Proverbs 1:5-9 - "The Words of the Wise"

Proverbs 1:5-9

"A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels: To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck."

The words set before us in Proverbs are introduced as “the Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel” (Proverbs 1:1), yet from the beginning they direct our attention beyond Solomon himself. These words were given “to know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding” (Proverbs 1:2). Though Solomon was declared to be wiser than all men, the Wisdom presented here does not originate in man, but is given of God. The Spirit is the Author, and Solomon writes as one taught, not as the Source.

When the Scripture speaks of “the words of the wise,” it does not refer to human insight or experience. A “wise one will hear, and will increase learning,” and “a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels” (v.5). This hearing is not natural reason, but Spiritual instruction. Wisdom is received and revealed by the Spirit of God. It is given to discern judgment, justice, and equity, not by personal effort, but by Divine Mercy and Grace.

This Wisdom is rooted in the fear of the LORD, for “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (v.7). Apart from this, all wisdom is empty, and instruction despised. The Wisdom Solomon speaks of answers the question of how God can be just and yet justify sinners. This is not a philosophical problem, but the Gospel Revelation.

Solomon himself acknowledged that what he possessed was not his own. When he prayed, he confessed, “I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in,” and asked the LORD for “an understanding heart” (1 Kings 3:7–9). What followed was not merely insight for governing the people, but a Wisdom that served as a type and picture of Another. Solomon was established for a season to point forward to One greater, the LORD Jesus Christ Himself. Our LORD Himself declared this plainly: “Behold, a greater than Solomon is here” (Luke 11:31). The wisdom that drew the queen of Sheba from the ends of the earth was but a shadow. In Christ are found all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). He is not only wise; He is Wisdom itself. Of God, He “was made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30).

The words of the wise, then, are the Words of the Wise One. Christ fulfilled perfectly what Solomon only pictured. Where Solomon prayed for discernment, Christ attained unto wise counsels and accomplished all the pleasure of the LORD. “The pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand” (Isaiah 53:10). Where Solomon failed, the LORD Jesus faithfully fulfilled the will of His heavenly Father. Where this passage shows us the words of a father to his son, this typifies the instruction of God the Father to His Son and the obedience necessary for Him to satisfy God's law and justice on behalf of those sinners that the Father sent Him into the world to save by His Righteous obedience unto death.

What Proverbs holds out as instruction of a father to his son, we find here how the LORD Jesus is the truly wise Son, Who became the obedient Son revealed in the Gospel as the God-Man, Whose righteousness fully satisfied the Father and was graciously imputed to His people, because of His Righteous obedience for them. Even as a child, from the womb to the tomb through the cross, He was ever about His Father's business, and the Father was ever pleased with Him.

To hear these words is to be directed away from self and unto Christ. What the Father demands, Christ fulfilled in His obedience unto death, Philippians 2:8-11. Wisdom is not the accumulation of knowledge, but rather the revelation of how God can be just and justify those He gave His Son to save by His finished work on the cross. In Him, God is satisfied, justice answered, and mercy and grace magnified. These are truly the Words of the Wise — and they lead us to the only True Wise One Himself, the LORD Jesus Christ.