¹My son, keep my words and treasure my commandments within you. ²Keep my commandments and live, and my teaching as the apple of your eye. ³Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart. ⁴Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call understanding your intimate friend; ⁵that they may keep you from an adulteress, from the foreigner who flatters with her words.

Solomon, the author of most of the book of Proverbs, continues his extended commentary on wisdom for another three chapters. While his actual collection of proverbial statements doesn’t begin until chapter 10, the first nine stand separate as a treatise on the topic of wisdom itself. As we have noted before, a significant part of explaining its importance is the use of the ongoing metaphor of sexual temptation. Some might accuse Solomon of obsession with this illustration—with some justification, based on his unrestrained and unlimited acquisition and use of women in his life. However, God makes no apology for using him (plus other scarcely known individuals like Augur and Lemuel in chapters 30 and 31).

God always uses people who fall short of His standard of morality—and makes no apologies for doing so. He used Moses to write the first five books of the Bible, despite his severe disobedience which prevented him from entering the promised land. The patriarch who epitomized faith, Abraham, compromised his faith in God several times, yet the Lord built the nation of Israel on his faith in God’s promises to him. The apostle Paul authored thirteen NT books yet had persecuted Christians before his conversion; Peter adamantly and selfishly denied Jesus three times, but the Lord graciously used him as the chief Pentecost Day spokesperson and author of two NT books.

Regardless of authorship and character flaws, the proverbs validate themselves as life plays out. None other than our Lord Jesus said, “[W]isdom is vindicated by all her children” (Luke 7:35), meaning that the truth and insight of wisdom will become evident in time by its results.

In the persona of a father, Solomon again appeals to “my son” about the importance of listening to and abiding by his teaching. Biblical scholars tell us that the term “apple of your eye” in the ancient world referred to the pupil, the entry point of light into the eye. The rest of the eye, the eyelids, and the bone structure are designed to facilitate and protect the entry point of light. Receiving wisdom, keeping it, and living by it is as central to life as the eye is central to sight; we must guard this in our lives as being absolutely essential to seeing the world clearly and, as a result, acting wisely.

One wonders if Solomon learned this truth from his father, who loved the Word of God:

How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word. With all my heart I have sought You; do not let me wander from Your commandments. Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You. (Ps 119:9–11)

While Solomon may not have kept his father’s godly instructions for life, he doesn’t want his son to make the same mistake—and that seems to be his point: “Do as I say, not as I have done.”

Now, he goes back to the metaphor that illustrates the contrast between wisdom and foolishness. The two are mutually exclusive, at war with each other. Wisdom is personified as a “sister” and “intimate friend” who helps us avoid foolish decision making. Foolishness is displayed as an adulteress and foreigner, one who is not a close friend but whose flattery in befriending and enticing are nothing more than weapons in the war against our souls. This epic battle is so monumental and consequential that we must examine how enticement works out in detail. For that, the metaphor continues next.

Lord, because You make such a big deal about this struggle between wisdom and folly, I want to pursue the path of wisdom more closely, to embrace it with my whole heart, no matter how much I may be tempted to do otherwise.