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Matthew Henry

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Proverbs 8:22-31

That it is an intelligent and divine person that here speaks seems very plain, and that it is not meant of a mere essential property of the divine nature, for Wisdom here has personal properties and actions; and that intelligent divine person can be no other than the Son of God himself, to whom the principal things here spoken of wisdom are attributed in other scriptures, and we must explain scripture by itself. If Solomon himself designed only the praise of wisdom as it is an attribute of... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Proverbs 8:27

When he prepared the heavens, I was there ,.... Made, beautified, and adorned them; when he gave them their form, figure, magnitude, and motion; when he garnished them with the sun, moon, and stars; then was Christ present, not as a mere spectator, but as a co-worker; see Hebrews 1:10 ; and even the third heaven, the place and state of glorified saints, prepared for them from the foundation of the world, Matthew 25:34 ; when he set a compass upon the face of the depth : or... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Proverbs 8:28

When he established the clouds above ,.... In which the waters are bound, and yet are not rent under them; and where, in the thin air, they hang heavy with them; where they are weighed by measure, and a decree made for them when they shall fall; and when they do, the Lord makes small the drops of water, which the clouds do drop and distil on men abundantly; the spreadings of which are beyond understanding, and are unaccountable, and must be referred to the power of God; who has settled and... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Proverbs 8:29

When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment ,.... A perpetual decree, which never has been altered nor never will: he has placed the sand for the bounds of the sea everywhere, which it cannot pass, though its waves toss, foam, and roar; this is his decreed place, with which he has shut it up, as with doors, bars, and bolts; so that those proud waves may come hitherto and no further, Jeremiah 5:22 ; when he appointed the foundations of the earth ;... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Proverbs 8:27

When he prepared the heavens, I was there - For there is no part of the creation of God in which wisdom, skill, contrivance, are more manifest, than in the construction of the visible heavens. When he set a compass upon the face of the depth - Does not this refer to the establishment of the law of gravitation? by which all the particles of matter, tending to a common center, would produce in all bodies the orbicular form, which we see them have; so that even the waters are not only... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Proverbs 8:28

The clouds above - שחקים shechakim , "the ethereal regions," taking in the whole of the atmosphere, with all its meteors, clouds, vapours, etc. read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Proverbs 8:29

When he gave to the sea his decree - When he assigned its limits, adjusted its saltness, and proportioned the extent of the surface to the quantity of vapors to be raised from it, for the irrigation of the terrene surface. The foundations of the earth - Those irreversible laws by which all its motions are governed; its annual and diurnal rotation, and particularly its centrifugal and centripetal forces; by the former of which it has its annual motion round the sun like all other planets;... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Proverbs 8:1-36

14. Fourteenth admonitory discourse concerning Wisdom—her excellence, her origin, her gifts. She is contrasted with the strange woman of Proverbs 7:1-27 ; and the exceeding greatness of the blessings which she offers exhibits in the most marked manner the nothingness of the deceiver's gifts. One is reminded of the celebrated episode of the choice of Hercules, delineated by Xenophon, 'Memorab.,' 2.1. 21, etc. The chapter divides itself into four sections. read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Proverbs 8:22-31

Wisdom speaks of her origin, her active operations, the part which she bore in the creation of the universe, her relation to God (see on Proverbs 1:20 and Proverbs 3:19 , and Introduction). It is impossible to decide what was the exact view of the writer with regard to the wisdom of which he speaks so eloquently; but there can be no doubt that he was guided in his diction so as to give expression to the idea of him whom St. John calls the Word of God. The language used is not applicable to... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Proverbs 8:22-31

The primeval glory of Divine wisdom I. THE HIGHEST WISDOM IS CREATED BY GOD . "The Lord created me as the first of his way." This idea was suggested to the Greeks in the myth of Athene, who sprang from the head of Zeus. It is the poetic form of the great truth that God is the Creator of thoughts as well as of things; and it suggests that he not only called individual intelligences into being, but originated the primary laws and conditions of all intelligence, just as he... read more

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