Wednesday Bible Study: A Deep Dig into Proverbs X

What with Laurie being underfoot being home and confined to downstairs for now, I kinda struggle with having that "me" time to do nothing but study, listen to music, and other such all night.  Not to mention I myself have been a bit "off balance" of late, and I let the cache of WBS posts dwindle to the one that just went out and this one here.  Ignorantly, I thought last night, "Well, let me just knock it out, as I know where we're going"- to the blessings of Wisdom list in Proverbs 3 that I jumped over last week.  But as I wrestled with it, the lack of preparation found me out, and I slammed into a question, that if I asked, maybe you would too.  So I asked for understanding, and got crickets.  Mainly because of my own unpreparedness, but also because the answer was RIGHT THERE.

So I reviewed the listing of blessings you receive when you value Wisdom and understanding.  I found two sets of four, and each one in the four tied into the corresponding member of the second four.  But as I started to analyse the list, one got me stuck right away.  Let's see if you can guess which one it was.

Pro 3:13  Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gets understanding. 
Pro 3:14  For its profit is better than the gain from silver, and its increase more than fine gold; 
Pro 3:15  she is more precious than rubies, and all the things you can desire are not to be compared with her. 
Pro 3:16  Length of days is in her right hand, riches and honor in her left hand. 
Pro 3:17  Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths peace. 
Pro 3:18  She is a tree of life to the ones who lay hold on her, and happy are the ones holding her fast. 

So we start on what I'll call the 'first flight', and notice that the first blessing is PROFIT.  Interestingly, the KJV translates this as 'merchandise', but while 'profit' does translate to 'merchandise', 'gain'- which the KJV also renders as 'merchandise'- is actually two words that get you something like, 'what you get from the market'- or in other words, your profit from it.    So your first blessing will be a profit gained from Wisdom.

Then, the next step in that same verse is 'INCREASE'.  This word comes out to mean 'produce'- i.e. the fruit of it.  If we want to stay in the precious metals end of the analogy, maybe 'interest earned.'  The 'fine gold' part has to do with the act of the gold being dug up.  So digging for Wisdom will make you richer than digging for gold.

The third step is the word 'precious', which denotes VALUE.  Curiously, it gets translated as 'rubies' or 'precious stones' in most places, but the description-  'to be turned, round'- is more like a pearl- which K&D noted has a similarity to Jesus' 'pearl of great price.'  

And last on the first step is the harder one to compare it to something physical, but easiest to see what it matches up to, because both it and its partner are described starting with the word ALL.  On this step, it is all things that desire can point out cannot be 'levelled' to what SHE can give.

Note- this is why I capitalize Wisdom.  The pronouns she and her are constantly used for Wisdom.  To me, I believe this is a person, then- and thus, the Holy Spirit.

The second flight begins with the part that stuck me.  And that phrase is 'length of days.'  No magic way of translating this; it means what it says.  And I suppose to a certain extent, "small w" wisdom can help you lead a longer life.  But is that what we are doing here?  I can- and I know you can, too- come up with a billion ways that some wise people- even wise in the way of God- live short lives.  Just like I know that there are children who honor their mother and father and get snuffed out too soon.  So what was this about?  I kicked at it, kicked at it, prayed about it, gave up and went to sleep.

And in the morning, it stood revealed with more prayer.  This isn't life on earth.  Think on it, stubborn Chris:  We're talking about something more profitable than silver, more valued than gold (which is close to $1,500 an ounce as I type), of COURSE this isn't earthly!!  How was it I could easily see that we were talking heavenly profit, heavenly value, heavenly produce- but when it came to long life, I had to adjust it to THIS world?

Well, let's look down the list of 'Peter principles' from a few weeks back.  I hadn't brought it to Jesus in prayer first AND FOREMOST.  I failed to 'shut up and listen'.  I switched from God's agenda to mine.  I blew the whole humility thing, and took my eyes off the purpose, which is sharing a blessing and not writing a post.

As I said, this all links to the Parable about the pearl of great price:

Matt 13 45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, 46 who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

See, my mistake was, in main, I was paying more attention to the goods I had to sell than the pearl I needed to buy.  Hopefully, next time when I get to that 'second flight', I'll be a bit better prepared.