Matthew Henry on Proverbs 18:2
A fool may pretend to understanding, and to seek and intermeddle with the means of it, but, 1. He has no true delight in it; it is only to please his friends or save his credit; he does not love his book, nor his business, nor his Bible, nor his prayers; he would rather be playing the fool with his sports. Those who take no pleasure in learning or religion will make nothing to purpose of either. No progress is made in them if they are a task and a drudgery. 2. He has no good design in it, only that his heart may discover itself, that he may have something to make a show with, something wherewith to varnish his folly, that that may pass off the better, because he loves to hear himself talk.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Proverbs 18:2
that his heart . . . itself--that is, takes pleasure in revealing his folly (Pro 12:23; Pro 15:2).
John Gill on Proverbs 18:2
A fool hath no delight in understanding,.... In natural understanding, and in the improvement of his mind in it; he delights not in books, nor in the conversation of men of learning and sense: or in spiritual understanding, in the understanding of spiritual things; these are foolishness to a natural man; nor does he delight in reading the Scriptures, nor in hearing the word, and attendance on it in the house of God, but is weary of such exercises;
but that his heart may discover itself; and the folly that is in it: such men only desire to have some knowledge and understanding, to make a show of it, that they may be thought to be wise, and to be capable of talking of things as if they unders…
Read the whole note in the consoleKeil & Delitzsch on Proverbs 18:2
2 The fool hath no delight in understanding;
But only that his heart may reveal itself therein.
The verb חפץ forms the fut. יחפּץ as well as יחפּץ; first the latter from חפץ, with the primary meaning, to bow, to bend down; then both forms as intransitive, to bend oneself to something, to be inclined to something, Arab. 'ṭf. (Fl.). תּבוּנה is here the intelligence which consists in the understanding of one's own deficiency, and of that which is necessary to meet it. The inclination of the fool goes not out after such intelligence, but (כּי אם־; according to Ben-Naphtali, כי־אם) only that his heart, i.e., the understanding which he thinks that he already possesses, may reveal itself, show its…
