Proverbs 9: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Wisdom is pictured as a woman who builds a house, prepares a feast, and sends her servants to invite the simple to come in, eat, and walk in the way of understanding. In the middle of the chapter come sayings about who accepts correction: the mocker hates it, the wise man welcomes it and grows. The chapter closes with a matching picture of Folly, another woman calling from the same high places of the city, offering stolen water and secret bread to the same passersby, while her guests are already among the dead.

Claim by Claim

1. 9:1
   • Wisdom has built her house.
   • Wisdom has hewn out her seven pillars.
2. 9:2
   • She has slaughtered her slaughter-animals.
   • She has mixed her wine.
   • She has also set out her table.
3. 9:3
   • She has sent out her young women.
   • She calls out from the highest points of the city.
4. 9:4
   • She says: whoever is simple, let him turn in here.
   • She speaks to the one who lacks understanding.
5. 9:5
   • She says: come, eat of my bread.
   • She says: drink of the wine I have mixed.
6. 9:6
   • She says: forsake the simple ones (or: leave folly behind).
   • She says: live.
   • She says: walk straight in the way of understanding.
7. 9:7
   • He who corrects a scorner gets shame for himself.
   • He who rebukes a wicked man gets a blemish for himself.
8. 9:8
   • Do not rebuke a scorner, lest he hate you.
   • Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you.
9. 9:9
   • Give to a wise man, and he will be wiser still.
   • Teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.
10. 9:10
    • The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.
    • Knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
11. 9:11
    • By me your days will be multiplied.
    • Years of life will be added to you.
12. 9:12
    • If you are wise, you are wise for yourself.
    • If you scorn, you alone will bear it.
13. 9:13
    • The woman of folly is boisterous.
    • She is simple.
    • She knows nothing.
14. 9:14
    • She sits at the door of her house.
    • She sits on a seat at the high places of the city.
15. 9:15
    • She calls to those passing by on the road.
    • Those passing by are going straight on their paths.
16. 9:16
    • She says: whoever is simple, let him turn in here.
    • She speaks to the one who lacks understanding.
17. 9:17
    • She says: stolen waters are sweet.
    • She says: bread eaten in secret is pleasant.
18. 9:18
    • He does not know that the dead are there.
    • He does not know that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

9:1

Pillars are stone or timber columns holding up a roof; a house that needed seven of them was a large and costly one. Seven in Hebrew usage regularly stands for a full or complete set, so the phrase suggests a house built to perfection rather than a particular floor plan. What such a house actually looked like has never been settled.

9:2

"Killed her beasts" means slaughtered livestock and butchered them for meat. Meat was rarely eaten in ordinary Israelite life; killing an animal signaled a feast. Wine was commonly blended before serving, either with water or with spices and honey, so "mingled" describes normal preparation for guests rather than weakening the drink.

9:3

Sending household servant girls out as messengers marks the speaker as a woman of means. The high points of a city (its gates, walls and open squares) were where public announcements were made, so this is an open invitation shouted in public, not a private one.

9:4

"Simple" translates a Hebrew word meaning inexperienced and easily persuaded, someone still open to being formed either way. It does not mean stupid; the person can still be taught. In KJV English "wanteth" means lacks, not desires, so "him that wanteth understanding" is the person who has no sense.

9:5

Bread often stood for food in general, the whole meal. An invitation to eat at someone's table meant being welcomed as a friend, not just being fed.

9:6

The Hebrew here can be read two ways: leave the simple ones, meaning quit the company of the naive, or leave your own simpleness behind. Both readings are ancient and neither can be ruled out.

9:7

The scorner, or mocker, is a fixed character type in Proverbs: not merely someone who jokes, but someone who has settled in advance on refusing correction. KJV "getteth himself a blot" means picks up a stain on his own reputation, the corrector, not the corrected, ends up damaged.

9:9

"A just man" means an honest, fair person, someone who treats others rightly.

9:10

"The fear of the LORD" translates a Hebrew phrase covering a range from dread to awed respect; English has no single word for it. "Beginning" renders a word that can mean either the starting point or the chief part, the first principle. LORD in small capitals stands where the Hebrew has God's personal name. "The holy" is plural in Hebrew, "holy ones," widely taken as an intensive way of saying the Holy One.

9:11

"By me" returns the reader to Wisdom's own voice from verse 5; the sayings in verses 7 to 10 read as general maxims, and here the invitation resumes. Where exactly the speaker changes is not marked in the Hebrew.

9:13

The Hebrew reads "a woman of folly," set up deliberately as the mirror image of the personified Wisdom in verse 1. The chapter puts two hostesses side by side, each with a house, a table and the same invitation to the same passers-by. "Clamorous" means loud and boisterous. The word translated "simple" here is the same one she uses of her targets in verse 16.

9:14

Wisdom sends messengers out and calls from the city heights; Folly takes the same elevated station but simply sits at her own door. Sitting at the doorway is elsewhere in Hebrew writing the posture of a woman soliciting men in the street.

9:15

In KJV English "passengers" means people passing by on foot, not people riding in anything. "Who go right on their ways" means those keeping straight along their own road, minding their own business: she calls to people who were not looking for her.

9:17

She quotes what sounds like a popular saying. Water and bread are the two basic staples, and stealing water most literally means drawing from a well or cistern that is not yours. Because water from one's own cistern is used elsewhere in Proverbs as an image for one's own wife, the saying is generally heard as a veiled reference to adultery. The claim being made is that secrecy is itself what makes it taste good.

9:18

KJV "hell" renders the Hebrew Sheol, the underworld to which all the dead were thought to go (the grave, the realm of the dead), not the later idea of hell as a place of punishment for the wicked in particular. The word behind "the dead" is rephaim, the shades or ghosts of those who have died. "Guests" is the ordinary word for people invited to a meal, which sets her table pointedly against Wisdom's table in verse 2.