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Chapter 1: We notice that the verses are given in parallelism,
an artistic Hebrew device in which something is said twice,in
two lines,or in two half lines,but in different words each
time. The Hebrews probably learned this from the literature of
Ugarit - Ugarit was a ancient city, dug up early in the 20th
century. It is next to modern Ras Shamra on the Lebanon coast.
Many clay tablets were found there, containing not just
official records, but literature. This literature used
parallelism extensively. It also provided many beautiful
images of God riding on the clouds etc. Cf.Michael D.Coogan,
Stories from Ancient Canaan, (Westminster,Phila,1917,esp
pp.14-18.Also Peter C.Craigie, Uragit and the Old Testament,
Eerdmans, Grand Rapids,1983, esp.pp.53-55 on Ugaritic
literature.

     The Father exhorts his son to learn wisdom. The fear of
the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fear of course does not
mean slavish fear, but the kind of fear  one has for His
Father, a reverential fear,which includes love and sense of
the Father's greatness. There are really two poles in our
relation to God:one is love,closeness,warmth,the other is a
sense of infinite majesty and greatness.He is infinite in all
respects,so one cannot be excessive. But if one cultivates one
pole without the other, the picture is sick,and devotion
suffers.That is happening to so many today. If one compares
the current English of Eucharistic prayer I to that of the
official Latin, he will see that systematically every
expression that brings out the majesty of God is eliminated.
This is tragic,has done untold harm.

The fear that is the beginning of wisdom is the same
kind of fear of which St.Paul later spoke in Phil 2.12-13:
"Work out your salvation with fear and trembling,for it is God
who works [produces] in you both the will and the doing." This
passage is often misunderstood, as if one should live in fear
of hell. But that is not the case if read in context. First,
"fear and trembling" is a stereotyped expression,which from
much use,lost much of its force (In 2 Cor 7.15 St.Paul says
the Corinthians received Titus "with fear and trembling".But
relations between them and Paul were very poor.It really means
only "with respect." Cf.also Psalm 2.11). More importantly the
reason for this respect is that both in doing good and even in
doing evil,the doer is using God's infinite power.(For
explanation, cf.Wm.Most The Thought of St.Paul, pp.59-62.


In verse 8 the text speaks of the Mother's teaching, as
part of the parallelism. But it is not just parallelism:
respect for the mother was also inculcated.

Already in verse 11 warnings begin against running with
sinners. Such men lie in wait for  others. But they also harm
themselves,for wisdom really tells us what is beneficial for
our happiness both here and hereafter.So to go against wisdom,
is to go against self-interest.

     The simple man (peti), that is the unintelligent,the
credulous,  who avoids wisdom and hates knowledge (da'ath -
which also can mean obedience). They will eat the fruit of
their way: that is, as we noted in the introduction,
violations of wisdom bring automatic penalty, built into the
nature of things. Then the foolish will call on God,but He
will not answer: for the penalty is automatic. He will not
break up that which  follows from the very nature of things.