Proverbs 2:1-5

The difficulty of obtaining Wisdom 2:1-5

Even though Wisdom wants people to adopt her (Proverbs 1:20-33), she is hard to obtain. The person who wants her has to work hard for her (Proverbs 2:3). If understanding does not come easily, one should work harder to obtain it. [Note: See Julius H. Greenstone, Proverbs with Commentary, p. 17.] He or she must start with revelation, and study it diligently, in order to obtain spiritual rather than merely academic wisdom. The "fear of the Lord" emphasizes awe, and the "knowledge of God" stresses intimacy. [Note: For a synthesis of what the Book of Proverbs reveals about God, see Zuck, pp. 238-39.]

"If you want wisdom, you must listen to God attentively (Matthew 13:9), obey Him humbly (John 7:17), ask Him sincerely (James 1:5), and seek Him diligently (Isaiah 55:6-7), the way a miner searches for silver and gold.

"Obtaining spiritual wisdom isn’t a once-a-week hobby, it is the daily discipline of a lifetime. But in this age of microwave ovens, fast foods, digests, and numerous ’made easy’ books, many people are out of the habit of daily investing time and energy in digging deep into Scripture and learning wisdom from the Lord. Thanks to television, their attention span is brief; thanks to religious entertainment that passes for worship, their spiritual appetite is feeble and spiritual knowledge isn’t ’pleasant to [their] soul’ (Proverbs 2:10). It’s no wonder fewer and fewer people ’take time to be holy’ and more and more people fall prey to the enemies that lurk along the way." [Note: Wiersbe, p. 36.]