| 1. My son, if you accept my words, and treasure my commandments, |
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א. |
| My son, if you accept my words: You will be my son if you accept my words. |
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| 2. to make your ear attentive to wisdom, [if] you incline your heart to discernment; |
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ב. |
| to make… attentive to wisdom: to toil in [learning] Torah. |
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| 3. for, if you call for understanding [and] raise your voice for discernment, |
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ג. |
| 4. if you seek it like silver, and hunt for it like treasures, |
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ד. |
| 5. then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and you will find the knowledge of God. |
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ה. |
| then you will understand the fear of the Lord: This refers back to the topic above, in which he said, “For if you call for understanding.” |
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| 6. For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth [come] knowledge and discernment. |
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ו. |
| For the Lord gives wisdom: Here you have learned that it [wisdom] is great, for it was given from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He. Therefore, you must acquire it. |
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| 7. He lays up sound wisdom for the upright, a shield for those who walk in integrity; |
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| He lays up sound wisdom for the upright: The Holy One, blessed be He, hid it [wisdom] with Him for twenty-six generations until He gave it to the generation of the desert. |
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| a shield for those who walk in integrity: (He lays up a shield for those who walk with integrity); i.e., it will be a shield for you. |
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| 8. to keep the paths of justice, and watch the way of His pious. |
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ח. |
| to keep the paths of justice: For through it, they will keep the paths of justice, and He will guard the way of His pious so that they do not stumble. |
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| 9. Then you shall understand righteousness, justice, and equity, every good path. |
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ט. |
| 10. When wisdom comes into your heart, and knowledge shall be pleasant to your soul, |
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י. |
| 11. thought shall watch over you; discretion shall guard you, |
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יא. |
| thought: Heb. מזמה. The Torah shall watch over you. |
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| 12. to save you from an evil way. From a man who speaks perversity; |
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יב. |
| who speaks perversity: Those are the people who distort the thing. [Rashi as it appears in Lublin and Waxman ed.] Malbim ed. reads: who distorts the words of the Torah after his erroneous view. Vilna and Warsaw editions read: They are the apostates who distort the words of the Torah to evil. |
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| 13. [from] those who forsake the ways of uprightness, to go on ways of darkness; |
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יג. |
| 14. [from] those who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the perversity of evil, |
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יד. |
| 15. who are crooked in their ways and perverse in their paths. |
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טו. |
| and perverse in their paths: Heb. ונלוזים. Every expression of נלוז is an expression of crookedness, as it is always next to עקש, and עקש is an expression of crookedness, as it is stated (Isa. 42:16): “and crooked paths (ומעקשים) into straight ones.” |
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| and perverse in their paths: They are crooked in their corrupt ways. |
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| 16. To save you from a strange woman, from a foreign one who makes her words smooth, |
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טז. |
| To save you from a strange woman: From the assembly of idolatry [apostasy], which is sectarianism. It cannot be said that he spoke only of the actual adulteress, for what is the praise of the Torah, that he says here, “to save you from a strange woman,” and not from any other sin. Rather, this is the casting off of the yoke of all the commandments. |
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| 17. who deserts the lord of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God |
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יז. |
| 18. for her house sinks to death, and her paths [lead] to the dead; |
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יח. |
| for her house sinks to death: This refers back to “to save you, etc.” for whoever comes to her house will sink and slip as if down an incline that leads to death, and the Torah will guard you from this fall. Hence, it is a great thing for you. |
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| the dead: Heb. רפאים, those who neglect (נרפים) the way of goodness and are forsaken without support until they fall into Gehinnom. |
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| 19. none who go to her return, neither do they achieve the ways of life |
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יט. |
| none… return: It is hard for them to part with it and to repent. |
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| 20. in order that you go in the way of the good, and you keep the ways of the righteous. |
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כ. |
| in order that you go: This refers back to the above verse (verse 12): “To save you from an evil way,” in order to lead you in the way of the good. |
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| 21. For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain therein. |
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כא. |
| For the upright shall dwell in the land: In the world to come. |
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| shall remain therein: when the wicked descend to Gehinnom. |
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| 22. But the wicked shall be cut off from the land, and the treacherous shall be uprooted therefrom. |