Because they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of Jehovah;
Wisdom has been calling out in the streets. This verse gives the reason for her later silence: the people who cry out under disaster were never ignorant, and their refusal was a deliberate choice.
The knowledge in view is not general learning. The writers draw a sharp line between not knowing and refusing to know.
God's compassion never fails toward the ignorant, as long as the ignorance is not deliberate. His hatred is just as strong toward those who hate knowledge in the things of God, and that is of course the only knowledge in view here. And what could be plainer or sadder than to not choose the fear of the LORD? It proves that the heart is hostile to Him.
Wisdom's earlier appeal named three kinds of careless people, and those who hate knowledge come last.
There is a climax in these classes of careless, godless souls. The simple are the many weak ones who have no moral discernment and no aim in life. Evil meets them on every side and at every turn, and their easy indifference makes them a prey. The scorners show a more active corruption. They reject every appeal to conscience and every mention of divine things with rude jokes and insolent sneers. It is a moral disease that keeps growing, and it was never so widespread as in these last days. The fools who hate knowledge may be more godless still, and may become open atheists, as Scripture shows.
The book opened by naming the fear of the LORD as the starting point of knowledge. Refusing it is refusing the one thing that makes real knowledge possible.
Verse 7 contains the keynote to the entire book. The word "fear" means a godly fear, reverence. This fear of the Lord is mentioned fourteen times in Proverbs. This childlike reverence is sadly lacking among the young of our day. It is the beginning of knowledge, and there is no true knowledge apart from the fear of the Lord. It means to acknowledge the Lord, to adore and worship Him. It means to bow in faith to what He has revealed and to put it above everything else.
One writer pictures what holds everything else in place.
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge" — not of wisdom, but of knowledge. That is a weighty sentence. All true knowledge, all moral knowledge, begins by putting God in His own place. Nothing is right or true without that. Leave Him out, and every position and relationship becomes false… Each stone has its own place in the arch, but if the keystone is missing, none of them can keep theirs.
Verse 28 says they will seek and not find. This verse explains it: the cry is driven by terror, not by a changed mind.
The judgment will be so dreadful and arresting that people will then turn to call on the Lord (v. 28), but however hard they search, they will not find Him. If their change were honest repentance, God would answer. Calling out only from fear of judgment is not repentance. People often want deliverance without admitting any guilt, and verse 29 points to this: "Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD."
Another writer points to what was missing when wisdom first called.
Wisdom cries out; she lifts her voice in the street, in the crowd of men. She speaks to the simple and to the scorner, to the guilty but misled and to the open, insulting enemy. She calls them to turn at her reproof… But it is in vain. So when the day of desolation and judgment comes and they call, there is no answer. They may fear the judgment, but there was no love and no submission to the truth. They will eat the fruit of their own ways. The ease, prosperity and carelessness they have lived in will be their ruin.
The chapter is not only a warning. One writer sets God's mercy beside the pride that refuses Him.
How foolish is the pride of man, set on hardening himself against the faithful appeals of his Creator! On the other hand, what a mercy it is that God works in the hearts of some! He moves them to bow to His Word and to receive the salvation He freely offers to all mankind.
- Call — Wisdom cries out in the streets to the simple, the scorner and the enemy alike. The refusal in this verse follows a public appeal that no one could miss.
- Choice — The wording is deliberate. They did not simply miss the fear of the LORD. They did not choose it, and that refusal proves the heart is hostile to God.
- Keystone — The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge. Leave God out, and every other relationship goes false, like an arch missing its keystone.
- Cry — This verse explains the unanswered cry of verse 28. Fear of judgment without any admission of guilt is not repentance.
- Mercy — God still works in some hearts. He moves them to bow to His Word and to receive the salvation He freely offers to all.
they would none of my counsel, they despised all my reproof
Wisdom has been calling out in this chapter, and verse 30 gives the reason judgment falls. These people were not ignorant. They pushed the counsel away and laughed at the reproof. So what becomes of a person who has nothing left but his own advice?
The "my" here belongs to Wisdom, who has been speaking since verse 20. One writer shows how that voice grows too large for a figure of speech.
It is a mark of this book, and it fits its contents exactly, that we meet "wisdom" as a person from the first chapter. She rises (as is well known) to the Person of Christ in Proverbs 8:22-31. Even in this first introduction the cry does not fail. It goes on to take the solemnity of a divine warning of certain judgment. So it is hard to separate it from the voice of God Himself, as in verse 24 if not in 23, and in those that follow.
Verse 29 comes first: they hated knowledge. Verse 30 is what follows. One writer links this to people who call on God only when judgment is at the door.
People often want deliverance, but they never admit their guilt. Verse 29 hints at this: "Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord." Those who form their character this way will never reverse their attitude and judge themselves for their sinful folly. They totally refused all God's counsel and despised His every rebuke (v. 30).
Nobody drifts into this. It is a choice, and the choice shows what is in the heart.
Divine compassion is unfailing for the ignorant where it is not wilful. His abhorrence of those who hate knowledge in the things of God is just as severe. And what can be more sadly plain than that they "did not choose the fear of the Lord"? It proves the enmity of the heart.
Solomon's readers had the word of God. Later readers have far more, and the same words describe them more exactly.
Christ has shed better and perfect light, and the final revelation of God is fullness of grace and truth through Him. But what is the outcome of slighting it and Him? It is more clearly true now than in Solomon's time that they "would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof." When God came into the world in Christ's Person, they turned Him out of it. They hated Him without a cause. His grace only made Him more contemptible in their eyes. His counsel irritated. His reproof was a laughingstock. What will the end be?
One writer finds the same refusal in the leaders who heard John the Baptist preach.
When John the Baptist preached to Israel, the divine counsel through him was "repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins," but "the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him" (Luke 7:30). Had they accepted the counsel of God, it would have meant blessing for them, as it did for those who were baptized, for repentance and confession of sin is the way into divine blessing.
Verse 31 gives the sentence. It is not so much an outside punishment as the harvest of the choice in verse 30.
They cannot escape the consequences. "They shall eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own fancies." The very fact of their attitude and actions comes back on their own heads to slay them.
Israel's history shows the same pattern. One writer names the saddest thing that can happen to a person.
Israel fell away, sad to say, as the Lord now reminds them: "My people did not listen to Me; and Israel would have none of Me." It was not merely failure: it was revolt. The recompense had to follow: "So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their hearts, and they walked in their own counsels." Nothing sadder can happen to men than this.
One writer describes the man who does the opposite of verse 30.
It remains true, that he who hears reproof gets sense; and he who gets sense loves his own soul. The other word that goes with this is of great value — "he who keeps understanding shall find good," and good better than silver or gold. It is well to get, and better still to keep, what is so excellent.
- Whose voice. This is not human advice. Wisdom's cry grows into a divine warning, hard to separate from God's own voice.
- Whose choice. God's compassion never fails the ignorant. But this is not ignorance. Refusing His counsel is deliberate, and it proves the enmity of the heart.
- Whose Person. Reject the counsel and you reject the One who gives it. When God came in Christ, His counsel irritated them and His reproof made them laugh.
- Whose harvest. The punishment is the choice, grown ripe. People eat the fruit of their own way, and God leaves them to walk in their own counsels.
- Whose gain. The door stands open the other way. Whoever hears reproof gains sense, and whoever keeps understanding finds good better than silver or gold.