proverbs 4

Read Proverbs 4 at Bible Gateway.

Hebrew paragraph divisions:

Pro 4:1-19 {p} Children, receive and do not forsake your father’s wise instruction, and live
Pro 4:20-27 {p} Children, keep your father’s wise words in your heart, to walk in them, and live

Pro 4:1-19 {p} reverse parallelism:

1a) Pro 4:1-4a, Hear, children, your father’s good torah, and do not forsake it;

1a) Pro 4:1a, Hear, my children, the instruction of a father;
1b) Pro 4:1b, And give attention to know understanding;
central axis) Pro 4:2a, For I give you good doctrine;
2b) Pro 4:2b, Do not forsake my torah;
2a) Pro 4:3-4a, When I was young + of tender age, my father taught me;

1b) Pro 4:4b-5a, Retain + keep my words: get wisdom + understanding;

1) Pro 4:4b, Let your heart retain my words; Keep my commands, and live;
2) Pro 4:5a, Get wisdom! Get understanding!

2b) Pro 4:5b-9, Do not forget my words: get wisdom + understanding;

1) Pro 4:5b, Do not forget, nor turn away from the words of my mouth;
2) Pro 4:6-9 Wisdom is primary, therefore get wisdom, get understanding/ wisdom’s benefits;

2a) Pro 4:10-19 {p} Hear, son, your father’s wise instruction, hold it firmly + keep it to live;

1a) Pro 4:10, Hear, my son, and receive my sayings, and the years of your life will be many;
1b) Pro 4:11-12, The way of wisdom is the path of righteousness/ walk in it + you will not stumble;
2a) Pro 4:13, Take firm hold of instruction, do not let go; keep her, for she is your life;
2b) Pro 4:14-19 {s} Path of the righteous (light) contrasted with path of the wicked (darkness/ stumbling).

The theme that repeats in all sections of the structure, is, Listen to and receive my words; keep them and do not forsake them. The Hebrew word in Pro 4:2 translated “law,” is torah. The Hebrew word torah is found throughout Proverbs in the context of a loving father’s wise instruction to his children. Thus Scripture teaches us what our heavenly Father’s Torah really is: less “law” of an impartial cosmic judge, and more “wise instruction” of our loving Father, who loves His children and does not want to see them stumbling in darkness through life, from one destruction to the next, until their life is finally taken from them. Anyone who is a parent can relate to the motivation of our Father’s heart, in giving us His good doctrine found in Torah!

Pro 4:20-27 {p} chiastic structure:

1a) Pro 4:20, My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings;

1b) Pro 4:21a, Do not let them depart from your eyes;

1c) Pro 4:21b, Keep them in the midst of your heart;

central axis) Pro 4:22, They are life to those who find them/ health to all their flesh;

2c) Pro 4:23-24, Diligently keep your heart, for out of it issues life/ put away a deceitful + perverse mouth;

2b) Pro 4:25, Let your eyes look straight ahead/ Your eyelids look right before you;

2a) Pro 4:26-27 {p} Consider your path to make it straight/ establish your ways on it;

1a) Pro 4:26a, Make level + consider the path of your feet;
sh1b) Pro 4:26b, And let all your ways be established;
sh2b) Pro 4:27a, Do not turn to the right or the left;
2a) Pro 4:27b {p} Remove your foot from evil.

Man has told us that holding fast and keeping our Father’s Torah is death, but the immutable Word of God tells us that keeping His Torah in the midst of our heart, under lock and key, and not letting it depart from there, is life and health (life and health on this side of heaven). We get the idea to reject Torah from Paul, but Paul was combating a specific heresy: that one earns their eternal salvation by keeping commandments. The Torah and all the Hebrew scriptures reject this heresy as well, and establish grace by faith as the means of salvation. Reading all the letters of Paul together, in context, makes this point clear and harmonizes the single message of Scripture, Old and New in complete agreement, Genesis to Revelation.