Wisdom of Solomon 19: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter describes how anger without mercy came on the ungodly to the end, because God knew beforehand that after sending the people away they would change their minds and pursue them. It tells how creation was made new so that the people passed through the sea on dry ground, recalled the lice and frogs of the foreign land, and were given quails. It then sets side by side two kinds of harsh treatment of strangers, and lists changes among the elements: fire keeping its power in water, water not quenching, land creatures becoming water creatures. It ends with the statement that the Lord made his people great and stood by them in every time and place.

Claim by Claim

1. 19:1
   • Wrath came upon the ungodly without mercy to the end.
   • God knew beforehand what they would do.
2. 19:2
   • They had given the people leave to depart.
   • They sent the people hastily away.
   • They would change their minds and pursue them.
3. 19:3
   • They were still mourning and lamenting at the graves of the dead.
   • While still mourning, they added another foolish device.
   • They pursued as fugitives those whom they had begged to be gone.
4. 19:4
   • The destiny they deserved drew them to this end.
   • That destiny made them forget the things that had already happened.
   • The purpose was that they might fill up the punishment still lacking from their torments.
5. 19:5
   • The purpose was that God's people might pass by a wonderful way.
   • The purpose was that the ungodly might find a strange death.
6. 19:6
   • The whole creation, each part in its own kind, was fashioned anew.
   • The creation obeyed the particular commandments given to it.
   • The purpose was that God's children might be kept unharmed.
7. 19:7
   • A cloud overshadowed the camp.
   • Dry land appeared where water had stood before.
   • A way without obstacle appeared out of the Red Sea.
   • A grassy field appeared out of the violent stream.
8. 19:8
   • All the people passed through by that way.
   • Those people were covered by God's hand.
   • They saw marvellous strange wonders.
9. 19:9
   • They roamed at large like horses.
   • They leaped like lambs.
   • They praised the Lord.
   • The Lord had delivered them.
10. 19:10
    • They still remembered the things done while they sojourned in the strange land.
    • The ground brought forth gnats instead of cattle.
    • The river cast up a multitude of frogs instead of fish.
11. 19:11
    • Afterwards they saw a new kind of birds.
    • They were led on by appetite.
    • They asked for delicate food.
12. 19:12
    • Quails came up to them from the sea.
    • The quails came for their satisfaction.
13. 19:13
    • Punishments came upon the sinners.
    • The punishments did not come without prior signs given by the force of thunders.
    • They suffered justly according to their own wickedness.
    • They practised a more hard and hateful behaviour toward strangers.
14. 19:14
    • The Sodomites did not receive those whom they did not know when they came.
    • The Egyptians brought into bondage guests who had done them good.
15. 19:15
    • Some punishment will perhaps come upon the Sodomites.
    • The reason is that they received strangers in an unfriendly way.
16. 19:16
    • The Egyptians grievously afflicted those whom they had received with feastings.
    • Those afflicted had already been made partakers of the same laws with them.
17. 19:17
    • The Egyptians were stricken with blindness.
    • Those at the doors of the righteous man were stricken the same way.
    • The Egyptians were surrounded by horrible great darkness.
    • Each one of them sought the passage of his own door.
18. 19:18
    • The elements were changed among themselves by a kind of harmony.
    • In a stringed instrument the notes change the character of the tune while remaining sounds.
    • This can be perceived from the sight of the things that happened.
19. 19:19
    • Land creatures were turned into water creatures.
    • Creatures that swam in the water went upon the ground.
20. 19:20
    • Fire had power in water and forgot its own quenching limitation.
    • Water forgot its own quenching nature.
21. 19:21
    • The flames did not consume the flesh of the perishable living creatures that walked in them.
    • The flames did not melt the icy kind of heavenly food, which by nature melted easily.
22. 19:22
    • In all things the Lord magnified his people.
    • The Lord glorified them.
    • The Lord did not lightly regard them.
    • The Lord stood by them in every time and place.

Words Worth Explaining

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

19:1

From chapter 11 onward the book retells the exodus from Egypt as a prayer spoken directly to God, which is why it says "thy people" and "thou." Throughout this chapter "the ungodly" and "they" are the Egyptians, and "thy people" and "thy children" are the Israelites; the author almost never names either side.

19:2

The events behind this: in Exodus 12 Pharaoh orders the Israelites out of Egypt overnight and the Egyptians urge them to hurry, and in Exodus 14 Pharaoh changes his mind and sends chariots after them.

19:3

The mourning is for the firstborn sons of Egypt, killed in the last of the plagues the night before the Israelites left (Exodus 12).

19:4

The word behind "destiny" is the ordinary Greek term for allotted fate, familiar from Greek philosophy and drama. The author uses it of a doom the Egyptians had earned, not of a blind force. "Wanting" in 1611 English means lacking: the punishment still owed and not yet paid.

19:5

The "strange death" is drowning in the sea, strange in that a land army died in water.

19:6

"The whole creature" in 1611 English means the whole of creation, and "his proper kind" means its own particular nature. The "his" here is the old neuter possessive, equivalent to "its."

19:7

Three exodus images in a row: the pillar of cloud that went ahead of the Israelites and shaded them (Exodus 13:21), the sea driven back so they crossed on dry ground (Exodus 14:21-22), and the water standing in walls. "Red sea" translates a Greek name for a Hebrew phrase, yam suph, which means Sea of Reeds; which body of water was meant is not certain. The grassy plain coming out of the flood is the author's own expansion, not a detail found in Exodus.

19:9

Horses roaming loose and lambs skipping are stock pictures of animals let out to pasture. Psalm 114, a psalm about the exodus, uses the same image of hills and rams skipping.

19:10

"The strange land" is Egypt, where the Israelites had lived as resident foreigners. The two plagues recalled are the third, in which the dust of the ground turned into swarms of biting insects (the Greek word can mean gnats, lice or flies), and the second, in which the Nile swarmed with frogs (Exodus 8). The point of "instead of cattle" and "instead of fishes" is that land and river produced vermin where they should have produced livestock and fish.

19:11

"Fowls" in 1611 English means birds of any kind, not just barnyard poultry, and "meats" means food in general rather than flesh. "Delicate meats" is choice or luxurious food.

19:12

In Exodus 16:13 and Numbers 11:31 a wind drives quail in from the sea and drops them around the Israelite camp, after the people complain about having no meat.

19:13

The thunder is the warning that came with the seventh plague, hail mixed with fire, which Moses announced in advance so that anyone who wished could bring livestock indoors (Exodus 9:18-26). The author's point is that the Egyptians were given notice.

19:14

The King James names them: the Sodomites, the men of Sodom in Genesis 19, who refused shelter to two strangers who arrived in their town. In the ancient world receiving a traveler was a binding obligation, and refusing or abusing a guest was a serious crime rather than mere rudeness. The comparison runs: Sodom turned away strangers it had never met, while Egypt enslaved guests who had settled there and had done Egypt good, meaning Joseph, who had saved the country from famine (Genesis 41).

19:15

Those first ones are the people of Sodom. The writer says they were guilty too, but Egypt's crime was worse.

19:16

Under Joseph the Israelites were invited into Egypt by Pharaoh himself and given land in Goshen (Genesis 45-47), so they had been welcomed guests with the legal standing of residents before they were put to forced labor.

19:17

Two blindings at once. In Genesis 19:11 the men crowding Lot's door are struck so that they cannot find the doorway, and "the righteous man" is Lot. In Exodus 10:21-23 a darkness that could be felt settled over Egypt for three days, so that no one could move from his place.

19:18

"The elements" are the four basic substances of Greek natural philosophy, earth, water, air and fire, which everything else was thought to be made of. A "psaltery" is a stringed instrument played by plucking. The comparison is that the same notes rearranged give a different tune while remaining the same notes, and in the same way the four elements swapped roles without ceasing to be themselves.

19:19

Land animals going through the sea refers to the Israelites and their livestock crossing on the seabed; swimming creatures walking on land refers to the frogs that came up out of the Nile into the houses of Egypt.

19:20

"Virtue" in 1611 English means a thing's inherent power or property, with no moral sense, and "his" means "its." So fire forgot its own power to be quenched, and water forgot its power to quench. The author is thinking of Wisdom 16:17-19, where hail and fire fall together and the fire burns in the middle of the water.

19:21

The icy heavenly food is manna, the flaky bread God sent each morning in the desert. It melted in the sun, yet fire did not melt it.