Proverbs 1:7

The fear of the Lord [is] the beginning of knowledge,.... Here properly the book begins, and this is the first of the proverbs, and an excellent one; it is such an one as is not to be found in all the writings of the Heathens.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. The fear of the Lord (is) the beginning of knowledge - the grand summary of the whole book (cf.

The fear of the Lord; reverence and obedience to God, or his worship and service, as this word is commonly used. The beginning; either the foundation, or the top, and perfection, or chief point, without which all other knowledge is vain and useless. Fools; wicked men, called fools through this whole book; such as do not fear God. Despise wisdom and instruction; are so far from attaining true wisdom, that they despise it, and all the means of getting it; which fully proves what he now said, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of knowledge: [but] fools despise wisdom and instruction.Ver. 7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning.] Or, The chief and principal point of wisdom, as the word here signified; yea, wisdom itself. This Solomon had learned by the instruction of his father, as it is in the next verse, who had taught it him of a child, and therefore sets it here in the beginning of his works as the beginning of all. As in the end he makes it the end of all, yea, the all of man, without which he counts him not a complete man, though never so wise to the world ward. Heathen sages, as Seneca, Socrates, &c., were wise in their generation, and had many excellent gifts, but they missed of the main; there was no fear of God before their eyes: being herein as alchemists, who miss of their end, but yet find many excellent things by the way. These merchants found goodly pearls, but "the pearl of price" they failed of. The prophet calls the fear of God "our treasure." But fools despise.] Fools; so are all such as fear not God, "being abominable, disobedient, and to every good work reprobate," or injudicious. Evil is Hebrew for a fool; Nebulo of Nabal; fool of Fáõëïò. When one highly commended the Cardinal Julian to Sigismund, he answered, Tamen Romanus est; yet he is a popeling. So, yet he is a fool, because void of God’ s true fear. "Behold they have rejected the word of the Lord, and what wisdom is in them?" The head or firstfruits; the head and height. Hoc est enim totus homo.

2.—FIFTEEN POEMS, OR ON VARIOUS (Proverbs 1:7 to Proverbs 9:18). (a) First Discourse:—Against Companionship in Robbery (Proverbs 1:7-19). (7) The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.—The first discourse is prefaced by a distich, which serves as a key-note to all the teaching of the book. This expression, “the fear of the Lord,” occurs thirteen times in the Proverbs, and plays a prominent part throughout the Old Testament. “When God of old came down from heaven, In power and wrath He came.” That law which was given amid “blackness, and darkness, and tempest” was enforced by the threat, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Galatians 3:10). Men had to be taught how hateful sin was to God, and the lesson was for the most part instilled into them by the fear of immediate punishment. (Comp. Deuteronomy 28) But when the lesson had been learnt, and when mankind had found by experience that they were unable to keep the law of God by their own strength, then the new covenant of mercy was revealed from Calvary, even free justification “by God’s grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). And with this new message a new motive to obedience was preached. The “fear of the Lord” was now superseded by the higher duty of the “love of God,” and of man, for His sake. “The love of Christ constraineth us,” says St. Paul. “We love Him because He first loved us,” writes St. John. Now, it was seen that, although the “fear of the Lord” may be the “beginning of wisdom,” yet something better still may be aimed at: that “he that feareth is not made perfect in love;” and so the teaching of St. John, the last New Testament writer, is summed up in the words, “If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (1 John 4:11). Fools (’evîlîm).—Self-willed, headstrong persons, who will listen to no advice.

Verse 7. The fear of the Lord] In the preceding verses Solomon shows the advantage of acting according to the dictates of wisdom; in the following verses he shows the danger of acting contrary to them. The fear of the Lord signifies that religious reverence which every intelligent being owes to his Creator; and is often used to express the whole of religion, as we have frequently had occasion to remark in different places. But what is religion? The love of God, and the love of man; the former producing all obedience to the Divine will; the latter, every act of benevolence to one's fellows. The love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit produces the deepest religious reverence, genuine piety, and cheerful obedience. To love one's neighbour as himself is the second great commandment; and as love worketh no ill to one's neighbour, therefore it is said to be the fulfilling of the law. Without love, there is no obedience; without reverence, there is neither caution, consistent conduct, nor perseverance in righteousness. This fear or religious reverence is said to be the beginning of knowledge; ראשית reshith, the principle, the first moving influence, begotten in a tender conscience by the Spirit of God. No man can ever become truly wise, who does not begin with God, the fountain of knowledge; and he whose mind is influenced by the fear and love of God will learn more in a month than others will in a year. Fools despise] אוילים evilim, evil men. Men of bad hearts, bad heads, and bad ways.

7. This verse stands out as the motto, or key-note, both of the whole Book, and of the whole subject of which the Book treats. I am offering, the writer would seem to say, to give you the right of entering into the House of Knowledge, to conduct you through some of its goodly chambers, to display to you a portion of the rich and varied treasures with which it is stored. But as you approach the portal, note well the inscription which is traced above it: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. The House is not a Palace only, but a Temple. They only who reverence the Deity who inhabits it are admitted within the shrine. It is the Temple of God; yet not that only but of Jehovah, the God of Israel, the God of revelation and of covenant. To recognise this is the beginning, the necessary condition, the essential pre-requisite of knowledge. Those who seek knowledge in any other spirit or by any other path, really “despise wisdom and discipline,” and in so doing shew themselves to be not wise men but “fools.” See further, Introd. ch. i. p. 10. The fear] not slavish dread, the “fear that hath torment” (1 John 4:18), but childlike reverence. See Malachi 3:16-17; Luke 12:5; Luke 12:7. In the LXX. this verse has been amplified by the addition of ἀρχὴσοφίαςφόβοςκυρίου, σύνεσιςδὲἀγαθὴπᾶσιτοῖςποιοῦσιναὐτήν, from Psalms 111:10. the beginning] “the beginning and foundation of all knowledge,” Maur. This is better than the chief part, R.V. marg. Comp. Proverbs 9:10, where however the Heb. is different. instruction] Rather, discipline. See note Proverbs 1:2.

The beginning of wisdom is found in the temper of reverence and awe.

7. As the preceding five verses may be regarded as stating the object of the book, so this may be considered as the motto, proposition, or text, which the author places at its head as containing the