Proverbs 1–9
The first nine chapters of the Book of Proverbs represent for many scholars the first (but not the oldest) section of the Book of Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. The opening verse refers to the proverbs of Solomon, but many scholars argue that it was composed later than Solomon's time, usually in the early Persian period. Anglican commentator T. T. Perowne, in the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, calls this section "The Appeal of Wisdom", a title also reserved in particular for Proverbs 8. The Jerusalem Bible describes chapters 1–9 as  a prologue, and chapters 10–22:16, "the [actual] proverbs of Solomon", as "the body of the book". Aberdeen theologian Kenneth Aitken treats chapters 1–9 as a set of "didactic discourses". Chapter 10 also commences with the words "The proverbs of Solomon". and Methodist writer Joseph Benson suggests that this is where the proverbs "properly so called" commence; "for the foregoing chapters, although they had this title in the beginning of them, yet, in truth, were only a preparation to them, intended to stir up men’s minds to the greater attention to all the precepts of wisdom". Chapter headings. The New  King James Version entitles the chapters and sections as follows: Chapter 1. Verses constitute an introduction to the whole of this part of the book, stating the purpose and value of the book and the basis upon which its teaching rests. The "Proverbs of Solomon" are "given" or taught" so that people may know "wisdom and good advice, and understand sayings with deep meaning". In the single word "wisdom", "the whole subject of the book is gathered up". Good advice, or "instruction" in the King James Version, "carries with it the sense of correction, or discipline". Verse 8. This form  of appeal, "My son", "is continually repeated throughout these opening chapters". The medieval French rabbi Rashi suggested that the "father" refers to God, the father of mankind, and the "instruction" or "discipline" meant the law which God "gave Moses in writing and orally". Likewise, he suggested that "mother" refers to "your nation, the nation of Israel". Theologian John Gill challenges this: Chapter 4. This chapter contains a short section on the value of wisdom and the call "to acquire it at all costs", and the metaphor in verses 10 to 27 of life as a road with two paths, the  path of the wicked and the path of the just. The Jerusalem Bible entitles this chapter, "On choosing wisdom". Chapter 5. Sub-titled "The Peril of Adultery" in the New King James Version, this is the first of three poems on the "forbidden woman", the “stranger” outside the social boundaries of Israel; the other two are Proverbs 6:20–35 and Proverbs 7. Verse 5 suggests that the woman is "as bitter as wormwood", a comparison used several times in the Hebrew Bible, by the prophets Jeremiah and Amos, also in Deuteronomy. Verse 7. Aitken stresses the need to acquire wisdom "at  all costs", and the Jerusalem Bible advises that "one must first realise that it is essential to have it and that it demands self-sacrifice". Similarly the modern World English Bible's translation advises, "Yes, though it costs all your possessions, get understanding". Chapter 6. Verse 1. There are several references to suretyship in Proverbs, the first coming here (verses 1–6). According to Perowne, Accordingly, the writer of Proverbs "has no quarter for it, but condemns it unsparingly on every mention of it". Subsequent references to surety are at Proverbs 11:15, 17:18, 20:16, 22:26 and 27:13. Chapter 7. Verse 2 . The phrase "apple of my eye" (or similar) occurs in several other places in the Bible, including in reference to Moses, in Deuteronomy 32:10: Verses 6-23. These verses retell "an example story on the wiles of the adulteress ... cast in the form of [a] personal reminiscence". The narrator observes a wayward youth through the lattice of his window; in the Septuagint, it is the woman who looks out of the window seeking her prey, and this reading has been preferred by some scholars. Chapter 8. This chapter covers "Wisdom's Second Speech". Wisdom "cries out" (verse 1). Some translations  and paraphrases treat personify "Wisdom" and "Understanding" as characters speaking out, for example in the New American Bible, Revised Edition: and in "The Voice" translation: Aitken divides this chapter into sections as follows: Verse 2. American theologian Albert Barnes notes the contrast between Wisdom's openness and transparency, and the "stealth and secrecy and darkness" which had shrouded the harlot's enticements in chapter 7. Chapter 9. Two "ways" are contrasted in this chapter: Verse 3. Benson says personified Wisdom may be compared to "a great princess": therefore "it was fit she should be attended on by maidens". Verse 13 . Like Wisdom in the previous chapter, Folly is also personified as a character, called Dame Folly in the Jerusalem Bible, "the woman called Folly" in the New English Translation.