פירוש על משלי 8:40

Will not wisdom call out Does not the Torah announce for you the things mentioned below in this section?

at the entrance of the roof Heb. קרת, the ceiling above the gate, where people sit.

she cries Heb. תרנה, she cries, and what does she say? “To you, O men, I call.”

Hearken for I will speak noble things Words of nobility and importance.

there is nothing twisted or crooked in them There is no crookedness.

gold Heb. חרוץ. A type of gold.

than pearls Heb. מפנינים, pearls.

cannot be compared to it They will not equal its value.

I dwelt [beside] cunning Beside cunning, for since a man has learned Torah, cunning about every matter enters into him.

Fear of the Lord is to hate evil This is the discipline that wisdom announces to the people.

Kings reign with me for the judges and the judgments I teach them.

I will love those who love me Heb. אהבי. [This is the reading.] The text is written: אוהביה, those who love her. Said the Holy One, blessed be He: “I will love those who love the Torah.” I heard this from Rabbi Aaron in the name of Rabbi Nathan.

I will love Heb. אהב, like אאהב.

will find me Heb. ימצאנני. There is an extra “nun,” denoting fifty. I will allow him to find the fifty gates of understanding.

There is substance to give inheritance Heb. יש, lit. there is. There is with me a great inheritance.

at the beginning of His way before the creation of the world.

I was enthroned, from the beginning Heb. נסכתי, an expression of (Ezek. 35): “Princes (נסיכי) of the sons of man.”

I was created Heb. חוללתי.

before the mountains were sunk within the water.

the land and the outsides The land of Israel and other lands.

and the beginning of the dust of the earth The first man.

when He drew a circle over the face of the deep When He drew the circle of the earth over the water, to draw a boundary that it may not pass.

חוג is an expression of encircling, as in (Isa. 44: 13): “and with a compass (ובמחוגה) he rounds it.” (Compas in French, zirkel in German, as in Gen. 29: 17, Isa. 5:22, 44:13, and Job 22: 14.)

when He strengthened the fountains of the deep When He made mighty the fountains of the deep.

when He gave the sea its boundary and decreed upon the Reed Sea when he created it, on the condition that it split before Moses.

when He established the foundations of the earth Heb. בחקו from an expression of engraving (חקוי), as in (Isa. 49:16): “Behold on [My] hands I have engraved you (חקתיך),” and so (Ezek. 43:14): “And from the bottom (מחיק) upon the ground.”

a nursling Heb. אמון, one that was reared beside Him, an expression of (Lam. 4:5): “They that were reared (האמנים) amid crimson.

every day יום יום, lit. a day a day, two thousand years.

playing in the habitable world of His earth All the generations of the wicked that were from Adam to Noah and from Noah to Abraham, I was laughing at them.

and [having] my delights I waited until the generation of the desert came and accepted me.

and do not put it to naught Heb. תפרעו, and do not put my discipline to naught.

to watch Heb. לשקד

by my doors [to be the] first to enter into the study hall and the synagogue and [the] last to leave.