1Look, Wisdom calls out,
and Discernment lifts her voice.
2At the top of the heights, on the way,
at the crossroads, she takes her stand,
3by the gates, at the city’s entrance,
at the approach to the portals, she shouts:
4To you, men, I call out,
and my voice, to humankind.
5Understand shrewdness, you dupes,
and fools, make your heart understand.
6Listen, for I speak noble things,
my mouth’s utterance—uprightness.
7For my tongue declares truth
and my lips loathe wickedness.
8In the right are all my mouth’s sayings,
nothing in them is twisted or crooked.
9They are all plain to the discerning
and straightforward for those who find knowledge.
10Take my reproof rather than silver,
and knowledge is choicer than fine gold.
11For wisdom is better than rubies,
all precious things can’t match her worth.
12I, Wisdom, dwell in shrewdness,
and cunning knowledge I find.
13Fear of the LORD is hating evil.
Pride, haughtiness, an evil way,
and perverse speech do I hate.
14Mine is counsel and prudence,
I am Discernment, mine is might.
15Through me kings reign,
and rulers decree righteous laws.
16Through me princes hold sway,
and nobles, all the judges of earth.
17I, all my lovers I love,
and my seekers do find me.
18Riches and honor are with me,
long-lasting wealth and righteousness.
19My fruit is better than all fine gold,
and my yield, than the choicest silver.
20On the path of righteousness I walk,
within the ways of justice,
21to pass substance on to my lovers,
and their storehouses to fill.
22The LORD created me at the outset of His way,
the very first of His works of old.
23In remote eons I was shaped,
at the start of the first things of earth.
24When there were no deeps I was spawned,
when there were no wellsprings, water sources.
25Before mountains were anchored,
before hills I was spawned.
26He had yet not made earth and open land,
and the world’s first clods of soil.
27When He founded the heavens, I was there,
when He traced a circle on the face of the deep,
28when He propped up the skies above,
when He powered the springs of the deep,
29when He set to the sea its limit,
that the waters not flout His command,
when He strengthened the earth’s foundations.
30And I was by Him, an intimate,
I was His delight day after day,
playing before Him at all times,
31playing in the world, His earth,
and my delight with humankind.
32And now, sons, listen to me,
happy who keeps my ways.
33Listen to reproof and get wisdom,
and do not cast it aside.
34Happy the man who listens to me,
to wait at my doors day after day,
to watch the posts of my portals.
35For who finds me has found life,
and will be favored by the LORD.
36And who offends me lays waste his life,
all who hate me love death.
CHAPTER 8 NOTES
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2. At the top of the heights, on the way. The figure of Lady Wisdom positions herself up above—evidently, in a variety of places—where she can be widely heard down below, and she stands by the crossroads and at the entrance to the city (verse 3), where there are many passersby who will hear her voice. The implication is that wisdom is not a hidden or esoteric treasure but something plainly accessible—in the metaphor used here, proclaimed—to all.
6. my mouth’s utterance. More literally, “my mouth’s opening.”
7. my lips loathe wickedness. Literally, “the loathing of my lips is wickedness.”
8. twisted or crooked. Throughout the speech of Lady Wisdom, as elsewhere in Proverbs, there is an emphatic thematic contrast between the crooked and the straight.
9. plain . . . / straightforward. Again, the notion is stressed that wisdom is universally accessible—indeed, transparent. The term rendered as “straightforward” could also be translated rather literally as “what is straight” or “straightness.”
12. I, Wisdom, dwell in shrewdness. This is not really tautological. The quality of wisdom is predicated on the exercise of a kind of savvyness—shrewdness or cunning. See the comment on 1:4.
13. perverse speech. Literally, “a mouth of perversities.”
15. Through me kings reign. Here begins a new emphasis about the importance of wisdom, prepared for by the mention of “might” at the end of the previous line. Wisdom is a crucial prerequisite for statecraft, and only through it are rulers able to exercise effective governance.
16. all the judges of earth. The Masoretic Text reads “all the judges of justice [tsedeq],” but many Hebrew manuscripts as well as two ancient translations show instead “earth” (ʾerets), which sounds better in context. It seems likely that a scribe inadvertently reproduced tsedeq from the end of the previous line.
19. all fine gold. The Hebrew uses two synonyms for gold, neither of them the standard word.
21. to pass substance on to my lovers. As elsewhere, Proverbs assumes that the exercise of wisdom leads to prosperity, among other good things.
22. The LORD created me at the outset of His way. Although Lady Wisdom is still speaking, the section from here through verse 31 looks like a new poem or, at the very least, a distinct new segment of the same poem. The speech from verse 1 through verse 21 is a celebration by Wisdom of her powers—her gift of plain and accessible discourse, the preciousness of her words, her indispensability as a guide to all who govern, the material benefits she conveys to her followers. It must be said that much of the poetry of this section deploys boilerplate language, echoing quite similar formulations—or even formulas—that one encounters elsewhere in Proverbs. The poem that begins with verse 22 has a cosmic framework rather than a pragmatic one: Lady Wisdom’s self-celebration goes back to the role she played as God’s intimate before He launched on the work of creation. This cosmic and cosmogonic prominence of Wisdom may well have provided a generative clue for the prose-poem about the Logos (“In the beginning was the word . . .”) in the first chapter of John’s Gospel. In rabbinic tradition, it was a trigger for the idea that God made the world by following the blueprint of the Torah, which pre-existed creation; and later the Kabbalah would elaborate this notion with a theosophic apparatus. This cosmic vision, moreover, is articulated in soaring poetry that seems quite unlike the poetry of the preceding section.
the very first of His works of old. Or “before His works of old.” It is not entirely clear whether the poet intends this as a literal account of the order of creation, which is how this line was understood by later Jewish and Christian tradition, or whether this whole idea of the primordial presence of Wisdom is a kind of mythic hyperbole to express Wisdom’s crucial importance in the order of things.
24. When there were no deeps. The story of creation in Genesis 1, of course, begins with God’s breath hovering over the face of the deep, so Lady Wisdom wants to take us back to the moment of her gestation that is antecedent to the beginning of creation proper.
water sources. This translation emends the Masoretic nikhbedey mayim (heavy with [?] water) to nivkhey mayim.
25. anchored. The denotation of the Hebrew verb is to set something in its sockets or on its foundations.
27. traced a circle on the face of the deep. The reference is probably to the horizon that surrounds the sea, visually marking its limits.
28. propped up. Literally, “fortified,” “strengthened.”
29. that the waters not flout His command. The literal configuration of the Hebrew idiom is “not cross His mouth.” This is a recurrent notion of cosmogonic poetry in the Bible, ultimately harking back to the Canaanite creation myth in which the sea god, Yamm, is subdued by the weather god, Baal. As in the Voice from the Whirlwind in Job 38 and in many psalms, the LORD pronounces a decree, setting a boundary to the sea and not allowing it to go up on the dry land.
strengthened. The Masoretic Text reads beḥuqo, “traced” (or “inscribed”), which looks suspiciously like an inadvertent replication of beḥuqo in 27b and is not a verb that makes much sense with “foundations” as its object. The Septuagint evidently had a Hebrew text that read beḥazqo, “when He strengthened,” the difference between the two readings being a single consonant.
30. an intimate / . . . His delight . . . / playing before Him. This line and the next are the most original—and charming—turn that the poet gives to his cosmogonic myth of the origins of Wisdom. Before there were creatures to occupy God’s attention, Wisdom was His delightful and entertaining bosom companion. As Fox aptly notes, Wisdom not only possesses great utility (the burden of the preceding poem) but it is fun—as, say, the scholar takes great pleasure in his research, the naturalist in discovering the intricacies of nature.
31. playing in the world / . . . and my delight with humankind. The same delights that winsome Lady Wisdom offered to her Creator she makes available in the created world to those who embrace her. In all likelihood, the possessive “my” attached to delight refers to the capacity to delight that Lady Wisdom possesses and conveys to humankind, though it might also mean the delight she takes in humanity.
32. And, now, sons, listen to me. This formulaic language marks the beginning of a five-line formal conclusion, perhaps serving both poems.
34. to wait at my doors day after day, / to watch the posts of my portals. This image, as a few interpreters have proposed, hints at the actions of a devoted suitor, whom we might expect to find at the residence of a charmer like Lady Wisdom.