Great Beginnings: The Way of Wisdom in Proverbs

The Book of Proverbs takes us back nearly three thousand years. The first nine chapters form the more narrative part of the collection, distinct from the lists of pithy sayings found in most of the rest of the book.

In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses urged the Hebrews on the verge of the Promised Land to “love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” From here he moved immediately to their obligations to their children:

“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

Solomon meditated deeply on what teaching the young involves. He opens with his guiding vision for the pursuit of wisdom. He provides a magnificent justification for “purpose-drive” education:

            To know wisdom and instruction,

                        to understand words of insight,

            to receive instruction in wise dealing,

                        in righteousness, justice, and equity;

            to give prudence to the simple,

                        knowledge and discretion to the youth—

            Let the wise hear and increase in learning,

                        and the one who understands obtain guidance,

            to understand a proverb and a saying,

          the words of the wise and their riddles.

For Solomon, education means much, much more than abstract reasoning. Education means the attainment of practical wisdom. The young must be instructed in the right way to live. Indeed, these are words of life. To ignore them is death.

In my last post, I laid out some of the prerequisites of education. Solomon announces the greatest prerequisite of all: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.” The capital letters in this translation (the ESV) indicate that this is Yahweh, the covenant-making and covenant-keeping God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who called out a people to be his treasured possession. These people were chosen not because they were great or powerful but that God might show his compassion and provide for redemption. Therefore, this education happens within a community bound together under the covenant, a community of profound responsibilities to God and to each other.

Solomon strikes the note of generations immediately—my inspiration for the title of this blog. He has received instruction in wisdom from his own father, he calls on his son to hear and follow the teachings of his mother and father, and the implication is that the sone in turn will pass down what he has received. Education follows a chain of fidelity.

Throughout these nine chapters, Solomon depicts wisdom as an ornament; it is a “graceful garment,” a “beautiful crown,” and a prized pendant worn around the neck.

From beginning to end, Solomon coveys the urgency of his task. The language drives forward at every point. It is active. Solomon uses vivid, tactile images, often relating to the human body in motion: the mouth, the hand, the eye, the foot, the heart. Wisdom is a way, a path. The young man must stick to the path of wisdom and avoid the path of folly. He must not turn from wisdom to walk in the way of folly. Wisdom herself is personified as a noble lady standing at the gates of the city, calling out to the young in the busy, noisy, and distracting marketplace. Folly likewise is personified as an adulterous woman who entices with her own seductive call to the young. Each of these women offers a banquet. Folly appears to be a wonderful host, setting out a luxurious welcome for the wayward, a home decked with all imaginable delights for the fool. Wisdom has prepared meat and drink at her own table. She offers true hospitality. To those who lack sense, she cries, “Come eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.”

Solomon also weaves pairs of ideas into his instruction. In addition to the two personifications that reappear often, he contrasts delighting in the wrong thing to delighting in the right; the two paths; the two houses; life and death; honor and dishonor; true speech and perverted speech; blessings and curses.

In my last post, I noted that the tradition fears the pursuit of wealth for its own sake. Here, Solomon portrays wisdom itself as true wealth. It is “better than gold,” better than “choice silver” and jewels. With wisdom alone resides true honor and riches.

There is much more in these chapters, of course. I urge you to read and reread them, meditate on them, and consider how they ought to guide your own pursuit of wisdom and how you seek to pass that wisdom on to others. Solomon insists on attentiveness. We must watch and heed, seek and guard, remember, watch, and follow, knowing all the while that God delights in giving his gifts to the children of men.

I did not include Solomon’s wisdom in The Great Tradition. That was a mistake. Its echoes can be heard down the centuries.

Next week our online groups will be discussion selections from Plato’s Republic and Laws. It’s not to late to join us. Click on “Courses” on this website for more information about “Great Beginnings.”