Proverbs 4:1-9
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
Chapter 4
The Teacher as Model Disciple[a]
1 Hear, O children, a father’s instruction,
be attentive, that you may gain understanding!
2 Yes, excellent advice I give you;
my teaching do not forsake.
3 When I was my father’s child,
tender, the darling of my mother,
4 He taught me and said to me:
“Let your heart hold fast my words:(A)
keep my commands, and live!
5 Get wisdom,[b] get understanding!
Do not forget or turn aside from the words of my mouth.
6 Do not forsake her, and she will preserve you;
love her, and she will safeguard you;
7 The beginning of wisdom is: get wisdom;
whatever else you get, get understanding.
8 Extol her, and she will exalt you;
she will bring you honors if you embrace her;
9 She will put on your head a graceful diadem;
a glorious crown will she bestow on you.”
Footnotes
- 4:1–9
The teacher draws a parallel between his teaching the disciples now and his father’s teaching him in his youth (vv. 3–4): what my father taught me about wisdom is what I am teaching you. The poem implies that the teacher has acquired wisdom and has in fact been protected and honored as his father promised long ago. Thus the teacher has the authority of someone who has been under wisdom’s sway since earliest youth.
There are two sections, a call for attention and introduction of the speaker (vv. 1–3) and the father’s quoting of his own father’s teaching (vv. 4–9). Beginning with v. 5, the father’s words are no longer quoted, wisdom herself becoming the active agent; she becomes the subject, not the object, of the verbs. Three Hebrew verbs are repeated in the two parts, “to forsake” in vv. 2 and 6, “to keep/guard” in vv. 4 and 6, and “to give/bestow” in vv. 2 and 9. Each verb in its first appearance has the father’s words as its object; in its second appearance each verb has wisdom as its subject or object. The teaching process is like that in 2:1–22 and 3:1–12: heeding the words of one’s parent puts one in touch with wisdom, who completes the process and bestows her gifts.
- 4:5, 7 Get wisdom: the same Hebrew word “to get” can mean to acquire merchandise and to acquire a wife (18:22; 31:10); both meanings are in keeping with Proverbs’ metaphors of acquiring wisdom over gold and silver and of acquiring wisdom as a personified woman, a wife.
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