Proverbs: Pathways to Wisdom

by Dominick S. Hernández

The book of Proverbs is a book written for people like us--parents, children, friends, and coworkers. It's a collection of biblical sayings and wisdom that are intended to help us with practical matters in our lives. Inside we encounter the wise and the foolish, and instructions for the journey to find the wisdom that comes from God alone.



Pathways to Wisdom explores the context, language, and interpretation of the book of Proverbs. Each chapter covers well known verses and examines prevalent themes throughout the book. From the fear of the Lord to the Woman of Valor in Proverbs 31, Hern�ndez explores an array of verses and reveals literary and historical details that supply profound insight into familiar passages.

Additional components for a four-week study include a DVD featuring Dominick S. Hern�ndez and a comprehensive Leader Guide.

Genres: Biblical Studies

144 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 21, 2020

Reviews

[Jamaal Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Concise, clear, and helpful overview of the book of Proverbs. Written by a scholar with the eye of a pastor. If you read the Proverbs regularly and want to understand the book better, this is for you.

[Samuel Bierig · Rating 3 out of 5]

a useful little intro. Worth reading.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is well-written but if a reader wants a verse-by-verse study, this is not the book. It tends to be repetitive in places. The author gives more of an overview of specific themes found in Proverbs and examines how we should read those verses or passages.

[Brandon Sickling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good! He likens the book of proverbs to a puzzle and does a good job of pointing out the “Corner piece” main themes. I wish more had been dedicated to the rest of the puzzle, but overall it was helpful in bringing order to what can often feel like a jumbled chaos of pieces.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book of Proverbs can be challenging for all sorts of reasons. First, most of us don’t often read wisdom books. Outside of “quote for the day” calendars, wisdom books are not published much. Proverbs has the additional challenge that the book can feel disconnected from the challenges of suffering and perhaps even divorced from the work of Christ. Is Proverbs nothing more than an ancient self-help book?

In Proverbs: Pathways to Wisdom Dominick Hernandez brings the book of Proverbs to life. Hernandez argues that “’Hearing’ is one of the primary ways in which learning correct information is described in Proverbs.” In Proverbs, “the wise hear with their eyes. The eyes guide the readers on their pathway to increasingly attaining more wisdom…” This hearing only comes from a posture of humility.

From this posture of humility comes the fear of the Lord, another “corner piece” of the book of Proverbs. Choosing the path of wisdom means fleeing the pathway of our own desires.

The book of Proverbs fleshes out what the pathway of wisdom and the fear of the Lord looks like. It looks like turning from pride and anger. It looks like controlling one’s tongue. It looks like honoring one’s parents. It looks like disciplining one’s children. It looks like working hard and making an honest living. It looks like caring for the poor.

All of this culminates in Proverbs 31, where we meet the “warrior woman” (Hernandez’s translation of the phrase often translated “the virtuous woman.” This woman represents what a life following the pathway of wisdom looks like in the flesh.

Hernandez concludes with a final chapter asking the question: but what if the Proverbs don’t work. Hernandez masterfully examines how the book answers the question itself. The answer is here: “Proverbs is just as clear in asserting that the all-knowing Lord, who desires all to walk in the way to wisdom, is ultimately in control of all pathways to wisdom.” The Proverbs teaches us to trust our Heavenly Father who loves us and is working to shape our character and for his good.

I commend Proverbs: Pathways to Wisdom to you. I don’t know of a clearer explanation of the Proverbs. Hernandez fills his book with Proverbs themselves (he doesn’t just talk about Proverbs), and he brings clarity to a reader of any level. Hernandez brings the book to life with anecdotes of his own life and writes in a winsome and easy to understand way. I hope this book is widely used by churches for series and book studies on Proverbs and by many colleges as well. It’s the perfect introduction to a deep well. Pick it up!

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[Dave Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book. Changes ones entire perspective on Proverbs, a book that is so prone to being read as a bunch of randomly strung together wisdom sayings that we pick and pull out accordingly. To learn how to read it as a literary whole with a larger narrative vision and storyline with real characters and dialogue sheds so much light on what is actually going on and the books deeply rooted artistic merit with real theological interest and weight. It also helps to locate its concern for connecting wisdom as a character with an embodied sense of "the Lord", which would have carried real purpose in its ancient context. This allows us to connect the parent-child relationship symbolism universally to God's relationship with creation (as opposed to applying them in limited fashion as practical self help snippets to something like raising a child ect.. The book is so much more than this, which becomes clear in Chapters 1-9, which is written as a single block that forms the foundation for the assumptions of the remaining chapters (the two paths imagery, and that on path is something not that we are called to avoid, but that it assumes we actually wouldn't and don't desire. That sounds like semantics, but changing it from admonition to conversation within that assumption does a lot to elevate the whole point of Chapters 1-9 and the establishing of these main characters and a storyline).

From the beginning of the book this sticks out for me. The author writes,
"If we read too quickly, we might miss the subtle change in direction between 1:4 and 5, where the author shifts from what the proverbs might provide us to how we should approach and learn from the proverbs."

It seems strange to establish wisdom as coming before the acquisition of knowledge and instruction, and yet as a key and functioning character in the larger story this is precisely the argument the author(s) is making.

This is also why the phrase "fear of the Lord" (1:7), expressed to be the "beginning of knowledge" is so crucial to understand in its relation to wisdom. There is a sense in which hearing in these first few chapters equates with "seeing" (guidance). This means that we hear with our eyes and thus grow in the way of Lady Wisdom (described as righteousness, justice and equity). "Fear" then seems to emerge from stepping into the vantage point of wisdom with a posture of humility and a trust in where it is going to take us. After all, the image in Proverbs is a path, and paths are there to travel and experience and within that journey to change us into something we can't see in the present. A fearful endeavor, but one that we take with Lady Wisdom together.

[Matthew Lynch · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great intro to Proverbs, especially for beginners who need an orientation to the book's major themes. A major strength is the analysis of Prov 31 as the book's culmination and the section on times when proverbs don't "work."

[Gavin Jarvis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very good read! I would recommend to all who want an overview of the book of Proverbs or would like a fresh perspective. This is a very clean book to read.