The first nine chapters of the book of Proverbs provide us with various sketches of Wisdom. We will examine these in the following pages. Wisdom is no abstract concept; wisdom is personified: she is described as a woman. In some places she is depicted by just a line drawing, one or two of her features emphasized for a particular purpose. In others, we are given a richly coloured, almost three-dimensional portrait. Taken together, these sketches introduce us to a woman who speaks the wisdom of God, and who points the way of life.
This personification of Wisdom is not a (mere) literary device; it reflects the essential nature of biblical wisdom. Wisdom is embodied. Wisdom is for living. In fact, nothing is truly known until it is lived out in the everyday world.
It is not until Proverbs 8 that Wisdomâs full beauty is described. But throughout the earlier chapters, details of her portrait are being filled in, rather like earlier sketches of a great Renaissance painter. In some art galleries you can see the âcartoonsâ â preliminary sketches â of the great works of art, in which the artist has concentrated on one detail or another which will eventually contribute to the finished portrait. Proverbs 1â7 gives us a number of preliminary sketches of Wisdom, before her full-colour portrait appears in chapter 8.
These earlier sketches emphasize different aspects of Wisdomâs role. Professor Robert Coughenour has drawn together a number of different wisdom themes from the Scriptures, many of which we find illustrated in the first nine chapters of Proverbs. The following paragraphs draw on and adapt his work.1 We will select, in this chapter, those sections of Proverbs 1 â 9 which fill out Wisdomâs portrait, returning to the remaining sections of Proverbs 1 â 9 in our next chapter.
The town crier (1:20â33)
First of all, Wisdom is a sort of town crier, calling aloud at the street corner, making an appeal in the public squares. This is not the ridiculous figure with the billboard so much as the experienced orator at Speakersâ Corner, calling to the crowds to take stock of their foolish ways before it is too late. This is, in fact, far more ordinary than Speakersâ Corner. In Old Testament social life, we often find that the gateways of the city (1:21) are the places where the elders of the city gather to make plans, to enact justice, and to deliberate together about the welfare of the city. In the book of Ruth, it is at the gate that Boaz transacts his business (Ru. 4:1). In the book of Amos (cf. 5:15), the leaders are admonished because they have failed to enact justice at the gate. It is here at the city gate that Wisdom issues her call. Wisdom belongs at the centre of public life. She is a brave, passionate woman, with something very serious to say. Hers is a summons to the people to understand. Wisdom reproves those who will not listen, laughs at those who ignore her advice, but offers safety and security to those who heed her call.
Proverbs 1:20â33 is a three-part poem. In the first part (20â23), Wisdom is introduced as calling aloud in the street, in the public squares, and in the gateways. She calls to the simple (naĂŻve) ones, asking why they seem to despise wisdom, and asking them to listen to her. Then (24â31) she denounces them, using the past tense for dramatic effect, as though her hearers had already rejected her appeal; and she warns of the calamity to come. Verses 24â27 addresses directly those who are mocking, perhaps heckling as she speaks. But Wisdom will have the last laugh (26). Then, perhaps turning to the wider crowd of onlookers, she points to her hecklers and comments on their fate (28â31). Verse 28 powerfully reverses the way that Godâs response to prayerful people is expressed in some other places (contrast, for example, Is. 65:24). Finally, in the third part of the poem (32â33), Wisdom sums up her message: the waywardness of those who ignore wisdom will be their destruction, but there is a more hopeful fate for the attentive.
Wisdom calls aloud in the street,
she raises her voice in the public squares;
21at the head of the noisy streets she cries out,
in the gateways of the city she makes her speech:
22âHow long will you simple ones love your simple ways?
How long will mockers delight in mockery
and fools hate knowledge?
23If you had responded to my rebuke,
I would have poured out my heart to you
and made my thoughts known to you.
24But since you rejected me when I called
and no-one gave heed when I stretched out my hand,
25since you ignored all my advice
and would not accept my rebuke,
26I in turn will laugh at your disaster;
I will mock when calamity overtakes you â
27when calamity overtakes you like a storm,
when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind,
when distress and trouble overwhelm you.
28âThen they will call to me but I will not answer;
they will look for me but will not find me.
29Since they hated knowledge
and did not choose to fear the LORD,
30since they would not accept my advice
and spurned my rebuke,
31they will eat the fruit of their ways
and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.
32For the waywardness of the simple will kill them,
and the complacency of fools will destroy them;
33but whoever listens to me will live in safety
and be at ease, without fear of harm.â
Wisdom offers her advice in the public place. This is no secret knowledge, no private religious opinion. Wisdom can be found, and her advice heard, in the public realm. In the ordinary everyday places where people live their lives, build their relationships, learn their skills, seek their health and defend against death, there Godâs Wisdom can be heard. So Wisdom faces her hearers with a challenge. There are choices to be made. There is the way of folly, of refusing the reverent obedience to God which is Wisdomâs hallmark: the end of that road is deafness, deadness and disaster. Or there is Wisdomâs way, bringing the public realm, the choices, and the importance of evaluating between different priorities and different paths, into the light of God. Wisdom offers the life-giving knowledge of God and his ways: how long will the fools hate this knowledge?
Wisdom needs to be searched for (2:1â9)
The second preliminary sketch of Wisdom is rather different. Now she is portrayed not only as one of the disclosures of Godâs presence in the world, but as someone who sometimes hides, and her treasures need to be searched for. Her standing at the gate is not a strategy for coercing her hearers. She comes over now more as enticing than exhorting. She needs to be sought after and looked for, like a treasure as rare as silver. The summons to hear Wisdom is really a summons to hear God. The hearers are called to discern Godâs presence in the world, and give attention to it, not only in the special times, or when God is, so to speak, âpublicâ, but at all times, even when God is hidden. I think it was Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675â1751)2 who gave classic expression to the idea which has been captured more recently in the phrase âthe sacrament of the present momentâ, but the thought is there in the writings of the wise sages of the Old Testament. They had a sense that God was present at all times and his hand could be discerned in all things, when things were going well, as well as in the darkness when God seemed to be absent. Godâs Wisdom, so to speak, infiltrates all things, but she often needs to be looked for. Wisdom must be sought out. When she is found, her presence provides a shield of security, a protection for lifeâs journey.
Separating out verses 1â9 from the rest of Proverbs 2 breaks into a long Hebrew sentence, but these verses highlight this emphasis about Wisdomâs elusiveness. It is worth noticing the verbs which are used in the first half of this section: accept (1), store up (1), turning your ear (2), applying your heart (2), call out (3), cry aloud (3), look for (4), search for (4). These are linked with various phrases beginning if. In verses 5â9, we have the responses. If this (1â4), then this (5â9): then you will understand (5, 9) and find (5).
My son, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you,
2turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding,
3and if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
4and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
5then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.
6For the LORD gives wisdom,
and from his mouth come knowled...