knowledge and that understanding which are necessary for them, John 7:17. Let them seek wisdom, and they shall find it; let them ask, and it shall be given them, Proverbs 2:7; Proverbs 2:8. Observe here, (1.) Who those are that are thus favoured. They are the righteous, on whom the image of God is renewed, which consists in righteousness, and those who walk uprightly, who are honest in their dealings both with God and man and make conscience of doing their duty as far as they know it. They are his saints, devoted to his honour, and set apart for his service. (2.) What it is that is provided for them. [1.] Instruction. The means of wisdom are given to all, but wisdom itself, sound wisdom, is laid up for the righteous, laid up in Christ their head, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and who is made of God to us wisdom. The same that is the Spirit of revelation in the word is a Spirit of wisdom in the souls of those that are sanctified, that wisdom of the prudent which is to understand his way; and it is sound wisdom, its foundations firm, its principles solid, and its products of lasting advantage. [2.] Satisfaction. Some read it, He lays up substance for the righteous, not only substantial knowledge, but substantial happiness and comfort, Proverbs 8:21. Riches are things that are not, and those that have them only fancy themselves happy; but what is laid up in the promises and in heaven for the righteous will make them truly, thoroughly, and eternally happy. [3.] Protection. Even those who walk uprightly may be brought into danger for the trial of their faith, but God is, and will be, a buckler to them, so that nothing that happens to them shall do them any real hurt, or possess them with any terrific apprehensions; they are safe, and they shall think themselves so. Fear not, Abraham; I am thy shield. It is their way, the paths of judgment in which they walk, that the Lord knows, and owns, and takes care of. [4.] Grace to persevere to the end. If we depend upon God, and seek to him for wisdom, he will uphold us in our integrity, will enable us to keep the paths of judgment, however we may be tempted to turn aside out of them; for he preserves the way of his saints, that it be not perverted, and so preserves them in it safe and blameless to his heavenly kingdom. The assurances God has given us of his grace, if duly improved, will excite and quicken our endeavours in doing our duty. Work out your salvation, for God works in you.