Proverbs 2:6
“For Yahweh gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.”
Where this sits
The reason attached to a long conditional sentence — if you cry out for insight and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand. This verse is the 'for'.
Reflection
The word this verse hangs on is for. It is giving the reason why the effort described just above it works.
And the effort is considerable. The verses before it stack up conditions: receive my words, treasure my commands, incline your ear, apply your heart, cry out, lift your voice, seek it as silver, search for it as for hidden treasure. That is not a passive list. It describes someone digging.
Then the reason the digging pays: for Yahweh gives wisdom. The verb is gives. After all that searching, the thing is handed over rather than extracted.
Those two halves are usually treated as rivals. Either wisdom is worked for or it is granted. Proverbs puts them in the same sentence and does not appear to notice a problem. The searching is real and the finding is a gift, and the relationship between them is the relationship between digging and the fact that the treasure was buried there by somebody else.
Out of his mouth is the second image, and it changes the register from mining to conversation. Treasure is found; speech is received from a person who chose to speak. Which means wisdom, in this book, is not primarily a body of information. It is what happens when someone who knows things decides to tell you.
- Theme:
- Wisdom
- Book:
- Proverbs