Proverbs 1:4 Commentary and Bible Study

Now perhaps the translation there, ‘simple’ gives the wrong impression. You may immediately think, 'Well I do not think I am simple. I may not be the most intelligent person around but I think it would be a little unfair to call me simple.’ And you may think this does not apply to you. Well, the Authorised Version translators are being just a little bit hard because the word in the original means 'open', not really simple (that is a low IQ), but just open, exposed to being misled. People who are open and exposed to being misled are going to be furnished from this book with a way of thinking and looking at things that will give them much greater shrewdness. They will not be anything like so gullible, and certainly we are all gullible at many points. And uniquely this book will give us subtlety, which means insight. The root of the word translated, 'subtlety' means 'naked'. Now, in other words, those of us who are too open and too exposed will be given the ability to see right through to the heart of the thing, so the things which might fool us we will see through them, they will become naked and open to our view. This book will train us in being able to see into things and see through them. That is what is meant here by ‘subtlety to the simple’. Insight or an ability to see right into things for the open-minded person, is really what it means. They will give subtlety to the simple and to the young man knowledge and discretion. Now the purpose of putting in the young man there is not only to show that the younger we are, the less knowledge and discretion we have but it is, as we have seen, to strengthen the implied promise throughout this chapter that we can have what is normally the fruit of years of experience ahead of time. If you study this book and take it seriously, the young man can actually have what really belongs to the older man – knowledge and discretion, that is what it means – truly, an old head on young shoulders.