CHAPTER 3 Mar. 25 
More Benefits of Wisdom
My son, don’t forget my teaching but let your heart keep my commandments: 2for length of days and years of life, and peace, will they add to you. 3Don’t let grace and truth forsake you. Bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart. 4So you will find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man. 5Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding. 6In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. 7Don’t be wise in your own eyes. Fear Yahweh, and depart from evil. 8It will be health to your body, and nourishment to your bones. 9Honour Yahweh with your substance, with the first fruits of all your increase: 10so your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine. 11My son, don’t despise Yahweh’s discipline, neither be weary of His reproof: 12for whom Yahweh loves, He reproves; even as a father reproves the son in whom he delights.  13Happy is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gets understanding. 14For her good profit is better than getting silver, and her return is better than fine gold. 15She is more precious than rubies. None of the things you can desire are to be compared to her. 16Length of days is in her right hand, in her left hand are riches and honour. 17Her ways are ways of pleasantness, all her paths are peace. 18She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her. Happy is each one who retains her. 19By wisdom Yahweh founded the earth, by understanding He established the heavens. 20By His knowledge the depths were broken up and the skies drop down the dew. 21My son, let them not depart from your eyes. Keep sound wisdom and discretion: 22so they will be life to your soul, and grace for your neck. 23Then you shall walk in your way securely; your foot won’t stumble. 24When you lie down, you will not be afraid. Yes, you will lie down, and your sleep will be sweet. 25Don’t be afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked when it comes: 26for Yahweh will be your confidence, and will keep your foot from being taken.  27Don’t withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in the power of your hand to do it. 28Don’t say to your neighbour, Go, and come again; tomorrow I will give it to you, when you have it by you. 29Don’t devise evil against your neighbour, since he dwells securely by you. 30Don’t strive with a man without cause if he has done you no harm. 31Don’t envy the man of violence; choose none of his ways. 32For the perverse person is an abomination to Yahweh, but His friendship is with the upright. 33Yahweh’s curse is in the house of the wicked, but He blesses the habitation of the righteous. 34Surely He mocks the mockers, but He gives grace to the humble. 35The wise will inherit glory, but shame will be the promotion of fools. 

Commentary

3:4 This is alluded to in Lk. 2:52, where we read that Jesus grew in wisdom and in favour with God and man. The “my Son” spoken of in Proverbs can therefore be understood as the Son, the Lord Jesus. It could be that the various warnings to the son about not getting involved with Gentile women, not getting in with bad company in his youth etc. were all speaking directly to temptations the Lord Jesus encountered in His youth. In this case we could build up some picture of the experiences of the Lord’s early life on the basis of the “my son” exhortations of Proverbs.
3:11 All Scripture is recorded for our learning and comfort (Rom. 15:4). The exhortation here in Prov. 3:11 “speaks unto you as unto children...” (Heb. 12:5). We are to constantly personalize Scripture and hear God speaking to us directly.
3:20 And the skies drop down the dew - The historical creation of all things by God’s word of command is ongoing, in that His word in an ongoing way commands the dew to fall just as His word re-arranged the waters as recorded in Genesis 1. The idea of :19,20 is that the same word which God used as the agency of physical creation- He said, and it was done- is ongoing in our lives if we respond to the word of wisdom, thereby becoming a new creation through that same word, centred as it is in the Lord Jesus as that word made flesh (2 Cor. 5:17; Jn. 1:14).
3:34 He gives grace to the humble- Quoted in James 4:5,6 in an appeal to us not to be envious but rather to be humble. The truly humble aren’t envious; God’s gift of grace to them in Christ is so wonderful that we have quite enough to personally glory in, and there will be no envy of others.