Proverbs 8:19 Commentary and Bible Study

The point is continuing – ‘yea, than fine gold; and my revenue than choice silver.’ Just for a moment look at the interesting way in which the verse is constructed. There are three levels in the verse. You start with a farming picture, or rather a picture of a vineyard. ‘You are operating a vineyard’, says Solomon, ‘and it is going to produce fruit.’ Well there is fruit that is better than that. There is the fruit of gold, and then you move on to the fruit of wisdom. So you start with a vineyard, you get a tremendous crop, you get money for it, that is gold. You may do better and better, and have fine gold, the very best quality as you advance. But all the advance of a farmer, a vineyard keeper, a person who is tilling and toiling to turn produce fruit into cash, and build up his resources – by the end of his life, he may be wealthy, but the implication of the verse is you can be wealthy much earlier than this through wisdom. And what is more, it is better than anything a person could aim for at the very end of a farming career, even assuming he was successful. By beginning with the fruit of the farm, turning it into gold, crowning it with something better than that, Solomon has in a few words got a lot into the verse in this depiction of wisdom.