Proverbs 3:17

The first nine chapters of Proverbs are a father’s instruction to his son. In chapter 3 he has already told his son to keep his commandments (Proverbs 3:1–4), to trust in the LORD with all his heart (3:5–6), to fear him (3:7–8), to honour him with his substance (3:9–10) and to accept his correction (3:11–12). At verse 13 he turns from commands to praise. Verses 13 to 18 tell what wisdom is worth and what she gives, and verses 19 and 20 show where she comes from. The whole of Proverbs 3 rests on this: the father’s counsel is worth keeping because the wisdom behind it is the wisdom God used to make the world.

“Happy is the man that findeth wisdom.” The word for happy, ʼesher, means happiness or blessedness, and it is used as an exclamation: “how happy!” It describes someone who is fortunate and blessed by God. The same cry opens the Psalms, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly” (Psalm 1:1–3), and verse 18 closes this song with “happy” again, so the whole praise of wisdom begins and ends in blessing.

The man here, ʼâdâm, is any human being, so the blessing is open to all. Two verbs tell how wisdom is gained. To find, mâtsâʼ, is to search and come upon what was sought, and to get, pûwq, is to obtain it. Proverbs has already likened this search to digging for silver and hidden treasure (Proverbs 2:1–5), and wisdom comes to those who look for her with that kind of care.

Wisdom and understanding stand side by side here and again in verse 19. Wisdom, chokmâh, is skill in living, the know-how of a righteous life that puts the truth to work in real situations, and it is rooted in the fear of the LORD (Proverbs 9:10). Understanding, tâbûwn, is discernment, the insight that grasps what things mean and tells right from wrong and truth from falsehood. Understanding sees and wisdom acts on what it sees, and the verse calls the person happy who has both.

God gives wisdom through his word, which is “a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105). He gives it in answer to prayer, for James tells anyone who lacks wisdom to ask God, who gives generously (James 1:5). It grows in the humble and teachable, who learn from godly teachers and from life itself, and who watch how God’s moral order works in the world, where each choice bears its fruit.

Verse 14 speaks the language of the market. “Merchandise”, çachar, is the profit of trade, what a merchant earns by buying and selling. “Gain”, tᵉbûwʼâh, is produce or yield, the crop a field brings in, and by extension income or revenue. “Fine gold”, chărûwts, is gold dug from the ground and refined, the purest gold there is. “Better” is ṭôwb, the broad Hebrew word for good. So trading in wisdom pays better than trading in silver, and what wisdom brings in outweighs the finest gold. The “it” of the verse is the wisdom and understanding of verse 13.

Silver was the everyday money of Israel, the usual means of exchange and a common measure of wealth. Fine gold was rarer and was kept for royal treasuries, holy things and the richest people. The father takes the two things everyone wanted most and says that wisdom pays better than both.

Verse 15 goes higher. Wisdom is “more precious than rubies”. The adjective yâqâr, from the verb yâqar, means precious, costly or rare. The stones the KJV calls rubies, pânîyn, were costly gems, perhaps pearls or corals, owned by kings and the very rich. Then the verse widens to “all the things thou canst desire”. The word chêphets means pleasure, delight, desire or wish, and it can also mean a matter or purpose, so the phrase takes in every possession, ambition and pleasure a person could long for. The verb shâvâh means to make level or equal, and wisdom stands above every one of those things.

Wisdom says the same of herself later in the book: “For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it” (Proverbs 8:10–11). Job says that wisdom is beyond the reach of gold, silver and precious stones, for “the price of wisdom is above rubies” (Job 28:15–19). Proverbs calls wisdom “the principal thing” (Proverbs 4:7). Jesus tells us to lay up treasure in heaven, safe from moth and rust, “for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:19–21), and to seek first the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33). Paul counted all his former gains as loss for the excellency of knowing Christ (Philippians 3:7–8). God’s thoughts are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8–9), and here he weighs wisdom against wealth and tells us which is worth more.

“Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour.” Wisdom stands like a generous giver with both hands full. “Length”, ʼôrek, is length as a measure, and with “days” (yôwm) it means long life or old age. In Israel long life was a mark of God’s blessing on those who walked in his covenant. Moses set life and death before the people and urged them to choose life, for the LORD “is thy life, and the length of thy days” (Deuteronomy 30:19–20). A long life in Proverbs is a full one, lived to its natural end and spared the early death that folly and sin bring on, often with the joy of seeing one’s descendants thrive.

The right hand, yâmîyn, is the right hand or right side, and by extension the south. In Scripture the right hand stands for strength and favour, so long life, placed there, comes first among wisdom’s gifts, with riches and honour in the other hand. Together the two hands show how fully wisdom gives.

“Honour”, kâbôwd, is glory, honour and splendour, and it can also mean wealth. Here it is the respect and good name a person has among his people. The Old Testament treats riches as a blessing from God when they are gained rightly and used generously. Solomon is the plainest example. He asked God for wisdom, and God gave him wisdom and added riches and honour as well (1 Kings 3:13). Jesus gives the same order when he says to seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added (Matthew 6:33).

“Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” Proverbs speaks of life as a journey on one of two ways, the path of the just that shines brighter and brighter and the way of the wicked that is as darkness (Proverbs 4:10–19). “Ways”, derek, comes from a root meaning to tread. It is a road, and so a course of life and a person’s conduct. Wisdom’s road is “pleasantness”, nôʻam, a word for what is agreeable, delightful and lovely. Every one of her paths is “peace”, shâlôwm, which names completeness, soundness, welfare and safety, the whole well-being of a life that is right with God. This wisdom begins with the fear of the LORD (Proverbs 1:7).

Walking with wisdom is a delight, and every step of it leads to well-being. God said to Israel, “O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river” (Isaiah 48:18), and Isaiah says that God keeps in perfect peace the one whose mind is stayed on him (Isaiah 26:3). The psalmist finds the path of life in God’s presence, where there is fulness of joy (Psalm 16:11), and Paul prays that the God of hope will fill believers with all joy and peace in believing (Romans 15:13). The way of wisdom can be demanding and can run against the world’s ways for a time, and it still ends in pleasantness and peace.

“She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her.” The tree of life first stands in the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9). After man sinned, God sent him out of the garden and set cherubim to keep the way to that tree (Genesis 3:22–24). Proverbs takes up the picture and says that wisdom gives life to those who hold her. The word for life, chay, from châyâh, means living or alive, and it carries the freshness and strength of life as well as life itself. Wisdom gives back a measure of the life and fellowship with God that were lost in Eden, while the path of greed and folly takes away the life of those who walk it (Proverbs 1:19).

Proverbs uses the picture again: “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life” (Proverbs 11:30). The righteous man of the first psalm is “like a tree planted by the rivers of water”. At the end of Scripture, Jesus promises the one who overcomes “to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7), and the tree of life grows beside the river of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 22:2).

Two verbs tell how this life is had. “Lay hold”, châzaq, means to be strong, to seize and to hold fast. “Retaineth”, tâmak, means to hold up, to keep fast and to sustain. The first is the grasp and the second keeps it. The happiness of the verse belongs to “every one that retaineth her”, so wisdom is held for a lifetime, and the song ends with the same blessing on the one who keeps her as it began with on the one who finds her.

“The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.” The same words as in verse 13 come back, chokmâh and tâbûwn. The wisdom and understanding a person is told to find are the wisdom and understanding by which God made everything, and that is the ground of all the praise in verses 13 to 18. Whoever seeks wisdom is seeking what is God’s own, the order he built into all things.

The LORD, Yᵉhôvâh, is God’s covenant name, from the root meaning “to be”. The Maker of the world is the personal God of Israel, ever present and at work in what he made. “Founded”, yâçad, means to set, found or establish, as one lays a foundation. “Established”, kûwn, means to set up and make firm. The earth below and the heavens above together stand for the whole creation, and all of it was laid down and fixed in place by God’s wisdom.

The nations around Israel told of creation as a struggle among gods. Proverbs tells of one LORD who made all things by wisdom, with purpose and order. The psalmist sings, “O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all” (Psalm 104:24), and Jeremiah says, “He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom” (Jeremiah 10:12). Genesis opens with God creating the heaven and the earth (Genesis 1:1), and “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1).

“By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew.” Knowledge, daʻath, from the verb to know, is God’s knowledge, including his skill and discernment. The depths, tᵉhôwm, are the deep waters, the great waters beneath the earth and the deep of the creation account (Genesis 1). They are “broken up”, and bâqaʻ means to split, cleave or break open, so the waters break through and rise as springs. The phrase may also recall the flood, when “the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up” (Genesis 7:11).

The second line turns to the gentle side of God’s care. The clouds, shachaq, the skies, “drop down”, râʻaph, the dew, ṭal. In a dry land, dew kept crops and pasture alive through the seasons when rain was scarce. The mighty waters of the deep and the quiet dew of the night both come from God’s knowledge.

Verse 19 tells of God’s work at the beginning, and verse 20 adds the care that keeps that work going. Psalm 104 praises God who sends the springs into the valleys and waters the hills (Psalm 104:10–13). The LORD asks Job, “Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew?” (Job 38:28). After the flood God promised, “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). The water in every spring and the dew on every field come from the God whose wisdom we are told to find.

The wisdom praised here is found in its fullness in Jesus Christ. Paul calls him “the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24), and says that he “of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). In him “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). To find wisdom, in the fullest sense, is to find Christ.

The wisdom by which the LORD founded the earth was at work in the Son. The Word was with God and was God (John 1:1), and “all things were made by him” (John 1:3). By him all things were created, in heaven and in earth, and by him all things consist (Colossians 1:16–17), and he upholds all things by the word of his power (Hebrews 1:3). He has declared the Father to us (John 1:18). The Lord of the deep and the dew showed the same authority on earth when he calmed the storm (Mark 4:39) and fed the five thousand (John 6:11), and he offers living water (John 4:10).

Each gift of wisdom finds its fullness in him. Wisdom outweighs gold, and Christ is the pearl of great price for which a man gladly gives up all he has (Matthew 13:45–46). Everything we desire falls below wisdom, and Christ is the bread of life (John 6:35) and gives the water that satisfies thirst for ever (John 4:13–14). Wisdom holds length of days, and Christ gives everlasting life to all who believe in him (John 3:16) and came that we might have life more abundantly (John 10:10). Wisdom holds riches and honour, and in Christ we have every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3), we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with him (Romans 8:17), we are called the sons of God (1 John 3:1), and we shall appear with him in glory (Colossians 3:4). Wisdom’s ways are pleasantness and peace, and Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light (Matthew 11:28–30). He says, “my peace I give unto you” (John 14:27), the peace of God “which passeth all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). Wisdom is a tree of life, and those who belong to Christ will eat of the tree of life in the city of God.

The God who founded the earth by wisdom holds that wisdom out to us. Proverbs pictures it as a giver with full hands, calls the one who finds it happy, and promises that every one of its paths ends in peace. Its worth comes from its source, since the wisdom that made the heavens outweighs all the silver and gold on the earth. The knowledge that breaks open the deep and sends the dew is at work in our ordinary days as well, so the one who walks in wisdom walks in a world held in wise and faithful hands.

The search for wisdom has an end, because God gives it to those who ask him and has given it in person in his Son. The father in Proverbs speaks of laying hold of wisdom and keeping hold, and in Christ that wisdom has come near enough to hold.