This verse sits inside Wisdom's first speech, Proverbs 1:20–33.
Wisdom's venues multiply: the busiest intersections, the city gates where court and commerce met. She preaches where decisions are made and where the traffic is.
After the father's voice, a second voice, and the book's boldest literary move: Wisdom herself, personified as a woman, preaching in public. She takes the loudest real estate in the city, the open squares, the concourses, the gates (vv. 20–21), and calls to the same simple ones the gang was recruiting: how long will you love naivete? Turn at my rebuke, and I will pour out my spirit on you, make my words known (vv. 22–23). Then the speech darkens into the chapter's hardest passage. Because I called and you refused, she says, I will laugh at your calamity; when the storm comes, they will call on me and I will not answer; they will seek me and not find me (vv. 24–28). The poem is describing a real mechanism, not a divine mood: wisdom refused long enough becomes wisdom unavailable, because her help was only ever help for those willing to turn, and calamity does not create willingness, only regret. The speech states the cause with legal precision, they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD (v. 29), hands down the sentence in this book's signature form, they shall eat the fruit of their own way (v. 31), and closes on the door that stood open the whole time: whoever listens to me will dwell safely, secure, without fear of evil (v. 33). Two notes govern every member entry. First, this is a poem, and the speaker is personified Wisdom, wisdom's own dynamics given a voice; her laughter is the poem's unflinching picture of how consequence mocks the unprepared, and it must never be preached as God gloating over sufferers, which the whole counsel of Scripture forbids (Lam 3:33, Ezek 33:11). Second, verse 28's unanswered call belongs inside this consequence-drama, the cry for rescue-without-repentance that wisdom cannot grant, and it teaches nothing about the New Covenant believer's access to God in prayer.
This verse contributes the full address list, and its climax is the gates, the ancient city's courtroom, council chamber, and marketplace in one, where elders sat and futures were settled. Wisdom stations herself at the hinge points of public life; hers is not a private spirituality but a voice claiming the places where justice, business, and community actually happen.
"Chief concourses" renders a difficult phrase: the NKJV's own footnote records the ancient versions' readings, the Septuagint, Syriac, and Targum have "top of the walls," the Vulgate "the head of multitudes." Every reading keeps the point: the loudest, most visible place available. The teaching does not move an inch whichever perch she takes.
Related: Proverbs 8:2–3 · Ruth 4:1
New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. Full copyright information. Scripture provided by API.Bible.
If this verse has been used to put weight on you that it was never carrying, ask about it directly.