Proverbs chapter 8

vs 10

I'm guessing this means you should spend money on wisdom too - rather than simply searching for wisdom more than money. Unfortunately, I don't know that tertiary courses are offered on wisdom.

vs 11

Repetitive of the last verse.

vs 12

We're going to see that a whole lot of things come together with wisdom. Knowledge I think we know now. Prudence hasn't really been talked about that much yet, and discretion is only slightly different from prudence in my estimation - prudence being caution, and discretion being decision making.

vs 13

Once again we see that wisdom is strongly biased towards God. Wisdom is not neutral, it is good and as such hates evil. Wisdom does not abide with any sort of evil. You can't act wisely but in an evil way. You can't use wisdom to commit evil acts. What you can do is ignore wisdom and commit evil acts.

vs 14

Ahhhh, all these things I think we've heard before, or at least have been suggested at before. But an interesting twist in an existing statement is made here - wisdom is power.

vs 15

Now, I'm sure that many kings have been in power who were not wise. I think the idea is that either kings only really do their job properly when they are wise, just as justice can really only come through wisdom. Or dumb luck.

vs 16

Repeat of the verse above.

vs 17

So it's not like wisdom is hidden on the loneliest corner of the highest mountain. It wants to be found, and learned, and used. Looking for the wise way will find you the wise way, at least eventually. Wisdom sounds a lot like the one ring.

vs 18

So it's not that you must choose either wealth or wisdom. You must choose wisdom, because from it come wealth, honour, prosperity. It's not that you mightn't stumble across wealth, or honour or whatever. But the path to these things is wisdom first. You can get rich and then wise, it's not that it's impossible, but it's just not the way things generally work.