Proverbs 7:4

7:1-5 We must lay up God's commandments safely. Not only, Keep them, and you shall live; but, Keep them as those that cannot live without them. Those that blame strict and careful walking as needless and too precise, consider not that the law is to be kept as the apple of the eye; indeed the law in the heart is the eye of the soul. Let the word of God dwell in us, and so be written where it will be always at hand to be read. Thus we shall be kept from the fatal effects of our own passions, and the snares of Satan. Let God's word confirm our dread of sin, and resolutions against it.

Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister,.... Intimately acquainted, greatly beloved, and highly delighted in: this may be understood both of the Gospel, the wisdom of God in a mystery, which men should be conversant with, be strongly affected to, and take delight and pleasure in; and of Christ, the essential Wisdom of God, and who stands in the relation of a brother to his people, and should be respected as such; and call understanding thy kinswoman; or "kinsman" (a); such Christ is in our nature, our "goel", our near kinsman, partaker of the same flesh and blood, and therefore is not ashamed to call us brethren, nor should we be ashamed to call him kinsman: moreover, his Word and Gospel, and the understanding of it, should be familiar to us; it should be well "known" (b) by us, as the word used signifies, and dwell richly in us. (a) "cognatum", Piscator. (b) "Notam", Montanus, Michaelis.

Verse 4. - Say unto Wisdom, Thou art my sister. Wisdom is personified, and the connection with her indicated by the relationship which best expresses love, purity, confidence. In the Book of Wisdom 8. she is represented as wife. Christ calls those who do God's will his brother, and sister, and mother ( Matthew 12:50 ). Call Understanding thy kinswoman; moda , "familiar friend." Let prudence and sound sense be as dear to thee as a close friend. Proverbs 7:4

The subject-matter of this earnest warning are the admonitions of the teacher of wisdom, and through him of Wisdom herself, who in contrast to the world and its lust is the worthiest object of love, and deserves to be loved with the purest, sincerest love: 4 Say to wisdom: "Thou art my sister!" And call understanding "Friend;" 5 That they may keep thee from the strange woman, From the stranger who useth smooth words. The childlike, sisterly, and friendly relationship serves also to picture forth and designate the intimate confidential relationship to natures and things which are not flesh and blood. If in Arabic the poor is called the brother of poverty, the trustworthy the brother of trustworthiness, and abu, um (אם), achu, ucht, are used in manifold ways as the expression for the interchangeable relation between two ideas; so (as also, notwithstanding Ewald, 273b, in many Hebr. proper names) that has there become national, which here, as at Job 17:14; Job 30:29, mediated by the connection of the thoughts, only first appears as a poetic venture. The figurative words of Proverbs 7:4 not merely lead us to think of wisdom as a personal existence of a higher order, but by this representation it is itself brought so near, that אם easily substitutes itself, Proverbs 2:3, in the place of אם. אחתי of Solomon's address to the bride brought home is in its connection compared with Book of Wisdom 8:2.

While the ôth of אחות by no means arises from abstr. ûth, but achôth is derived from achajath, מודע (as Ruth 2:1, cf. מודעת, Proverbs 3:2), here by Mugrash מודע, properly means acquaintance, and then the person known, but not in the superficial sense in which this word and the Arab. ma'arfat are used (e.g., in the Arabic phrase quoted by Fleischer, kanna aṣḥaab ṣarna m'aaraf - nous tions amis, nous en sommes plus que de simples connaissances), but in the sense of familiar, confidential alliance. The infin. לשׁמרך does not need for its explanation some intermediate thought to be introduced: quod eo conducet tibi ut (Mich.), but connects itself immediately as the purpose: bind wisdom to thyself and thyself to wisdom thus closely that thou mayest therewith guard thyself. As for the rest, vid., Proverbs 2:16; this verse repeats itself here with the variation of one word.

[Reformed Biblical] CHAP. VII. 1-5. 67 miseries,* flowing from the breach of God's holy commandment. ‘Oh! how great iniquity'—exclaimed the godly Augustine—'is this adul- tery! How great a perverseness! The soul, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, is thus for the pleasures of an hour given to the devil; a thing much to be lamented and bewailed; when that which delighteth is soon gone, that which tormenteth remaineth without end.'† And shall not this fearful picture of sin and its consequences (which Solomon, alas! was too well fitted to draw) teach us to avoid every- thing that may be temptation; to be sensitive to the first intimations of its becoming so; to close every avenue of sense to the entrance of this seductive poison; to shun all communications that taint the purity of taste, that familiarise the mind with impurity, that give a vivid interest to associations from which a chaste imagination recoils with disgust? Let us learn to seek Divine strength to "watch and pray" continually; and, while we "think we stand, to take heed lest we fall." (1 Cor. x. 12 ) CHAPTER VII. 1. My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. 2. Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye. 3. Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart. 4. Say unto wisdom—'Thou art my sister,' and call under- standing thy kinswoman: 5. That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger that flattereth with her words

[Reformed Biblical] CHAP. VI. 25-29. 65 Specially valuable are this lamp and light in sensual temptation. (Chap. ii. 10, 11, 16-19; v. 1-8; vii. 1-5.) Those who choose their own light fall into a flattering snare. (Chap. ii. 16; vii, 21. The neglect of parental warning will furnish in the end bitter matter for unavailing repentance. (Chap. v. 11–13.) Oh! let the Father's instruction be heard betimes —"Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word." (Ps. xix. 9. Comp. v. 11; xvii. 4.) 25. Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids. 26. For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life. 27. Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? 28. Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? 29. So he that goeth in to his neighbour's wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent. Solomon here gives our Lord's own rule. (Matt. v. 28. Comp. Jam. i. 14, 15; Job, xxxi. 1; Ps. cxix. 37; also, Ecclus. ix. 3–5.) Resist lust in its first rising in the heart. By vain beauty,* and wanton eyes,† many a deluded victim has been brought to a piece of bread. ‡ Like the insatiable huntsman, who never loses sight of his prey, till he has pursued it to death; never does the seducer cease to solicit, till she has hunted for the precious life. (Gen. xxxix. 14. Judg. xvi. 18-21. Comp. Ezek. xiii