The coherence between this verse and the one preceding it is not to be neglected. To persuade the more to patience under God's afflicting hand, he tells us, it is one way to get wisdom and happiness. What though thou suffer chastisement, and that be bitter to thee! if thou get wisdom by it, thou art happy.--_Francis Taylor._ Saving wisdom is to be "found" and "gotten." It is not required that we create it. We could not plan, we could not execute, a way of righteous redemption for sinners. . . . This is God's doing, and it is all done. All things are now ready. . . . But we are required to seek the salvation which has been provided and brought near. . . . Understanding is a thing to be gotten. It comes not in sparks from our own intellect in collision with other human minds. It is a light from heaven. Religion is not all and only an anxious, fearful seeking: it is a getting too, and a glad enjoying.--_Arnot._ It was man who, by losing wisdom, became unhappy; and it is man who, by finding wisdom, or rather being found by the wisdom of God, is made happy again. It was man whose understanding was deceived by the subtle serpent: and it is man who, by getting understanding, deceiveth the serpent of his prey.--_Jermin._ Verse 14. Here as in ii. 4, we have traces of the new commerce, the ships going to Ophir for gold, the sight of the bright treasures stimulating men's minds to a new eagerness.--_Plumptre._ Wisdom brings more profit than any worldly riches, because it brings better things than riches can. 1. It can quiet a man's mind, which no wealth can do. Rich men have many cares--many griefs; crowns are crowns of thorns: nothing but wisdom can poise the soul in all tempests. 2. It affords a ladder to climb to eternal things, like Jacob's ladder, that did reach from Bethel on earth, to Bethel (God's house) in Heaven.--_Francis Taylor._ One grain of grace is far beyond all the gold of Ophir, and one hour's enjoyment of God to be much preferred before all the King of Spain's annual entradas. "Let me be put to any pain, any loss, so I get my Jesus," said Ignatius. What is all the pomp and glory of the world but dung? (Phil. iii. 7, 8). "I esteem them no better" (surely) "that I may win Christ," said Paul, that great trader by land and sea. This gold we cannot buy too dear, whatever we pay for it. The wise merchant sells all to purchase it (Matt. xiii. 44, 46).--_Trapp._ The gain of fine gold weigheth very heavy in man's account; but the gain of fine wisdom is better, for that weigheth heavy in the balance of God's esteem. Tertullian, comforting the Christian martyrs, writes: "If you have lost some joys of this life, it is but a merchandise--to lose something to gain greater."--_Jermin._ Verse 16. As in the vision of Solomon at Gibeon, so here; Wisdom being chosen does not come alone, but brings with her the gifts which others who do not choose her choose in vain. The words are almost the echo of those in 1 Kings iii. 11-13.--_Plumptre._