Proverbs 2:9

Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:1-9 Those who earnestly seek heavenly wisdom, will never complain that they have lost their labour; and the freeness of the gift does not do away the necessity of our diligence, Joh 6:27. Let them seek, and they shall find it; let them ask, and it shall be given them. Observe who are thus favoured. They are the righteous, on whom the image of God is renewed, which consists in righteousness. If we depend upon God, and seek to him for wisdom, he will enable us to keep the paths of judgment.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

saints - The devout and God-fearing. Compare Psalm 85:8 etc. The occurrence of the word here, in a book that became more and more prominent as prophetic utterances ceased, probably helped to determine its application in the period of the Maccabean struggles to those who especially claimed for themselves the title of "devout" (Chasidim, the ̓Ασιδαῖοι Asidaioi of 1 Macc. 7:13).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9. Then—emphatic, in such a case.

righteousness … path—all parts of duty to God and man.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Then; when thou hast done thy part, expressed Proverbs 2:1-3, &c., and God in answer to thy desires hath given thee wisdom, Proverbs 2:6; or when it is with thee, as it follows, Proverbs 2:10. Righteousness, and judgment, and equity; all the parts of thy duty to man, as well as the fear of God, Proverbs 2:5, which contains all duties to God. These three words are used here, as also Proverbs 1:3, to signify the same thing. Every good path; the practice of all virtues and graces.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Then shalt thou understand righteousness and judgment,.... This is another fruit and effect of the Gospel, and of a spiritual understanding of it; that besides the knowledge of God, and how to behave with reverence towards him, Proverbs 2:5; it leads men into a notion of doing that which is right and just among men; it gives them not only a theoretic but a practical understanding of justice, and a true judgment of what is right and wrong; or gives such an understanding thereof as that they practise it; for it teaches men to live soberly, righteously, and godly, Titus 2:11. It is not only a revelation and ministration of the righteousness of Christ as the only matter of a sinner's justification before God; and informs a man's judgment so that he can distinguish between truth and error, right and wrong, good and bad notions and practices; but it influences his actions, life, and conversation, and engages him to do works of righteousness from the best principles, upon the best motives, and with the best views;

and equity; yea, every good path; that is, so to understand equity, as to do that which is equitable between man and man; and to understand every good path which the word of God directs to, even all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, so as to walk in them; these things the Gospel acquaints men with, and urges them to observe: or the words may be rendered, either "the rectitude" or "equity of fall good paths", as the Syriac version; how just, and right, and plain, and equitable, everyone is, and therefore ought to be walked in; or "plainnesses", or "most plain", is or shall be "every good path" (r), to them that have a spiritual and experimental knowledge of the Gospel; and by it an understanding of their duty. One word signifies "plain" and "straight", and another "round" (s), and both are true of the path of righteousness; for though it is a circle of duty saints walk in, yet straight and plain.

(r) So Schmidt. (s) "complanationes", Schultens; "orbitam", Montanus; "ab rotundus", Gejerus.

Geneva Study Bible

Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - Then (אָז, az), repeated from ver. 5, introduces the second apodosis. As the former referred to God, so this appears to refer more especially to man, and thus we have stated the whole benefit, in its twofold aspect, which Wisdom confers on those who diligently seek her. It is not to be affirmed, however, that righteousness and judgment and equity refer exclusively to man; they must represent some aspects of our relationship to God, both from the meaning of the words themselves, and because the law which regulates our dealings and intercourse with man has its seat in the higher law of our relation to God. Righteousness, and judgment, and equity. These three words occur in the same collocation in Proverbs 1:3, which see. Yea, every good path. "Yea" does not occur in the original. The expression is a summarizing of the three previous conceptions, as if the teacher implied that all good paths are embraced by and included in "righteousness, and judgment, and equity;" but the term is also comprehensive in the widest degree. The literal translation is "every path of good" (כְּל־מַעְגֻּל־טוב, cal-ma'gal-tov), i.e. every course of action of which goodness is the characteristic, or, as the Authorized Version, "every good path," the sense in which it was understood by St. Jerome, omnem orbitam bonam. The word here used for "path" is מַעְגַּל (ma'gal), "the way in which the chariot rolls" (Delitzsch), and metaphorically a course of action, as in Proverbs 2:15; Proverbs 4:26. Proverbs 2:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

With the אז repeated, the promises encouraging to the endeavour after wisdom take a new departure:

9 Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and justice,

   And uprightness; every way of good.

10 For wisdom will enter into thine heart,

   And knowledge will do good to thy soul;

11 Discretion will keep watch over thee,

   Understanding will keep thee.

Regarding the ethical triad מישׁרים [righteousness, rightness], משׁפּט [judgment], and צדק [rectitude], vid., Proverbs 1:3. Seb. Schmid is wrong in his rendering, et omnis via qua bonum aditur erit tibi plana, which in comparison with Isaiah 26:7 would be feebly expressed. J. H. Michaelis rightly interprets all these four conceptions as object-accusatives; the fourth is the summarizing asyndeton (cf. Psalm 8:7) breaking off the enumeration: omnem denique orbitam boni; Jerome, bonam: in this case, however, טוב would be genitive (vid., Proverbs 17:2). מעגּל is the way in which the chariot rolls along; in עגל there are united the root-conceptions of that which is found (גל) and rolling (גל). Whether כּי, Proverbs 2:10, is the argumentative "because" (according to the versions and most interpreters) or "for" ("denn," J. H. Michaelis, Ewald, and others), is a question. That with כּי equals "for" the subject would precede the verb, as at Proverbs 2:6, Proverbs 2:21, and Proverbs 1:32 (Hitzig), determines nothing, as Proverbs 2:18 shows. On the one hand, the opinion that כּי equals "because" is opposed by the analogy of the כּי, Proverbs 2:6, following אז, Proverbs 2:5; the inequality between Proverbs 2:5-8 and Proverbs 2:9. if the new commencement, Proverbs 2:9, at once gives place to another, Proverbs 2:10; the relationship of the subject ideas in Proverbs 2:10, Proverbs 2:11, which makes Proverbs 2:11 unsuitable to be a conclusion from Proverbs 2:10. On the contrary, the promise not only of intellectual, but at the same time also of practical, insight into the right and the good, according to their whole compass and in their manifoldness, can be established or explained quite well as we thus read Proverbs 2:10, Proverbs 2:11 : For wisdom will enter (namely, to make it a dwelling-place, Proverbs 14:33; cf. John 14:23) into thine heart, and knowledge will do good to thy soul (namely, by the enjoyment which arises from the possession of knowledge, and the rest which its certainty yields). דּעת, γνῶσις, is elsewhere fem. (Psalm 139:6), but here, as at Proverbs 8:10; Proverbs 14:6, in the sense of τὸ γνῶναι, is masc. In Proverbs 2:11 the contents of the אז תבין (Proverbs 2:9) are further explained. שׁמר על, of watching (for Job 16:16 is to be interpreted differently), is used only by our poet (here and at Proverbs 6:22). Discretion, i.e., the capacity of well-considered action, will hold watch over thee, take thee under protection; understanding, i.e., the capacity in the case of opposing rules to make the right choice, and in the matter of extremes to choose the right medium, will be bestowed upon thee. In תּנצרכּה, as in Psalm 61:8; Psalm 140:2, Psalm 140:5; Deuteronomy 33:9, etc., the first stem letter is not assimilated, in order that the word may have a fuller sound; the writing כּה for ך is meant to affect the eye.

(Note: For the right succession of the accents here, see Torath Emeth, p. 49, 5; Accentuationssystem, xviii. 3.)