The Wisdom of the Proverbs (Proverbs 1:8-19)
Every good parent at some point worries about who her child is spending time with. We know “bad company corrupts good morals” (1 Cor. 15:33, ESV),[1] and so we don’t want our children hanging out with any ne’re-do-wells. The book of Proverbs opens with a father and mother exhorting their child: “My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother.” (Pro 1:8)[2] It ends with the sayings of a King learned by heart at the knees of his mother, and her description of his ideal bride. It is moral instruction, discipline, and exhortation for the way you want your child to go and who you would want her to marry. A conscientious parent hopes his child will marry well and make friends who are a good influence on him.
We see here a connection between wisdom and law, but that they are not identical. Wisdom can be defined as the experienced, discerning, and considered application of God’s law. Wisdom is illustrative, exemplary, and especially exhortative of living out God’s commandments on a practical level. In an imperfect analogy, the Law is the lecture hall and the Proverbs the lab. You learn the principles of chemistry or engineering or botany in the lecture hall, and you put those principles to test in the lab. When we walk into the world of Proverbs, we witness God’s law enacted in the mundane course of life as a son or daughter, and eventually, as we progress, as a full participant, or even a leader, in home, church, and civic life.
Since family is the basic building block of society, as goes the child, so goes the nation. The worst thing for a society is to become a pack of wolves set to devour each other. Hence the shady characters the mother and father in Proverbs 1 warn their son about in verses 8-19. At first, having a pack to run with sounds like a lucrative offer: “Throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse.” (Pro 1:14, ESV) A pack of wolves is effective at hunting, and the prospects of a full belly are tantalizing for a young and hungry wolf. But a pack of wolves can quickly turn on a member when it becomes wounded and the intended prey has slipped out of their collective jaws. On a practical level, the danger of conspiracy with greedy people is that they overestimate their effectiveness. “Surely in vain the net spread in the sight of any bird,” (Pro 1:17) because the bird spies the scheme. The problem for wicked people is that, as they go from bad to worse, they begin to think nothing can stop them. The moral conviction of Proverbs is that eventually the proud will fall. “These men lie in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives.” (Pro 1:18, ESV) Like the people at the tower of Babel, they gather to build a tower to heaven and end scattered by God over the face of the earth.
The moral universe of the Proverbs is the universe over which Christ rules. He judges the nations and holds individual souls accountable. A wise parent wants his child to follow after Christ, to look to him for the way of life, and avoid the way of the death–the way of the devil, the father of lies, who comes only to steal, kill, and destroy (John 8:44; 10:10). Christ’s is the Way that offers prosperity and peace to a nation that heeds it, that avoids the dissolution of Babel, and the trap of those who lie in wait for blood. It is the way of those who are washed in the blood of the Lamb who laid down his life to become Wisdom and Life for us.
[1] Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise marked, are from the The Cambridge Paragraph Bible: Of the Authorized English Version. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1873.
