Chapter two is mostly just more vague exhortation to listen to Daddy, heed the word of God (wherever that actually comes from is not specified), and not to listen to guys who tell you the wrong stuff, whatever that is. But then there is one specific exhortation, which is not to get involved with married women. It strikes me that this may be intended as a metaphor of some sort, but otherwise it's a bit jarring that this is the first specific advice we get.
By the way, I've switched here to the New International Version, which seems cleaner. RSV has footnotes telling you the words don't actually mean what the translators have chosen, which doesn't make any sense to me. They mean, according to RSV, what the NIV actually says they do. Which is a reminder that even if you're fluent in Hebrew, you can't actually read the Tanakh as people did when it was compiled, because we just don't know exactly what a lot of it meant. That's why the Talmud exists -- centuries of effort by Jewish scholars to decide what all of this really means, and they still haven't stopped trying.
Moral Benefits of Wisdom
2 My son, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you,
2 turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding—
3 indeed, if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
4 and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
6 For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7 He holds success in store for the upright,
he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
8 for he guards the course of the just
and protects the way of his faithful ones.9 Then you will understand what is right and just
and fair—every good path.
10 For wisdom will enter your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
11 Discretion will protect you,
and understanding will guard you.12 Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men,
from men whose words are perverse,
13 who have left the straight paths
to walk in dark ways,
14 who delight in doing wrong
and rejoice in the perverseness of evil,
15 whose paths are crooked
and who are devious in their ways.16 Wisdom will save you also from the adulterous woman,
from the wayward woman with her seductive words,
17 who has left the partner of her youth
and ignored the covenant she made before God.[a]
18 Surely her house leads down to death
and her paths to the spirits of the dead.
19 None who go to her return
or attain the paths of life.20 Thus you will walk in the ways of the good
and keep to the paths of the righteous.
21 For the upright will live in the land,
and the blameless will remain in it;
22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land,
and the unfaithful will be torn from it.Footnotes
- Proverbs 2:17 Or covenant of her God
1 comment:
I like the following part; if people had this sort of wisdom, they would have an inherent, bullshit detector, and our country and the world would be in a far better state.
"Discretion will protect you,
and understanding will guard you.
12 Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men,
from men whose words are perverse,
13 who have left the straight paths
to walk in dark ways,
14 who delight in doing wrong
and rejoice in the perverseness of evil,
15 whose paths are crooked
and who are devious in their ways."
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