“When wisdom enters your heart and knowledge is present to your soul…” (v. 10). The gaining of wisdom is not the cold reception of information but the warm welcome of a friend. True wisdom doesn’t merely reside in the mind; it settles in the heart and delights the soul. It becomes a joy, not just a duty. When the Word of God no longer feels like obligation but oxygen, then wisdom has entered in truth. And when that happens, something glorious unfolds: “Discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you” (v. 11). The wise are not only guided, but guarded as well. God’s wisdom is a shield (v. 7).
Solomon shows where this protection leads: away from the way of evil. Evil men speak perverse things (v. 12), delight in doing evil (v. 14), and walk in dark, twisted paths (vv. 13, 15). Wisdom exposes such paths for what they are: not daring but deadly, not adventurous but destructive, not freedom but slavery to sin. The one who delights in the Lord cannot delight in what grieves Him. This is more than a moral warning; it is spiritual warfare. The upright walk in light, but the perverse twist their steps until they no longer know the truth. Wisdom saves us from their influence by illuminating our way, not by isolating us.
And there is another threat just as seductive but quieter: the immoral woman, “who flatters with her words” (v. 16). She represents more than adultery; she is the personification of false pleasure and the lie of forbidden delight. She forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God (v. 17). Her house sinks into death, and her path to the dead (v. 18). She promises passion but delivers ruin (v. 19). This, too, is what wisdom guards against: the soul’s slow drift into destruction masked by soft words and fleeting pleasures. To walk with wisdom is not just to say no to sin; it is to recognize where sin leads and to avoid it rightly.
So, where does wisdom lead? “For the upright will dwell in the land, and the blameless will remain in it” (v. 21). This echoes the covenant promise of life with God: secure, sustained, and steadfast. But “the wicked will be cut off from the Earth, and the unfaithful will be uprooted from it” (v. 22). The righteous are planted, whereas the wicked are pulled up like weeds (cf. Psalm 1:3-4). The upright have a home; the perverse have only a path that leads to destruction.
The Gospel teaches us Christ is the Wisdom of God, and in Him we are planted by streams of living water (Psalm 23:2). Therefore, let wisdom not merely visit your heart. Let it dwell there. Let it preserve you from darkness, guide you in light, and bring you home to the land of the living.
The Lutheran Column 