Chapter 2
2021 - Continues where 1 left off. This is stressing the need to study and learn wisdom. It doesn't just happen, and the point here is that the effort will be worth it. That wisdom is a necessity and a requirement of a good and peaceful life. Then we turn to the ultimate source of wisdom, God and His word. See next.
First Lesson: 1-5, Reader (son) is urged to seek out wisdom. To listen to wise words. 6-8, Wisdom is from the Lord, and is a guard and a shield to the righteous. This verse:
6 For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; [Pro 2:6 ESV]
9-15, The result is understanding, perception, anticipation of what is coming and so preparation for it. It keeps us safe from evil men. These two introductory verses:
12 delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech, [Pro 2:12 ESV] -deliverance from evil men, and then
16 So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, [Pro 2:16 ESV] - deliverance from evil women.
Second lesson: 16-19, Specific deliverance. First, from the "forbidden woman". Or "strange" woman. The "foreign" woman. Depending on translation, this woman is a flatterer, a seductress, promiscuous, adulterous, wayward. ESV says it this way:
16 So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, [Pro 2:16 ESV], and the translation footnote on "forbidden" says "strange, and the footnote on "adulteress" says "foreign woman".
This is the first mention of women as a common source of the downfall of men. Strange would mean unknown. The gods of heathen nations were described with the same word as having "strange" gods, Israel was captive in a nation with a "strange" language. Out of experience, unknown in the sense of foreign - part of some other culture with habits and ways outside our experience. A woman raised under different cultural rules is what this is about. Women that you don't know through friends or parents or social circles. Women who's way of thinking, of processing, you don't know anything at all about, other than what they tell you about themselves. Foreign women likely meant just that in Solomon's time. Women from other countries come to Jerusalem to strike it rich. Women with different customs, language, different gods, different views. Women totally out of our experience.
vs 17 goes on to tell us that these women are divorced from their first husbands, and they have no loyalty to God. These women are to be avoided - because avoiding them is WISE!
Third lesson: 20-22, Result: The righteous will continue in the land. The wicked will be cut off.
2023 - Here are the closing verses:
21 For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it, 22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it. [Pro 2:21-22 ESV]
Solomon wrote this as a principle, not as a prophecy, yet it seems to be playing out in our time. These are good verses to pray back to God on behalf of Israel.