She crieth in the chief place of concourse. The chief place is literally the head ( ראֹשׁ, rosh); here used figuratively for the place where streets or roads branch off in different directions, as in Ezekiel 16:25, "the beginning of streets," or "the head of the way;" comp.
Genesis 2:10, where it is used of the point at which the four streams branched off; and the corresponding expression in Proverbs 8:2, "She staudeth in the top (rosh) of high places." Of concourse; הֹמִיּוֹת (homiyyoth) is the plural of the adjective, הומִי (homi): literally, "those who are making a noise," or "the tumultuous;" here, as in Isaiah 22:2 and 1 Kings 1:41, used substantively for "boisterous, noisy places" (compare the Vulgate, in capite turbaram).
The variation in the LXX; "on high walls," or "on the tops of the walls" ( ἐπ ̓ ἄκρων δὲ τειχέων, super summos muros), which is adopted also in the Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic Versions, arises from reading חוֹמוֹת (khomoth), "walls," for the Masoretic homiyyoth.
In the openings of the gates. The opening ( פֶתַח pethakh) is the opening of the gate, or the entrance by the gate ( שַׁעַר, shaar), i.e. of the city, the introitus portae of the Chaldee and Syriac Versions.
The openings of the gates would be thronged, as courts of justice were held at the gates (Deuteronomy 16:18; 2 Samuel 15:2); business was carried on there, as the selling and redemption of land (Genesis 23:10-16; Ruth 4:1); markets were also held there (2 Kings 7:1-18); and the same localities were used for the councils of the state and conferences (Genesis 34:20; 2 Samuel 3:27; 2 Chronicles 18:9; Jeremiah 17:19; comp.
Proverbs 31:1-31:33, "Her husband is known in the gates"). In place of the expression, "in the openings of the gates," the LXX. reads, ἐπὶ δὲ πύλαις δυναστῶν παρεδρεύει, "And at the gates of the mighty she sits"—an interpolation which only partially represents the sense of the original, and which is adopted in the Arabic.
In the next clause, for "in the city" is substituted ἐπὶ δὲ πύλαις πόλεως, "at the gates of the city." The Vulgate combines the separate clauses of the original in one—in foribus portarum urbis, "in the entrances and openings of the gates of the city."
In the city ( בָעִיר, bair); i.e. in the city itself (so Aben Ezra, ap. Gejerus), as opposed to the entrance by the gates, and so used antithetically (as Umbreit, Bertheau, Hitzig). The publicity of the teaching of Wisdom, observable in the places she selects for that purpose, also marked the public ministry of our Lord and his disciples, and finds an illustration in his command, "What ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops" (Matthew 10:27); i.
e. give it all the publicity possible. The spirit of Wisdom, like that of Christianity, is aggressive.