Proverbs 3:1-5 – Wisdom and the Heart

BIBLE TEXT

Proverbs 3:1-5

SUMMARY

We are encouraged to trust God with all our heart and to keep the commandments. 

ANALYSIS

Three times in these five verses reference is made to the “heart”: Our “heart” is to keep the commandments; we are to write loyalty and faithfulness on the tablet of our “heart;” and we are to trust the word with all our “heart.” As is noted in The Role of Imagery in Bible in the World, in Hebrew the metaphorical meaning of “heart” (Hebrew, leb) often encompasses both emotion and reason.  The heart is also connected to the will. Strikingly, the notion of the law or commandments or faithfulness being written in our hearts sends us to all manner of passages in Scripture.  See, for example, Psalm 40:8; Jeremiah 31:33;  Romans 2:15; 2 Corinthians 3:3; and Hebrews 8:10 among other places.  And centrally, we are reminded of the great commandment in Deuteronomy 6:5-9 – 

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 

Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

These passages, alongside of others, help us to see that the deep connection between Wisdom and Torah/Law (which is developed further in Psalms, Sirach, and Baruch) is present in Proverbs as well. (See Proverbs and the Apocrypha in Bible in the World, particularly Sirach 24 and Baruch 4:1).