"My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee; So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God."
Proverbs 2:1-5
Part 2
Yesterday:
The first condition for fearing the LORD and knowing God is to listen to dad teach and hiding truth in your heart.
Today:
(Proverbs 2:3-4) Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;
“Yea, if thou criest after knowledge,”
The second condition for gleaning the fear of the LORD and getting the knowledge of God is “crying after knowledge.”
To “cry after” means “to call, call out, recite, read, cry out, proclaim.”1 The desire to learn knowledge2 is so strong that it is cried after, asked to come, a call for help.
“And liftest up thy voice for understanding;”
You are begging for understanding. You are calling out inviting intelligence, insight, understanding, to come to you.
“If thou seekest her as silver,”
The third condition for understanding the fear of the LORD is to “seek her as silver.” It seems most people are willing to work hard if they get paid for their efforts. In this day and age money is a necessary evil, we need it to transact business and to provide for our families. As a man is diligent in seeking his silver is the same kind of diligence, we should be applying to learn God’s wisdom.
“And searchest for her as for hid treasures;”
It is amazing how much a man will do to look for treasure. In 2015 the mining company with the highest revenue was a Swiss company worth 209.2 billion dollars!3 How much effort do you suppose this company has put into finding “hid treasures?” I would imagine that they have workers going by shifts night and day hunting for, digging, and finding the treasures buried deep in the earth. Their priority is hunting for treasures.
The way that men go searching for treasure is the way we need to be going after God’s Word if we want to understand the fear of the LORD.
Come back tomorrow when we will see the results of keeping these three conditions.
1. Brown, Driver, Briggs. Brown-Driver-Briggs’ Hebrew Definitions, the electronic version in eSword.
2. Here “knowledge” is the wisdom word, “binah = discernment or discrimination.” E.W. Bullinger, The Companion Bible, the electronic version in eSword.
3. Information downloaded from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_mining_companies_by_revenue, on March 8, 2019.