My son, keep my words,
And treasure my commands within you.
Keep my commands and live,
And my law as the apple of your eye.
Bind them on your fingers;
Write them on the tablet of your heart.
Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”
And call understanding your nearest kin,
That they may keep you from the immoral woman,
From the seductress who flatters with her words.
Proverbs 7:1-5 (NKJV).
While Solomon does try to anthropomorphize "wisdom", and commonly so as a woman, this is not because wisdom is female, but because of the connotation of the relationship that Solomon is describing to his son. In this sense, wisdom has no gender, but the way that a man will interact with wisdom will reflect relationships he has with the women around him.
This time around, wisdom is like a sister. As one who has a sister, the idea that I am to treat wisdom like someone close resonates, I can understand it. I didn't have a brother, so I can't contrast that with any degree of personal experience, but I can understand treating wisdom and understanding like family.
In our current social paradigm, we're trying to destroy family, in both structure and meaning. We're trying to create families out of strangers, and the better we pull this charade off, the more social kudos we earn from those around us, including those we are now treating like family. The problem is that family is connected in ways that are not a choice, and that bond then becomes something unique.
The uniqueness of that connection means that you'll do things for your family that you wouldn't do for anyone else. You will sacrifice for your family in a way you wouldn't for anyone else, and they will do the same. At least "good" family will. This mutual "benefit of the doubt" also means that you'll listen to them, and they to you, in a way which a complete stranger won't. They'll be concerned for your future in ways a complete stranger won't.
Your family is a connection that is different between siblings and parents than between husband and wife, intimate and yet platonic, with a closeness and an honesty that can be hard to come by. While your wife or husband is still part of your family, and your children family, they are not the same family that you grew up with, they belong to a new family, a new dynamic.
Family cares about each other because, in some ways, they're the only people who will stick by you through thick and thin. There's a reason why close friends are "like family", because the connotation of family is a powerful one.
And that power traces back to God, which is why the family is under assault, because we live in a world in its death throes of rebellion, ruled by a prince who has already lost, but is so depraved that he'll try to drag as many souls to eternal condemnation as is possible. The family must either be destroyed or diluted, it either must not exist, or if it does, it must be perverted and misshapen.
The immoral woman that Solomon references is not family. She is not your sibling, your parent, one who is worthy of your sacrifices, of lending your ear, let alone your bed. Siblings help us filter people out, to give us wisdom and a different perspective, whether we asked for it or not, and whether we agree with them or not.
In this passage, Solomon is indicating that when you treat wisdom and understanding like family, when you let them have influence over you, when you care about what they have to say, that they will help steer you away from the immoral woman who may appear like a "good time", but who only leads man down a path of destruction. In the same way that a brother or sister may comment on someone you are seeing and feel confident in providing an unvarnished opinion on the matter, treating wisdom and understanding as playing the same role can guide us even when we don't have our family with us at all.
Solomon is not just trying to impart wisdom, you see, he's also trying to build awareness to the fact that people who are in a role to provide such wisdom will not always be around. The drive has to be internal, you have to already know how to pursue wisdom, how to seek her out and how to listen, before you're in over your head, on your own, in a distant land, or just isolated on the street as you travel home.
You aren't always going to have someone there, a real person that you can trust, and so you must instill the teachings of wisdom, to pursue understanding before it's necessary, so that you are not caught off-guard, unprepared, unable to escape a trap that you could have otherwise easily avoided.
For men, as an example, it's about really internalizing that no amount of effort on anyone else's part is going to stop you from adultery. Nothing that anyone else does can, ultimately, overcome your own sinful desires if you succumb to them. Sure, you may hold out for a time, but when you seek to satisfy the desires of the flesh, eventually all the best laid plans are ruined in the sheer force of hunger. You, as a man, must command control over your own desires, and learn how to keep yourself from the immoral woman before you have seen her, before she whispers her sweet temptations, before you smell the perfume, barely covering over the stench of death that follows her around.
Treat wisdom like someone who deserves your ear, your sacrifices, your attention, and you will be prepared for, and understand, how you are to escape from temptation when it presents itself. Unlike Solomon, we now even have the advantage of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, serving to add another voice to the decision making process, another source of wisdom that we can tap into at any time, that we can lean on and draw strength from in facing sin.
Simply put, we are without any excuse for our sin, and that is why God is just in punishing it so harshly, and why our lives are so blessed when we are obedient to the wisdom that God shares freely with us.
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