Proverbs 1: The Beginning of Knowledge

"The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel; to know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding" (1:1–2). The opening is a title page and a mission statement in one. Five infinitives pile up: to know, to perceive, to receive, to give subtlety to the simple, to understand a proverb and its interpretation, "the words of the wise, and their dark sayings" (vv. 2–6). The book is for the young and inexperienced (the peti, "simple" or "open-minded"), but also for the wise, who "will hear, and will increase learning" (v. 5).

Then the motto: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction" (1:7). Everything that follows is meant to be read in that light. Wisdom is practical, but it starts with a relationship to God.

"My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother" (1:8). The first teaching scene is a parent's warning: "My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not" (1:10). A gang approaches the young man: "Come with us, let us lay wait for blood… we shall fill our houses with spoil: cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse" (vv. 11–14). The father answers that the trap they set catches them: "they lay wait for their own blood" (v. 18). Greed "taketh away the life of the owners thereof" (v. 19).

"Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets" (1:20). Wisdom appears as a woman in the busiest public places: the squares, the head of the noisy streets, the openings of the city gates. Her speech is not gentle. Those who refused her call will call to her in their disaster, and she will not answer: "I also will laugh at your calamity" (v. 26). But "whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely" (v. 33).

What is a mashal?

The Hebrew title is mishle Shelomoh, "proverbs of Solomon." Mashal (plural meshalim) is wider than English "proverb": it can be a one-line saying, a comparison, a taunt-song (Isaiah 14:4), a parable (Ezekiel 17:2), or a longer poem. The root may mean "to be like" (a comparison) or "to rule" (a governing word); both senses have been proposed. Proverbs 1–9 consists of long instructions, not short sayings; the one-line proverbs begin at 10:1.

Father and mother

"The instruction of thy father… the law (torah) of thy mother" (1:8). The mother is named as a teacher from the first lesson, and again at 6:20; the last chapter is "the prophecy that his mother taught him" (31:1). Egyptian instructions are usually from father to son; Proverbs' inclusion of the mother is notable, though the voice of chapters 1–9 is mostly the father's.

The gang

The robbers' speech (vv. 11–14) is a recruitment pitch: excitement, solidarity, a shared purse. The father's reply uses an image from bird-catching: "in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird" (v. 17), a line that has been read two ways: a bird that sees the net still flies into it (the gang's victims, or the gang itself, do not learn), or a net in plain view is useless (the son, warned, should not be caught). Either way, the violent are caught in their own trap (v. 18).

Wisdom at the gates

The city gate was the place of trade, news and judgment (Ruth 4:1–11; Deuteronomy 21:19). Wisdom speaks there, not in a temple or a school: she belongs to public life. Her speech borrows the tone of the prophets ("How long, ye simple ones…?" v. 22; "I have called, and ye refused," v. 24; compare Isaiah 65:12; Jeremiah 7:13).

"Proverbs of Solomon": what the title claims

The title associates the book with Solomon, whom 1 Kings 4:32 credits with 3,000 proverbs and 1,005 songs. Inside the book, other collections are credited to "the wise" (22:17; 24:23), to Solomon's sayings copied by "the men of Hezekiah" (25:1), to Agur (30:1) and to Lemuel's mother (31:1). So the book itself shows that the title covers a collection of collections. Traditional interpreters, and some scholars (for example A. E. Steinmann), defend a Solomonic origin for chapters 1–9; many scholars date chapters 1–9 later than the sayings of 10–29, as a Persian-period introduction, because of their style and their personified Wisdom. The title does not prove Solomon wrote every line, and compilation does not prove he wrote none. See the investigation on authorship (coming in the final release).

1:7 in the versions

The Hebrew says the fear of the LORD is "the beginning (reshit) of knowledge (da'at)": either its starting-point or its chief part. The library's Greek (Giguet) has a longer verse: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; prudence is good to all who practise it; piety toward God is the beginning of discernment; the foolish despise wisdom and instruction." The added middle lines echo Psalm 111:10, a typical Greek plus. The Vulgate reads principium sapientiae, "beginning of wisdom," matching 9:10. See the passage page.

Wisdom's laughter (1:26)

"I also will laugh at your calamity" is a severe image. In context it describes the consequence of refusing counsel: the time for advice has passed. It is not a teaching that sufferers deserve mockery; elsewhere Proverbs forbids gloating over an enemy's fall (24:17–18) and calls kindness to the poor honour to God (14:31). Readers have long felt the tension. The site presents the line as the rhetoric of warning, not as a general rule about how to treat people in trouble.

Wisdom personified

Woman Wisdom speaks in 1:20–33, 8:1–36 and 9:1–6. She is a literary figure, a personification of God's wisdom and of the teaching itself. Some scholars compare Egyptian Ma'at (order, truth) or goddesses of wisdom; none of these shows that Israel worshipped a Wisdom goddess. Later Jewish writers developed the figure (Sirach 24; Wisdom of Solomon 7–9), and Christians read her through Christ (1 Corinthians 1:24). See chapter 8 and the investigation on Woman Wisdom and Woman Folly.