Proverbs 3:19-20

19, 20. The Lord by wisdom These verses seem to be added for the purpose of commending, in the strongest manner, the pursuit of wisdom. It is an attribute of God himself. By attaining and appreciating true wisdom, a man comes into communion with Jehovah, and participates with him in the enjoyment of the same excellency; for it is in or by wisdom that he performs all his works, some samples of which are given a part for all. The terms here rendered wisdom, understanding, and knowledge, refer, with some discrimination, to the same thing. They are so often interchanged that we may conclude variety of diction to be chiefly the object, and not the expression of ideas substantially different.

Founded the earth… established the heavens There is nothing in these terms inconsistent with our modern discoveries in cosmogony and astronomy.

The language is popular, phenomenal, and poetic, and, like all similar terms in the book, neither affirms nor denies any particular philosophical theory. The wise man spoke according to the popular, or, perhaps, rather, the poetical apprehension of things. The allusion, in Proverbs 3:20, to the depths being broken up, is of doubtful meaning. Some expositors understand it of the ordinary operations of nature in conducting fountains of water from the bowels of the earth; others, to the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep at the flood, (Genesis 7:11;) others, again, to the original separating of the waters above and below the expanse, “firmament,” in Genesis 1:6, in consequence of which the clouds drop down, or, as it might be rendered, the atmosphere distils, the dew upon the earth.

Clouds… dew As there is nothing that to an understanding mind conveys a more impressive sense of the wisdom and beneficence of the Deity than the atmospheric arrangements of the globe, the latter meaning is a very beautiful and striking one: and as the preceding verse refers to the creation of the heavens and the earth, there would seem to be no inconsistency in so interpreting Proverbs 3:20, especially the latter clause, unless it might be thought that the ideas are too recondite and abstruse to be attributed to the ancient philosopher. We moderns, however, are gradually learning that the ancients knew more than we once gave them credit for. Comp. Genesis 1:7; Genesis 7:11; Job 38:0.