Week 24 Proverbs 22
The third verse says: a prudent person sees danger and takes refuge. I stopped for a bit. Thinking about the word prudent. A guy I knew used that word to argue for doing something when he didn’t have a good practical reason – “it would be prudent” (vs. for example “it would save time”).
I checked a word book:
“Prudent” is used 21 times in the bible. 12 times in Proverbs.
“Prudence” is used 3 times in the bible – all in Proverbs.
In Proverbs I get the sense that being prudent includes things like being careful cautious thinking-ahead not-being-rash – like that. But Solomon says more about it:
…every prudent person acts out of knowledge
…the wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways
…the prudent are crowned with knowledge
There’s the normal anticipatory think-aheaded-ness kind of prudence that some people naturally have. Then there’s a second-tier prudence that’s linked to a Solomonic-style knowledge/wisdom.
The idea of two-tiers of ideas in proverbs doesn’t surprise me that much. Solomon’s proverbs are like a bi-level house. On the lower level are common-sense proverbs (e.g. lazy people are a pain to their employer). But when I go to the upper level it’s like I need common-sense plus more-than common-sense (e.g. a righteous man hates falsehood).
In Alberta we don’t use the word prudent very much so Solomon’s reminder is a help.
Note: quotes from Proverbs 22:3 13:16 14:8 14:18 10:26 13:5 (NIV). One bible version I looked at almost always used “wisdom” instead of “prudence”.