Wisdom of Solomon 4: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter sets having no children but having virtue against the many children of the ungodly, saying that the memory of virtue never dies while the offspring of the ungodly will not take root or last. It says honorable old age is measured by wisdom and an unstained life rather than by years, and it tells of a man who pleased God and was taken away quickly while he was living among sinners. It closes with the ungodly seeing the end of the righteous man and not understanding it, being brought to ruin, and being convicted by their own sins.

Claim by Claim

1. 4:1
   • It is better to be childless and have virtue
   • The memory of virtue is immortal
   • Virtue is recognized by God
   • Virtue is recognized by men
2. 4:2
   • When virtue is present, men imitate it
   • When virtue has departed, men long for it
   • Virtue wears a crown
   • Virtue marches in triumph forever
   • Virtue has won the victory
   • Virtue competes for undefiled prizes
3. 4:3
   • The numerous offspring of the ungodly will be of no use
   • Offspring from illegitimate shoots will not take deep root
   • Offspring from illegitimate shoots will not establish a secure foundation
4. 4:4
   • Even if such offspring put out branches and flourish for a time
   • They do not stand firm
   • They will be shaken by the wind
   • They will be uprooted by the violence of winds
5. 4:5
   • Their immature branches will be broken off
   • Their fruit is useless
   • Their fruit is not ripe enough to eat
   • Their fruit is fit for nothing
6. 4:6
   • Children born of unlawful unions are witnesses of wickedness against their parents when they are examined
7. 4:7
   • A righteous man, even if he dies before his time, will be at rest
8. 4:8
   • Honorable old age does not consist in length of time
   • Old age is not measured by number of years
9. 4:9
   • Wisdom is gray hair for men
   • An unspotted life is old age
10. 4:10
    • He pleased God
    • He was loved by God
    • He was living among sinners
    • He was taken away
11. 4:11
    • He was taken away quickly
    • He was taken away so that wickedness would not alter his understanding
    • He was taken away so that deceit would not beguile his soul
12. 4:12
    • The fascination of wickedness obscures what is good
    • The whirl of desire undermines an innocent mind
13. 4:13
    • He was made perfect in a short time
    • He fulfilled a long time
14. 4:14
    • His soul was pleasing to the Lord
    • Therefore he was hurried away from among the wicked
15. 4:15
    • The people saw this
    • The people did not understand it
    • The people did not lay this up in their minds
    • God's grace and mercy are with his saints
    • God has regard for his chosen
16. 4:16
    • The righteous man who is dead will condemn the ungodly who are living
    • Youth quickly perfected will condemn the many years and old age of the unrighteous
17. 4:17
    • They will see the end of the wise man
    • They will not understand what God decreed in his counsel concerning him
    • They will not understand to what end the Lord set him in safety
18. 4:18
    • They will see him
    • They will despise him
    • God will laugh them to scorn
    • Afterward they will be a dishonored corpse
    • They will be a reproach among the dead forever
19. 4:19
    • He will rend them
    • He will cast them down headlong so that they are speechless
    • He will shake them from the foundation
    • They will be utterly laid waste
    • They will be in sorrow
    • Their memory will perish
20. 4:20
    • They will come with fear when their sins are counted up
    • Their own iniquities will convict them to their face

Words Worth Explaining

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

4:1

In the world this book was written for, a large family was the visible mark of a blessed life, and having no children was treated as a misfortune and a reproach. The opening line deliberately overturns that assumption. "Memorial" here means the memory people keep of someone, with a hint of the monument or name left behind.

4:2

The picture comes from Greek athletic games and a victory parade: the winner was crowned with a wreath and led through the city in triumph. The "undefiled rewards" are prizes won cleanly, with nothing in the winning that stains them.

4:3

A "slip" is a cutting taken from a plant and pushed into the ground to root. The whole argument runs on a plant image. Children born outside a lawful marriage had no legal claim on the family land or name, so the line they begin has nothing to root in and nothing to build on.

4:5

In the King James, "meet for nothing" uses "meet" in its older sense of fit or suitable. The phrase means fit for no use at all.

4:6

"Unlawful beds" means sexual unions outside lawful marriage, chiefly adultery. The trial is not identified: the Greek can mean a formal examination in a court or the final reckoning this book keeps returning to, and the wording leaves both open.

4:7

In the King James, "prevented with death" uses "prevent" in its 1611 sense of coming first or arriving ahead of time. It means death reached him early, not that death was somehow stopped.

4:8

Long life was widely read as the reward of a good life, and an early death as a verdict on the person who died. Verses 8 and 9 take the vocabulary of that assumption, honorable age and gray hair, and hand it to something other than years.

4:9

Gray hair carried real social weight. Age brought authority, and respect for the aged was written into both law and custom. To say that wisdom is a person's gray hair is to claim that standing for the wise whatever their age.

4:10

The man is never named. The description matches Enoch in Genesis, of whom it is said that he "walked with God: and he was not; for God took him." The King James word "translated" is older English for carried across or moved from one place to another, so it means taken away bodily rather than dying in the ordinary way.

4:12

Four King James words have shifted since 1611. "Naughtiness" meant serious wickedness, not small mischief. "Honest" meant honorable or good, not truthful. "Concupiscence" is strong craving, often sexual desire. A "simple" mind is an innocent, unguarded one, not a stupid one.

4:13

"Made perfect" translates a Greek word meaning brought to completion or full maturity, the way a task is finished or a fruit ripens, rather than made morally flawless. The line turns on time: he reached in a few years the finished state that long life was supposed to produce.

4:14

Who does the hurrying is unclear in the Greek, and translators have long split over it: either God hurried to take him out of the world, or the man himself hurried away from the middle of wickedness. Both readings are ancient.

4:15

"Saints" here simply means holy ones, the people set apart as God's own, with no suggestion of a formal title conferred later. The King James phrase "hath respect unto" means looks on with favor, pays attention to.

4:16

"Condemn" here means condemnation by contrast, the way a truthful witness in court shows a liar up without saying a word about him. The dead man passes no sentence; his life stands as the evidence.

4:18

"Laugh them to scorn" is an old idiom for open mockery. The disgrace of the corpse is not a small detail: in the ancient world how a body was treated after death mattered enormously, and to lie dishonored and spoken of with contempt was among the worst fates imaginable.

4:19

"Memorial" again means the remembrance and the name that survive a person. The loss of it here is the deliberate mirror of verse 1, where the memorial of virtue never dies. "Shake them from the foundation" picks up the building image from verse 3.

4:20

"Cast up the accounts" is bookkeeping language: the sins are totaled like a column of figures in a ledger. In the King James, "convince them to their face" uses "convince" in its older legal sense of convict, to prove guilty in open court.