Scripture Commentaries

The Wisdom Woman and Christ
Irene Nowell, OSB

Originally published in God’s Word Today
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An amazing figure appears for the first time in the book of Proverbs: a woman whose name is Wisdom. She claims great privilege and makes wonderful promises. She is everywhere, yet she speaks to each of us. Who is this Wisdom Woman?

The Wisdom Woman in the Book of Proverbs
The Wisdom Woman is introduced in two short passages. In the first chapter of Proverbs (1:20-33) she is described as a street prophet, crying out to all the passersby. She warns that those who ignore her will succumb to terror. But those who obey her will live “in peace, without fear of harm” (Prov 1:33). In a later section surrounded by beatitudes (3:13, 18) we learn that Wisdom is worth more than any treasure, because what she offers is life (3:14-16)! In fact, she is the very tree of life (3:18) to which we lost access long ago in the garden (see Gen 3:24).

Chapters 8 and 9 of Proverbs give us our first detailed description of the Wisdom Woman. Again she is out in the street calling to us (8:1-3). After reminding us of her worth, she announces that she lives with experience (8:12). This is no surprise. We know that wisdom is gained through experience. But she goes farther. She claims to be the power by which we do what we do. It is virtually impossible to convey in English what she says: Kings “king” through me and princes “prince” (8:15-16). We could say that it is through Wisdom that teachers teach, doctors doctor, cooks cook, presidents preside, and lovers love. Those who love Wisdom will prosper (8:17-21).

Up to this point we have learned what Wisdom does, but the only clue to her identity is the comment that she is the tree of life (3:18). Now she begins to tell us more about who she is. She is the first of God’s works; she came from God before time began (8:22-23). She was there when God created everything (8:24-29). She was not only there; she was God’s counselor, the designer of creation (8:30)! A beautiful word play in verses 30-31 tells us where we fit in this story. The Wisdom Woman is God’s delight and she delights in us; she joyfully plays before God, playing on the surface of the earth. She is our bridge to God, and we find her where we find play and delight! No wonder the people who cling to her are described as happy (8:33-34)! Those who find her find life, but those who hate her love death (8:35-36). To find her is to find our way to God. To miss her is to go astray and finally to die.

In chapter 9 the Wisdom Woman, who is the designer of creation and our bridge to God, invites us to dinner. She has prepared everything. She has built the house, butchered the meat, mixed the wine, set the table, and sent out invitations (9:1-3). All we have to do is come, eat, and drink (9:5). To eat with someone, sharing the same nourishment, is to share life. So to eat with Wisdom is to share her life. She, who shares life with God, now shares life with us too. She, who is the tree of life, fills us with the life of God.

The Wisdom Woman appears only once more in the book of Proverbs. If we look closely at the woman of worth, that wonderful wife and mother described in Prov 31:10-31, we find an image of the Wisdom Woman. Like the good wife, the Wisdom Woman brings us good and not evil (31:12). She, designer of creation, provides for all our needs (31:13-24). She is our hope for the future, laughing at the days to come (31:25). The Woman, whose name is “Fear of the Lord,” is to be praised (see 31:30).

How are we to understand this figure of Wisdom? It is not surprising that Wisdom is personified as a woman. There are grammatical reasons: The Hebrew word for “wisdom” is feminine in gender. There are literary reasons: Describing Wisdom as a beautiful woman would appeal to young men, who are the primary audience for the book of Proverbs. Folly is also described as a woman, but a dangerous and tempting one (Prov 9:13-18). What is surprising is that this figure of the Wisdom Woman takes on a life of her own beyond the book of Proverbs!

The Wisdom Woman in the book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)
In the second century B.C. a Jerusalem sage built his book around three descriptions of Wisdom (Sirach 1; 24; 51). The central description, in chapter 24, is a meditation on Proverbs 8--9. Wisdom is again speaking, but now she is in God’s council room (24:1-2). She tells us again that she comes from God, but now she is more specific. She comes from God’s mouth (24:3), so she is God’s word or God’s breath. She roams everywhere, but she is looking for a place to live (24:4-7). At God’s command she pitches her tent in Jerusalem among God’s people (24:8-12). (We should not miss Sirach’s bold claim here: Every nation has access to Wisdom, but she lives with us!) We already know that Wisdom is the tree of life, but now we learn that she is every wonderful tree — good for food and fragrance (24:13-17). Again she cries out to us to come and eat. Her fruit, the food of life, is sweeter than honey. Because we can never get enough life, we will always long for more (24:18-20 [NRSV 19-21]).

Now Sirach reveals the most amazing news. Do you want to know how it is that the Wisdom Woman lives in our midst? She is “the book of the Most High’s covenant, the law which Moses commanded us” (Sir 24:22[23]). She is the Word of God, found in our Scriptures! Finally Sirach gives us one more image for Wisdom. She is the water of life flowing from the garden of Eden (Gen 2:11-14), enlivening the whole world (24:23-27[25-29]). Sirach, the teacher, digs a little channel from this flooding river to water his plants (his students). From this little channel the waters of Wisdom go farther than he could have imagined (24:28-31[30-33]).

The Wisdom Woman in the Book of Wisdom
About a century after Sirach a sage from Alexandria, Egypt also wrote about the Wisdom Woman. Because he took on the persona of Solomon, his book is often called the Wisdom of Solomon. He introduces his praise by saying, “Now what Wisdom is, and how she came to be, I shall relate; and I shall hide no secrets from you” (Wis 6:22). He knows the way to Wisdom is through common human experience (7:1-6); he also knows that Wisdom is God’s gift and that every good thing comes from her (7:7-12). He assures us that those who find Wisdom “win the friendship of God” (7:14).

Because this sage wrote in Greek (in contrast to the Hebrew of Proverbs and Sirach), he had the advantage of a larger vocabulary. He tells us that the Wisdom Woman is the “mother” (genetis, or “generator”) of all good things and the “designer” (technitis, or “technologist”) of all creation (7:12, 22). Then he describes the Wisdom Woman with twenty-one adjectives (7:22-23)! Not only is this a lot of adjectives, but twenty-one is a perfect number (seven) multiplied by another perfect number (three). What more could he say! Still he is not finished. His description boggles our minds. Wisdom is more mobile than motion, and penetrates all things (7:24). She is fairer than the sun and stars; she is better than light. She rules all things well (7:29-30).

But the most important part of his praise tells of Wisdom’s intimate relationship with God: She is an aura of God’s power, the outpouring of God’s glory, the shining of God’s light, the perfect mirror of God’s might, the image of God’s goodness (7:25-26). How can we separate the outpouring from the glory or the shining from the light? But still there is more. Wisdom, herself one, can do all things and renews everything. It is she who makes us friends of God and prophets (7:27). The sage vows to take her for his own, knowing that kinship with her brings immortality (8:17-18), and prays to God to send her (9:1-12).

Who is this Wisdom Woman? The sage gives us one more clue. Chapter 10 is a summary of biblical history from Adam to the Exodus. Throughout the chapter the actor is always “she.” “She [the Wisdom Woman] preserved the first-formed father of the world [Adam] when he alone had been created, and she raised him up from his fall” (10:1). Wisdom saved the flooded earth, “piloting the just man [Noah] on frailest wood (10:4). She “kept the just man [Abraham] blameless before God and preserved him resolute against pity for his child” (10:5). She delivered the people from their oppressor, “conducted them by a wondrous road, and became a shelter for them by day and a starry flame by night. She took them across the Red Sea” (10:15-18).

Who is this? Who raised up Adam? Who guided Noah? Who befriended Abraham? Who led the people across the Red Sea and guided them by a pillar of cloud and fire? If we look closely at this perfect mirror, will we see the face of God?

Christ: The Wisdom of God
The New Testament writers have an amazing answer to that question. The Gospel of John begins with a hymn that sounds very much like Proverbs 8 and Sirach 24. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came to be through him” (John 1:1, 3). But there is a new revelation. “The Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us” (John 1:14). This Word of God, present at creation, through whom all things were made, certainly seems to be Wisdom. But no one had even imagined that the Wisdom of God would become flesh! This figure, in contrast to the Wisdom Woman, is male. Is this really Wisdom?
Paul says it clearly: “We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:23-24). A later letter borrows the phrases from Wisdom 7: “He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth (Col 1:15-16).

How can we find Wisdom in the image of Christ crucified? Nothing prepared us for the fact that Wisdom herself would suffer. We saw the Wisdom Woman as the first of God’s works, present before time began. But who would have guessed that Christ, the Wisdom of God, would also be “firstborn from the dead” (Col 1:18). We were told that Wisdom made us friends of God, but who told us that God would “reconcile all things through him, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col 1:20)? We knew that Wisdom is found with experience. But how could we know that Wisdom, “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped” (Phil 2:6). How could we know that the Wisdom of God was willing to take on the whole of human experience, even death?

God’s ways are not our ways. God’s ways are often mysterious, sometimes troubling, always surprising. What began as a literary figure, the Wisdom Woman, became a means of revelation for us of how intimately God desires to share everything with us. The Wisdom Woman became for us an image of God’s goodness, an outpouring of God’s glory, an aura of God’s power. In the fullness of time the image of Wisdom became for us a way to describe God’s overwhelming love made flesh in Christ. Happy are we if we cling to Wisdom!