Proverbs - 11:2



2 When pride comes, then comes shame, but with humility comes wisdom.

Verse In-Depth

Explanation and meaning of Proverbs 11:2.

Differing Translations

Compare verses for better understanding.
When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom.
Where pride is, there also shall be reproach: but where humility is, there also is wisdom.
Pride hath come, and shame cometh, And with the lowly is wisdom.
When pride comes, then comes shame: but with the lowly is wisdom.
When pride comes, there comes shame, but wisdom is with the quiet in spirit.
Wherever arrogance may be, there too is insult. But wherever humility is, there too is wisdom.

*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.


Historical Commentaries

Scholarly Analysis and Interpretation.

A rabbinic paraphrase of the second clause is: "Lowly souls become full of wisdom as the low place becomes full of water."

When pride cometh - The proud man thinks much more of himself than any other can do; and, expecting to be treated according to his own supposed worth, which treatment he seldom meets with, he is repeatedly mortified, ashamed, confounded, and rendered indignant.
With the lowly - צנועים tsenuim, ταπεινων, the humble, the modest, as opposed to the proud, referred to in the first clause. The humble man looks for nothing but justice; has the meanest opinion of himself; expects nothing in the way of commendation or praise; and can never be disappointed but in receiving praise, which he neither expects nor desires.

[When] pride cometh, then cometh (b) shame: but with the lowly [is] wisdom.
(b) When man so gets himself, and thinks to be exalted above his calling then God brings him to confusion.

When pride cometh, then cometh shame,.... The one follows the other, or rather keep pace together; as soon as one comes, the other comes; as in the case of the angels that sinned, Adam and Eve, Haman, Nebuchadnezzar, and others; and will be the case of the Romish antichrist, who, while vaunting and priding himself in his glory and grandeur, will fall into shame, disgrace, and destruction, Revelation 18:7;
but with the lowly is wisdom; or wisdom shall come, as Jarchi: the consequence of which is honour and glory; as with Christ, who is meek and lowly, are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; so with his humble followers, who reckon themselves the least of saints, and chief of sinners, and own that it is by the grace of God they are what they are, is true wisdom; they are wise unto salvation, and in the way to honour and glory; such humble souls shall be exalted, Luke 14:11.

Considering how safe, and quiet, and easy the humble are, we see that with the lowly is wisdom.

Self-conceit is unteachable; the humble grow wise (compare Proverbs 16:18; Proverbs 18:12).

Now follows the Solomonic "Pride goeth before a fall."
There cometh arrogance, so also cometh shame;
But with the humble is wisdom.
Interpreted according to the Hebr.: if the former has come, so immediately also comes the latter. The general truth as to the causal connection of the two is conceived of historically; the fact, confirmed by many events, is represented in the form of a single occurrence as a warning example; the preterites are like the Greek aoristi gnomici (vid., p. 32); and the perf., with the fut. consec. following, is the expression of the immediate and almost simultaneous consequence (vid., at Habakkuk 3:10): has haughtiness (זדון after the form לצון, from זיד, to boil, to run over) appeared, then immediately also disgrace appeared, in which the arrogant behaviour is overwhelmed. The harmony of the sound of the Hebr. זדון and קלון cannot be reproduced in German [nor in English]; Hitzig and Ewald try to do so, but such a quid pro quo as "Kommt Unglimpf kommt an ihn Schimpf" [there comes arrogance, there comes to him disgrace] is not a translation, but a distortion of the text. If, now, the antithesis says that with the humble is wisdom, wisdom is meant which avoids such disgrace as arrogance draws along with it; for the צנוּע thinks not more highly of himself than he ought to think (R. צן, subsidere, demitti, Deutsch. Morgenl. Zeitsch. xxv. 185).

*More commentary available at chapter level.


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