Lady Wisdom

Introduction

If you’re anything like me, you have at some point in your life gotten yourself into some varying degree at trouble. Whether it is a missed chore, a sibling fist-a-cuffs, a skipped school day, or you drove your car into a lake after misreading a GPS navigation system, we’ve all been in some form of trouble. In my life, trouble had no shortage of opportunity to show itself, mostly because I was a stubborn young boy who, while avoiding trouble with the law, found plenty of ways to bend the rules. In all of my trouble-making, however, there was a common goal...

Do not let Mom find out.

As many a young girl or boy could attest to, having Mom or Dad find out about the trouble you’ve made meant going home to inescapable consequences. Now, the narrative of discipline changes from person to person, but for me, with Dad not in the house, that role of discipline fell to Mom. She had this masterful way of delivering her righteous anger in a way that made you feel sore on the inside, and less so on the outside. And so, whenever trouble came a-knocking, I tried my hardest to make sure she didn’t find out.

Somehow, though, she always did. And the punishment would be swift and direct and most always deserved. And I would sit in my room deep in thoughts of how I let her down…and admittedly, a few thoughts here and there about how to hide trouble better in the future. But no matter what I did, or how I did it, or even if I meant to do it, Mom would find out.

As every mother or father does, as I got older, she began to give me warnings about potential foolishness and its ramifications:

“You stick that fork in that socket, I’ll stick that fork in you” was always a fun one to hear.

“I brought you into this world, I’ll take you out” was the favorite general condition warning.

“Be nice to others,” “Listen to your teacher,” and “Go to class” highlighted the early mornings before school, while “Do your homework,” “Eat your vegetables,” and “Turn that TV off and get some rest” brought the day to its end.

And, like countless young children who naively think they know all, I began to tune out these reminders, and sure enough, more trouble. So often I would look back and see my Mom at the beginning of the stories of my mistakes, standing there and offering her motherly wisdom, which I would ignore and proceed to suffer because of that ignorance.

And she would always tell me, once the conflict began to resolve, that she would tell me these warnings because she loved me, not because she wants to hear herself talk.

Much like the book that could be made of all Mom’s warnings to me, the Book of Proverbs weaves together a collection of pithy sayings into the most poignant of Wisdom literatures in the Hebrew Bible, and it’s relevance is strong even today, being a go-to for Bible verse memorization and bumper sticker-theology. Out of its 31 chapters, the first 9 chapters contain a rhetorical discourse between a teacher and a young student characterized by impressionability and naivete, and presents to the student two distinct paths that can be chosen in life—that of Wisdom, personified by an elegant lady offering riches and satisfaction, and of Folly, personified by a loud and ignorant woman who tempts and knows nothing. The focus of these nine chapters is to present Wisdom as the vastly superior path to choose.

In , after three chapters commending wisdom and three more condemning folly, we get Wisdom’s epic poem of self-praise, her grand soliloquy that is designed to lift her voice above the voices of the wicked and foolish. The most notable verses here are 22-31, where Wisdom outlines her role and existence in the Creation process. The rest of the chapter reads well without these verses, leading some scholars to believe that this section is a separate section of great significance, and so special attention should be paid to it. In fact, I believe that what is being said in this section of Proverbs ties together each of the verses in our lectionary today.

"Lady” Wisdom

I love the way Eugene Peterson begins this chapter, never failing to pull no punches in his choice of language. “Do you hear Lady Wisdom calling?” he writes. “Can you hear Madame Insight raising her voice? She’s taken her stand at First and Main, at the busiest intersection. Right in the city square where the traffic is thickest, she shouts, ‘You—I’m talking to all of you, everyone out here on the streets!” Peterson continues strongly, “Listen, you idiots—learn good sense! You blockheads—shape up! Don’t miss a word of this—I’m telling you how to live well, I’m telling you how to live at your best.”

I cannot continue on with this passage without making a comment on the nature of gender here. Many people make light of Wisdom as a woman here, simply saying that the feminine pronouns are necessitated by the fact that the Hebrew חָכְמָה is a feminine noun by nature. Further, it could be said that the author is addressing a young male student here, and so uses a female personification of both Wisdom and Folly here to create a certain kind of tension of choice for the young man—to not personify Wisdom as female would make the passage lose its edge, especially considering who would be hearing and later reading these texts.

But this minimizes the nature of the narrative presented here, as well as the significance of the female voice here. To have a young and desirable woman shouting in the square, let alone with such harsh and direct words of warning, would have gone considerably against the role of women in the culture of ancient Israel, where women were mostly expected to have some lesser role than that of man. So while the noun for wisdom may be feminine, it could be argued that this personified character should have taken more of a masculine form to establish an authority to be heard. However, the author intentionally feminizes wisdom, a move which cannot and should not be minimized in arguments of grammar or sexuality. Saying its just a grammar issue minimizes the intense poetic intention of the author, while saying its just a sexual-romantic issue significantly devalues women to objects of lust and desire, and both should be immediately questioned and ultimately dismissed.

And so, we are presented here with Lady Wisdom calling and raising her voice. She calls to all people everywhere—from the highest points, along the paths, at the intersections, before the gates to the city, she cries out to them wherever she has a chance to be seen or heard. She urges those who are simple in their learning or young in their understanding to not miss what she has to say. She has a call on how to live well, how to “live your best life now!” Peterson translates, “I am Lady Wisdom, and I live next to Sanity; Knowledge and Discretion live just down the street” in verse 12, and “You can find me on Righteous Road—that’s where I walk—at the intersection of Justice Avenue, handing out life to those who love me, filling their arms with life—armloads of life!” at verses 20-21. Lady Wisdom is presenting to this young student the very best and most desirable of things, and we ought to take heed as well. Who wouldn’t want to best of the best, as described in these verses?

Wisdom in…Prosperity?

But is this enough to convince us? Or, a better question yet, should this be enough? Should the way we live be driven by this desire for the best in our lives? Plenty of people would say that this is not the fear of the Lord, but a selfish desire for gain and happiness, and on the surface, it’s hard to argue with them. Verses 10-11 instruct the student to “Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold; for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her,” while verses 18-19 even go so far as to say, “riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and prosperity. My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold, and my yield than choice silver.” This talk of prosperity and riches seems to convey this sense that to gain is to win.

But the Proverb makes it clear that the result of this gain comes with a certain living—one filled with the fear of the Lord. Among the qualifications here of this fear are: hatred of evil, insight, strength, justice, righteousness, obedience, discretion, and a disposition to seeking knowledge. So to desire Wisdom is to gain, yes, but it is also to desire an end to all that which opposes Wisdom. Like Lady Wisdom, herself, we are to stand at the highest points, along the paths, in the intersections, before the gates to the city, crying out against evil, foolishness, oppression, injustice, wrongdoing, disobedience, indiscretion, and madness. We have this call to shout and cry and raise this hallelujah to any person we encounter. We must share this, the glory of God, to the very ends of the earth, being empowered, equipped, enabled, and entrusted with this task through the justification by grace through faith, which as , one of our lectionary texts this week, reminds us that this justification leads to “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this same grace in which we stand and boast”—this same grace that we shout to all the earth, pouring out from our hearts “because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us ().”

And who is this Spirit, but the Spirit of truth and wisdom? Our other lectionary text was , which in part tells us that “when the Spirit of truth comes, she will guide you into all the truth; for she will not speak her own, but will speak whatever she hears, and she will declare to you the things that are to come (v. 13).” Your translations read the Spirit as “he” and not “she,” and the Greek pneumatos is also masculine in nature, but I offer this feminine reading specifically because I want to propose something that has been heavily discussed and debated in Christianity for over two millennia: that, perhaps, the same Lady Wisdom in Proverbs can refer to this same Spirit of Truth and Wisdom across the New Testament. For this, we point to that section I mentioned earlier, the section that stands out from the rest of in a purposeful way.

Lady Wisdom and Creation

Verses 22-31 are often referenced when discussing the creation account, with similar themes being established in both. In these verses, Lady Wisdom declare that she was created or brought forth by the Lord at the beginning of the creation work. She says, “When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth—when the Lord had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first bits of soil. When the Lord established the heavens, I was there, when a circle was drawn on the face of the deep, when the skies above were made firm, when the fountains of the deep were established, when the sea was assigned its limit, so that the waters might not transgress the Lord’s command, when the foundations of the earth were marked out, then I was beside the Lord, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before the Lord always, rejoicing in the inhabited world and delighting in the human race (vv. 24-31).”

There are two striking differences between this text and that of . First, there is only a passing reference to the creation of humanity in this text, whereas the climax of is the creation of humanity and its subsequent blessing of Sabbath rest. But, more interestingly, this text is told in first person, “I” language, and not third person “God” language. The writer here wants to stress that Lady Wisdom was active and present in the creation process. If we draw on insights from other texts like and our Creeds, we know that Jesus and the Holy Spirit were present with the Creator God in creation, and this doctrine of Trinity is at the core of the Christian faith.

But where is this Lady Wisdom? Only here does any writer make a claim that another was present in creation. Only here does any writer make a claim that the first creation was not any mountain, spring, sea, sky, or human, but Lady Wisdom. While it is certainly not the intention of the author to equate Lady Wisdom to the pre-existent Logos or Holy Spirit that was present before time with God, scholarship has repeatedly made efforts to do so. Early 3rd and 4th century theories of Lady Wisdom being some pre-incarnate expression of Jesus ignited part of the theology that necessitated the writing of the Nicene Creed, wherein the Church affirmed that Christ was not a separate creation from God, but was one with God—begotten, not made, of the one being with the Father. With our confessions of faith in the creeds, our tradition of , and our widespread concensus in theology, then, we must rule out Lady Wisdom as a reference to Christ, our Redeemer, at least directly.

But can we equate Lady Wisdom to some expression of the Holy Spirit before her descent at Pentecost? We can certainly see some similarities. Both help all that live to know right and wrong and to choose between them, to be courageous, to define our treasures and values, to make strong our families and communities, so why not have them be the same? The very same problem that rules out Christ here seems to rule out the Spirit as well, this idea of being created by God. We know that the Spirit was the agent of creation, the “breath of God” that floated over the waters in . We also know that the Hebrew word for Spirit, ruach, not only means both spirit and breath, but is also feminine in nature, so why not Lady Wisdom as the Holy Spirit? It is certainly true that the controversy behind the Nicene Creed has shut down most of Christian orthodoxy to the idea that Lady Wisdom was an expression of either Christ or the Spirit, but we are still left with the question of where or how Lady Wisdom was present in the creation process.

The Joys of Wisdom

Dr. William Brown of Columbia Theological Seminary presents a fascinating insight on these verses that may provide us with some clarity or a possible explanation. He suggests that, instead of carrying the centuries of controversy and interpretation to this text, we should instead gleam insight from the text, letting it speak for itself, and letting Lady Wisdom speak for herself, in an effort to enrich our Christian faith.

We have this personified Lady Wisdom, birthed first in creation and unmatched in status in that creation. Her origin is distinguished from creation, but she shares an intimate connection to it and its inhabitants. While some versions, including our NRSV version, mention in verse 30 that she is beside God like a master worker or craftswoman, indicating a more hands-on impact in creation, other translations including the CEB and Peterson’s MSG translate the Hebrew word there as little child, and so the last verses read, “I was having fun, smiling before him all the time, frolicking with his inhabited earth and delighting in the human race (CEB vv. 30-1).” This evocation of child helps us understand why the Proverbs creation story mentions the human race so insignificantly. While the bricks and mortar of creation are detailed in the verses a-plenty, it is still humanity at the forefront here, personified in Wisdom, this young girl frolicking about and delighting in humanity. As Brown points out, “in relation to her, God is not just the Creator of the cosmos; the deity of design is also a doting, playful (not to mention single) parent. As far as Wisdom is concerned, God is a parent first and an architect second. And the world is her playhouse.”

Young Lady Wisdom’s playing about here performs a dual function in the interpretation, engaging both God and creation in delight and play. She is the delight of the world that enlightens the world. This connection suggest something even further: Without God, the world has no delight. Without the world, God has no delight. Void of a compassionate yet righteous Creator, the world, even if it were to come into existence by some other means, would be a joyless and meaningless place, filled with nothingness, unable to delight in anything. Likewise, without a creation to care for and to rule over, God is rendered useless and empty, and the infinite power of God would lose its purpose and significance. This young child, this Lady Wisdom, provides us with an oft-neglected theme in the faith: God delights in the creation, and the creation delights in God. Neither could do so without Wisdom tying them together in boundless joy. And if that is true, it also speaks to the nature of Wisdom herself:

Wisdom needs a God and a world in order to be truly wise. In other words, if the world seeks Wisdom apart from God, they are not truly wise. And, as God realized in the Genesis narrative and the covenant with Noah after the destruction of the evil world, God cannot be truly wise without a world to be wise for.

Wrap Up

tells us what this wisdom looks like, which is justice and insight and discernment and truth. tells us that the Spirit has come to spread this truth through us. tells us that we have the hope of God’s glorious truth to share because the Spirit has come. Trinity Sunday reminds us of the distinct unity that is found in God, our Creator; Christ, our Redeemer; and the Spirit, our Sustainer.

My Mom always told me that she never warned me just because she wanted to, but because she loved me. To this day, she tells me how proud she is of me, and how happy she is that I’ve been where I’ve been and that I’m going where I’m going. She finds her joy in me and my siblings. She might not be Lady Wisdom, but when I think of my mom, that’s who comes to mind. Because Lady Wisdom reminds us that above all things, we ought to delight in life, just as the God who gave us life delights in us.