The Pulpit Commentary on Proverbs 1:20-33

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

2. Second admonitory discourse. Address of Wisdom personified, exhibing the folly of those who wilfully reject, and the security of those who hearken to, her counsels. The sacred writer, in this section, as also in Proverbs 8:1-36; uses the rhetorical figure of prosopopceia, or impersonation.

Wisdom is represented as speaking and as addressing the simple, scorners, and fools. The address itself is one of the noblest specimens of sacred eloquence, expressing in rapid succession the strongest phases of feeling—pathetic solicitude with abundant promise, indignant scorn at the rejection of her appeal, the judicial severity of offended majesty upon offenders, and lastly the judicial complacency which delights in mercy towards the obedient.

The imagery in part is taken from the forces of nature in their irresistible and overwhelming violence and destructive potency.

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