Proverbs 9

[reformed_vanilla]

I was wondering if the Puritanboard could please tell me about Proverbs 9. I would love to have answers on anything and everything to do with the chapter. However, there are some specific things I wanted to find out.

1) What is the significance of sweet water being stolen? Is it related to Wisdom's wine?
2) What pattern is the chapter following?
3) What is Solomon's main point? Is this to be found in verse 10?

 

[toddpedlar]

I was wondering if the Puritanboard could please tell me about Proverbs 9. I would love to have answers on anything and everything to do with the chapter. However, there are some specific things I wanted to find out.

1) What is the significance of sweet water being stolen? Is it related to Wisdom's wine?
2) What pattern is the chapter following?
3) What is Solomon's main point? Is this to be found in verse 10?

To answer 3 first, certainly verse 10 contains a central idea, but it is central to all of the proverbs, and indeed the wisdom literature of Scripture. I'm not sure that it's always profitable to take chapters (which are an entirely novel invention) and try to find some 'main point'. In this chapter several themes are addressed - I'm not sure i'd locate one of the main ideas in verse 10, since that simply speaks the great truth of how wisdom is to be found. Others key points are to be found in the chapter, though, as i look at it - folly offers lies that deceive in the place of truth; (vv 13-18); wisdom offers a great benefit to those who will come and feast (vv 1-6); and another theme common in the proverbs: rebuke is beneficial to the wise, and useless for the fool (vv. 7-9).

To answer 2, I'm not sure what you're asking, really.

To answer 1, I don't know what translation you're using, but I've not found one that translates the phrase as "sweet water". Rather, what I find in every version I have access to is the phrase "Stolen water is sweet," which parallels the next phrase, "and bread that is eaten in secret is pleasant". The whole discussion there is a lie that folly is speaking - something along the lines of 'that which is obtained under cover of secrecy and which is taken rather than legitimately obtained is the most satisfying.'

Just my three cents.

 

[reformed_vanilla]

Thanks for your three cents, despite my lack of clarity with my questions. In relation to question 1, that was a typo, I meant "Stolen water is sweet". I understand it parallels with the next phrase. I also thought it paralleled with the start of the Proverb, where Wisdom had prepared her meat and mixed her wine. I didn't really get what Solomon was trying to say with it, but I guess the 'that which is obtained under cover of secrecy and which is taken rather than legitimately obtained is the most satisfying' answer makes sense.

In relation to the second question, about the structure, I was hoping to find out what pattern Solomon wrote this in. Ideally, that would help with finding a (possible) main point of the section. The reason I thought there was a main point was because I thought verses 1-6 and 13-18 mirrored each other. Solomon talks about Wisdom calling out to the world and this seems to be contrasted with the last section, where Folly calls out to the world. The meat and wine vs water and bread is a part of this. However, I couldn't see exactly how these sections relate to verses 7-12, aside from through the main themes of the Proverbs.

 

[Rev. Todd Ruddell]

There is an antithesis in the first 10 chapters of the Proverbs of Solomon seen in contrasting the good woman and the anti-woman. The good woman is wisdom, who cries in the streets, and her ways lead to life. The "anti-woman" is that which tempts to folly and death, the adulteress. This particular discourse speaks of our own dulness and senselessness in that trusting our perceptions is folly, rather than trusting the Word of the Lord, the voice of wisdom. We perceive those stolen waters to be sweet, when really they are bitter unto death. We think the bread is "pleasant" but truly it is poison. Hearkening unto wisdom leads to life, and hearkening to folly entices unto death. The use is that we will be deceived if we incline our ear unto the anti-woman, rather than to wisdom.