Proverbs 3:19 - Exposition

The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth. The emphatic position of the word Jehovah, "the Lord," at the beginning of the sentence (cf. Psalms 27:1-14 ; Psalms 97:1-12 ; Psalms 99:1-9 ), as well as the nature of the discourse, indicates a new paragraph. The description of the creative Wisdom of Jehovah may have been suggested to the mind of the teacher by the mention of the tree of life, in Proverbs 3:18 (Zockler); but the connection between this and the preceding passage has to be sought for in something deeper. The scope of the teacher is to exhibit, and so to recommend, Wisdom in every respect, and after showing her excellence in man, he now brings her forward as the medium of creation, and hence in her relation to God. By wisdom ( b'kokhmah ); Vulgate, sapientia ; LXX ; σοφίᾳ . It is evident that Wisdom is here something more than an attribute of Jehovah. "By Wisdom" means "by, or through, the instrumentality of Wisdom." While the corresponding and parallel expressions, "understanding," "knowledge," militate against the idea of an hypostatizing of Wisdom, i.e. assigning to Wisdom a concrete and objective personality, yet the language is sufficiently strong, when we connect this passage with Proverbs 1:1-33 and Proverbs 8:1-36 , to warrant our regarding Wisdom as something apart from yet intimately connected with Jehovah, as an active agency employed by him, and hence this description may. be looked upon as an anticipation of that which is more fully developed in Proverbs 8:1-36 ; where the characteristics which are wanting here are there worked out at length. The rabbins evidently connected the passage before us, as well as Proverbs 1:1-33 and Proverbs 8:1-36 , with Genesis 1:1 , by rendering bereshith, "in the beginning." by bekokhmah, "by Wisdom." Our Lord identifies himself with the Divine Sophia, or Wisdom ( Luke 11:49 ). And the language of St. John, "All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made" ( John 1:3 ), which assigns to the Logos, or Word of God, i.e. Christ, the act of creation (cf. John 1:10 , and especially the language of St. Paul, in Colossians 1:16 ), argues in favour of the view of some commentators who understand Wisdom to refer to the Second Person of the Trinity. The Logos was understood by Alexandrian Judaism to express the manifestation of the unseen God, the Absolute Being, in the creation and government of the world; and the Christian teachers, when they adopted this term, assigned to it a concrete meaning as indicating the Incarnate Word (see Bishop Lightfoot, in Colossians 1:15 ). For the passage, see Psalms 33:6 ; Psalms 104:24 ; Psalms 136:5 ; and especially Jeremiah 10:12 , "He hath established the world by his wisdom," etc.; Jeremiah 51:55 ; Ec 24:2, seq. Hath founded ( yasod ); Vulgate, fundavit ; LXX ; ἐθεμελίωσε . The same verb is used in Job 38:4 ; Psalms 24:2 ; Psalms 78:69 , of the creation of the earth by God. While the primary meaning of yasad is "to give fixity to," "to lay fast," that of konen, rendered "he hath established," is "to set up," "to erect," and so "to found, " from kun, or referring to the Arabic and Ethiopic cognate root, "to exist," "to give existence to." The marginal reading, "prepared," corresponds with the LXX . ἐτοίμασε . The Vulgate is stabilivit, "he hath established."