1Wisdom has built her house,
she has hewn her pillars, seven.
2She has slaughtered her meat,
has mixed her wine,
also laid out her table.
3She has sent out her young women,
calls loud from the city’s heights:
4Whoever the dupe, let him turn aside here,
the senseless—she said to him.
5Come, partake of my bread,
and drink the wine I have mixed.
6Forsake foolishness and live,
and stride on the way of discernment.
7Who reproves the scoffer takes on disgrace,
who rebukes the wicked is maimed.
8Rebuke not the scoffer lest he hate you.
Rebuke the wise and he will love you.
9Give to the wise, he will get more wisdom,
inform the righteous, he will increase instruction.
10The beginning of wisdom is fear of the LORD,
and knowing the Holy One is discernment.
11For through Me your days will be many,
and the years of your life will increase.
12If you get wisdom, you get yourself wisdom,
but if you scoff, you bear it alone.
13The foolish woman bustles about.
Gullibility!—and she knows nothing of it.
14And she sits at the entrance of her house
in a chair on the city’s heights,
15to call out to the wayfarers
16Whoever the dupe, let him turn aside here,
and the senseless—she said to him.
17“Stolen waters are sweet,
and purloined bread is delicious.”
18And he does not know that shades are there,
in the depths of Sheol, her guests.
CHAPTER 9 NOTES
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1. Wisdom has built her house. The poem that constitutes this chapter comprises two antithetical units, the invitation of Lady Wisdom and the invitation of Lady Folly. Wisdom builds a grand, welcoming house with seven pillars. That number is not necessarily a reflection of architectural practice but rather of the formulaic and sacred character of the number seven.
her pillars, seven. The inverted order reflects the poetic flourish of the Hebrew syntax.
2. slaughtered her meat. Literally, “slaughtered her slaughter.” Meat was not typically everyday fare but was reserved for sumptuous feasts.
3. her young women. These are her maidservants. But in the second verset, it is Wisdom herself who calls out her invitation from the heights.
4. Whoever the dupe. Wisdom offers her transformative services to the naïve and the foolish, who are very much in need of them.
she said to him. A small emendation, with warrant in the Septuagint, turns this into “I said to him,” thus eliminating the third-person interruption of Lady Wisdom’s speech.
5. bread, / . . . wine. These primary items of food and drink are, of course, symbolic of the feast of wisdom she is offering.
7. is maimed. The literal sense would be “it’s his maiming [or blemish].”
9. Give to the wise. This phrase, which follows on the second verset of the preceding line, is clearly elliptical for “give instruction to the wise.”
10. the Holy One. The Hebrew uses a plural (“holy ones”), which most interpreters understand as a plural of majesty referring to God. This is not a usage conclusively visible elsewhere, and in some instances qedoshim is an epithet for angels. The plural ending might be a scribal error.
12. If you get wisdom, you get yourself wisdom. The sense of this seeming tautology is that wisdom is an enduring acquisition, enjoyed by the wise person and benefiting those around him, whereas scoffing isolates a person in self-disgrace and confers no benefit. It should be said that this entire verse, coming after the line of peroration in verse 11, looks out of place.
13. The foolish woman. Momentarily, it seems as though the figure invoked is an exemplary instance of human behavior, as in many lines in Proverbs, but the next verse makes clear that, like Lady Wisdom, she is an allegorical representation of a general quality.
14. she sits at the entrance of her house. Although she is strictly symmetrical with Lady Wisdom in calling out from a house on the heights of the city, nothing is said about the splendor of a many-pillared house because, understandably, the residence of Folly is not likely to be a grand edifice.
15. who go on straight paths. Literally, “who make their paths straight.” Lady Wisdom calls out to the foolish in order to make them wise. Lady Folly calls out to those going on the right path in order to lead them astray.
16. Whoever the dupe . . . and the senseless. Lady Folly’s words repeat verbatim those of Lady Wisdom in verse 4 but with an opposite intent. Wisdom calls to the dupes and the thoughtless with the aim of extricating them from their hapless condition through her instruction. Folly calls to them—though in her case she would not plausibly have uttered these derogatory terms but rather thought them, counting on the gullibility of those she addresses—because she intends to exploit their naïveté.
17. Stolen waters are sweet, / and purloined bread is delicious. These often quoted words actually constitute an anti-proverb, cast in the compact aphoristic form, with neat poetic parallelism, of the traditional proverb. The line epitomizes Lady Folly’s seductive message: if you want to have a really good time, nothing works better than illicit behavior.
purloined bread. Literally, “secret bread.”
18. shades are there. The seemingly inviting house of Lady Folly with her seductive speech spells disaster for whoever goes there, and so is a gateway to death, concealing a trapdoor to the underworld, like the house of the seductress in chapter 7.