Proverbs 1:9: A garland of behavior

“for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.”
-Proverbs 1:9

I was working a part-time job at a bookstore when I was in college, and one of the women I worked with scolded me for not noticing her haircut. “Men never notice!” she lamented, and went on and on about how we should be paying more attention to these sorts of things.

What she didn’t realize was that I had gotten a haircut the night before as well, and she hadn’t noticed.

We do things to get noticed. We arrange our hair in a certain way, or we will wear certain things (sometimes certain things that we really shouldn’t be wearing). Sometimes we just wait for someone to say, “New shirt?” of “New earrings?” just so we can talk about them.

Strangely, very few people want to be noticed for their character.

This is exactly what Solomon is talking about here. If you remember from verse 8, he is encouraging us to remember the godly teachings of our parents, and now he is comparing the remembrance of those lessons to things we wear.

And these are things we would wear prominently. A pendant is not just a simple necklace, but is a stone or symbol that hangs from the necklace. It is something that we would see immediately. A garland is a wreath of flowers or leaves you would wear like a crown, often awarded as a prize in a competition. It is something worn for the expressed purpose of bringing honor and attention to the wearer.

Solomon is telling us to live rightly, and to live rightly to such a degree that it will bring attention.

But you will also notice that he is not telling us to walk on our own path to live so rightly, but to walk in the ways of something greater. In this case, we are following the example of our parents, but with the understanding that our parents are walking with God. And ultimately, that is who should be getting the glory from our right living.

A lot of people wear a certain type of pendant today: the cross. I see all sorts of people wearing it around their necks, and I wonder how many people actually believe in that symbol. I don’t think it’s wrong to wear things like that (I often wear a ring that has a cross on it), but that’s not what Solomon is talking about. Jesus would rather have us known for something else. In John 13:35, He tells us: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

And surely His love was seen by the whole world, even if it didn’t understand. His love made it possible for us to follow the greatest example who has ever lived. Any other garland of behavior we wear will be self-serving and destructive, but in Him we find righteousness.