24 The path of life leads upward for the wise, to keep him from going downward to Sheol.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Above beneath - The one path is all along upward, leading to the highest life. It rescues the "wise" from the other, which is all along downward, ending in the gloom of Sheol.
The way of life is above to the wise - There is a treble antithesis here:
1. The way of the wise, and that of the fool.
2. The one is above, the other below.
3. The one is of life, the other is of death.
The way of life is above to the wise,.... Of "the way of life"; See Gill on Proverbs 10:17; this is said to be "above", or it tends "to what is above"; it leads to heaven and happiness above; the life itself it is the way of or to is above, it is hid with Christ in God; eternal life, glory, and happiness, is above; it is a house eternal in the heavens, an inheritance reserved there, and will be there enjoyed by the saints: the way to it is above; Christ is the way, and he is in heaven, at the Father's right hand, through whom only men can come at this life; wherefore those who are in the way of it have their thoughts, their hearts, their affections and conversations, above, Matthew 6:21. Faith, which deals with Christ the way, and by which men walk in him, is signified by soaring aloft, mounting up with wings as eagles, by entering within the vail, and dwelling on high, and by looking upwards, and at things unseen, and being the evidence of them. The Vulgate Latin version renders it, "the way of life is above the learned man", or wise man; the man that has no other than natural learning and wisdom, this way of life and salvation by Christ lies out of his knowledge; it is what the most sagacious and penetrating man could never discover; it is hid from the wise and prudent, and revealed to babes; or this is only known to such who are truly wise unto salvation; it is plain to them, and they highly esteem it, and choose to walk in it; it is an "ascent to him that understands", as the Syriac version renders it; it is a going up hill, it is an ascending upwards and heavenwards; such a man is continually looking upwards unto Christ, the author and finisher of his faith; pressing towards him, the mark for the prize; keeping his eye, not on things on earth, things temporal, which are seen here below, but on things above, things unseen, which are eternal in the heavens;
that he may depart from hell beneath; not from the grave, as "sheol" sometimes signifies: for wise men die as well as fools, and come to the grave, which is the house appointed for all living; even those who are in the way of life that is above do not escape death and the grave: but such are secured from everlasting ruin and destruction, from being destroyed soul and body in hell; they steer quite a different course and road from that; every step they take upwards carries them so far off from hell; which is the contrary way; the broad road of sin is the lower way, or what leads to hell and destruction beneath; the narrow way of faith in Christ is the upper way, and that leads to eternal life above.
A good man sets his affections on things above; his way leads directly thither.
(Compare Colossians 3:2). Holy purposes prevent sinning, and so its evils.
Four proverbs of fundamentally different doctrines:
24 The man of understanding goeth upwards on a way of life,
To depart from hell beneath.
The way of life is one, Proverbs 5:6; Psalm 16:11 (where, notwithstanding the want of the article, the idea is logically determined), although in itself forming a plurality of ארחות, Proverbs 2:19. "A way of life," in the translation, is equivalent to a way which is a way of life. למעלה, upwards (as Ecclesiastes 3:21, where, in the doubtful question whether the spirit of a man at his death goes upwards, there yet lies the knowledge of the alternative), belongs, as the parallel משּׁאול מטּה shows, to ארח חיּים as virtual adj.: a way of life which leads upwards. And the ל of למשׂכּיל is that of possession, but not as of quiet possession (such belongs to him), but as personal activity, as in דּרך לו, he has a journey = he makes a journey, finds himself on a journey, 1-Kings 18:27; for למען סוּר is not merely, as לסוּר, Proverbs 13:14; Proverbs 14:27, the expression of the end and consequence, but of the subjective object, i.e., the intention, and thus supposes an activity corresponding to this intention. The O.T. reveals heaven, i.e., the state of the revelation of God in glory, yet not as the abode of saved men; the way of the dying leads, according to the O.T. representation, downwards into Shel; but the translations of Enoch and Elijah are facts which, establishing the possibility of an exception, break through the dark monotony of that representation, and, as among the Greeks the mysteries encouraged ἡδυστέρας ἐλπίδας, so in Israel the Chokma appears pointing the possessor of wisdom upwards, and begins to shed light on the darkness of Shel by the new great thoughts of a life of immortality, thus of a ζωὴ αἰώνιος (Proverbs 12:28) (Psychologie, p. 407ff.), now for the first time becoming prominent, but only as a foreboding and an enigma. The idea of the Shel opens the way for a change: the gathering place of all the living on this side begins to be the place of punishment for the godless (Proverbs 7:27; Proverbs 9:18); the way leading upwards, εἰς τὴν ζωὴν, and that leading downwards, εἰς τὴν ἀπωλειαν (Matthew 7:13.), come into direct contrast.
The way - The way a wise man takes to obtain life, is to place his heart, and treasure, and conversation on things above.
*More commentary available at chapter level.