Wisdom of Solomon 1: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter addresses the judges of the earth, telling them to love righteousness and seek God with a simple heart, and saying that wisdom will not enter a soul that plans evil or live in a body under the control of sin. It says the Spirit of the Lord fills the world, so no one who speaks unrighteous things stays hidden, and it warns against grumbling and lying. It ends by saying God did not make death and takes no pleasure in the destruction of the living, while ungodly men called death to themselves by their words and their deeds.

Claim by Claim

1. 1:1
   • Judges of the earth are commanded to love righteousness.
   • The address is directed to those who judge the earth.
   • They are commanded to think of the Lord with a good mind.
   • They are commanded to seek him in singleness of heart.
2. 1:2
   • He is found by those who do not put him to the test.
   • He reveals himself to those who do not refuse to trust him.
3. 1:3
   • Crooked thoughts separate a person from God.
   • God's power, when it is put to the test, rebukes the foolish.
4. 1:4
   • Wisdom will not enter a soul that devises evil.
   • Wisdom will not dwell in a body enslaved to sin.
5. 1:5
   • A holy spirit of discipline flees from deceit.
   • It withdraws from thoughts that are without understanding.
   • When unrighteousness comes in, it is put to shame and does not remain.
6. 1:6
   • Wisdom is a spirit that loves humankind.
   • Wisdom will not hold a blasphemer guiltless for what his lips say.
   • God is a witness of the blasphemer's innermost being.
   • God is a true observer of his heart.
   • God is a hearer of his tongue.
7. 1:7
   • The spirit of the Lord fills the world.
   • That which holds all things together knows what is said.
8. 1:8
   • No one who speaks unrighteous things can remain hidden.
   • Justice, when it convicts, will not pass him by.
9. 1:9
   • The plans of the ungodly man will be searched out.
   • The sound of his words will come to the Lord.
   • This will serve to expose his lawless deeds.
10. 1:10
    • A jealous ear hears all things.
    • The noise of murmurings is not hidden.
11. 1:11
    • Guard yourselves against murmuring.
    • Murmuring is of no profit.
    • Keep your tongue from slander.
    • No secret utterance goes without effect.
    • A lying mouth destroys the soul.
12. 1:12
    • Do not seek death by the error of your life.
    • Do not draw destruction upon yourselves by the works of your hands.
13. 1:13
    • God did not make death.
    • God takes no pleasure in the destruction of the living.
14. 1:14
    • He created all things so that they might exist.
    • The generative things of the world are wholesome.
    • There is no destructive poison in them.
    • The realm of death holds no royal rule over the earth.
15. 1:15
    • Righteousness is immortal.
16. 1:16
    • Ungodly men summoned death with their hands and their words.
    • They considered death a friend.
    • They wasted away to nothing.
    • They made a covenant with death.
    • They are worthy to belong to death's portion.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

1:1

The people addressed are rulers, not only courtroom judges. The Greek word covers anyone who governs and hands down decisions, so the book opens by speaking to kings and magistrates. The King James "in simplicity of heart" does not mean simple-minded: the word means single and undivided, with no second motive hidden behind the first.

1:2

"Tempt" in the King James does not mean lure into sin. It means put to the test, try out, as you would test a coin to see whether it is genuine.

1:3

"Froward" is an old English word for crooked, twisted or perverse, the opposite of straightforward; it has nothing to do with being forward or bold. "Reproveth" means convicts, shows someone to be in the wrong, as a court does. The Greek writes "his Power" almost as a title standing in for God himself, one of the indirect ways writers of this period spoke of God without naming him.

1:4

All through this book, wisdom is spoken of as if she were a living person. She can enter a house, love people, teach them, or walk away.

1:5

"Discipline" here translates the Greek word paideia, which covers the whole business of bringing a child up: teaching, training and correction together, not punishment alone. The Greek of the last clause is uncertain: it can mean the spirit will be put to shame, or will be convicted, when wrongdoing arrives; the King James reads it as the spirit leaving.

1:6

"A loving spirit" translates a Greek word meaning loving toward human beings, friendly to people. Wisdom is called "she" because the Greek noun for wisdom, sophia, is grammatically feminine, and the book goes on to speak of her as a person. A "blasphemer" is someone whose speech insults or slanders, here against God. "Reins" is the old English word for the kidneys, which were thought of as the seat of a person's deepest and most hidden feelings, so a witness of someone's reins is a witness of what no one else can see.

1:7

"Containeth" in 1611 English means holds together, keeps in place, not merely encloses. "Hath knowledge of the voice" is a compressed phrase meaning it knows every sound that is uttered, so no spoken word escapes it.

1:8

"Vengeance" here translates the Greek word dike, which means both justice and the penalty justice exacts. In Greek writing Dike was also the name of a goddess of justice, and the sentence treats her almost as a person who walks past some people and stops at others.

1:9

"Inquisition shall be made" simply means a search or investigation will be carried out; it has nothing to do with the later church courts of that name. "Counsels" means plans and private deliberations, the things a person decides inwardly before acting.

1:10

"The ear of jealousy" is a figure of speech: jealousy here is not petty envy but the protective, unwilling-to-share attention of someone with an exclusive claim, so the phrase means an ear that misses nothing because it is listening closely. "Murmurings" are complaints muttered under the breath, the word used in Greek scripture for Israel's grumbling in the wilderness.

1:11

"Backbiting" means speaking against someone behind their back, slander. "Go for nought" means pass by without effect, come to nothing. "Belieth" is the old verb meaning tells lies, speaks falsely about something.

1:12

"The error of your life" translates a word that means wandering off the road. The picture is of straying away from a path, not of making a mistake in reasoning.

1:14

"The generations of the world" renders a Greek phrase for the things in the world that bring other things into being, its creative or reproductive powers. "Healthful" in the King James means health-giving, wholesome, sound. "The kingdom of death" is Hades in the Greek, the realm of the dead pictured as a kingdom with a ruler who claims territory.

1:15

The King James puts this line in brackets because it is a single short clause standing on its own. The old Latin translation carried a second half here, "for unrighteousness is the acquiring of death," which is not in the Greek manuscripts.

1:16

Death is treated throughout this verse as a person: you can beckon to it, treat it as a friend and sign an agreement with it. A "covenant" is a formal binding pact of the kind made between allies or between a ruler and his people, not a casual arrangement. "Consumed to nought" means wasted away to nothing, pined away. "Worthy to take part with it" means they deserve to be counted as its own, sharing its portion.