Verses 4-9
Now begins the discourse. The exordium summons general attention to it with the emphasis of its absolute truth: 4 “To you, ye men, is my discourse addressed, And my call is to the children of men! 5 Apprehend, O ye simple ones, what wisdom is; And, ye fools what understanding is. 6 Hear, for I will speak princely things, And the opening of my lips is upright. 7 For my mouth uttereth truth, And a wicked thing is an abomination to my lips. 8 The utterances of my mouth are in rectitude, There is nothing crooked or perverse in them. 9 To the men of understanding they are all to the point, And plain to those who have attained knowledge.”
Hitzig rejects this section, Pro 8:4-12, as he does several others in chap. 8 and 9, as spurious. But if this preamble, which reminds us of Elihu, is not according to every one's taste, yet in respect of the circle of conception and thought, as well as of the varying development of certain fundamental thoughts, it is altogether after the manner of the poet. The terminology is one that is strange to us; the translation of it is therefore difficult; that which is given above strives at least not to be so bad as to bring discredit on the poet. The tautology and flatness of Pro 8:4 disappears when one understands אישׁים and בּני אדם like the Attic ἄνδρες and ἄνθρωποι; vid., under Isa 2:9; Isa 53:3 (where אישׁים, as here and Psa 141:4, is equivalent to בּני אישׁ, Psa 49:3; Psa 4:3). Wisdom turns herself with her discourses to high and low, to persons of standing and to the proletariat. The verbal clause 4a interchanges with a noun clause 4b, as frequently a preposition with its noun (e.g., Pro 8:8) completes the whole predicate of a semistich (Fl.).
Verse 5
Regarding ארמה, calliditas, in a good sense, vid., at Pro 1:4; regarding פּתאים, those who are easily susceptible of good or bad, according to the influence that is brought to bear upon them, vid., also Pro 1:4; and regarding כּסילים, the intellectually heavy, dull persons in whom the flesh burdens the mind, vid., at Pro 1:22. לב is parallel with ערמה, for the heart (according to its Semitic etymon, that which remains fast, like a kernel, the central-point) is used for the understanding of which it is the seat (Psychol. p. 249), or heartedness = intelligence (cf. חסר־לב, Pro 6:32 = ἄνους or ἄλογος). We take ערמה and לב as objective, as we have translated: that which is in both, and in which they consist. Thus הבּין, which is a favourite word
