John 1:1-3(v30)In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were…
Job 26:10(v27)He has described a boundary on the surface of the waters, and to the confines of light and darkness.
Isaiah 40:22(v27)It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,…
Psalms 104:9(v29)You have set a boundary that they may not pass over, that they don’t turn again to cover the earth.
Proverbs 3:19(v27)By wisdom Yahweh founded the earth. By understanding, he established the heavens.
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Jeremiah 5:22(v29)Don’t you fear me?’ says Yahweh ‘Won’t you tremble at my presence, who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual…
John 1:18(v30)No one has seen God at any time. The one and only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared him.
Psalms 136:5(v27)to him who by understanding made the heavens; for his loving kindness endures forever:
Isaiah 42:1(v30)“Behold, my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights: I have put my Spirit on him. He will bring justice to the nations.
Matthew 3:17(v30)Behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Colossians 1:16(v27)For by him all things were created in the heavens and on the earth, visible things and invisible things, whether thrones or dominions or…
Psalms 16:3(v31)As for the saints who are in the earth, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight.
John 12:28(v30)Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came out of the sky, saying, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
John 16:28(v30)I came from the Father, and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.”
Isaiah 40:11(v27)He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom. He will gently lead those who…
Jeremiah 10:12(v27)God has made the earth by his power. He has established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding has he stretched out the heavens.
Matthew 17:5(v30)While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. Behold, a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my beloved…
Colossians 1:13(v30)who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love,
Psalms 33:6(v27)By Yahweh’s word, the heavens were made: all their army by the breath of his mouth.
Hebrews 1:2(v27)has at the end of these days spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds.
Genesis 1:9-10(v29)God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear;” and it was so. God called the dry…
Psalms 103:19(v27)Yahweh has established his throne in the heavens. His kingdom rules over all.
John 13:1(v31)Now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his time had come that he would depart from this world to the Father, having…
Job 38:4-11(v29)“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have understanding. Who determined its measures, if you know? Or…
Psalms 33:7(v29)He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap. He lays up the deeps in storehouses.
Psalms 40:6-8(v31)Sacrifice and offering you didn’t desire. You have opened my ears. You have not required burnt offering and sin offering. Then I said,…
Psalms 104:5(v29)He laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be moved forever.
John 4:34(v31)Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
2 Corinthians 8:9(v31)For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty…
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (18 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv30–31Some read, a chief worker: signifying that this wisdom,…
Some read, a chief worker: signifying that this wisdom, even Christ Jesus, was equal with God his father, and created, preserveth and still worketh with him, as John 5:17.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv27–31Pro 8:27 When he prepared the heavens, I [was]…
Pro 8:27 When he prepared the heavens, I [was] there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:
Ver. 27. When he prepared the heavens.] Or, Caused them to be prepared, took order to have it done, viz., by me, who was with him, and "by whom he made the worlds." {Heb 1:1-14 : 3Jn 1:3 Col 1:16} "For the Father loveth the Son, and hath put all things into his hand." {Joh 3:35}
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When he set a compass.] Or, Drew a circle round about the earth, meaning the outspread firmament of heaven. {Gen 1:6} Howbeit the Hebrews understand it of the world of angels, called by them the third world, or the third heaven; whereunto St Paul also seems to allude in 2Co 12:2.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv27–31I was there, not as an idle spectator, but…
I was there, not as an idle spectator, but as a co-worker with my Father.
Of the depth, i.e. of that great and deep abyss of water and earth mixed together, which is called both earth and water, and the deep, Gen 1:2. When he made this lower world round, or in the form of a globe, agreeable to the form of the upper world.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv27–31When he prepared the heavens, I was there,.... Made,…
When he prepared the heavens, I was there,.... Made, beautified, and adorned them; when he gave them their form, figure, magnitude, and motion; when he garnished them with the sun, moon, and stars; then was Christ present, not as a mere spectator, but as a co-worker; see Heb 1:10; and even the third heaven, the place and state of glorified saints, prepared for them from the foundation of the world, Mat 25:34;
when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: or "compassed the waters with bounds", as Job says, Pro 26:10; or made the earth with the sea globular, which make one terraqueous globe: or "made a circle" (p); all around it, called the circle of the earth, on which he sits, Isa 40:22; this compass may design the vast expanse or firmament of heaven, which is stretched and drawn around the terraqueous globe as a canopy or curtain. Christ was with his Father on the first day's creation of the heavens; and on the second day, when the firmament was made, and was before them both.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv27, 28, 31I was there - As co-worker with my Father.…
I was there - As co-worker with my Father. Depth - Of that great abyss of water and earth mixed together, which is called both earth and water and the deep, Gen. i, 2, when he made this lower world in the form of a globe.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv27–31Verse 27. When he prepared the heavens, I was…
Verse 27. When he prepared the heavens, I was there] For there is no part of the creation of God in which wisdom, skill, contrivance, are more manifest, than in the construction of the visible heavens.
When he set a compass upon the face of the depth] Does not this refer to the establishment of the law of gravitation? by which all the particles of matter, tending to a common centre, would produce in all bodies the orbicular form, which we see them have; so that even the waters are not only retained within their boundaries, but are subjected to the circular form, in their great aggregate of seas, as other parts of matter are. This is called here making a compass, בחקו חוג bechukko chug, sweeping a circle; and even this on the face of the deep, to bring the chaotic mass into form, regularity, and order.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv27, 30Pro 8:27-29. When he prepared the heavens I was…
Pro 8:27-29. When he prepared the heavens I was there — Not as an idle spectator, but as a co-worker with my Father. When he set a compass upon the face of the depth — Of that great abyss of water and earth, mixed together, which is called both earth, and water, and the deep, (Gen 1:2,) when he made this lower world in the form of a globe. When he established the clouds above — Hebrew, strengthened them, by his word and decree, which alone upholds the clouds in the air, which otherwise would quickly be dissolved or dispersed. When he strengthened the fountains — When he shut up the several fountains in the cavities of the earth, and kept them there, as it were, by a strong hand, for the use of man and beast; of the deep — Which fountains have their originals from the deep, either from the sea, or from the abyss of waters, in the bowels of the earth. When he gave to the sea his decree — Its bounds or limits, namely, by those parts of the earth which border upon it; that the waters should not pass his commandment — Should not overflow the earth; when he appointed — Or fixed; the foundations of the earth — Hung the earth, self- balanced, upon its centre, or gave the earth its firm standing upon its foundations, notwithstanding all the assaults which the waters of the sea, or those in the bowels of the earth make against it.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv27, 30, 31A compass - Better as in the margin and…
A compass - Better as in the margin and Job 22:14 (see the note), i. e., the great vault of heaven stretched over the deep seas.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv27–31
CHAPTER VIII.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv27–30when he set . . . depth--marked out the…
when he set . . . depth--marked out the circle, according to the popular idea of the earth, as circular, surrounded by depths on which the visible concave heavens rested.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv27–3127. The teacher now ascends to the visible heavens,…
27. The teacher now ascends to the visible heavens, (the region of the atmosphere,) as they appear to the eye.
When he prepared — בהכינו, prepared, disposed, adjusted, according to their established order or laws.
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The heavens — The רקיע, (rakia’h,) or expanse of Gen_1:6.
When he set a compass — In his defining the circle, or sphere: when he described a circle upon the face of the depth, תהום, (tehom,) the abyss, of the atmosphere; more probably of the apparent resting of the concave heavens, the atmosphere — the sphere of air over the abyss beneath; a poetic description in accordance with the appearance.
I was there — Hebrews, emphatic — There was I. Comp. Isa_40:22; Job_26:10. Translation, according to the sense: When he disposed the heavens there was I — when he swept (his) circle upon the face of the (great) abyss.
There is in this and the following verses a change in the form of the predicate concerning wisdom. When the antemundane period is spoken of, the ‘holam — eternity — “the beginning,” she belonged to Jehovah — she existed as the attribute of the eternal Mind. She was produced, originated, (a poetical conception of the period of actual exertion or manifestation,) when she began to act, as in the work of creation. She was there, was with him.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv27–3127. compass] Rather, circle, R.V. text, A.V. marg. The…
27. compass] Rather, circle, R.V. text, A.V. marg. The reference is to the heavens, just mentioned, which seem to stand like a vault or dome upon the sea, marked out by the circle of the horizon on its surface. Comp. Job_22:14.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv27–31(27) When he set a compass upon the face…
(27) When he set a compass upon the face of the depth—i.e., when He stretched the vault of heaven over it: the same expression is used in Job_22:14. It is also interpreted of the circle of the horizon.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv27, 28, 29, 31After asserting the pre-existence of Wisdom, the writer tells…
After asserting the pre-existence of Wisdom, the writer tells her part in the work of creation. When he prepared the heavens, I was there. When God made the firmament, and divided the waters above it and below, (Gen_1:7) Wisdom cooperated. When he set a compass upon the face of the depth. gWj (chug), "circle," or "circuit", (as Job_22:14) means the vault of heaven, conceived of as resting on the ocean which surrounds the earth, in partial accordance with the notion in Homer, who speaks of the streams of ocean flowing back into itself (aqorroov ), "Iliad," 18:399; "Odyssey," 10:508, etc. That the reference is not to the marking out a limit for the waters is plain from the consideration that this interpretation would make the verse identical with ver. 29. Thus in Isa_40:22 we have, "It is he that sitteth above the circle (chug) of the earth;" i.e. the vault of heaven that encircles the earth. Septuagint, "When he marked out (afwrize ) his throne upon the winds." The translators have referred tchom, "depth," to the waters above.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv30–31And I was daily His delight.
Pro_8:30
And I was daily His delight.
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The happiness of Christ antecedent to His incarnation
The delights between the Father and the Son, before His assumption of our nature, were twofold.
1. They delighted in one another without communicating their joys to any other; for no creature did then exist save in the mind of God.
2. They delighted in the salvation of men; in the prospect of that work, though not yet extant. The condition and state of Jesus Christ before His incarnation was a state of the most unspeakable delight in the enjoyment of His Father. Consider this--
I. Negatively.
1. He was not abased to the low estate of a creature.
2. He was not under the law in this estate.
3. He was not liable to any of those sorrowful consequents and attendants of that frail state of humanity which afterwards He assumed with that nature. Unacquainted with griefs. Never pinched with poverty and want. Never underwent reproach and shame. Was never offended with any impure suggestions. Never sensible of tortures and pains. There were no hidings or withdrawings of His Father. No experience of death.
II. Positively.
1. A state of matchless happiness.
2. A state of intimacy, dearness, and oneness with His Father.
3. A state of pure, unmixed, and ravishing delight.
III. Comparitively.
1. Compare it with the delight that some creatures take in each other, and you will soon find that they fall infinitely short of this.
2. Compare it with the delight that God takes in some of His creatures; you will find it to come short of the delight that God takes in Christ.
3. Compare it with the delight that the best of creatures take in God and Christ; how infinitely short it comes of the delight that God takes in Christ!
Conclusion:
1. What an astonishing love was this for the Father to give the darling of His soul for poor sinners!
2. Adore the love of Jesus to sinners, that ever He should consent to leave such a bosom.
3. An interest in Jesus Christ is the true way to all spiritual preferment in heaven.
4. Jesus Christ is worthy of all love and delight.
5. It is a grievous thing to see Gods dear Son despised, slighted, and rejected by sinners.
6. Let us be ready to forsake and leave all for Christ. (John Flavel.)
Christs eternal felicity
I. Christ was with the Father at the beginning. This censures the Arians.
II. God the Father, as He delighted in Christ at the beginning, so He doth always.
1. Because He is His Son.
2. Because He never offended Him.
3. Because He is always ready to please His Father.
III. Christ rejoiced in God the Father from the beginning, and does so always. Some read, I rejoice, or sport, always before Him. (Francis Taylor, B. D.)
Rejoicing always before Him.
Eternal Wisdom rejoicing in the events to be revealed
If we contemplate the character of Divine Wisdom as directed to earth, dwelling amongst men, anticipating the concerns and circumstances and history of this human world, we shall--
1. Be led to perceive an importance attaching to all the ramifications of that history, to all its epochs and all its events.
2. In addition to this we shall be led to depend, with a degree of delight and joy, on all the arrangements and developments of this Wisdom in relation to our circumstances.
3. And we shall perceive the impropriety of our murmuring; and that there is the greatest measure of folly, as well as of danger, in allowing ourselves to dispute any part of the Divine proceedings.
4. Such a view will induce us to look with intelligent and instructed minds upon all the things around us, and to observe in the various circumstances which transpire before our view the actual working out of a plan arranged before eternity.
5. We shall regard the great Supreme with deep solicitude, in order that we ourselves may be brought to see the truth and results of all that is around us.
6. We shall anticipate the glory of that scene in its fulness which we now perceive in fragments. Christ looked forward to the production of the world for the sake of the men who would dwell on it. What is more wonderful than the intellectual, physical, moral, and spiritual being, man? Consider the proofs of this anticipation and delight, and the reason whence arises all this delight. (R. S. McAll, LL. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren1905 · Public DomainOn v30Pro 8:30 - Pro 8:31.
Proverbs
WISDOM AND CHRIST
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Pro 8:30 - Pro 8:31.
There is a singular difference between the two portions of this Book of Proverbs. The bulk of it, beginning with Pro 10:1 - Pro 10:32, contains a collection of isolated maxims which may be described as the product of sanctified common sense. They are shrewd and homely, but not remarkably spiritual or elevated. To these is prefixed this introductory portion, continuous, lofty in style, and in its personification of divine wisdom, rising to great sublimity both of thought and of expression. It seems as if the main body of the book had been fitted with an introduction by another hand than that of the compilers of the various sets of proverbial sayings. It is apparently due to an intellectual movement, perhaps not uninfluenced by Greek thought, and chronologically the latest of the elements composing the Old Testament scriptures. In place of the lyric fervour of prophets, and the devout intuition of psalmists, we have the praise of Wisdom. But that noble portrait is no copy of the Greek conception, but contains features peculiar to itself. She stands opposed to blatant, meretricious Folly, and seeks to draw men to herself by lofty motives and offering pure delights. She is not a person, but she is a personification of an aspect of the divine nature, and seeing that she is held forth as willing to bestow herself on men, that queenly figure shadows the great truth of God’s self-communication as being the end and climax of all His revelation.
We are on the wrong tack when we look for more or less complete resemblances between the ‘Wisdom’ of Proverbs and the ‘Sophia’ of Greek thinkers. It is much rather an anticipation, imperfect but real, of Jesus than a pale reflection of Greek thought. The way for the perfect revelation of God in the incarnation was prepared by prophet and psalmist. Was it not also prepared by this vision of a Wisdom which was always with God, and yet had its delights with the sons of men, and whilst ‘rejoicing always before Him,’ yet rejoiced in the habitable parts of the earth?
Let us then look, however imperfect our gaze may be, at the self-revelation in Proverbs of the personified divine Wisdom, and compare it with the revelation of the incarnate divine Word.
I. The Self-revelation of Wisdom.
The words translated in Authorised Version, ‘As one brought up with him,’ are rendered in Revised Version, ‘as a master workman,’ and seem intended to represent Wisdom-that is, of course, the divine Wisdom-as having been God’s agent in the creative act. In the preceding context, she triumphantly proclaims her existence before His ‘works of old,’ and that she was with God, ‘or ever the earth was.’ Before the everlasting mountains she was, before fountains flashed in the light and refreshed the earth, her waters flowed. But that presence is not all, Wisdom was the divine agent in creation. That thought goes beyond the ancient one: ‘He spake and it was done.’ Genesis regards the divine command as the cause of creatural being. God said, ‘Let there be-and there was’: the forthputting of His will was the impulse to which creatures sprang into existence at response. That is a great thought, but the meditative thinker in our text has pondered over the facts of creation, and notwithstanding all their apparent incompletenesses and errors, has risen to the conclusion that they can all be vindicated as ‘very good.’ To him, this wonderful universe is not only the product of a sovereign will, but of one guided in its operations by all-seeing Wisdom.
Then the relation of this divine Wisdom to God is represented as being a continual delight and a childlike rejoicing in Him, or as the word literally means, a ‘sporting’ in Him. Whatever energy of creative action is suggested by the preceding figure of a ‘master workman,’ that energy had no effort. To the divine Wisdom creation was an easy task. She was not so occupied with it as to interrupt her delight in contemplating God, and her task gave her infinite satisfaction, for she ‘rejoiced always’ before Him, and she rejoiced in His habitable earth. The writer does not shrink from ascribing to the agent of creation something like the glow of satisfaction that we feel over a piece of well-done work, the poet’s or the painter’s rapture as he sees his thoughts bodied forth in melody or glowing on canvas.
But there is a greater thought than these here, for the writer adds, ‘and my delight was with the sons of men.’ It is noteworthy that the same word is used in the preceding verse. The ‘delight of the heavenly Wisdom in God’ is not unlike that directed to man. ‘The sons of men’ are the last, noblest work of Creation, and on them, as the shining apex, her delight settles. The words describe not only what was true when man came into being, as the utmost possible climax of creatural excellence, but are the revelation of what still remains true.
One cannot but feel how in all this most striking disclosure of the depths of God, a deeper mystery is on the verge of revelation. There is here, as we have said, a personification, but there seems to be a Person shining through, or dimly discerned moving behind, the curtain. Wisdom is the agent of creation. She creates with ease, and in creating delights in God as well as in her work, which calls for no effort in doing, and done, is all very good. She delights most of all in the sons of men, and that delight is permanent. Does not this unknown Jewish thinker, too, belong, as well as prophet and psalmist, to those who went before crying, Hosanna to Him that cometh in the name of the Lord? Let us turn to the New Testament and find an answer to the question.
II. The higher revelation of the divine Word.
There can be no doubt that the New Testament is committed to the teaching that the Eternal Word of God, who was incarnate in Jesus, was the agent of creation. John, in his profound prologue to the Gospel, utters the deepest truths in brief sentences of monosyllables, and utters them without a trace of feeling that they needed proof. To him they are axiomatic and self evident. ‘All things were made by Him.’ The words are the words of a child; the thought takes a flight beyond the furthest reach of the mind of men. Paul, too, adds his Amen when he proclaims that ‘All things have been created through Him and unto Him, and He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.’ The writer of Hebrews declares a Son ‘through whom also He made the worlds, and who upholds all things by the word of His power’ and does not scruple at transferring to Jesus the grand poetry of the Psalmist who hymned ‘Thou, Lord, in the beginning, hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands.’ We speak of things too deep for us when we speak of persons in the Godhead, but yet we know that the Eternal Word, which was from the beginning, was made flesh and dwelt among us. The personified Wisdom of Proverbs is the personal Word of John’s prologue. John almost quotes the former when he says ‘the same was in the beginning with God.’ for his word recalls the grand declaration, ‘The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way . . . I was set up in the beginning or ever the earth was.’ Then there are two beginnings, one lost in the depths of timeless being, one, the commencement of creative activity, and that Word was with God in the remotest, as in the nearer, beginning.
But the ancient vision of the Jewish thinker anticipated the perfect revelation of the New Testament still further, in its thought of an unbroken communion between the personified Wisdom and God. That dim thought of perfect communion and interchange of delights flashes into wondrous clearness when we think of Him who spake of ‘the glory which I had with Thee before the foundation of the world,’ and calmly declared: ‘Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.’ Into that depth of mutual love we cannot look, and our eyes are too dim-sighted to bear the blaze of that flashing interchange of glory, but we shall rob the earthly life of Jesus of its pathos and saving power, if we do not recognise that in Him the personification of Proverbs has become a person, and that when He became flesh, He not only took on Him the garment of mortality, but laid aside ‘the visible robes of His imperial majesty,’ and that His being found in fashion as a man was humbling Himself beyond all humiliation that afterwards was His.
But still further, the Gospel reality fills out and completes the personification of Proverbs in that it shows us a divine person who so turned to ‘the sons of men’ that He took on Him their nature and Himself bore their sicknesses. The Jewish writer had great thoughts of the divine condescension, and was sure that God’s love still rested on men, sinful as they were, but not even he could foresee the miracle of long-suffering love in the Incarnate Jesus, and he had no power of insight into the depths of the heart of God, that enabled him to foresee the sufferings and death of Jesus. Till that supreme self-sacrifice was a fact, it was inconceivable. Alas, now that it is a fact, to how many hearts that need it most is it still incredible. But passing all anticipation as it is, it is the root of all joy, the ground of all hope, and to millions of sinful souls it is their only refuge, and their sovereign example and pattern of life.
The Jewish thinker had a glimpse of a divine wisdom which delighted in man, but he did not dream of the divine stooping to share in man’s sorrows, or of its so loving humanity as to take on itself its limitations, not only to pity these as God’s images, but to take part of the same and to die. That man should minister to the divine delight is wonderful, but that God should participate in man’s grief passes wonder. Thereby a new tenderness is given to the ancient personification, and the august form of the divine Wisdom softens and melts into the yet more august and tender likeness of the divine Love. Nor is there only an adumbration of the redeeming love of Jesus as He dwells among us here, but we have to remember that Jesus delights in the sons of men when they love Him back again. All the sweet mysteries of our loving communion with Him, and of His joy in our faith, love, and obedience, all the secret treasures of His self-impartation to, and abiding in, souls that open themselves to His entrance, are suggested in that thought. We can minister to the joy of Jesus, and when He is welcomed into any heart, and any man’s love answers His, He sees of the travail of His soul and is satisfied.
III. The call of the personal Word to each of us.
The Wisdom of Proverbs is portrayed in her queenly dignity, as calling men to herself, and promising them the satisfaction of all their needs. She describes herself that the description may draw men to her. The self-revelation of God is His mightiest means of attracting men to Him. We but need to know Him as He really is, in order to love Him and cling to Him. A fairer form than hers has drawn near to us, and calls us with tenderer invitations and better promises. The divine Wisdom has become Man with ‘sweet human hands and lips and eyes.’ Such was His delight in the sons of men that He emptied Himself of His glory, and finished a greater work than that over which he presided when the mountains were settled and the hills brought forth. Now He calls us, and His summons is tenderer, and gives promise of loftier blessings than the call of Wisdom was and did. She called to the simple, ‘Come eat ye of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled.’ He invites us: ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink,’ and He furnishes a table for us, and calls us to eat of the bread which is His body broken for us, and to drink of the wine which is His blood shed for many for the remission of sins. She promises ‘riches and honour, yea, durable riches and righteousness.’ His voice vibrates with sympathy, and calls the weary and heavy laden, of whom she scarcely thinks, and offers to them a gift, which may seem humble enough beside her more dazzling offers of fruit, better than gold and revenues, better than choice silver, but which come closer to universal wants, the gift of rest, which is really what all men long for, and none but they who take His yoke upon them possess. ‘See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh,’ for if they escaped not when they refused her that spake through the Jewish thinker’s lips of old, ‘much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that beseecheth us from heaven.’ Jesus is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and it is in Him crucified that our weakness and our folly are made strong and wise, and Wisdom’s ancient promise is fulfilled: ‘Whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv28, 30General Information:
General Information:
Wisdom continues to speak. (See: Personification)
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established
brought into permanent being
when the springs in the deep became fixed
This can be put into active form. AT: "when God fixed the springs in the deep" (See: Active or Passive)
the springs in the deep
The ancient Hebrews thought that the ocean got its water from springs at the bottom of the sea.
when he made his limit for the sea
"when he created the shorelines for the oceans. The "limit for the sea" divided the oceans from the dry land.
when there was set the limit for the foundations of the dry land
The Hebrew word for "earth" also often means "land."
when there was set the limit for the foundations of the dry land
This can be put into active form. AT: "when God set the limit for the foundations of the earth" (See: Active or Passive)
GEBible — Godless Engineer's Bible App
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv30–31 Some read, a chief worker: signifying that this wisdom,…
Some read, a chief worker: signifying that this wisdom, even Christ Jesus, was equal with God his father, and created, preserveth and still worketh with him, as John 5:17.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv27–31 Pro 8:27 When he prepared the heavens, I [was]…
Pro 8:27 When he prepared the heavens, I [was] there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:
Ver. 27. When he prepared the heavens.] Or, Caused them to be prepared, took order to have it done, viz., by me, who was with him, and "by whom he made the worlds." {Heb 1:1-14 : 3Jn 1:3 Col 1:16} "For the Father loveth the Son, and hath put all things into his hand." {Joh 3:35}
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When he set a compass.] Or, Drew a circle round about the earth, meaning the outspread firmament of heaven. {Gen 1:6} Howbeit the Hebrews understand it of the world of angels, called by them the third world, or the third heaven; whereunto St Paul also seems to allude in 2Co 12:2.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv27–31 I was there, not as an idle spectator, but…
I was there, not as an idle spectator, but as a co-worker with my Father.
Of the depth, i.e. of that great and deep abyss of water and earth mixed together, which is called both earth and water, and the deep, Gen 1:2. When he made this lower world round, or in the form of a globe, agreeable to the form of the upper world.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv27–31 When he prepared the heavens, I was there,.... Made,…
When he prepared the heavens, I was there,.... Made, beautified, and adorned them; when he gave them their form, figure, magnitude, and motion; when he garnished them with the sun, moon, and stars; then was Christ present, not as a mere spectator, but as a co-worker; see Heb 1:10; and even the third heaven, the place and state of glorified saints, prepared for them from the foundation of the world, Mat 25:34;
when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: or "compassed the waters with bounds", as Job says, Pro 26:10; or made the earth with the sea globular, which make one terraqueous globe: or "made a circle" (p); all around it, called the circle of the earth, on which he sits, Isa 40:22; this compass may design the vast expanse or firmament of heaven, which is stretched and drawn around the terraqueous globe as a canopy or curtain. Christ was with his Father on the first day's creation of the heavens; and on the second day, when the firmament was made, and was before them both.
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(p) "describendo circulum", Montanus, Mercerus, Cocceius, Michaelis, Schultens.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv27, 28, 31 I was there - As co-worker with my Father.…
I was there - As co-worker with my Father. Depth - Of that great abyss of water and earth mixed together, which is called both earth and water and the deep, Gen. i, 2, when he made this lower world in the form of a globe.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv27–31 Verse 27. When he prepared the heavens, I was…
Verse 27. When he prepared the heavens, I was there] For there is no part of the creation of God in which wisdom, skill, contrivance, are more manifest, than in the construction of the visible heavens.
When he set a compass upon the face of the depth] Does not this refer to the establishment of the law of gravitation? by which all the particles of matter, tending to a common centre, would produce in all bodies the orbicular form, which we see them have; so that even the waters are not only retained within their boundaries, but are subjected to the circular form, in their great aggregate of seas, as other parts of matter are. This is called here making a compass, בחקו חוג bechukko chug, sweeping a circle; and even this on the face of the deep, to bring the chaotic mass into form, regularity, and order.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv27, 30 Pro 8:27-29. When he prepared the heavens I was…
Pro 8:27-29. When he prepared the heavens I was there — Not as an idle spectator, but as a co-worker with my Father. When he set a compass upon the face of the depth — Of that great abyss of water and earth, mixed together, which is called both earth, and water, and the deep, (Gen 1:2,) when he made this lower world in the form of a globe. When he established the clouds above — Hebrew, strengthened them, by his word and decree, which alone upholds the clouds in the air, which otherwise would quickly be dissolved or dispersed. When he strengthened the fountains — When he shut up the several fountains in the cavities of the earth, and kept them there, as it were, by a strong hand, for the use of man and beast; of the deep — Which fountains have their originals from the deep, either from the sea, or from the abyss of waters, in the bowels of the earth. When he gave to the sea his decree — Its bounds or limits, namely, by those parts of the earth which border upon it; that the waters should not pass his commandment — Should not overflow the earth; when he appointed — Or fixed; the foundations of the earth — Hung the earth, self- balanced, upon its centre, or gave the earth its firm standing upon its foundations, notwithstanding all the assaults which the waters of the sea, or those in the bowels of the earth make against it.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv27, 30, 31 A compass - Better as in the margin and…
A compass - Better as in the margin and Job 22:14 (see the note), i. e., the great vault of heaven stretched over the deep seas.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv27–31
CHAPTER VIII.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv27–30 when he set . . . depth--marked out the…
when he set . . . depth--marked out the circle, according to the popular idea of the earth, as circular, surrounded by depths on which the visible concave heavens rested.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv27–31 27. The teacher now ascends to the visible heavens,…
27. The teacher now ascends to the visible heavens, (the region of the atmosphere,) as they appear to the eye.
When he prepared — בהכינו, prepared, disposed, adjusted, according to their established order or laws.
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The heavens — The רקיע, (rakia’h,) or expanse of Gen_1:6.
When he set a compass — In his defining the circle, or sphere: when he described a circle upon the face of the depth, תהום, (tehom,) the abyss, of the atmosphere; more probably of the apparent resting of the concave heavens, the atmosphere — the sphere of air over the abyss beneath; a poetic description in accordance with the appearance.
I was there — Hebrews, emphatic — There was I. Comp. Isa_40:22; Job_26:10. Translation, according to the sense: When he disposed the heavens there was I — when he swept (his) circle upon the face of the (great) abyss.
There is in this and the following verses a change in the form of the predicate concerning wisdom. When the antemundane period is spoken of, the ‘holam — eternity — “the beginning,” she belonged to Jehovah — she existed as the attribute of the eternal Mind. She was produced, originated, (a poetical conception of the period of actual exertion or manifestation,) when she began to act, as in the work of creation. She was there, was with him.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv27–31 27. compass] Rather, circle, R.V. text, A.V. marg. The…
27. compass] Rather, circle, R.V. text, A.V. marg. The reference is to the heavens, just mentioned, which seem to stand like a vault or dome upon the sea, marked out by the circle of the horizon on its surface. Comp. Job_22:14.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv27–31 (27) When he set a compass upon the face…
(27) When he set a compass upon the face of the depth—i.e., when He stretched the vault of heaven over it: the same expression is used in Job_22:14. It is also interpreted of the circle of the horizon.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv27, 28, 29, 31 After asserting the pre-existence of Wisdom, the writer tells…
After asserting the pre-existence of Wisdom, the writer tells her part in the work of creation. When he prepared the heavens, I was there. When God made the firmament, and divided the waters above it and below, (Gen_1:7) Wisdom cooperated. When he set a compass upon the face of the depth. gWj (chug), "circle," or "circuit", (as Job_22:14) means the vault of heaven, conceived of as resting on the ocean which surrounds the earth, in partial accordance with the notion in Homer, who speaks of the streams of ocean flowing back into itself (aqorroov ), "Iliad," 18:399; "Odyssey," 10:508, etc. That the reference is not to the marking out a limit for the waters is plain from the consideration that this interpretation would make the verse identical with ver. 29. Thus in Isa_40:22 we have, "It is he that sitteth above the circle (chug) of the earth;" i.e. the vault of heaven that encircles the earth. Septuagint, "When he marked out (afwrize ) his throne upon the winds." The translators have referred tchom, "depth," to the waters above.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv30–31 And I was daily His delight.
Pro_8:30
And I was daily His delight.
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The happiness of Christ antecedent to His incarnation
The delights between the Father and the Son, before His assumption of our nature, were twofold.
1. They delighted in one another without communicating their joys to any other; for no creature did then exist save in the mind of God.
2. They delighted in the salvation of men; in the prospect of that work, though not yet extant. The condition and state of Jesus Christ before His incarnation was a state of the most unspeakable delight in the enjoyment of His Father. Consider this--
I. Negatively.
1. He was not abased to the low estate of a creature.
2. He was not under the law in this estate.
3. He was not liable to any of those sorrowful consequents and attendants of that frail state of humanity which afterwards He assumed with that nature. Unacquainted with griefs. Never pinched with poverty and want. Never underwent reproach and shame. Was never offended with any impure suggestions. Never sensible of tortures and pains. There were no hidings or withdrawings of His Father. No experience of death.
II. Positively.
1. A state of matchless happiness.
2. A state of intimacy, dearness, and oneness with His Father.
3. A state of pure, unmixed, and ravishing delight.
III. Comparitively.
1. Compare it with the delight that some creatures take in each other, and you will soon find that they fall infinitely short of this.
2. Compare it with the delight that God takes in some of His creatures; you will find it to come short of the delight that God takes in Christ.
3. Compare it with the delight that the best of creatures take in God and Christ; how infinitely short it comes of the delight that God takes in Christ!
Conclusion:
1. What an astonishing love was this for the Father to give the darling of His soul for poor sinners!
2. Adore the love of Jesus to sinners, that ever He should consent to leave such a bosom.
3. An interest in Jesus Christ is the true way to all spiritual preferment in heaven.
4. Jesus Christ is worthy of all love and delight.
5. It is a grievous thing to see Gods dear Son despised, slighted, and rejected by sinners.
6. Let us be ready to forsake and leave all for Christ. (John Flavel.)
Christs eternal felicity
I. Christ was with the Father at the beginning. This censures the Arians.
II. God the Father, as He delighted in Christ at the beginning, so He doth always.
1. Because He is His Son.
2. Because He never offended Him.
3. Because He is always ready to please His Father.
III. Christ rejoiced in God the Father from the beginning, and does so always. Some read, I rejoice, or sport, always before Him. (Francis Taylor, B. D.)
Rejoicing always before Him.
Eternal Wisdom rejoicing in the events to be revealed
If we contemplate the character of Divine Wisdom as directed to earth, dwelling amongst men, anticipating the concerns and circumstances and history of this human world, we shall--
1. Be led to perceive an importance attaching to all the ramifications of that history, to all its epochs and all its events.
2. In addition to this we shall be led to depend, with a degree of delight and joy, on all the arrangements and developments of this Wisdom in relation to our circumstances.
3. And we shall perceive the impropriety of our murmuring; and that there is the greatest measure of folly, as well as of danger, in allowing ourselves to dispute any part of the Divine proceedings.
4. Such a view will induce us to look with intelligent and instructed minds upon all the things around us, and to observe in the various circumstances which transpire before our view the actual working out of a plan arranged before eternity.
5. We shall regard the great Supreme with deep solicitude, in order that we ourselves may be brought to see the truth and results of all that is around us.
6. We shall anticipate the glory of that scene in its fulness which we now perceive in fragments. Christ looked forward to the production of the world for the sake of the men who would dwell on it. What is more wonderful than the intellectual, physical, moral, and spiritual being, man? Consider the proofs of this anticipation and delight, and the reason whence arises all this delight. (R. S. McAll, LL. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v30 Pro 8:30 - Pro 8:31.
Proverbs
WISDOM AND CHRIST
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Pro 8:30 - Pro 8:31.
There is a singular difference between the two portions of this Book of Proverbs. The bulk of it, beginning with Pro 10:1 - Pro 10:32, contains a collection of isolated maxims which may be described as the product of sanctified common sense. They are shrewd and homely, but not remarkably spiritual or elevated. To these is prefixed this introductory portion, continuous, lofty in style, and in its personification of divine wisdom, rising to great sublimity both of thought and of expression. It seems as if the main body of the book had been fitted with an introduction by another hand than that of the compilers of the various sets of proverbial sayings. It is apparently due to an intellectual movement, perhaps not uninfluenced by Greek thought, and chronologically the latest of the elements composing the Old Testament scriptures. In place of the lyric fervour of prophets, and the devout intuition of psalmists, we have the praise of Wisdom. But that noble portrait is no copy of the Greek conception, but contains features peculiar to itself. She stands opposed to blatant, meretricious Folly, and seeks to draw men to herself by lofty motives and offering pure delights. She is not a person, but she is a personification of an aspect of the divine nature, and seeing that she is held forth as willing to bestow herself on men, that queenly figure shadows the great truth of God’s self-communication as being the end and climax of all His revelation.
We are on the wrong tack when we look for more or less complete resemblances between the ‘Wisdom’ of Proverbs and the ‘Sophia’ of Greek thinkers. It is much rather an anticipation, imperfect but real, of Jesus than a pale reflection of Greek thought. The way for the perfect revelation of God in the incarnation was prepared by prophet and psalmist. Was it not also prepared by this vision of a Wisdom which was always with God, and yet had its delights with the sons of men, and whilst ‘rejoicing always before Him,’ yet rejoiced in the habitable parts of the earth?
Let us then look, however imperfect our gaze may be, at the self-revelation in Proverbs of the personified divine Wisdom, and compare it with the revelation of the incarnate divine Word.
I. The Self-revelation of Wisdom.
The words translated in Authorised Version, ‘As one brought up with him,’ are rendered in Revised Version, ‘as a master workman,’ and seem intended to represent Wisdom-that is, of course, the divine Wisdom-as having been God’s agent in the creative act. In the preceding context, she triumphantly proclaims her existence before His ‘works of old,’ and that she was with God, ‘or ever the earth was.’ Before the everlasting mountains she was, before fountains flashed in the light and refreshed the earth, her waters flowed. But that presence is not all, Wisdom was the divine agent in creation. That thought goes beyond the ancient one: ‘He spake and it was done.’ Genesis regards the divine command as the cause of creatural being. God said, ‘Let there be-and there was’: the forthputting of His will was the impulse to which creatures sprang into existence at response. That is a great thought, but the meditative thinker in our text has pondered over the facts of creation, and notwithstanding all their apparent incompletenesses and errors, has risen to the conclusion that they can all be vindicated as ‘very good.’ To him, this wonderful universe is not only the product of a sovereign will, but of one guided in its operations by all-seeing Wisdom.
Then the relation of this divine Wisdom to God is represented as being a continual delight and a childlike rejoicing in Him, or as the word literally means, a ‘sporting’ in Him. Whatever energy of creative action is suggested by the preceding figure of a ‘master workman,’ that energy had no effort. To the divine Wisdom creation was an easy task. She was not so occupied with it as to interrupt her delight in contemplating God, and her task gave her infinite satisfaction, for she ‘rejoiced always’ before Him, and she rejoiced in His habitable earth. The writer does not shrink from ascribing to the agent of creation something like the glow of satisfaction that we feel over a piece of well-done work, the poet’s or the painter’s rapture as he sees his thoughts bodied forth in melody or glowing on canvas.
But there is a greater thought than these here, for the writer adds, ‘and my delight was with the sons of men.’ It is noteworthy that the same word is used in the preceding verse. The ‘delight of the heavenly Wisdom in God’ is not unlike that directed to man. ‘The sons of men’ are the last, noblest work of Creation, and on them, as the shining apex, her delight settles. The words describe not only what was true when man came into being, as the utmost possible climax of creatural excellence, but are the revelation of what still remains true.
One cannot but feel how in all this most striking disclosure of the depths of God, a deeper mystery is on the verge of revelation. There is here, as we have said, a personification, but there seems to be a Person shining through, or dimly discerned moving behind, the curtain. Wisdom is the agent of creation. She creates with ease, and in creating delights in God as well as in her work, which calls for no effort in doing, and done, is all very good. She delights most of all in the sons of men, and that delight is permanent. Does not this unknown Jewish thinker, too, belong, as well as prophet and psalmist, to those who went before crying, Hosanna to Him that cometh in the name of the Lord? Let us turn to the New Testament and find an answer to the question.
II. The higher revelation of the divine Word.
There can be no doubt that the New Testament is committed to the teaching that the Eternal Word of God, who was incarnate in Jesus, was the agent of creation. John, in his profound prologue to the Gospel, utters the deepest truths in brief sentences of monosyllables, and utters them without a trace of feeling that they needed proof. To him they are axiomatic and self evident. ‘All things were made by Him.’ The words are the words of a child; the thought takes a flight beyond the furthest reach of the mind of men. Paul, too, adds his Amen when he proclaims that ‘All things have been created through Him and unto Him, and He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.’ The writer of Hebrews declares a Son ‘through whom also He made the worlds, and who upholds all things by the word of His power’ and does not scruple at transferring to Jesus the grand poetry of the Psalmist who hymned ‘Thou, Lord, in the beginning, hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands.’ We speak of things too deep for us when we speak of persons in the Godhead, but yet we know that the Eternal Word, which was from the beginning, was made flesh and dwelt among us. The personified Wisdom of Proverbs is the personal Word of John’s prologue. John almost quotes the former when he says ‘the same was in the beginning with God.’ for his word recalls the grand declaration, ‘The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way . . . I was set up in the beginning or ever the earth was.’ Then there are two beginnings, one lost in the depths of timeless being, one, the commencement of creative activity, and that Word was with God in the remotest, as in the nearer, beginning.
But the ancient vision of the Jewish thinker anticipated the perfect revelation of the New Testament still further, in its thought of an unbroken communion between the personified Wisdom and God. That dim thought of perfect communion and interchange of delights flashes into wondrous clearness when we think of Him who spake of ‘the glory which I had with Thee before the foundation of the world,’ and calmly declared: ‘Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.’ Into that depth of mutual love we cannot look, and our eyes are too dim-sighted to bear the blaze of that flashing interchange of glory, but we shall rob the earthly life of Jesus of its pathos and saving power, if we do not recognise that in Him the personification of Proverbs has become a person, and that when He became flesh, He not only took on Him the garment of mortality, but laid aside ‘the visible robes of His imperial majesty,’ and that His being found in fashion as a man was humbling Himself beyond all humiliation that afterwards was His.
But still further, the Gospel reality fills out and completes the personification of Proverbs in that it shows us a divine person who so turned to ‘the sons of men’ that He took on Him their nature and Himself bore their sicknesses. The Jewish writer had great thoughts of the divine condescension, and was sure that God’s love still rested on men, sinful as they were, but not even he could foresee the miracle of long-suffering love in the Incarnate Jesus, and he had no power of insight into the depths of the heart of God, that enabled him to foresee the sufferings and death of Jesus. Till that supreme self-sacrifice was a fact, it was inconceivable. Alas, now that it is a fact, to how many hearts that need it most is it still incredible. But passing all anticipation as it is, it is the root of all joy, the ground of all hope, and to millions of sinful souls it is their only refuge, and their sovereign example and pattern of life.
The Jewish thinker had a glimpse of a divine wisdom which delighted in man, but he did not dream of the divine stooping to share in man’s sorrows, or of its so loving humanity as to take on itself its limitations, not only to pity these as God’s images, but to take part of the same and to die. That man should minister to the divine delight is wonderful, but that God should participate in man’s grief passes wonder. Thereby a new tenderness is given to the ancient personification, and the august form of the divine Wisdom softens and melts into the yet more august and tender likeness of the divine Love. Nor is there only an adumbration of the redeeming love of Jesus as He dwells among us here, but we have to remember that Jesus delights in the sons of men when they love Him back again. All the sweet mysteries of our loving communion with Him, and of His joy in our faith, love, and obedience, all the secret treasures of His self-impartation to, and abiding in, souls that open themselves to His entrance, are suggested in that thought. We can minister to the joy of Jesus, and when He is welcomed into any heart, and any man’s love answers His, He sees of the travail of His soul and is satisfied.
III. The call of the personal Word to each of us.
The Wisdom of Proverbs is portrayed in her queenly dignity, as calling men to herself, and promising them the satisfaction of all their needs. She describes herself that the description may draw men to her. The self-revelation of God is His mightiest means of attracting men to Him. We but need to know Him as He really is, in order to love Him and cling to Him. A fairer form than hers has drawn near to us, and calls us with tenderer invitations and better promises. The divine Wisdom has become Man with ‘sweet human hands and lips and eyes.’ Such was His delight in the sons of men that He emptied Himself of His glory, and finished a greater work than that over which he presided when the mountains were settled and the hills brought forth. Now He calls us, and His summons is tenderer, and gives promise of loftier blessings than the call of Wisdom was and did. She called to the simple, ‘Come eat ye of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled.’ He invites us: ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink,’ and He furnishes a table for us, and calls us to eat of the bread which is His body broken for us, and to drink of the wine which is His blood shed for many for the remission of sins. She promises ‘riches and honour, yea, durable riches and righteousness.’ His voice vibrates with sympathy, and calls the weary and heavy laden, of whom she scarcely thinks, and offers to them a gift, which may seem humble enough beside her more dazzling offers of fruit, better than gold and revenues, better than choice silver, but which come closer to universal wants, the gift of rest, which is really what all men long for, and none but they who take His yoke upon them possess. ‘See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh,’ for if they escaped not when they refused her that spake through the Jewish thinker’s lips of old, ‘much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that beseecheth us from heaven.’ Jesus is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and it is in Him crucified that our weakness and our folly are made strong and wise, and Wisdom’s ancient promise is fulfilled: ‘Whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv28, 30 General Information:
General Information:
Wisdom continues to speak. (See: Personification)
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established
brought into permanent being
when the springs in the deep became fixed
This can be put into active form. AT: "when God fixed the springs in the deep" (See: Active or Passive)
the springs in the deep
The ancient Hebrews thought that the ocean got its water from springs at the bottom of the sea.
when he made his limit for the sea
"when he created the shorelines for the oceans. The "limit for the sea" divided the oceans from the dry land.
when there was set the limit for the foundations of the dry land
The Hebrew word for "earth" also often means "land."
when there was set the limit for the foundations of the dry land
This can be put into active form. AT: "when God set the limit for the foundations of the earth" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
fountain
water
command
found
earth
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv27, 30 8:27-29 God used his wisdom to establish the created…
8:27-29 God used his wisdom to establish the created order, so wisdom can tell us how the world works and testifies to God’s greatness.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.