Wisdom

Proverbs 8: 1-4, 22-31 (May 30, 2010)

1) The Text

Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?
2On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand;
3beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out:
4“To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live.
22The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago.
23Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
24When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water.
25Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth—
26when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first bits of soil.
27When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
28when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep,
29when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth, 30then I was beside him, like a master worker;
and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, 31rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.

2) The Context

A proverb is a pithy statement expressing some truth in a striking way which is easy to remember. Most of this book is instructions given by a scholar (or father) to a student (or son) on how to lead a moral life, with proper respect for God. Life involves choices; it is important that one be informed, trained and persuaded to make the right ones. The objective of life is attainment of wisdom, i.e. integrity in God's eyes. Wisdom brings rewards: 22:4 says: "The reward of humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honour and life". 9:10 says "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight." Put another way, 1:7 says "The fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom, and humility goes before honour." The opposite of being wise is being a fool; "fools despise wisdom and instruction."

It is difficult to date Proverbs. Sayings and poems appear to have been formed into an anthology after the Exile (in the 400s BC), but some of the sayings probably date back to Solomon's time. Solomon was known for his wisdom. Some of the sayings are known in other ancient Near East cultures; they have been acculturated to the Jewish tradition.

3) Interpretation

Wisdom, “understanding” is personified as a woman in this seven-stanza poem. Vv. 1-5 are the first stanza, and vv. 22-31 are the fifth and sixth. She “cries out” (v. 3) to all people everywhere (“all that live”, v. 4). Her message is primarily to young people. She speaks “utter truth” (v. 7) – she is absolutely reliable. She is completely opposed to anything dishonest or insincere. Her message possesses integrity and makes sense, to those who understand (v. 9). Her “instruction” (v. 10) is superior to all material goods. She offers “good advice” (v. 14) and “sound wisdom” with “insight” and “strength”. She guides those who rule justly (vv. 15-16). She reciprocates the love offered to her; she is found by those who “seek me diligently” (v. 17). While walking with great integrity, she brings material prosperity to all who listen to her (vv. 20-21).

Vv. 22-31 tell of her relationship to creation. God “created” (i.e. generated) her as “the first of his acts” – before he created, i.e. before “the beginning of the earth” (v. 23), before he created the “depths” (v. 24), etc. She was “brought forth”: the Hebrew word presents an image of birth, as in begot or formed. Vv. 24-26 use Canaanite mythological motifs (“depths”, “springs”, shaping of “mountains”) to say that wisdom existed before creation began. Again, v. 27 tells us that she pre-existed the world: she was present at creation, as a witness. She came to know God’s secrets in creating the heavens and the earth (e.g. in limiting the extent of the sea, v. 29.) She was “beside him” (v. 30) at that time. (Later authors, those of Sirach and Wisdom, show that she had an active role in creation.) Either she was “like a master worker”, a craftsperson, in creative acts, or the Hebrew can mean little child: a notion which fits well with “brought forth” (vv. 24, 25) and with the rest of v. 30. She was God’s “delight” and she delighted in his creation of humankind; she rejoiced both in God and in those created. When later trans-culturated into the Greek world, Wisdom becomes logos, the pre-existent divine Word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”; he “became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:1, 14).

Theologically, there is an overarching belief in retributive justice that runs through Proverbs. Wise choices lead to life, while foolish choices lead inevitably towards death. It is not so much the view that God punishes the wicked directly, as that the very fabric of the universe is woven so that good follows the good, and evil, the wicked.

The Proverbs passage concludes with a sense of delight in the dance of creation, as wisdom was ‘daily [his] delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race’. Again, there are overtones of a (female) partner in creation, something that would have been more imaginable in the other wisdom cultures of surrounding nations. Feminist scholars such as B. Lang and C. Camp have proposed the possibility of Woman Wisdom as a repressed archetype of the feminine, surfacing amid the turmoil of the profound social reconstruction in the years following the exile. Alongside this, there is also the recognition by many scholars that in pre-exilic days there may have even been a goddess seen to accompany Yahweh. This was likely the case at the level of popular theology, that is, what people believed privately and not necessarily as promoted by the Jerusalem Temple. Woman Wisdom could well be another manifestation of this phenomenon. There is also a sense of a bridge between humanity and God being formed by the person of wisdom.

4) Thought Exercise

What are your sources of wisdom?

How has your faith grown as the result of both your wise and unwise choices?