Proverbs 4:5-27
5 Get wisdom! Get understanding!
Do not forget, nor turn away from the words of my mouth.
6 Do not forsake her, and she will preserve you;
Love her, and she will keep you.
7 Wisdom is the principal thing;
Therefore get wisdom.
And in all your getting, get understanding.
8 Exalt her, and she will promote you;
She will bring you honor, when you embrace her.
9 She will place on your head an ornament of grace;
A crown of glory she will deliver to you.”
10 Hear, my son, and receive my sayings,
And the years of your life will be many.
11 I have taught you in the way of wisdom;
I have led you in right paths.
12 When you walk, your steps will not be hindered,
And when you run, you will not stumble.
13 Take firm hold of instruction, do not let go;
Keep her, for she is your life.
14 Do not enter the path of the wicked,
And do not walk in the way of evil.
15 Avoid it, do not travel on it;
Turn away from it and pass on.
16 For they do not sleep unless they have done evil;
And their sleep is taken away unless they make someone fall.
17 For they eat the bread of wickedness,
And drink the wine of violence.
18 But the path of the just is like the shining sun,
That shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.
19 The way of the wicked is like darkness;
They do not know what makes them stumble.
20 My son, give attention to my words;
Incline your ear to my sayings.
21 Do not let them depart from your eyes;
Keep them in the midst of your heart;
22 For they are life to those who find them,
And health to all their flesh.
23 Keep your heart with all diligence,
For out of it spring the issues of life.
24 Put away from you a deceitful mouth,
And put perverse lips far from you.
25 Let your eyes look straight ahead,
And your eyelids look right before you.
26 Ponder the path of your feet,
And let all your ways be established.
27 Do not turn to the right or the left;
Remove your foot from evil.
I like to compare wisdom to a wife. Solomon refers to wisdom as a her and “her” characteristics are very good things to seek as a wife. Verses 6-9 talk about the things that wisdom does for you, she will give you glory, honor and grace; she will promote, keep and preserve you. These, of course, as I said in the last study, are not the worldy types of glory or promotion or honor. (I think Solomon was comparing wisdom to a wife as well because he says things like love and embrace her. When a man seeks wisdom as he would a woman, he will embrace it and esteem it and love it, he will live his life by it… I want a man who seeks wisdom)
Verse 9: An ornament of grace, grace is getting what you don’t deserve, we don’t deserve an ornament upon our heads (a sign of royalty or rank or wealth). We don’t deserve honor or glory but through God’s wisdom we get these things, verse 5 says to get wisdom and to get understanding.
Verses 16-17 give us insight into how the wicked act. The evil, those who do not seek God, cannot sleep because they are so obsessed with doing evil. When I can’t sleep usually it’s because I’m worried about something I said or something that I’ll be doing the next day or how I reacted to what someone else said, stuff like that, but, when the evil can’t sleep it’s because they need to do something wicked. Verse 17 describes their food as wickedness and their wine as violence. The children of God survive on God’s Word and his will for their lives (John 1:1-2,6:48), but the wicked survive on wickedness, their sustenance is evil and they are drunk on violence, they seek it to make them high and drunk. They will come to ruin.
In verses 18-19 the wicked and the just are compared in terms of light and darkness. Verse 18 says, “The path of the just is like the shining sun (literally, light), that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day”. Wow I love this verse so much! The path of the just is like light that continually gets brighter until the day of completion (when Christ comes back and we are made perfect, or when we die and enter his presence also being made perfect). I think this doesn’t need my commentary, it’s so straight forward especially when compared to verse 19 which says, “The way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble”. This is also a very concise, potent verse; the wicked are so lost in darkness that they don’t even know what makes them stumble, they are just haphazardly going through life not knowing what light is. This is why Christ said in Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden”. God’s children on earth are here not only to serve and glorify him, but they are here to cast light on the dark lives of the wicked. We were all in darkness once, but Christ shined into our lives revealing himself to us and drawing us to himself so that we could be saved. It’s at that point that our lives become truly illuminated and we become the light of the world. On a side note, now that I’m in college I see a lot of people seeking “enlightenment”; they are looking for a way to understand the world and their place in it, unfortunately they are seeking it in man’s philosophies and religion, which is skewed because unless man is in God they are in darkness and are stumbling around. But God reveals himself through his creation and his Word, if only they would seek Him, then they would truly find “enlightenment”.
Verses 24-27 give instruction on how to live life. I really like what the commentary in my Bible says about this portion of Scripture: “This section demands constancy of heart and purpose, honesty in speech, steadiness of gaze, and a right goal and walk in life”. Verse 24 stresses not speaking perversely. I always thought that perverse meant nasty or unwholesome things but it just means willfully determined to go counter to what is expected or persistent in what is wrong (dictionary.com). So in that light this verse is saying to speak truthfully and don’t purposely decieve peope. I find it interesting that verse 25 says, “Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you”, because we don’t see with our eyelids, but 2 Corinthians 5:7 says, “For we walk by faith, not by sight”. Godly wisdom is the mechanism by which we walk by faith, by His wisdom we can know where to place our steps. Romans 12:2 says, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God”. Man has a form of wisdom that determines the course of his life, but Paul exhorts us to not be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we can test and know what God’s will is, and where he wants us to place our steps. Godly wisdom is summed up quite well in James 3:17 which says, “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy”.
Solomon writes in verse 5 to get wisdom; getting wisdom involves a fear of the Lord (Prov. 1:1-7) or the pursuit of God, which then requires us to seek his will by reading and understanding his Word, then applying it. This is how you get wisdom.
