Exegesis of Proverbs

Engrave her, and she will exalt you. If it is within our power to engrave wisdom, and the virtues are within our power, then the engravings here signify the virtues which exalt the knowledge of God.

That you may give a crown of graces to your head, and a crown of splendor may protect you; the knowledge of God is a crown of grace and a crown of splendor, which also protects us from every passionate thought and every rejected false knowledge.

Listen, son, and receive my words, and the years of your life shall be multiplied, so that many paths of life may become yours. These many paths lead into one path which said, 'I am the way' (John 14:6). The virtues have spoken of many paths that lead to the knowledge of Christ.

In whatever place they may encamp, do not go there; but turn away from them and deviate. The place of this army is wickedness and false knowledge.

For they shall never sleep unless they do evil; sleep is taken away from them, they do not sleep. If the Lord gives sleep to his beloved, the impious are not his beloved; the Lord does not give sleep to the impious. From this it is also possible to show that the demons are not even able to sleep.

For these feed on the grain of impiety; and they get drunk on lawless wine. From this we know what the army of the opposing power is nourished by; for, he says, the grain is impiety and the wine is lawlessness.

But the paths of the righteous shine similarly with light; they go forward and illuminate, until the day is perfected. Our virtues go forward and illuminate us, until the sun of righteousness shines his own day upon us.

But the paths of the impious are dark; they do not know how they stumble. The impious do not even know the way in which they sin, nor do they know the cause from where they stumble, but they do not even know this, that they act lawlessly, which is the mark of ultimate folly.

So that your springs may not fail you, guard them in your heart. He calls the virtues 'springs,' from which the living water is generated, which is the knowledge of Christ. And David says: 'The springs of the waters appeared' (Psalm 114:15).

The foundations of the world were revealed, through the manifestation of our Savior Christ.

Let your eyes see uprightly; and let your eyelids be righteous. Those who have dispassionate thoughts and true doctrines, these see uprightly.

Do not turn to the right nor to the left; but turn your foot from the evil way. For virtue is a mean; therefore they say that courage is between rashness and cowardice. Now, 'right' names not those which are naturally right, but those things which appear to be right because of pleasures; 'for the north, he says, is a harsh wind; but it is called skillful by name.' Saying 'north' symbolically refers to the evil one, from whom all evils were burned upon the earth.

He himself will make your paths straight; and he will lead your journey in peace. This agrees with 'unless the Lord builds a house' (Psalm 127:1) and 'keeps a city' (Psalm 127:1) and so on.

Do not pay attention to a bad woman; for honey turns away from the lips of a prostitute, who for a time moistens your throat, but later you will find it more bitter than bile and more piercing than a double-edged sword. Fat signifies pleasure, from which impurity is brought forth, from which wickedness and ignorance are born, of which nothing more bitter is found among existing things.

For the feet of those using folly descend after death into Hades. She who was above, the prostitute, now named folly.

David prays for those descending after death into Hades, saying, 'Let the living descend into Hades' (Psalm 88:4). For the ways of life do not arrive; but its paths are unstable and not well-known. If the paths are not well-known, it has been well said, 'they do not know how they stumble' (Psalm 119:176).

Make your road long from it; do not approach the doors of her houses. Here he spoke of the mind walking toward virtue. Perhaps virtue protects us by separating us from wickedness.

So that others may not take your life and have mercy on your life. From this we know that the irascible part prevails in the wicked; 'for an irascible spirit, he says, and sharp anger' (Psalm 129:2).

Whenever the flesh of your body is worn away by evils, the wicked through evils...