SUMMARY
WisdomWisdom encompasses the qualities of experience, knowledge, and good judgment. The Old Testament book of Proverbs, which sometimes invokes a Woman as the personification of Wisdom, is a collection of aphorisms and moral teachings. Along with other biblical passages, it teaches, "The fear of the... is personified as God’s daughter and master worker, present with God at creationCreation, in biblical terms, is the universe as we know or perceive it. Genesis says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In the book of Revelation (which speaks of end times) the author declares that God created all things and....
ANALYSIS
The creative activity of wisdom is described in these central verses. (See Woman Wisdom as Prophet, Teacher, PriestA priest is a person who has the authority to perform religious rites. In New Testament times priests were responsible for daily offerings and sacrifices in the temple., Master Worker, Child of God, and Order of the Universe in Bible in the World.) What is truly astonishing about wisdom as described here is that wisdom is said to have been present at the time of “beginning” (the Hebrew reshith is the same as be-reshith “in the beginning,” the first word in the Bible, in Genesis 1:1), participating in creation. Her presence at creation points us forward to John 1. (See JesusJesus is the Messiah whose life, death, and resurrection are God's saving act for humanity. as Wisdom in John in Bible in the World.) The verb translated as “create” in verse 22 is, in Hebrew, qanah, which could be translated as “possess,” “own,” “buy,” or, most significantly, as “procreate.”
Also highly significant is that, in verse 30 Wisdom is described by a word that can mean either “master worker” or “little child.” All of the verbs that precede this verse point to the translation “master worker,” rather like an architect: established the heavens, drew a circle, made firm, assigned a limit. But the verses that follow fit far better with the translation “little child”:
30…and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always,
31 rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.
