Proverbs 9:1

This chapter concludes the first division of Proverbs. "It gives a brief summary of the warnings in the previous chapters."[1] Some scholars label it as "the fifteenth admonitory discourse,"[2] but we have paid little attention to these rather arbitrary divisions. This chapter could easily be divided into two separate discourses; and this is true of several of the others.

"The previous warnings are here summarized in the form of a picture of two women, Wisdom and Folly, each inviting men to a banquet."[3]

THE INVITATION OF WISDOM

Proverbs 9:1-6

"Wisdom hath builded her house;

She hath hewn out her seven pillars:

She hath killed her beasts; she hath mingled her wine;

She hath also furnished her table:

She hath sent forth her maidens;

She crieth upon the highest places of the city:

Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither:

As for him that is void of understanding, she saith to him,

Come, eat ye of my bread.

And drink of the wine that I have mingled.

Leave off, ye simple ones, and live;

And walk in the way of understanding."

"Wisdom hath builded her house ... hewn out her seven pillars" (Proverbs 9:1). These words stress the infinite preparation and experience that lie behind the true wisdom of God, as revealed in the Bible. "The allegorical interpretations of the seven pillars are numberless,"[4] but we have not found any which we are willing to accept. "The seven pillars were an ordinary architectural feature of the times introduced here as the usual appendage of a house."[5] It may be assumed that a house with seven pillars was a magnificent dwelling. "In ancient Nineveh, Sennacherib's new year festival house, discovered in recent years, had seven pillars."[6]

"She hath killed her beasts ... mingled her wine ... furnished her table" (Proverbs 9:2). The RSV has mixed instead of mingled. "The parable of the Great Supper (Matthew 22; Luke 14) may perhaps be modeled on this passage."[7] "There is an evident connection between them."[8]

What is meant by Wisdom having mixed her wine? The truth might not be very welcome to liquor-soaked America, but the truth is that the more enlightened ancients did not drink undiluted wine. Harris noted that, "The book of 2Maccabees declares that wine undiluted with water was thought to be distasteful."[9] Especially, "The Greeks used diluted wine; and that usage became general, especially among the Hebrews. Rabbi Eliezer even forbade the saying of the table-blessing over undiluted wine. The proportion of the mixture that was water was large, only about one fourth to one third of the mixture being wine. The wine of the Last Supper may be described as a sweet, red, fermented wine rather highly diluted."[10]

This does not mean that the sinners of ancient times diluted their wine. Drunkenness was a common sin, and the wine that usually caused it was not diluted. The significant thing, however, is that Wisdom diluted hers! There was also an ancient custom of mingling certain spices with wine, thus enhancing the taste of it and making it even more potent. This is thought to be mentioned in Isaiah 5:22. However, Keil insisted that even in that passage, "The reference is to mingling wine with water."[11] Toy pointed out that, "What sort of mixing is here intended is uncertain."[12] We think it is certain. Wisdom would certainly not have doctored up her wine with any kind of drugs and spices to make it more powerful. She would have diluted it with water.

"She crieth from the highest places of the city" (Proverbs 9:3). The contrast is between the appeal of Wisdom from the most prominent places on earth and that of the clandestine, secret, under-cover-of-darkness operations of Folly, the vice described in the previous chapter.

"Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither" (Proverbs 9:4). The simple here are ALL MEN in that phase of life in which vital and permanent choices are to be made. There is no reference here to the feeble minded or the handicapped. It is the great paradox of human life that the choices and decisions that determine destiny come at quite an early time, that time which all mankind passes through, and during which, "Ye simple ones" is the proper address.

"Come, eat ye of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled" (Proverbs 9:5). Toy, who was so crassly literal in his interpretation of that firm ("solid dome") sky back in Proverbs 8:28 had no trouble seeing the figurative nature of this passage, of which he wrote, "The invitation here is figurative."[13] We also find here other overtones which speak to us of that Greater Wisdom who is Christ. "This passage is parallel to the higher teaching of the holy Gospels (John 6:27; Matthew 26:26)."[14] He who has been made "The Wisdom of God to us (1 Corinthians 1:24,30) also invites those who love him to "Eat of this bread ... and drink of this cup."