13 Blessed is the one who finds wisdom,
and the one who gets understanding,
14 for the gain from her is better than gain from silver
and her profit better than gold (Pro 3:13-14).
7 The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,
and whatever you get, get insight.
8 Prize her highly, and she will exalt you;
she will honor you if you embrace her.
9 She will place on your head a graceful garland;
she will bestow on you a beautiful crown (Pro 4:7-9).”
So, I’ve been reading through Proverbs as part of my regular daily reading. Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes are generally referred to as the “Books of Wisdom” but Psalms and the Song of Songs can also be included. One of the things that I have come to expect from the book of Proverbs is the personification of wisdom. Personification is a figure of speech that attributes human characteristics to things that are not human. As a rhetorical technique it is almost literarily universal in man’s history of writing things down. But I have been reading the Bible for some time now and I expect this device every time I am reading from Proverbs. We learn a lot about wisdom in Proverbs by learning who she is.
What caught me off guard, as I was reading through Proverbs this time, was the apparent rampant prostitution that must have existed in Solomon’s time. As much as Solomon is desirous of imparting wisdom to his children he seems equally desirous that his sons would be delivered “…from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God; for her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed; none who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life (Pro 2:16-19).”
Then Solomon, right after urging his son to be attentive to his wisdom (Pro 5:1-2), compares wisdom to the personification of the forbidden woman. Her lips drip honey, her speech is smoother than oil, she is bitter and sharp, leading you to death and Sheol (Pro 5:3-5). This forbidden woman’s ways wander, never coming to the path of life (Pro 5:6). And I thought, what if this isn’t about protecting Solomon’s sons from the wiles of the prostitute? What if Solomon is personifying the opposite of wisdom? What if the prostitute, the forbidden woman, is the personification of foolishness? Now I had considered foolishness in another blog entitled “Foolishness” but I had never considered foolishness personified as a prostitute.
What is interesting is that you can’t read Proverbs and think that Solomon is always using the prostitute or adultery as the personification of foolishness. Sometimes he is simply warning against prostitution and adultery. A just warning indeed. However, once you see the use of prostitution and adultery as a personification of foolishness even when Solomon isn’t “personificating”, I just made that word up don’t judge me, you can still see the wisdom of the personification in effect. “Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray (Pro 5:20-23).” It could be read, “Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with foolishness” and “why should you embrace the bosom of foolishness?”
I dare you to read through Proverbs and ignore the comparison between wisdom and foolishness in the personification of each. One as the good woman, no the wife of your youth, and the other as the forbidden woman. The blessing of the good woman and the curses of the forbidden woman are so contrasted that you come away from the reading desperate to answer the question, “what is real wisdom?” The good news is that wisdom, in her personified form, speaks. She is crying to us (Pro 8:4)! In the midst of her cry we hear…
22 “The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of old.
23 Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
24 When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.
25 Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth,
26 before he had made the earth with its fields,
or the first of the dust of the world.
27 When he established the heavens, I was there;
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
28 when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
29 when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
30 then I was beside him, like a master workman,
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
31 rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the children of man (Pro 8:22-31).
Now go and read the words of John speaking of Jesus, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (Joh 1:1-5).” Returning to Proverbs we read of wisdom, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed (Pro 9:5).” Jesus is that bread (Joh 6:35, 50-58). The wisdom that saves is the wisdom of God as personified and incarnated in the life and ministry of Jesus the Christ. Everything else is foolishness. Everything else is a lie. And yet our culture today is intoxicated with foolishness’ embrace. Did you see what I did there? I “personicated.”
Now, understand, that Proverbs is not that easy. There is much there to explore. The righteous are contrasted with the wicked and some personification may be occurring there as well. My thoughts took me from foolishness to wickedness and to pondering which came first. The answer was found in Paul’s letter to the Romans. “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them (Rom 1:28-32).” The definition of wickedness is to do what ought not to be done. It seems to me that folly came first and then the fall. The foolishness of the lie was mistaken for the wisdom of God.
Today, we live in a world saturated in the folly or foolishness of lies. Even the truth that the truth can be universally known has been exchanged for the lie that somehow your truth can be different from mine or that truth can’t be known. As I read Solomon’s personification of foolishness I wonder, if it is true that the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey what is it that we find so sweet in the lies our culture is selling to us today. But then, that has not changed from Solomon’s time. Quoting from another book of wisdom, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun (Ecc 1:9).” What is sweet about every false doctrine and lie since the Garden of Eden is that you can enjoy in your indulgences free of the consequences of the wickedness that follows. Ignore the wisdom of God at your own peril; turn to Jesus today! Time is running out.
Thank you for reading today. I know it has been a little while since I have posted to my blog. I wish I could say that it was because I was on vacation. Work, school, and family life conspired against me, and I found myself swimming hard to keep my head above water. I have decided, at the encouraging of my wife, to be more active in spiritually leading my family. To that end I have been reading my daily devotionals out loud with my daughter in the morning. The highlight of my day is when my wife and daughter come down the steps, Sarah hands Adelynn to me, and we go out on the back patio for that reading later to be joined by Sarah with a cup of coffee. I’ve been working in Hawaii these last few days and even paradise can’t compete with that morning devotional, cup of coffee, and company. I don’t want my daughter to remember a day in which her father wasn’t reading the Bible.
I would like to invite you into a daily Bible reading plan. I’m a firm believer that it is the only thing that will keep us close to God’s wisdom and inform us of the lies of the enemy. I am calling it “Finding God’s Wisdom Day by Day” and you can find it at https://faithlife.com/faith-hope-lovelife/activity. You can find it on the right side of the page below the RSS feed to my blog. It is set up to start on January 1st but just push the catchup button and start reading where we are today. I’m still fleshing this idea out and I think I am going to put out some more specific guidance soon. But for now, if your interested come on over and start reading.
Photo by cottonbro from Pexels