The teacher here reverts to the original form of his address, as appears from the employment of the term, my son. It seems clear that it is no longer Wisdom personified who is the speaker, from the fact that the words, "wisdom and understanding" in Proverbs 2:2 are used without the possessive pronoun "my," which would have been undoubtedly inserted if this address had been a continuation of the discourse in the preceding chapter.
Some of the ideas of that address, however, are restated, as the crying and lifting up the voice after Wisdom, and the conclusion, wherein the respective destinies of the pious and wicked are portrayed.
The particle "if" ( אֵם) is conditional, and serves to introduce the series of clauses (Proverbs 2:1-4) which lay down the conditions upon which the promises depend, and which form the protasis to the double apodosis in Proverbs 2:5 and Proverbs 2:9.
De Wette, Meyer, and Delitzsch regard it as voluntative, as expressing a wish on the part of the teacher, and translate, "Oh that thou wouldst!" and אִם, "if," is used in this way in Psalms 139:19; but the LXX.
( ἐάν) and Vulgate (si) make it conditional. It is repeated in an emphatic form in Psalms 139:3. Receive. The verbs "receive" and "hide" show that the endeavour after Wisdom is to be candid and sincere.
"To receive" ( לָקַה) seems to be here used, like the LXX. δεχέσθαι in the sense of "to receive graciously," "to admit the words of Wisdom." It is noticeable that there is a gradation in emphasis in the various terms here used by the teacher.
Just as "commandments" is stronger than "words," so "hide" is stronger than "receive." The emphasizing is carried on in the following verses in the same way, and at length culminates in Psalms 139:4, which sums up the ardent spirit in which the search after Wisdom is to be prosecuted in presenting it to us in its strongest form.
Hide. The original ( צַפַן, tsaphan) is here used in a different sense to that in which it occurs in Proverbs 1:11 and Proverbs 1:18. It here refers, as in Proverbs 7:1; Proverbs 10:14; and Proverbs 13:22, to the storing or laying up, as of treasure, in some secret repository, and means "to lay up."
The Divine commands of the teacher are to be hidden in safe custody in the memory, in the understanding, in the conscience, and in the heart (cf. Proverbs 4:21; Proverbs 7:1). The psalmist expresses the same idea in Psalms 119:11, "Thy words have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee."