IV. God’s voice of wisdom addresses all classes of sinners. 1. The simple ones. The unwary and those easily misled. Some men sin through ignorance or through the influence of others. As the unwalled garden is open to the foot of every dog that passes by, so the man who has no principle of his own to defend him is liable to have his soul entered and taken possession of by the first tempter who passes by. 2. The scorner. He is a sinner of a deeper dye. The child who is indifferent to his good father’s love and the attractions of his happy home is a sinner, but the son who mocks his parents and holds up their words to ridicule is certainly a greater sinner. The simple man denotes a sinner who is passive in the hands of evil, but the scorner is active against good. He is placed before us in Holy Scripture as one who has reached the climax of human iniquity (Psa. i. 1). 3. Fools are addressed. The man who would rather use means to increase his disease than seek to cure it, may very properly be called a fool. The blind man who chooses to remain blind when he might be healed is certainly a fool. And certainly this is an appropriate name for those who love moral darkness rather than light. He who hates the knowledge which would save him and prefers death to life is the most unwise man upon the face of God’s earth.
V. Although sinners may differ in degree, the same reproof and invitation are addressed to all. A rich man may be able to satisfy the wants of a hungry multitude, although all may not be equally hungry. If a physician possesses remedies which can heal men whose disease is deeply rooted, he will be able to cure those upon whom it has as yet a lighter hold. The voice of God to men offers but one way of satisfaction and soul-healing, viz., repentance. “Turn ye at my reproof.” And the gift of His Spirit which accompanies repentance (Acts ii. 38) is powerful to change the greatest sinner into a saint.
VI. The rejection of Wisdom’s voice of invitation changes it to one of threatening. The refusal of the invitation to the Gospel feast shut out to retribution those who rejected it (Luke xiv. 16). The space given for repentance will not last for ever. A time is here foretold when God will not hear them who have refused to hear Him. Their cry for help will be treated as they once treated the earnest cry of wisdom. “I will mock when your fear cometh.”
VII. The blessed condition of those who accept Wisdom’s invitation. The promises given under this Old Testament dispensation referred in a large degree to the present life. Dwelling safely here doubtless has its immediate reference to a home in Canaan, as in Isaiah i. 19. “If ye be willing, and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land.” Yet the underlying principle is that God will take charge of the real interests of those who yield themselves to Him—who fall in with His plans for their real eternal good.
outlines and suggestive comments.
Verse 20. What was in the views of godly men, in Solomon’s days, an abstraction, became concrete when Christ was manifested on earth. The manifold character of this Divine wisdom (Isa. xi. 2, 3), and the multiplicity of all messengers of this wisdom of God in all ages of the Church accord with the plural form. (See [“Critical Notes.”])—Fausset.
The Orientals used the plural form to denote the highest excellence. But wisdoms may be plural to denote wisdom in all forms, or all “wisdoms” in one; specially two forms of wisdom—wisdom in a worldly sense, and wisdom in the spiritual sense which the natural man does not discern. Wisdom in both these senses unites in piety. The pious man has spiritual wisdom of which the sinner knows nothing; and fleshly or natural wisdom to avoid hell and to secure heaven, to provide for death and get ready for an eternal world, to a degree altogether superior to a fleshly nature.—Miller.
After that Solomon hath brought in a godly father warning and instructing his sons, now he raiseth up, as it were, a matron or queen-mother provoking her children unto virtue.—Muffet
The words of men may be wise; but when God speaks, Wisdom itself addresses us.—Lawson
Perhaps some wide law of association connecting the purity and serenity of wisdom with the idea of womanhood, determines the character of the personification. Not in solitude, but in the haunts of men, through sages, lawgivers, and teachers, and yet more through life and its experiences, she preaches to mankind. Something of the same kind was present, we may believe, to Socrates when he said that the fields and the trees taught him nothing, but that he found the wisdom he was seeking in his converse with the men whom he met as he walked in the streets and agora of Athens. (Plato, “Phædrus,” p. 230.)—Plumptre.