1My son, do not forget my teaching,
and let your heart keep my commands.
2For length of days and years of life
and peace they will add for you.
3Kindness and truth will not forsake you.
write them on your heart’s tablet,
4and find favor and good regard
in the eyes of God and man.
5Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not lean on your discernment.
6Through all your ways know Him,
and He will make your paths straight.
7Do not be wise in your own eyes,
fear the LORD and swerve from evil.
8Let it be healing for your flesh
and a balm to your bones.
9Honor the LORD more than your wealth
and than the first fruits of your crop,
10and your barns will be filled with abundance,
your vats will burst with new wine.
11The LORD’s reproof, my son, do not spurn,
and do not despise His rebuke.
12For whom the LORD loves He rebukes,
and like a father his son, regards him kindly.
13Happy the man who has found wisdom,
and the man who acquires discernment.
14For her worth is better than silver’s worth,
and her yield better than fine gold.
15More precious is she than rubies,
and all your cherished things could not equal her.
16Length of days are in her right hand,
in her left hand wealth and honor.
17Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
and all her paths are peace.
18A tree of life is she to those who grasp her,
and those who hold her are deemed happy.
19The LORD through wisdom founded earth,
set heavens firm through discernment.
20Through His knowledge the deeps burst open,
and the skies dripped dew.
21My son, let these things not slip away from your eyes,
keep prudence and cunning,
22and they will be life to your neck
and grace to your throat.
23Then you shall walk secure on your way,
and your foot shall not be bruised.
24If you lie down, you shall not be afraid.
You shall lie down, and your sleep shall be sweet.
25You shall not fear any sudden fright,
nor the plight of the wicked when it comes.
26For the LORD will be your trust,
and will guard your foot from the snare.
27Don’t hold back bounty from him who earned it
when it’s within your hand’s power to perform.
28Don’t say to your friend, “Go and come back,
and tomorrow I’ll give,” when you have it.
29Don’t plot harm against your fellow,
when he dwells secure alongside you.
30Don’t quarrel with a man for no reason
if he has done you no harm.
31Don’t envy a man of violence
and don’t choose any of his ways.
32For a crooked man is the LORD’s loathing,
and the upright are His intimates.
33The LORD’s blight is on the house of the wicked,
and the abode of the righteous He blesses.
34As for the scoffers, He scoffs at them,
but to the humble He grants favor.
35The wise inherit honor,
CHAPTER 3 NOTES
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2. length of days . . . years of life. This pronouncement continues the central pragmatic theme in Proverbs: that following the path of wisdom leads to physical well-being, prosperity, and longevity.
3. round your neck, / . . . on your heart’s tablet. The teachings of wisdom are both an external ornament and something to be internalized and permanently retained.
4. good regard. The Hebrew sekhel can also mean “intelligence” (a usage carried forward in modern Hebrew, where it suggests something like “common sense”). But the verbal root means “to see”—in many languages, there is a link between seeing and understanding—as in Genesis 3:6, “the tree was lovely to look at [lehaskil].” In the present context, where the opinions of others is at issue, “regard” seems the likely meaning. Fox comes to the same conclusion.
6. make your paths straight. The verb could also mean “level,” meaning you can walk on your paths without obstruction, but the antithesis of crooked paths (see 2:15) may make straightening the more likely meaning.
7. Do not be wise in your own eyes, / fear the LORD. Behind this admonition is the key idea that fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.
8. your flesh. The Masoretic Text reads shorekha, “your navel,” which sounds bizarre, the navel not being known as a focus of bodily well-being. The Septuagint evidently used a Hebrew text that read, far more probably, sheʾeirkha, “your flesh,” and it seems likely that the medial aleph was inadvertently dropped in scribal transmission.
10. abundance. Literally, “satiety.” The reference is to abundant grain, paired with new wine in the second verset.
13. Happy the man. After the general exhortation to follow the words of the wise that takes up verses 1–12, a new unit begins here. The ʾashrey formula, “happy the man,” often marks the beginning of a textual unit, as in the Wisdom psalm (Psalm 1) that stands at the head of the canonical collection. The subject of this poetic sequence, which ends at verse 20, is a celebration of the transcendent powers of wisdom.
14. her worth. Although wisdom is not explicitly personified in 1:20–33, she is nevertheless represented as a feminine figure, possessing two hands (verse 16). The term for “worth” here, saḥar, implies market value.
15. rubies. As with most precious stones in the biblical lexicon, the precise identification is uncertain. In modern Hebrew, peninim means “pearls,” which might possibly be its biblical sense.
18. deemed happy. The word “deemed” has been added because the passive verb meʾushar is the condition of the person of whom others say ʾashrey, “happy is he.”
19. The LORD through wisdom founded earth. Though this could be read as a poetic flourish, it begins to move toward the idea cultivated by Kabbalists and others that wisdom is a cosmic principle by which God works out the design of creation.
20. the deeps burst open, / . . . the skies dripped dew. This figuration of fructifying creation is a benign reversal of the Flood story, where “all the wellsprings of the great deep burst / and the casements of the heavens were opened” (Genesis 7:11).
21. My son, let these things not slip away from your eyes. This unit of the text, which runs to verse 26, is a series of exhortations to cling to wisdom and thus enjoy its benefits, which parallels the similar series in verses 1–12, forming a kind of frame around the celebration of the supernal force of wisdom in verses 13–20.
22. life to your neck / . . . grace to your throat. Because of the poetic parallelism, the probable sense of the multivalent nefesh here, as frequently in Psalms (see, for example, Psalm 69:2), is “neck.” The idea of wisdom as an ornament around the neck (compare verse 3) is common in Proverbs, but “life to your neck” sounds odd. The reference might conceivably be to a life-protecting amulet, worn around the neck.
25. plight of the wicked. That is, sooner or later, disaster will inevitably overtake the wicked, but a person who follows the ways of wisdom will have no reason to fear such catastrophe.
27. Don’t hold back bounty. These words initiate a fourth textual unit, which is a miscellany of negative injunctions regarding behavior toward one’s fellow man. It must be said that this whole series borders on platitude, rather like Polonius’s advice to Laertes in Hamlet.
32. crooked . . . / upright. The two Hebrew terms are pointed antonyms because “upright,” yesharim, is literally “straight.”
and the upright are His intimates. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “and the upright are with [or part of] His intimate circle.”
35. honor, / . . . disgrace. The two Hebrew terms are antonyms not only semantically but also etymologically: the word for “honor,” kavod, derives from a root that means “weighty” or “heavy,” and the word for “disgrace,” qalon, derives from a root that means “light,” which is to say, of no importance.
take away. The Hebrew merim (ostensibly, “raises”) is anomalous and also a singular verb where the plural is required. Efforts to recover an original term by emendation have been unavailing, but the poetic parallelism indicates that a word meaning “to take possession” was intended.