BibleProject - Proverbs: Lady Wisdom & Lady Folly - Wisdom E4

Episode Date: July 1, 2019

In part 1 (start-17:45), the guys briefly recap the series so far. Jon summarizes by saying that the overarching theme is the human calling to rule, as outlined in the Genesis and garden of Eden narrative. The question is, will humans rule wisely or foolishly? In part 2 (17:45-27:00), Tim and Jon discuss how Proverbs lays out two paths, which are the same two paths outlined in Genesis. A person can either choose to live wisely, depicted as listening to “Lady Wisdom,” or a person can choose to live foolishly, depicted as listening to “Lady Folly.” Early in Proverbs, the “Solomon” narrator warns the “seed of David” about how to live in the fear of Yahweh and discover true wisdom. The wise and righteous man embraces Lady Wisdom (Proverbs 1, 3, 8, 9). The goal of finding “a woman of valor” (Prov. 5, 31) avoids the wicked and violent man, avoids Lady Folly (Prov. 9), and avoids the “wayward woman” (characterized as an adulteress). Tim notes that there are four speeches each that talk about Lady Wisdom and Lady Folly, for a total of eight speeches. The components of these speeches are designed to mirror each other. In part 3 (27:00-39:00), Tim outlines Proverbs 9, which is an example of the two women mirroring each other. Proverbs 9:1-6 "Wisdom has built her house, She has hewn out her seven pillars; She has prepared her food, she has mixed her wine; She has also set her table; She has sent out her maidens, she calls From the tops of the high places of the city: ‘Whoever is naive, let him turn in here!’ To him who lacks understanding she says, ‘Come, eat of my bread And drink of the wine I have mixed. ‘Forsake your folly and live, And proceed in the way of understanding.’” Proverbs 9:13-18 “The woman of folly is boisterous, She is naive and knows nothing. She sits at the doorway of her house, On a seat by the high places of the city, Calling to those who pass by, Who are making their paths straight: ‘Whoever is naive, let him turn in here,’ And to him who lacks understanding she says, ‘Stolen water is sweet; And bread eaten in secret is pleasant.’ But he does not know that the dead are there, That her guests are in the depths of Sheol.” Tim notes that accepting divine wisdom is the way to discover the blessings of Eden. Consider Proverbs 3: Proverbs 3:1-8, 13-18 “My son, do not forget my teaching, But let your heart keep my commandments; For length of days and years of life And peace they will add to you. Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good repute In the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and turn away from ra’. It will be healing to your body And refreshment to your bones.” “How blessed is the man who finds wisdom And the man who gains understanding. For her profit is better than the profit of silver And her gain better than fine gold. She is more precious than jewels; And nothing you desire compares with her. Long life is in her right hand; In her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways And all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, And happy are all who hold her fast." Tim cites Proverbs 3 because he notes that the wise woman metaphorically becomes the tree of life. This maps onto the Garden of Eden narrative. Tim says that the book of Proverbs is designed to be a reflection on Genesis 1-3. In part 4 (39:00-end), Tim outlines Proverbs 31. Tim notes that the woman outlined here could be said to be a sort of real-life version of the metaphoric “Lady Wisdom” depicted earlier in the book. Tim notes that while Proverbs views the pursuit of wisdom from a male perspective of choosing between two metaphorical women, the next book, Song of Songs, flips it, and views the pursuit of wisdom from a female perspective. Thank you to all our supporters! Send us your questions for our upcoming Q+R on the Wisdom books in the Bible! Please include an audio recording of your question (about 20 seconds or so) and make sure to include your name and where you're from. Email questions with attached audio files to [e-mail] Show Resources: www.thebibleproject.com Show Music: • Defender Instrumental by Tents • Hideout by Tesk • Sandalwood by J. Roosevelt • Mind Your Time by Me.So Some music brought you by the generosity of Chillhop Music. Show Produced by: Dan Gummel, Jon Collins Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Hi, this is John at the Bible Project, and today on the podcast we continue a conversation learning how to read books in the Bible called The Wisdom Books. Today, we're looking at one of those books, The Book of Proverbs. Proverbs is a very approachable book. It's full of wise sayings that you can pick and choose from, but Proverbs and all the books in the wisdom literature, do much more. They're developing an important theme central

to the story of the Bible. The isolation of Proverbs Ecclesiastes and Job from the rest of the Old Testament doesn't allow you to see the full set of relationships. The book of Proverbs is designed as this retroflection on Genesis one through three. That you go back and you look and you say, oh, wow, I can now see new things in Genesis 1-3 through the lens of the Proverbs,

that were there all along just waiting to be activated. Proverbs isn't just a nice collection of wise sayings. It's continuing the narrative of Adam and Eve and their quest to rule the world with wisdom. The misguided quest for wisdom ends up with humans divided with each other and separated from God, creating by their own wisdom, pain and hurt and violence and death in the world. And it leaves unrealized the ideal of the two of them united in love, vulnerability, co-ruling in the land of abundance, living by God's commands and wisdom. In Genesis 2, the humans have a choice to choose life or choose death.

In Proverbs, we get a parallel, but new image. So it gives you the wise woman and the foolish woman, the wise man and the foolish man, and the two paths that those represent. So today we discuss the two paths in Proverbs, the path of the wise and the path of the foolish. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. We're talking about how to read the books in what we call the wisdom literature of the

Hebrew Bible, which is actually a modern construct, which we talked about. Yes, the isolation of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job from the rest of the Old Testament, as if they're a unique group having their own party in the Bible. Yeah, that's a modern phenomenon that I think I have realized has skewed and kind of distorted my understanding of them. That's the negative way of saying it. A more positive way is keeping those three books in quarantine From the rest of the Old Testament doesn't allow you to see the full Set of relationships. Yeah, that they're meant to have within the Old Testament. Yeah, cool And we're also adding song songs to the mix. We're adding song songs because once you see

Yeah, how the books of Solomon are hyperlinked in to the storyline The song of songs fits right alongside Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. So we've done three hours of reamble as opposed. Yeah, which is all setting us up to them Just get into the books and talk about how they contribute. Yeah, and maybe they were gonna get into it We can briefly go through each of the the wisdom books Proverbs Cleostie's song songs and joke, but it was essential to talk through Correct. The story of the Hebrew Bible. Yeah, focusing on the question of yes How do humans attain wisdom? Yeah, and seeing how that's like the essential quest. Yes. Yeah of humanity

Yeah, and so quick recap Mm-hmm is of humanity. And so quick recap is that God created humans as His image bears. Be His image, both male and female together are the image of God. And that purpose has a calling attached to it, which is to rule the world with God. And if that's the case, then we're going to need to know how to rule well and do it wisely and to create goodness when we rule. In fact, you can kind of see what happens very clearly when humans do a bad job of ruling. It creates a lot of pain and suffering, a lot of headache and a lot of violence and corruption.

So how do you rule wisely and how do you create good? And what we you see when you start reading the creation narrative in Genesis 1 is that God is creating good. Tove in Hebrew. Every seven-part refrain and God saw that it was good. And so he's creating good, he's evaluating it as good. So you see God with his power and wisdom creating goodness. And then he creates humans to rule with him. And that's good. And he brings Adam into the creation process of naming animals and puts them in this beautiful garden, but the first thing that's not good is that Adam is alone. And so God gives Adam, what's the Hebrew word? Azer.

An Azer. An Azer, yeah. Which is unfortunately translated helper, and that's only unfortunate to the degree that helper is such a soft, neutered word for something that an azer is an essential helper, an essential, someone who can do something for you that you can't do for yourself. Yes, that's right. And so God is an azer. Yes, to us.

God is the only other azer in the Hebrew Bible. God and then Eve. Yeah. So the human is given this other, this essential other, and there are two, but they're called to be one, and that oneness represents the image of God, which is to multiply, subdue the earth and rule it. And how are you going to do that? You got to do it with wisdom. And so one thing the narrative doesn't tell you is that that God's going to help them grow in their wisdom, but you can kind of see you infer that that was the plan

because the alternative is, God has a tree that represents the ability for them to go take their own path and not find wisdom through the relationship with Him but on their own terms. To do what is good in their own eyes. To do what's good in their own eyes. The tree is called the knowing of good and bad. to do what is good in their own eyes. To do what's good in their own eyes. Yeah. The tree is called the knowing of good and bad.

The knowing of tove and raw. And it's usually translated good and evil. But evil has a moral component to it, where raw doesn't always have that. The Hebrew word raw can mean morally evil, but then it could also just mean sucky. Ha ha ha ha ha. Unfortunate, disastrous, harmful.

Yeah, yeah. And so this tree represents the knowing of good and bad. And by knowing, again, unfortunate word, because it's not a cerebral exercise of rationally being able to say, oh, that's good, that's bad. Actually, Eve did that. She looked at the tree and she's like, oh, that looks good. Being able to do that isn't the point of the tree. The point of the tree is seizing it and knowing in Hebrew is just very experiential, charged word of participating and connecting in an intimate way. It's the word used for intercourse.

So the narrative goes on to show that Eve is deceived by the snake. She sees that the fruit is good and beautiful and desirable. She desires it. And then she goes a step too far and she takes it. And it's the taking of the fruit which then represents this whole unraveling

of the partnership. That's right. Because the only command they were given, they were given two commands, enjoy everything. That's a great command. Second command, don't take of this knowing of good and evil for yourself because when you do that, you'll die.

So the Eve gives it to Adam, Adam takes it, and that's another kind of interesting texture to the narrative is that when Eve is represented, she's the essential other, she's Adam's salvation, so that they can rule together. But then in Genesis three, she's now this new portrait of Eve, which is the deceived deceiver, who becomes the downfall.

Adam takes the fruit from her, eats of it as well. They both now realize like, oh no, like I'm naked. I don't trust you. I'm afraid of God. And the fear that they have of God isn't like a good fear because we've that phrase fear The Lord is going to be coming to be important in the wisdom literature, but it's a fear of I can't be near you because I'll be destroyed Because they know that God said you eat this fruit. You're gonna die

So they're hiding they're scared God's like what did you do and God doesn't kill him. But the consequence is death, and he exiles them into death, but he provides for them. And he shows a lot more mercy than you would expect. So there in this narrative, we see this idea of the quest for wisdom on our own terms played out. And that becomes this essential theme that continues and we see it in Abraham. Well, it's just so the misguided quest for wisdom ends up with humans divided with each other and

separated from God, creating by their own wisdom, pain and hurt, violence and death in the world. And it leaves unrealized the ideal of the two of them united in love, vulnerability, co-ruling, co-ruling in the land of abundance, living by God's commands and wisdom, which is the true wisdom. Two halves of the whole. So it gives you the wise woman and the foolish woman, the wise man and the foolish man, and the two paths that those represent. And choosing wisdom, how do you choose wisdom, how do you find wisdom, how do you live a good life? These are the questions then, what we call the wisdom books, are exploring. Not only are they exploring those, but they're riffing off of this story of the quest of wisdom, of eating of the tree,

of finding lady wisdom, of avoiding lady Folly. All of these themes will then unravel from this point and create this cool, these portraits. We also talked about just briefly, Abraham and how he echoes these same themes. And then more particularly Solomon, who is, oh yeah, so after they leave the garden, exiled, God.

He curses the ground. He curses the ground. And the snake. And the snake snake and informs them of the unfortunate Future that's ahead of them. Yeah, he never curses the people. That's right. That's a good. That's a good Yeah, and one of the curses this was really interesting I just never thought about before was a woman would desire the man to rule over her Which is not well? Sorry again It's not one of the curses you only kill only curses a snake and he curses the ground.

What is it? What would you call it? And then, oh, it's the consequences. Here's the sad reality that you've now created for yourself. Okay, got it. One of the sad realities. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Is her desire for the husband to rule, right?

Mm, over here. It's poetic line, an A and B line. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. And he will rule over you. Okay. It's actually capable of about four different nuances of meaning, logically, that are possible. All right, let's skip it. But well, it's important in that that's the opposite of what page one ideal was, was

of a man and a woman united. Yeah. Now, it's man and a woman united. Now it's man and woman at odds with each other. And again, this isn't just commentary on the world in general. This is giving you the framework of everything that's about to happen in the narrative, which is just going to be story after story of men and women at odds with each other. Yeah. Creating messes together, if they try to power play each other. So, I've cursed the snake, cursed the ground, lays out the consequences, but then he also gives a promise. Yes. That a seed of the woman will come and will take care of the evil.

And then as we trace this idea of the seed, we know it comes through Abram, and not only will it be a blessing for him but for all the nations and we'll restore this Eden, a co-ruling in God's presence over creation. We trace that seed to David and then to his son Solomon. And in the story Solomon, we get man, it's such a cool portrait of a man who he's given us an opportunity to rule. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Adam, he is appointed to rule and he's given the opportunity to ask for anything. God says, what do you want?

I'll give it to you. And he asks for wisdom. And in that are echoes of... Wisdom to discern between Toe and Ra. Yeah, no less. Yeah. No less. Yeah. Yeah. So that, and what does it say something about knowing the heart of God or? Oh, to have a heart that listens.

A heart that listens. So that I made discern between Tove and Raw. Yeah. Yeah. And what is the phrase of listen to my voice? That comes out of the garden narrative. A garden narrative. Yeah.

But also, but then a heart that listens is language from the Shema. Mm. To listen and love with all your heart. He has a heart that listens. So we're Adam and Eve made the wrong call. He made the right call. Correct, that's the point.

And God says that is so beautiful and good. Oh, He says it's good. And I'm going to hook you up. Yeah. And things are going to go so well for you. But you got to keep making this. Yes. Yeah. You got to keep at it every day. Every day. This is not a one and done, as you said. And unfortunately, but kind of maybe more realistically, he's not a perfect dude. In fact, there's a whole portrait of him

where you see him making all these decisions that shows that he is eating of the tree of knowing a good, good evil. But remember, it's balanced. It's like he, there was land and abundance and eating, drinking rejoices, everybody sat under their own fig tree, but he built it all on the backs of slaves and storage cities just like Pharaoh.

Yeah, he was, he was a lot to golden. Yeah. But he imported all, that's right. Back and forth. Yeah. This cool portrait of the Queen of Shiba coming to visit him, she's a powerhouse in her own right. You got this powerful woman, she's coming to test him. And you're like,

oh, how's this going to go down? And he wows her. And she just realizes like, this is it. Eden is arriving here. Yeah. Yeah. She blesses the God of Israel. He raises the God of Israel with them. And you just get this picture of like, ah, the man and the woman together in God's presence, praising him, ruling the world. They're both rulers. They're like, this is awesome. But then the next chapter, you realize he's got 1,000 of these women and it's just not good.

So that's where we left off. We also just showed how these four books are all connected to Solomon. And so we'll go into that more. But that's just kind of, is there any other highlights? I think then the highlight then is to say the books of Solomon, let's start with those three. Proverbs, the Clity-assies and Job. What they represent is they're invite, the reader, to sit down at the feet of this success and failure of a Solomon. And he's now going to tell you, as the next generation that you have in front of you the same choice that he had,

which is the same choice that Adam and Eve had. Every human sits in front of the tree of knowing good and bad. And you have your own choice to make. And so you can talk about it as different trees. You can talk about it as two ways, two paths. You can talk about it as embracing two kinds two paths. You can talk about it as embracing two kinds of women. Eve in the Queen of Shiba. Right? The wise woman leads to life or foolish Eve and the foreign women of Solomon that leads you to exile. But the point is, is these books

universalize the Adam and Eve story and the Solomon story to see yourself now within it. You're up to bat when you read these books. They're trying to guide you to the right path. That's more proverbs. Ecclesiastes is going to problematize the path and song-a-songs is something we'll talk about. So anyway, that's the idea. But this is the biblical context for the three books of Solomon. That's the story that they're plugging you into.

And that's why I said earlier, when we abstract out proverbs, ecclesiasties, and Job, and disconnect them from the storyline and just make them like philosophical essays about the good life, we miss all of that. This is the story that the hyperlinks of these books are trying to plug these books into so that you see yourself replaying the Garden of Eden in your own life. 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1%, 1 %, 1%, 1 %, 1 %, 1%, 1 %, 1 %, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1 %, 1 %, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1 Proverbs opens with a paragraph that's truly like a...it's like the publisher's blurb on the back of a book. It tells you why the book exists. Versus one through seven in particular.

Do you want to do the honors? The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, King of Israel, and general. To know wisdom and instruction, to discern the sayings of understanding, to receive instruction in wise behavior, righteousness, justice, and equity, to give prudence to the naive,

to the youth, knowledge, and discretion. A wise man will hear and increase in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel. To understand a proverb and a figure, a figure? Figure of speech. To understand a proverb and a figure of speech, the words of the wise and the riddles. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Here, my bum, my bum. And then the first speech begins. Fools despise wisdom and instruction here. My bum, my bum. And then the first speech begins. Oh, okay. Here, my son. Yeah. Got.

So notice every one of those, you had the little opening, hyperlink, a collection of Proverbs of Solomon. Do you remember you wrote over 3,000 of these? Yeah. You're told, right? So. 1,000 or 5 songs. And now you read this line, you're like, told. Yeah. Right? So. 1,000 or 5 songs.

And now you read this line, you're like, oh, okay, this is a selection of those thousands of proverbs that I heard about in First Kings. Because that's what a wise human would do. A wise human would collect wisdom. Yeah, it's a little wisdom memes. Yep. Yes. Don't.

Versus one through six are all a bunch of incomplete sentences. Did you see that? They just be disacquired with the word. These are purposed statements. What is the book in front of you for? To know wisdom. To give prudence. To understand.

These are purposed statements for the scroll in front of you. So I read the scroll in front of me. What am I going to learn? That's all these different wisdom words, wisdom instruction. I'm going to receive instruction in wise choices to give prudence to the naïve. So that word prudence is the word, it's what the snake was in Genesis 3. Oh, yeah. Adroom.

Yeah, it's the same root word. So again, remember because knowledge and wisdom is neutral. You can put it to raw purposes, you can put it to tove purposes. Yep, good and bad. And look at verse 6, then it's just playing. It's just saying, okay, so that's all above is wisdom. Here's what else this book's going to teach you about Proverbs, words, Meschalline, comparisons to Mishalis to compare two things.

One who grabs the ear of an angry dog is like one who gets involved in the quarrel of another. It's a good one. Comparing two things. But then figures and riddles and the words of the wise to read proverbs, especially in Hebrew, is to get a education in Hebrew word plays and puns and words with double meaning and riddles, cryptic sayings that you have to ponder for a long riddles and did welcome the Hebrew Bible.

It's part how it works. Then verse seven gives you your true north. Because remember, you can be wise and still go down two paths. So what's the baseline? Yeah. How do you know your, your own the right path? Correct. The fear of Yahweh, which means doing what he says. Abraham, now I, God says says Abraham, now I know that you fear Yahweh because you practically it means doing what he says but doesn't mean something more than that that results in. Oh, the result is doing what he says. I think it's trusting him and then honoring his wisdom and authority from a place of reverence and awe.

Yeah, because he's can make a universe and I can't. Yeah. That's the idea. The phrase kind of stuck with me when we talked about this. I don't know if it was the last episode, but how Adam feared the Lord, but it was too late and he was a he was fearing. Yeah, he was fearing because he was afraid. Because he thought God was going to kill him. But how up until then everything he would know about God was just good. It's all the good things. And so the phrase that can suck with me is like, fear the Lord before you need to be afraid of the Lord. Yeah, that's right.

Oh, that's good. Something like that. I like that. It kind of helps you realize like okay There's a difference between being afraid and fear in the Lord. There is but the difference is subtle Yes, because there's something the weightiness and reverence of Being in the presence and of something so powerful being in the presence of something so powerful would create something that feels the same as being afraid of death, but different, because what you know of God is good. Yep.

So then that's the baseline. And so that little line, Proverbs 1, verse 7, is linking you back in to the Solomon story. Remember Solomon, his folly was to reject all of the wise laws about how the kings of his yearls should rule. And the last law in Deuteronomy 17 was to be a Bible nerd. Have your own Torah copy that you study so that he may learn to fear the Lord. So fear the Lord is important in the Solomon story. It's important in the Eden narrative. So this becomes a way of saying, this book is to teach the future, the sons of Solomon, because it's Solomon speaking to his sons, this is how it's framed here, but to learn wisdom, but not just to learn wisdom, because anybody can acquire that, but to learn the wisdom based on verse seven, the fear of Yahweh. So the introduction is anchoring that in the Solomon and Eden story. Then in verse 8, the speaker says, here my son, your father's instruction,

don't forsake your mother's teaching. So just what's interesting is the actual the proverbs, the little two liners, don't start until chapter 10. What follows in proverbs 1 through 9 are 10 speeches from a father to a son that also incorporate a bunch of other speeches about two women called Lady Wisdom or Lady Folly. And we have Solomon speaking to my sons. So within the narrative frame of the Old Testament, the book of Proverbs is addressed to the line of David. It's Solomon speaking to my sons, narratively, to the future seat of David.

Yeah. Calling the future seat of David to keep away from Lady Folly and to embrace Lady Wisdom. And use a reader imaginatively, sit yourself at the foot of Solomon as if you are among the seed of David. What does it mean to read a book that says by Solomon, the son of David? He starts addressing his son. He starts addressing my son, and I'm meant to see myself imaginatively among the seed of David. And I say that with a wink because this is where the whole Hebrew Bible is going. The Messianic seed.

Who we are brothers. Who, I mean, even just within the book of Isaiah, the Messianic seed becomes boils down to one representative person who is able to open up the way for many to become a part of that Messianic seed through his vicarious life and death and resurrection. And that's just the book of Isaiah. So the sons of David is a kind of like quote marks around it. You come sit at the foot and it's all about these two ways and these two women.

On the next page is just a chart, just charting out, this is one of my nerd charts. So there's 10 speeches from a father to a son. There's four speeches from a father to a son. There's four speeches about a woman called wisdom. And then there's also four speeches about what's called the foolish woman, the strange woman, the adulterous woman. And again, remember, this is all about the two portraits of Eve. Ideal, righteous, wise, Eve, deceived, deceived, or Eve., and it's all about God's wisdom. Well, sorry, I'm saying it's beginning there. Then you have Queen of Shiba and the foreign women

for Solomon. This is the like metaphor template. And then this is now, before all of us is a wise and woman and a foolish woman, choose who you will choose. Which is a great metaphor when you're talking to sons. Correct. And that's the imaginative setting here. Yeah. The Solomon speaking to the future, yeah. Line of David.

Right. Yep. So, you know, Proverbs 1 through 9, it just explores all of this. But comes to its culmination in chapter 9 with these two, there's a short little summary about Lady Wisdom and a short little summary about Lady Folly. It begins in Proverbs 9. I'll just kind of read and point some things out. So Proverbs 9 begins, Wisdom has built her house. She's hewn it out in seven pillars. She has a seven-pillard house.

Seven should make us think of Genesis 1. Lady Wisdom just finished in the previous chapter telling us about how she was part of creation. She was the means by which God architected the cosmos. So she's hewn out her house on seven pillars. All of creation finds order in her house. She's prepared food, she's mixed wine,

she's set her table, she's inviting you to a feast. She sends out her maidens and calls from the tops of the high places to the city, whoever's naive, come on in here. To him who lacks understanding, she says, come, eat of my bread, drink of my wine, forsake your folly and live, find life. Man, it rings a lot of like Jesus, right?

Yes, totally. Yeah. It comes to me all you were. Yeah, that's right. On Korean Thirsty. It's still Celebratory meals? Yeah. Yes.

So, she also sounds a lot like Moses at the end of Deuteronomy. Mm-hmm. Right? Well, right? Summoning the people into the Promised Land to live by the wisdom of the Torah so that you may live. Contrast to that party. So, you can go to that party.

Mm-hmm. Or, you can go, verse 13, the woman of folly. She's boisterous. Boisterous, it's a great word. She is naive, she knows nothing. She also sits at the door of her house, on a seat by the high places of the city, calling to those passing by

who are trying to make their path straight. She's deceiving. Yeah, and then she's just, it's this copy and paste. Exactly what Lady Wisdom said. Whoever's naive, come on in here. Whoever lacks understanding, she says, stolen water is sweet. Bread eaten in secret is pleasant.

But the one entering her house doesn't know that the dead are there, and her guests are the depths of the grave. Two ladies. So first of all just the sheer imagination involved here to develop out these poetic scenes of wisdom as this gracious host inviting everyone in to the Garden of Eden meal versus and then the parody of her. Yeah, totally her inverted self. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And these are just the summaries There's all these other scenes about the seductive woman who goes out looking to seduce versus lady wisdom who goes out To saying people you know come to me and you'll find life is really remarkable. These are wonderful poems Proverbs 1 through 9.

Check this out. This is in Proverbs 3. This is Solomon speaking to my son, the seed of David. My son, don't forget my teaching. Let your heart keep my commandments. For length of days and years of life and shalom will be added to you. Right? Life, life, everlasting life.

Yeah? Don't let kindness and truth leave you. Bind these, my teaching and commands, bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Writing on the heart? Is it Jeremiah? Yes.

Yeah, this is, yes. Remember Moses? Moses says the bind them around your head, right? Yeah, so this is the language of the Shema. So after you say the Shema, it says, let these words, let these words, here, hold on. After Moses says the Shema, here it was real, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. He says, bind these words as a sign on your hand and as symbols on your forehead.

Here Solomon is saying, bind my wisdom around your neck, like a necklace, and write them on the tablet of your heart. So he's telling the seat of David to do with his wisdom, what Moses said to do with the Shema with your home and your children. I'd wrap yourself in it. Yes. Yeah.

Why? So that you'll find favor with favor and good repute in the side of God and man. Okay. So just think through the Solomon story and the Eden story here. Trust in Yahweh with all of your heart. Don't lean on your own understanding. In all of your ways acknowledge him, he will make your path straight. Don't be wise in your own eyes. It's like yeah, that's pretty clear. It's all the vocabulary of the Genesis 3, verse 6,

fall moment, right? She saw that it was good, good to her eyes. So don't be wise in your own eyes. Fear Yahweh. Turn away from raw. What better summary of Genesis 3 is there? It will be, and if you do that, what was the result? Healing to your body, refreshment to your bones. It's like a superhuman. Verse 13, How blessed is the man who finds wisdom? The man who gains understanding. Her prophet is better than silver. Her gain is better than gold. Think the Solomon story. She's more precious than jewels.

Nothing you desire compares with her. Look at this. Long life is in her hand, in her right hand, in her left hand or riches in honor. Remember what God said to Solomon? Because you chose wisdom. Because you chose wisdom and didn't ask for long life, riches or honor. I'm gonna give them to you.

I'm gonna give you them anyway. Then here's Solomon saying, choose Lady Wisdom. And you'll get both. And you'll get, it's exactly the same list of things. Don't seek out long life and riches. Seek wisdom and you'll get both. And you'll get those things, yeah. That becomes seeking long life enriches an honor, become a way of taking from the tree.

But the moment I hands off and seek wisdom, I'll get knowledge of good and evil. It kind of smacks up the Seek First God's kingdom and then all these things will be added. Yeah, that's right, yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so the kicker. Her ways, the ways of Lady Wisdom, are pleasant, all her paths, are peace. She is a tree of life to all who take hold of her. Happy are all who embrace her. So now she's a tree. Now she's a tree. Look at how the the symbols can swap here. Yeah. So we had two ladies. Yeah. Now the wise lady becomes the tree of life and taking from the tree of life is like embracing lady wisdom, which is like Adam and Eve ruling together in the wisdom and love of God in the garden. Is this amazing?

I'm just saying Proverbs 3. I remember reading this as a brand new Christian. I didn't know any of this. I was just like, that's cool. I want to live in the fear of the Lord. But all this vocabulary is teed into these other narratives and it becomes so rich. Totally. Yeah. When I've read this without all that in mind, it's like, oh, and it becomes so rich. Totally. Yeah.

When I've read this without all that in mind, it's like, oh, yeah, that's nice. It's a tree, and it's a lady. Yeah, it's better than gold and silver. Yeah. Like, I can kind of work myself up until I cool. All right. I want to be wise today.

Yeah. But as you see how this is, all riffing off of and developing these metaphors out of this narrative, yeah, and mixing it up even. Yeah, creative mixing of analogies and metaphors. Which makes you then think back to the story and go, oh, that's a new nuance to the story. That eating of the tree of life is actually connected to the idea of seeking God's wisdom. That's all said and becomes more clear.

Seeking God's wisdom is like the pursuit of, in some way, compared to the pursuit of a woman. I want to explore that more. That's right, but remember in the garden, if Adam and Eve were living by God's wisdom and eating from the tree of life, it's the man and the woman in love together ruling the world. So the image of peace and love vulnerability between the man and the woman, right? Because if they had eaten from the tree of life and not taken from good and bad, they would be there still naked and in love and happy and ruling the world and all the splendor of their own. Yeah, like take Adam, let's say, and they're in the thick of the goodness together, ruling. And then you gave him the metaphor of, hey, you know, trusting in God's wisdom is like pursuing your wife.

Yes, yeah. Like he would kind of be like, oh, I thought of those things as separate. in God's wisdom is like pursuing your wife. Yes. Yeah. Like, he would kind of be like, oh, I thought of those things as separate. Mm-hmm. Like, I pursue my wife. I love my wife. Yeah. And we rule together.

Yeah. But the way that I engage her is different than the way I pursue God's wisdom. Mm-hmm. But you want me to see those as the same thing. Yes. Yeah. Do you remember that opening and closing frame of the Solomon story? Solomon loved Yahweh.

Yes, loved Yahweh. Yahweh, and that's when he asked for wisdom. Yeah, and then he loved the lady. In a story he loves the ladies, more than he loves Yahweh. But what it's saying is they're comparable to each other. The way you would pursue and love Yahweh and his wisdom is comparable and connected to how a man or a woman pursues another. And then Paul says, yeah dude, we're getting to it.

We're getting to it. That's right. Why? Yeah, Paul's later to the Ephesians when he is talking about marriage. Yeah, same with marriage. And then he says, you know what I'm really talking about is the Messiah and the Messiah's people, the church. Yeah, you're our relationship with the Messiah. That's what I'm really talking about, but also, I'm husband should love his wife. For him to talk about a husband loving his wife is really talking about the Messiah love the

church. Yeah, yeah. But you're not. Those are two different things. Yeah. But then in some way, they're connected. They're connected. They're called a way that yeah, you can just jump to it and be like this is what I'm really talking about Yeah, it's about Adam loving Eve and both of them together loving God. I don't I don't understand it Yeah, well we'll map it out a little more. Okay, but you're right to say that this pursuit of the woman in Here in Proverbs. This is what the song of songs is doing in the Hebrew Bible. This is why it's there. It's set in the context of the Eden and the Solomon story, and then these speeches in Proverbs.

All to say too is that, we talk about scripture as the Bible is meditation literature. Yeah, yeah. And it's just this really just pops with it. When I read this and then I think back to Solomon I think back to the garden there it is and now they're playing off of each other and I'm thinking about them in new ways Correct. Yeah, that's right in other words for all the world the book of Proverbs is designed as this retro Flection on Genesis 1 through 3 that you go back and you say, oh wow, this, I can now see new things in Genesis 1 through 3

through the lens of the Proverbs and the Solomon story that were there all along just waiting to be activated. Okay. Okay, one last thing before we say goodbye to Proverbs. Oh, goodbye Proverbs. Spend a lot more. Go to the last chapter of Proverbs. Proverbs 31 introduces you to a king named, the words of king Lemmewell. No where named elsewhere in the Bible. I'm convinced there's some word play or pun here that I don't know

But the first chapter I know this is English not Hebrew, but let me all sounds like lame echo a little bit. Oh got it Well the word L is the word forgot and Lemu or Lemo There's lots of different series on what that's about. The Hebrew Arabic lexicon of the Old Testament, their gloss for it is belonging to God, one who belongs to God. But what we're also told is these are not just, they don't have his words, they're the words that his mother taught him. Interesting. And it's this poem about, hey, my son, my royal son. So the book begins with Proverbs 1 through 9, the king telling his sons to choose Lady Wisdom. The book ends with a king's mom telling her son a couple things. First of all, verse 3, don't give your strengths to many women. You're like, man, Solomon could have used a mom like that.

First of all, don't give your strengths to many women because that will destroy kings. And the second is, yeah, don't drink a lot. It'll impair your ability to rule well. So alcohol and- Sound advice. So alcohol and many women stay away. That's the first thing. The second thing, what comes after that is the Proverbs 31 woman. An A-Shit Khail, a woman of valor or nobility, who can find,

she is worth more than jewels. You know who else is worth more than jewels? Lady wisdom. Like verbatim. It's copy and paste from those. So the book ends with a mom telling her royal son to stay away from many women and to choose the one priceless woman. And then, you know, it's Proverbs 31, which is about this amazing, industrious woman who is a source of blessing and abundance to her family and her community and the poor. And she is like the embodiment of, she is a woman who has embraced Lady Wisdom, so to speak. Yeah, and we talked about a productivity that brings blessing.

Yeah, that's right. And she just like, she is the incarnation. Yeah, she is like the incarnation of Lady Wisdom. Yeah. Yeah, totally. So there's no coincidence that Proverbs one through nine, and then the last chapter of Proverbs is framed with all this imagery from the Eden story and the Solomon story about pursuing the man pursuing the woman, the seed of David, pursuing the Lady pursuing the woman, the seed of David pursuing the lady wisdom. And if that happens, life and abundance for everybody, Garden of Eden. So that's the frame around the middle of the Proverbs, which is all the little two liners.

Ten through. Yeah. 30. So you just have to ask yourself, what's the book doing in the Bible? Like, it's not just there to give you some tricks of the trade. It's all framed in the cosmic storyline of humanity's choice and how they're going to rule and about the hope for a messianic seed from the line of David and Solomon that will embrace Lady Wisdom to bring Eden back to the world. Proverbs. It's like a messianic reading of Proverbs. Right. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. Now, I mentioned this at the end of last episode. It's all I'm going to write into the Suns. So it makes sense for the metaphor to be about. Correct. Oh, a man. Correct. That you're pursuing. And maybe this is why I've been like a book of Proverbs so much.

It's written for men, in a way. But that can't be so that women, it's not a book for women. But you mentioned last episode that you just made the inside the song of songs. It's really more about the pursuit of a woman. It's the main voice, representative voice, is the woman's voice from her perspective. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. As if Proverbs is told from the male solomans to the seed of David perspective where a song of songs then flips it from the female perspective. Yeah. It's interesting. It is interesting. Did the song songs holy cow.

So we'll talk about next. Yep, I think so. I think so. What would you do? Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project podcast. We've got a couple more episodes in this series left. And we want to take some time now to let you know that we're

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on these topics and learn so much more and dive into the universe of the scriptures. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We're a crowdfunded project by people like me. Find free videos, study notes, podcast, and more at TheBubBproject.com. you