What Is Wisdom?Sýnishorn

Lady Folly

All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter. (v. 22)

The opposite of knowledge is ignorance. The opposite of wisdom is folly. Whether or not you are foolish doesn’t depend on how much you know. As C. S. Lewis remarked, “A man may be a Master of Arts and still be a fool.” Folly isn’t not knowing; it’s knowing and not doing.

Proverbs 7, like several other of the book’s early chapters, is written in the form of a father’s advice to his young adult son, warning him against being taken in by the seductive come-on of an adulterous woman. But this chapter isn’t meant to be read literally as much as allegorically. The “loose woman” is Lady Folly; the path she beckons us toward—the road that leads to death—is the way of life that rejects God and his word and follows sin to its inevitable destination (vv. 25–27).

John Newton, the pastor best known for writing the hymn Amazing Grace, tells us what makes a fool:

A fool has no sound judgment; he is governed wholly by appearances . . . He pays no regard to consequences . . . Are these the characteristics of a fool? Then there is no fool like the sinner, who prefers the toys of earth to the happiness of heaven; who is held in bondage by the foolish customs of the world; and is more afraid of the breath of man, than of the wrath of God.

As you pray, ask God to help you resist the voices that entice you to sin and guide your steps into the way of life.