Wisdom at the Beginning of the World

Observe where the passage goes. Wisdom, still speaking in her own voice, says that the LORD brought her forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old. Before the oceans, before the mountains were settled, before the earth or its fields, she was there. When he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon, when he gave the sea its boundary, she was constantly at his side, filled with delight day after day, rejoicing in his presence and in his whole world, and delighting in mankind.

Interpret it carefully. This is poetry, and Wisdom is a personification. The passage is saying that the order of the world is not an accident. Creation was made wisely, and the wisdom that Proverbs offers to a young man on a city street is the same wisdom that set the sea's limit. To live wisely is to live with the grain of reality rather than against it.

Christians have long heard something more here. The New Testament calls Christ the wisdom of God, the one through whom all things were made. Proverbs 8 is not a direct description of him, but it prepares the ground. The delight of Wisdom in mankind finds its fulfillment in one who delighted in us enough to come.

Apply it. Wisdom is described as joyful. It rejoices, it delights, it plays. What would change if you thought of the wise life as joyful rather than merely careful? Where do you see the wisdom of God in the created world around you this week? And how does knowing that Christ is God's wisdom change the way you read this chapter?