Proverbs Chapter 2--Wisdom and deliverance

Proverbs 2 continues with the theme of a father exhorting his son. Notice the verbs used in the first four verses--receive/incline to the words and commands of the Father, and cry out/seek wisdom; verse 5 continues: "Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God." God is specifically identified in verse 6 as the source of wisdom. Note that the way for God's people to "understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity, yea, every good path" is only through this wisdom that only God gives. What this means is that all wisdom that we see in the world has its source in God--and true wisdom will lead the one who cries out and receives it to the LORD.

Wisdom, though, has a definite effect--positively for the one who has faith, negatively for the one who wallows in unbelief. Notice verse 10 and following: when wisdom "entereth into thine heart"--conversion language--the one converted will find himself delivered from folly. This deliverance is specifically from two types of folly--the "evil man" who "walks in the way of darkness" and the "strange woman" (obviously the adulteress spoken of in later chapters--she shows up often) whose paths lead "unto the dead". So, wisdom delivers from folly--and, as we have seen, folly, when left unchecked, leads to death.

The end of the matter? Seek wisdom from the LORD "as silver, and . . . as for hid treasures". It is the LORD that delivers--but He does so in time and space through the means of wisdom.