In this section, godly wisdom is portrayed as a woman crying out in the city, the first such personification in the book. Obviously, this personification is a literary device rather than a literal person, and as such it is interesting to consider for a moment. A lone woman crying out in the streets a message of instruction would have gone well beyond the social norm in a day when an unaccompanied female walking around town would have raised eyebrows to say the least. Add to that an unaccompanied female who had the audacity to challenge and rebuke the “movers and shakers” of the town and you begin to see how striking this imagery really would have been to the original reader; things like that just didn’t happen! Yet I’m guessing that is exactly why Solomon would use such an image; it sets “Lady” Wisdom well apart from the norm.
Verses 22-23 set out wisdom’s rebuke; “simple” people who lack wisdom, true knowledge and godly ways, and who “hate” wisdom were the norm, much as one might think today. “Repent” is her call! It would seem from verses 24-27 that few will listen to her advice and call for repentance, and just as they will laugh at her sound advice now, she will laugh when the fool gets what he has coming to him.
In the remaining verses, she tells those who will not listen to her warning that their foolish ways will be their ruin, and that they will get what they deserve in the end; that they will reap what they have sown, for they refused to fear the Lord.
I think it is important for us to note here… and to keep in mind as we go through the rest of the book, that this is not God rejecting His people or simply getting even with anybody, for what is going on in this book is that Solomon is trying to teach the young to walk the paths of the Lord in wisdom and knowledge. This is a common theme in the book: follow the paths of wisdom, or your foolishness will be your ruin. It is not any kind of divine retribution; divine retribution is an entirely different matter. This is more like a parent telling a young person who is learning to drive that if they drive too fast they’ll get a speeding ticket… or worse. Solomon is clearly not setting a foundation to build a case that says God is looking for an excuse to smite someone…
Now that “Lady” Wisdom has set out the consequences of rejecting wisdom, the teacher returns in chapter 2 to share with his readers the fruits of wisdom as he lays out a clear contrast to the disaster of foolishness.
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