The fear of the LORD: the opening discourses of Proverbs

The book of Proverbs opens with the words 'The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel.' Solomon reigned from about 970 to 930 BC, and 1 Kings 4:29-34 says that God gave him wisdom beyond all the people of the East and that he spoke three thousand proverbs. The book itself is a collection. Chapters 10 to 22 and 25 to 29 are called Solomon's proverbs, and Proverbs 25:1 says that the men of King Hezekiah (who reigned about 715 to 686 BC) copied out part of them. Chapter 30 is attributed to Agur and chapter 31 to King Lemuel, whose mother taught him. Chapters 1 to 9 form an introduction of extended speeches before the short sayings begin.

Scholars disagree on who composed these chapters and when. Some hold that Solomon himself wrote the whole of the opening discourses. Many others think that chapters 1 to 9 were composed later as a preface to the collection, perhaps in the time of Hezekiah or after the exile, and that the editors placed the book under Solomon's name because of the king's association with wisdom. The class does not depend on the answer. In either case the book is presented to Israel as teaching from the tradition of the wise king.

The audience is a young man, addressed repeatedly as 'my son', who is about to enter adult life in a village, a household or the royal court. The form has parallels outside Israel. Egyptian and Mesopotamian scribes also wrote instructions from a father to his son, to prepare him for service and good conduct. Proverbs belongs to this wider type but differs in its center: for Israel, wisdom begins with the covenant LORD. The occasion is the education of the next generation in a community that took the Torah for granted and needed to know how to live by it in particular choices about money, friends, sex, speech and work.

These three chapters are instruction poetry, not collections of short sayings. In Proverbs 10 onward the unit is usually a single verse of two lines. Here the unit is a speech of ten or twenty verses, introduced by a call to listen, supported by 'if' and 'then' sentences, and ending with a result. The father speaks, the mother's teaching is recalled (1:8), and Wisdom herself is personified as a woman who takes her stand in the street. The reader is meant to feel that two voices are calling: Wisdom and the tempters, and later Folly (chapter 9). The book sets two ways before the reader, the way of life and the way of death.

Two rules guide the reading.

• First, proverbs state general truths about how the world usually works when God's order is respected. They are not unconditional promises. Proverbs 3:1-2 says that those who keep the teaching will have length of days and peace, and the pattern is real, but the book of Job and Ecclesiastes show that exceptions exist, and Proverbs itself says that the righteous can suffer (for example 3:11-12, which presumes that discipline is sometimes painful).
• Second, the commands are addressed to someone who already stands in covenant with the LORD. Proverbs 3:5-6 is not a general formula for good luck. It is a charge to a person who belongs to the covenant community to trust the covenant God.

The approach of this class is to read each discourse in its own context, ask what it would have meant to a young Israelite, and then see how the New Testament picks up its themes. The personification of Wisdom is the largest bridge to the New Testament, and chapter 8 will take it up directly.

1:1-7. The purpose is stated in a string of infinitives: to know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing, and to give the simple shrewdness and the young knowledge and discretion. The word for wisdom (chokmah) in Hebrew is first of all skill, the ability to do a job well. It is used of the craftsmen who built the tabernacle (Exodus 31:3). Wisdom in Proverbs is skill in living. The 'simple' (peti) are the untrained, open to any influence. Verse 7 gives the motto of the whole book: 'The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.' The word 'beginning' means both the starting point and the chief part. 'Fear' here is reverent awe before the God of the covenant, which includes trust and obedience. The fool in Proverbs (the kesil) is not a person of low intelligence but one who will not be taught.

1:8-19. The first speech is a warning. A band of men invite the young man to join in ambush and robbery and to share the loot equally. The father warns that those who ambush are in fact ambushing themselves, since the path of greed takes the life of those who follow it (1:19). The instruction is marked by the call to heed the father's discipline and the mother's teaching, both as adornments for the head and neck. The tempter's argument is attractive and the father does not deny the appeal. He says only that it ends in death.

1:20-33. Wisdom now speaks, and she does not speak in a school. She cries out in the street, in the squares, at the gates, where ordinary people pass. This is a public call. Her accusation is that she has called and been refused, and that those who reject her will be left to the results of their own choices. Her stern words in 1:26-27 describe calamity that she will mock when it comes, and the point is that a person who ignores wisdom is not punished by an arbitrary hand but eats the fruit of his own way (1:31). The speech ends with a promise: whoever listens will dwell secure.

2:1-22. This chapter is a single long sentence in Hebrew, an 'if' running from verse 1 to verse 4 and a 'then' from verse 5. If the son receives the teaching and seeks wisdom as one seeks silver, then he will understand the fear of the LORD (2:5). Wisdom is both something sought and something given: 'the LORD gives wisdom' (2:6). The result is protection from two dangers, the perverse man and the strange or forbidden woman (the zarah, a woman outside the marriage bond), who has forgotten the covenant of her God. The second warning is strong, since the path leads to death, and the chapter ends with the contrast between the upright, who dwell in the land, and the wicked, who are cut off from it (2:21-22).

3:1-12. The third speech turns to the heart. The father says to write his teaching on the tablet of the heart (3:3), echoing Deuteronomy 6:6-9, and to let covenant love and faithfulness never leave. Then comes the famous passage: 'Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight' (3:5-6). 'Trust' means to rely on, as on a firm support. 'Acknowledge' translates the verb 'know', so it means to recognise the LORD in every area of life. 'Straight' means level, free of obstacles. The warning of verse 7, 'Do not be wise in your own eyes', is the reverse of the motto of 1:7. Honouring the LORD with wealth and the firstfruits (3:9) recalls the offerings of the Law. Verses 11 and 12 say that the LORD disciplines the one he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.

3:13-20. Wisdom is better than silver and gold, and her ways are pleasant (3:13-17). She is a 'tree of life' to those who hold her (3:18), an allusion to Eden (Genesis 2:9). Her place in creation is then announced: by wisdom the LORD founded the earth and by understanding set the heavens in place (3:19). The order that the young man must learn is the same order by which the world was made.

3:21-35. The last section is practical. Keep sound judgment, walk securely, and sleep without fear. Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, do not plot against a neighbour, and do not envy the violent. The LORD's curse is on the house of the wicked but his blessing is on the home of the righteous. He scorns the scorners but gives favour to the humble (3:34).

The central doctrine of these chapters is the unity of wisdom and worship. For Israel there was no neutral zone of knowledge. To know how to live was to fear the LORD, and the fear of the LORD was the gate to knowing anything. The same line appears again at the end of the opening section (9:10), at the end of Job (28:28) and in the closing advice of Ecclesiastes (12:13). The wisdom books agree that the creature who tries to be wise apart from the Creator ends in folly.

The chapters also teach the nature of creation. Proverbs 3:19-20 states that the LORD made the earth and the heavens by wisdom, so the created world has a moral and rational grain. Wise living is living in step with how things were made. That is why wisdom literature appeals to observation and experience, and why it can speak of the ant, the field and the household. Nevertheless wisdom is not simply human insight. The Hebrew Bible presents it as a gift of God (2:6), who gave it in a special measure to Solomon (1 Kings 3:12).

A third theme is discipline as a mark of love. Proverbs 3:11-12 teaches that the LORD corrects those he loves, a theme found in Deuteronomy 8:5 and Job 5:17. The wisdom tradition maintains that trust in God includes accepting his instruction when it hurts.

The connection runs mainly along three lines. The first is explicit quotation. Hebrews 12:5-6 cites Proverbs 3:11-12 as words addressed to believers 'as sons', and uses them to explain why Christians face hardship: the Father disciplines the children he loves. The same author has just pointed to Jesus as the one who endured the cross and sits at God's right hand (12:2-3), so the discipline is a share in the path that the Son walked. James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5 quote Proverbs 3:34, in its Greek form, that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Here the Old Testament verse is cited as a settled principle that carries over to the church.

The second line is the personification of Wisdom. In chapters 1 to 3 Wisdom calls in public, offers life, is rejected and is the means by which the world was made. The New Testament says that all of this is true of Christ. Paul calls Christ 'the wisdom of God' (1 Corinthians 1:24) and says that in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). John says that all things were made through the Word (John 1:3), and Colossians 1:16-17 says the same of the Son. Jesus himself says that something greater than Solomon is here (Matthew 12:42). Because the New Testament does not quote the opening chapters of Proverbs to prove this, the link is an echo that grows in strength in chapter 8, and is not a direct citation.

The third line is the 'tree of life' in 3:18, which looks back to Eden (Genesis 2:9) and forward to Revelation 2:7 and 22:2, where the tree is available to those who overcome. Luke 2:40 and 52 add that the boy Jesus grew in wisdom. The one who fully fears the LORD and is the Wisdom of God stands at the center of these texts.