love death

[Anchor]

In Prov. 8 wisdom is speaking in the 1st person.  Following a presentation of its qualities (vs. 1-21) and its origin before the foundation of the world (vs. 22-31) it presents both the positive and negative of those that either embrace wisdom or reject it.

The chapter ends with this cryptic prediction: "But he that sinneth against me wrongeth [injures/harms] his own soul: all they that hate me love [and court {AMP}] death."

My question is how does this predicted love of death play out? What does it look like? How does done determine that what is being observed in any given individual is the "lov[ing] death" that is the promised result of hating wisdom?

 

[Fresh Air]

As I understand wisdom in Scripture it is decisions made with God's perspective. Wisdom is how - how should I parent, not from what I think is best, but from the view of what God thinks is right/best.  Wisdom embraces scriptural instruction b/c scriptural instruction tells us from God's point of view how we ought to live life.

Foolishness, OTOH, is the polar opposite. It is a refusal to accept instruction. Foolishness insists God either doesn't exist or His perspective doesn't matter to me. Thus, a fool makes his decisions from his own perspective. To stay with my parenting example, a fool could care less how God says a father or a mother should conduct themselves. He only cares about his own perspective.

To sin against wisdom in this context is to reject God's perspective and instruction. It is to rely for your decision making on something or someone other than God, usually yourself.

The result of such (literal) foolishness is death, and I think that 'death' here has both a narrow and a wide interpretation. Strictly speaking, if I decide how to get to Heaven with my own perspective I'm going to end up in hell. I will ignore sin, rename sin, or try to cure sin by some method of my own or others devising, just not of God's devising. What is the result of that? Death and hell. The wider approach says the result is similar but in a variety of areas of life. For example, if I do not embrace God's wisdom about how to work - diligently, as to the Lord, with integrity, etc. - some good thing that would have come to me if I had will be still born, so to speak. To put it another way round what kills marriages? One or both of the people in a marriage refuse to handle their marriage how God said to handle it. In rejecting such wisdom (how from God's perspective) they have embraced or courted the practical death of their marriage.

 

[AverageJoe]

As I understand wisdom in Scripture it is decisions made with God's perspective. Wisdom is how - how should I parent, not from what I think is best, but from the view of what God thinks is right/best.  Wisdom embraces scriptural instruction b/c scriptural instruction tells us from God's point of view how we ought to live life.

Foolishness, OTOH, is the polar opposite. It is a refusal to accept instruction. Foolishness insists God either doesn't exist or His perspective doesn't matter to me. Thus, a fool makes his decisions from his own perspective. To stay with my parenting example, a fool could care less how God says a father or a mother should conduct themselves. He only cares about his own perspective.

To sin against wisdom in this context is to reject God's perspective and instruction. It is to rely for your decision making on something or someone other than God, usually yourself.

The result of such (literal) foolishness is death, and I think that 'death' here has both a narrow and a wide interpretation. Strictly speaking, if I decide how to get to Heaven with my own perspective I'm going to end up in hell. I will ignore sin, rename sin, or try to cure sin by some method of my own or others devising, just not of God's devising. What is the result of that? Death and hell. The wider approach says the result is similar but in a variety of areas of life. For example, if I do not embrace God's wisdom about how to work - diligently, as to the Lord, with integrity, etc. - some good thing that would have come to me if I had will be still born, so to speak. To put it another way round what kills marriages? One or both of the people in a marriage refuse to handle their marriage how God said to handle it. In rejecting such wisdom (how from God's perspective) they have embraced or courted the practical death of their marriage.

Good observations and applications.
BT

 

[Walt]

I don't know that I can add much to what has been said...

In Deut (I think), God lists for the people the blessings of obedience and the curse of disobedience.  At the end, there is a passage something like "I have set before you blessing and life, and cursing and death; now therefore, choose life".

This passage in Prov 8 reminds me of that. To hate wisdom is to make a choice, and that is to embrace foolishness, which is along the path to death.  We like to think that we can delay decisions or put them off - but that, in itself, is a decision.

To hate wisdom is to be on the same side as foolishness and death.