God’s voice of wisdom addresses all classes of sinners.

1. The simple ones.

The unwary and those easily misled. Some men sin through ignorance or through the influence of others. As the unwalled garden is open to the foot of every dog that passes by, so the man who has no principle of his own to defend him is liable to have his soul entered and taken possession of by the first tempter who passes by.

2. The scorner.

He is a sinner of a deeper dye. The child who is indifferent to his good father’s love and the attractions of his happy home is a sinner, but the son who mocks his parents and holds up their words to ridicule is certainly a greater sinner. The simple man denotes a sinner who is passive in the hands of evil, but the scorner is active against good. He is placed before us in Holy Scripture as one who has reached the climax of human iniquity (Psa. 1:1).

3. Fools are addressed.

The man who would rather use means to increase his disease than seek to cure it, may very properly be called a fool. The blind man who chooses to remain blind when he might be healed is certainly a fool. And certainly this is an appropriate name for those who love moral darkness rather than light. He who hates the knowledge which would save him and prefers death to life is the most unwise man upon the face of God’s earth.

W. Harris, Proverbs, The Preacher’s Complete Homiletic Commentary, (New York; London; Toronto: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1892), 12.