Does not wisdom call,
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 are part of a unit that embraces Proverbs 8-9. They are the height of the teaching of Proverbs on wisdom. The Bible develops the same theme in other passages that I will explore.
Roman Catholic writers sometimes use the female imagery here to refer to Mary.
This passage portrays both Wisdom (Proverbs 8:1-4) and the foolish woman (Proverbs 9:13-16) as women who stand or sit where they will be seen by a great many people and then proceed to call to them, hoping to sway them to their way of living. Both call out to those who are “simple” (peti). This term for simplicity comes from a root that means “wide open” or “without boundaries.” The simple are those who are vulnerable to an appealing invitation. They will accept anything uncritically. They have no internal filters that help them evaluate their options. This is even more reason they should heed Wisdom’s call and not the call of the foolish or the “loose” woman.
In Proverbs 8:1-4, the author continues to give wisdom a voice by personifying wisdom, a literary device famously replicated by the 16th-century, Northern Renaissance humanist Erasmus in his Praise of Folly.
Here wisdom prepares openly to proclaim her virtues, calling out to the passersby, where much of a city's commerce would take place. 1Does not wisdom (hokhmah) call, and does not understanding raise her voice? 2 On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; 3 beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out. Her first words are to announce the object of her ministrations: 4 “To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live. Wisdom is not just for the elite or even just for the classroom. Wisdom invites all persons to hear. Competition is fierce in the market place, but wisdom goes there. However, the particular constituency is the young men.
Proverbs 8: 22-31 focus upon the role of wisdom in creation and therefore the antiquity of wisdom.
One difference regarding wisdom, in contrast to other Hebrew literature, is the focus on cosmology rather than the historical community. Wisdom predates the emergence of the Hebrew people and Israel. As the Wisdom school developed, it grew from the concept of personified wisdom as a mere literary device in Proverbs 14:1 to further personalizing in the post-exilic period, when polytheism was no longer a threat to true religion. Job 28 ponders where human beings can find wisdom. Gold does not contain it. The Abyss does not have it. Death has only heard rumors of wisdom. Rather, the Lord has established wisdom, and therefore the fear of the Lord is the source of wisdom. Baruch 3:9-4:4 represents wisdom as a thing distinct from God or human beings, desirable in itself, but identifies Wisdom as the Torah. Proverbs 8-9 represent wisdom as a person. Here, wisdom reveals her origin, her active part in the creation, and the function she discharges among human beings in leading them to God. Sirach 1:1-8, praising wisdom as being with the Lord and remaining forever, created before the world, and its root is the Lord, recalls Job 28. However, other portions of Sirach are in line with what we see in Proverbs 8. In Sirach 4:11-19, wisdom teachers her children, helps those who seek her, observing that those who love her love life. Those who hold wisdom close inherit glory, so the Lord loves those who love wisdom. In Sirach 14:20-15:10, one receives blessing when one meditates on wisdom and seeks wisdom intentionally, like a hunter seeking prey. The fear of the Lord and observing the Law exhibits wisdom. In Sirach 24:1-29, Wisdom is part of the heavenly council offering a speech in which she praises herself as coming from the mouth of the Most High and covering the earth. Wisdom found her home in Israel. Is this personification the result of a poetic device? Is it an expression of older forms of religious thought? Is it a newly revealed truth? Wisdom 7:22-8:1, Wisdom fashions and penetrates all things. Wisdom is the breath of the power of God and an emanation of the glory of God. She is beautiful beyond comparison. If Wisdom is an outpouring of the glory of God, she shares in the divine nature. One may also apply such descriptions to a divine attribute rather than to a distinct personality. The New Testament will draw attention to this dimension of wisdom. In Matthew 11:19, Wisdom receives vindication by her deeds. In Luke 11:49, the Wisdom of God determined to send Israel prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill. In I Corinthians 1:24-30, Christ is the power and wisdom of God. Christ is the wisdom from God, and therefore our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Colossians 1:16-17 uses similar language as we saw in Jewish literature regarding wisdom, referring to Christ as firstborn of creation, creation occurred through Christ, and Christ presently holds all things together. Hebrews 1:2-3 refers to the Son, who is heir of all things, the one through whom God created, a reflection of the glory of God, and the one who sustains all things. Paul envisions the rock that Moses struck in the wilderness, from which came water that nourished the people, as an Old Testament presence of Christ (I Corinthians 10:4). Of course, John 1:1-18 uses the language of Logos, but the images that we find in Jewish literature, to express the unique relationship of Jesus of Nazareth to God. John 6:35, in a similar spirit as we find in Proverbs, has Christ as divine Wisdom declaring him to be the bread of life in a way that those who come to eat will never hunger or thirst. pick up on the theme as well. The point is that this passage is among the reasons the New Testament could speak of Christ as intimately involved in creation.[1] The rich background of the Old Testament reflection upon Wisdom provided the apostolic witness with the language it needed to describe the uniqueness and universality of Jesus of Nazareth.
22 The Lord created (qanah, or possess[2]) me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts (a theme we find again in Colossians 1:15 and Revelation 3:14) of long ago. The NRSV translation of the “creation” of wisdom implies the notion that prior to the formation of the natural world, the LORD lacked wisdom and so created it to be an agential factor in creation. Arius, in the fourth-century, used such a notion against Athanasius in the heated discussions concerning the generation of the second person of the Trinity.[3]Nevertheless, the context here supports the sense of "created" or "established." 23 Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. Scholars offer much debate over whether wisdom is "created" or "born." The imagery of creation found in these verses evokes memories of other famous passages dealing with God’s creating work (Genesis 1; Job 38-41). However, the verb used in the phrase “The LORD created me” is not one of the two most common Hebrew verbs used to describe God’s acts of creation, both of which are used in Genesis 1-3 (bara’ and yatzar). Rather, the more rare use of the verb qanah to mean, “Create” is used here. This verb usually means, “To buy or acquire,” although other ancient Near Eastern sources evidence the use of the term qoneh meaning “creator.”[4] It may well be that the use of this verb to describe God’s creating Wisdom is meant to parallel Proverbs’ advice to the simple that they “get Wisdom” (also Hebrew qnh, see Proverbs 4:5-7).
Clearly, wisdom is not a divine being whatever the translation of qanah, but an aspect of Yahweh's glory providing a glimpse into divine creative power and work. Wisdom, however, would become for an emerging Jewish community in the second and third centuries B.C. a symbol of Yahweh's presence and activity in the world. In The Wisdom of Solomon, a Jew of Alexandria maintains this theme and distinguishes between the Hebrew hokhmah and the Greek sophia arguing that the difference defines the gap between Hellenistic thought and the Jewish religion. The former assumed that God was accessible through human reason, the latter only through revelation. Wisdom, as an agent of Yahweh's self-revelation, functions to reveal the sweeping majesty of the divine presence at the creation of the world. A ninth-century midrash, however, identifies hokhmah as one of the seven things created before the creation of the universe, namely the Torah.[5]
The Prologue of John has a close relation to this passage. Sirach 24 and Wisdom 7 are also part of the background for the prologue. Philo also has this basis for his thinking as well. The scholarly concern is that the notion of Logos in John is close to that of Wisdom here, rather than to Gnostic ideas.[6] However, we must note that the notion of pre-existence did not preclude the idea of creaturliness, as this passage shows. Thus, the pre-existence of the Son did not necessitate the notion of Trinity.[7] The early Christian theological reflection found certain Old Testament passages to be implicitly Trinitarian. Modern exegesis does not sustain such a procedure. It shows that the Christian view of the Son as a preexistent hypostasis alongside the Father, and similar views concerning the Spirit that developed in the course of the formation of the doctrine of the Trinity, were not from the outside opposed to Judaism and its belief in one God. One example of this procedure is the preexistence of wisdom in this passage, which was the starting point both for the Johannine concept of Logos and for the doctrine of the Logos in early Christian Apologists. Rabbinic theology also equated the preexistent wisdom of God with the Torah. It seems that Justin Martyr (Dialogue, 61.1ff) referred this passage to the Logos, and thus equated wisdom with the Logos rather than the Spirit. In addition, when Origen (De Princ. I.2.1-4) combined the notion of Jesus as the only Son with 8:23 he did not have an adequate biblical basis for the concept of the eternal begetting of the Son have an adequate biblical basis.[8] The theological tradition has explained the participation of the eternal Son in the act of creation with the help of the idea that the Logos corresponds to the divine intellect, which from all eternity contains within itself the images of things, the ideas. The notion goes back to Middle Platonism and its distinction between ideas and the divine mind, or, in Philo, the divine Logos. Origen (De Princ. 1.2.2) incorporated it fully into his systematic presentation of Christian doctrine. According to him the origins, ideas, and forms of all creatures are present in the hypostatic wisdom of God, the Son. Therefore, he calls the wisdom of scripture, referring to this passage, the beginning of the ways of God. Thus, regarding the function of Christ as the mediator of creation, the New Testament develops the idea of the Son of God in connection with the Jewish concept of preexistent divine wisdom, as we find in verses 22-31, and expresses it in terms of the concept of the Logos, as in Colossians 1:15-20, Hebrews 1:2-3, and John 1:1-18.[9] Questions related to the origin of the idea of preexistence, which we find in Jewish wisdom speculation as this passage and Sirach 24 testify, must not crowd out the more basic question of the reasons for linking the idea to the figure of Jesus in the tradition concerning him, such as Luke 13:34-35.[10]
The remaining verses (24-31) constitute an in-depth discussion of wisdom's role in creation. Some scholars suggests that verses 27-31 was added later in order to supplement v. 12-21. 24 When there were no depths (Hebrew tehom), I was brought forth. Wisdom exists prior to "the deep," whereas Genesis 1:2 says only God was there, giving shape to "the deep." The text preserves the order of creation from Genesis 1 in that in Genesis 1:2 the only thing that exists in the formless void of the world before creation, besides the darkness, is the abyss. Wisdom states in Proverbs 8:24 and 8:27-28 that God created her even before the depths. None of the other natural features were in existence either. There were no springs, mountains, or hills. Wisdom is present when God crafts the heavens, and although the term raqiah, or “firmament” used in Genesis 1 is absent here, the image of the raqiah, which is essentially a dome, hammered out into a hemisphere like an inverted brass bowl, is still evoked in this imagery by the circle drawn “on the face of the deep” (Proverbs 8:27). The concept of this circle is that of a circle that one would make when the inverted bowl of the firmament touches the earth, forever keeping the waters of chaos separated from the bubble of air and sky in which God planted creation. This image of the earth as contained beneath a circular vault that holds back the waters of chaos is one we also find in Job 22:14 and Isaiah 40:22. When there were no springs abounding with water, Wisdom was present. 25 Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth— a reference that is not so much myth as an affirmation of wisdom in creation. 26 When he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first bits of soil (Hebrew ‘apar). There was no earth, nor was there any of the dust from which humanity is made in Genesis 2:7. 27 When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep (Hebrew tehomot), 28 when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep (Hebrew tehomot), 29 when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command. The image of God determining the limits of the waters is one we find in Jeremiah 5:22 and Job 26:10. When he marked out the foundations of the earth, 30 then I was beside him, like a master worker (craftsman); and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, 31 rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race (Genesis 1, God saw that it was good). We have here a powerful image, if we let it sink into our imagination and play with it. One does not need to exalt the sole efficacy of God in a way that suggests the disparagement of the creature and therefore the Creator. The creature may continue to be what it is, running its course within the limits marked off for it. God does not begrudge it this joy. There is a delighting in which first the Creator and then the creature has a part. This is the grand mystery of the divine preservation.[11]The ambiguity inherent in the Hebrew vowels makes the translation of "craftsman" (NIV) questionable. Other readings supply a different sense, that of a young, dependent child, gleefully applauding Yahweh's creative genius. The picture in verses 30-31 could be that of the child wisdom who is the darling of the Lord. This would also suggest birth rather than creation. The intent here is to emphasize the vast intelligence of wisdom by assigning her a function in creation.[12] The point is that Wisdom is not only present at creation but also a participant in creation. All this recalls the presence of the "logos" in the prologue to John's gospel, 1:1-3 and Colossians 1:15-16. Wisdom and the Word have a creative presence at creation and thus justify an impressive claim upon our lives: "Whoever fails to find me harms himself; all who hate me love death" (8:36 NIV).
The view is cosmology rather than a historical community. These verses give impressive credentials to Wisdom and these are anything but mundane. God created Wisdom prior to all other things and then used Wisdom to create the rest of the world. By choosing to employ Wisdom, then, ordinary human beings can have at their disposal the same guiding force with which God created the universe. This is quite a selling point.
Although all of these descriptions of creation are common to other biblical passages that evoke the image of God as creator, the image of God having a companion in the creative process, namely Wisdom, is one we find only in Proverbs. The veneration of Wisdom as a goddess by the Gnostics during the early Christian era likely motivated John’s gospel to identify the second Person of the Trinity, and therefore Jesus of Nazareth, with God’s primordial partner in creation, referred to with the masculine term logos, meaning “word” or “logic.” Wisdom, having become Sophia of the Gnostics, needed to fade into the obscure back pages of the Hebrew Bible. We are now free to embrace her again, however, knowing that to seek her is simply a means of seeking knowledge of the one God.
Wisdom speaks more plainly than in Chapter 3. As God’s eternal work produced before all other works as the first witness, the writer equates wisdom with God, so that again Proverbs tells us that all the works of God testify to divine wisdom as the first and original work. There is no independent attempt at interpreting the universe even in this exalted cosmological section. The emphasizing of these exhortations of this practical revelation of wisdom, that is, the emphasizing of this divine address, consists in the fact that the same wisdom, the same God whose exhortations the author sums up in the beginning and end of the chapter, the author characterizes as the One who created the world and sustains it in divine patience. God has every right to expect that the sphere of this world, the ground that God alone has created and sustained, will need this exhortation. Those who do not heed it cut the only possible ground from under their feet. Those who do heed it live in accordance with the meaning of every creaturely possibility of life.[13]
In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it, thou art a fool. --Old proverb.
Wisdom is not a state of being, or a destination at which one finally arrives; rather, it is bread for the journey -- a companion for one's pilgrim walk.
There is a wonderful children's story about Alberic the Wise.[14] Albert was a young man who knew nothing of the world other than the little village in which he lived. One day a stranger came to town, an old man with a large sack on his back. Out of curiosity, Albert began a conversation with the traveler who told Albert tales of faraway places full of mystery and wonder. For several days after his encounter with this old man, Albert could think only of the larger world that lay outside his village. Eventually, the allure of the unknown proved greater than the comfort of the familiar, so he packed his belongings and set out for these faraway places in search of the wisdom they might offer. Before long, he came to a walled city grander than anything he had ever imagined. This city was renowned for its manufacture of stained glass. Satisfying himself that beauty was the true aim of wisdom, Albert became an apprentice to an old artisan. He worked for two years, doing everything the artisan asked him to do. He learned all he could about the art of stained glass making. Finally, the day came for Albert to prove his own skill and show what he had learned. He labored meticulously over his stained glass creation, but alas, the finished product was of inferior quality. He would never be a glassmaker. Albert moved on from that city to another famous for its stonecutters and masons. "Beauty isn't everything," he thought. "The true measure of wisdom is utility. I'll do something useful." Therefore, again he set about the task of learning a trade, this time as a stonecutter. Nevertheless, his ability at stonecutting was as lacking as his efforts at making stained glass and so he moved on to the next town. "Usefulness isn't everything," he decided. "Innovation is surely the measure of wisdom. I'll do something original." Soon he arrived at a village where the goldsmiths created objects of unsurpassed beauty and elegance. However, for Albert, this third attempt only produced a third failure. So it went, city after city, try after try, year after year. Still, wisdom and skill eluded Albert. Now old and alone, Albert reached the great, capital city where he stopped to rest with his accumulation of objects and memories. Intrigued by his strangeness, some of the youngsters of the town came up to him and inquired of him where he had been and what he had seen. Albert began to relate to them the stories of his pilgrimage. Each day brought more and more people to hear his tales of faraway places and to marvel at his knowledge. Even the king came to listen and seek advice. So impressed was the king that he moved Albert into a castle and gave him the title of Albert the Wise. After the novelty and the newness of his recently acquired fame began to fade, Albert began to experience self-doubt. No matter what anyone else said or thought, Albert knew that he was not wise. However, the more he tried to disown his reputation for wisdom, the wiser townspeople thought him to be. Albert grew increasingly sad and less at ease with himself. Finally, to the utter astonishment of everyone, Albert packed up his belongings, gave up his palace, his wealth, his servants and his exalted position among the citizens of the town, and headed out on a journey for an unknown destination. Albert had discovered the one thing that for him was true wisdom. "It is much better," he said, "to look for what I may never find than to find what I do not really want."
We all, like Albert, are seekers of wisdom. Moreover, many of us, like Albert, find what we think is the source of wisdom, only to be disappointed when reality does not measure up to expectations. Therefore, what is wisdom and where does one find it?
Wisdom is standing at the crossroads in the city shouting at the top of her lungs for folks to heed her words of wisdom. So, what better place to go to find wisdom than to go to the city? As you begin your search for Wisdom, you notice how many voices there are in the city, each competing with the others for attention. One thing is for certain -- if you expect to hear the voice of Wisdom, you will need to listen carefully, for hers is not the only voice clamoring for your attention. Just as challenging as the multitude of voices is the variety of crossroads. Which one should you choose? If you were Wisdom, where would you set up shop in order for people to hear you? You decide to begin in the financial district of the city. If there is one thing people care about the most, it is their pocketbook. In addition, the terms 'wise,' 'prudent,' and 'investment' seem to hang out a lot together, so perhaps this is the logical place to start. You look hard and listen intently, but Wisdom does not seem to be here. Next, you move on to the commercial district of the city. After all, with its volume of traffic, this is a more likely crossroad than the financial district. Therefore, you join the line as it moves slowly into the store. The closer you approach the focus of attention, the more excited the scene becomes. Then comes your turn to step forward and as you do, your heart falls. You are not in line for wisdom after all -- only the most recent fad. Nevertheless, you stay a while to watch and listen. So many stores. So much to buy. Everywhere from buyer to seller, money is changing hands. You decide to look further. At the university campus in the heart of the city where participants celebrate knowledge and prize learning, you are certain you can find Wisdom. As you walk through the hallways of the classroom buildings, you hear interesting, wonder-filled, exciting things. You hear lectures examining the events of history, descriptions of the interrelatedness of the universe and the passions of the heart seeking expression in poetic words too inadequate to contain them. All of these are as the enchanted songs of the Muses bidding you to embrace them. However, is wisdom the same as knowledge? Is knowledge found in wisdom or is wisdom found in knowledge? Obviously, you have spent too much time in the philosophy lecture. It is time to move on. You look for Wisdom in the halls of justice. You listen for her voice in the sports arena. You search out every crossroad imaginable, but you have not found her. The day is spent, evening arrives, and you feel no wiser for your efforts than you did when the day began. Tired of body and spirit and with no other options presenting themselves, you sit down to reflect on your day. How could the writer of Proverbs have been so wrong? Wisdom is not in the city nor could you hear her voice. You feel cheated.
Then you remember the story of Albert and his journey and begin to alter the way you have evaluated the day just spent. What if Wisdom, unlike knowledge, is not a state of being, or a destination at which one finally arrives? Rather, what if Wisdom, like faith, is merely bread for the journey. What would happen if wisdom were a companion for one's pilgrim walk? Maybe wisdom is not something we possess, but something that possesses us, coming as it does at crucial moments of life providing guidance and direction. Maybe wisdom is a surprising gift delivered by the grace of God. If that is so, then perhaps you have been hearing the voice of Wisdom throughout the day and at every crossroad you encountered. Maybe wisdom is the quiet voice that kept you from falling prey to the enticements of competing voices. Maybe wisdom is the voice that kept calling you back to a reverence of God from which all Wisdom originates. Instead of you finding Wisdom, for one brief moment, Wisdom found you.
[1] Barth (Church Dogmatics III.1 [41.1] 52)
[2] The NRSV's "created" is a problematic translation of the Hebrew which can mean either "create" or "possess." Wisdom "was set up" (v.23) and "was brought forth" (v.24,25); elsewhere in Proverbs, the word qanah appears 12 times with the sense of to gain or acquire.
[3] (see Robert C. Gregg and Dennis E. Groh, Early Arianism: A View of Salvation [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981]).
[4] (see Frank Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973], 15-16).
[5] (see Burton L. Visotzky, The Midrash on Proverbs [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992]).
[6] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, Volume 1, 255)
[7] (ibid, 265)
[8] Pannenberg (ibid, 275)
[9] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, Volume 2, 24, 25)
[10] He (ibid, 368)
[11] Barth (Church Dogmatics III.3 [49.1] 86) . He (II.1 [31.3] 666) also notes that much of natural theology is suspect because it is tedious and unmusical.
[12] Von Rad
[13] Barth (Church Dogmatics II.1 [30.3] 429)
[14] (Norton Juster, Alberic the Wise [Picture Book Studio, 1992]).
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