Wisdom of Solomon 6: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The speaker turns to kings and judges, warning that their power came from the Lord and that he will examine their works and plans, and that those in high places face a strict judgment. He then urges them to learn wisdom, describing her as easy to find by those who look for her, and tracing a chain from the desire to be taught, through love and the keeping of her laws, to closeness with God. He promises to tell them what wisdom is and how she came to be, hiding nothing and passing by no truth.

Claim by Claim

1. 6:1
   • Kings are told to hear.
   • Kings are told to understand.
   • Those who are judges of the ends of the earth are told to learn.
2. 6:2
   • Those who rule over people are told to give ear.
   • Those addressed glory in the multitude of nations.
3. 6:3
   • Power was given to the rulers by the Lord.
   • Sovereignty was given to them from the Most High.
   • The Most High will try their works.
   • The Most High will search out their counsels.
4. 6:4
   • The rulers are ministers of God's kingdom.
   • The rulers have not judged rightly.
   • The rulers have not kept the law.
   • The rulers have not walked according to the counsel of God.
5. 6:5
   • He will come upon them horribly.
   • He will come upon them speedily.
   • A sharp judgment comes upon those in high places.
6. 6:6
   • The lowest person is pardoned in mercy.
   • Mighty men will be mightily tormented.
7. 6:7
   • The Lord of all will not defer to any person's face.
   • The Lord of all will not stand in awe of greatness.
   • He made the small and the great.
   • He cares for all alike.
8. 6:8
   • A severe trial comes upon the mighty.
9. 6:9
   • The speaker's words are addressed to the rulers.
   • The purpose is that they may learn wisdom.
   • The purpose is that they may not fall away.
10. 6:10
    • Those who keep holy things in holiness shall be made holy.
    • Those who have been taught these things shall find what to answer.
11. 6:11
    • The hearers are told to desire the speaker's words.
    • The hearers are told to long for them.
    • If they long for them they shall be instructed.
12. 6:12
    • Wisdom is glorious.
    • Wisdom never fades away.
    • Wisdom is easily seen by those who love her.
    • Wisdom is found by those who seek her.
13. 6:13
    • Wisdom goes before those who desire her.
    • Wisdom makes herself known to them first.
14. 6:14
    • Whoever seeks wisdom early shall not grow weary.
    • The one who seeks her early shall find her sitting at his doors.
15. 6:15
    • To think about wisdom is perfection of understanding.
    • Whoever watches for wisdom shall quickly be free from care.
16. 6:16
    • Wisdom goes about seeking those who are worthy of her.
    • Wisdom shows herself favorably to them in the ways.
    • Wisdom meets them in every thought.
17. 6:17
    • The true beginning of wisdom is the desire of instruction.
    • The care of instruction is love.
18. 6:18
    • Love is the keeping of wisdom's laws.
    • Giving heed to her laws is the assurance of incorruption.
19. 6:19
    • Incorruption brings one near to God.
20. 6:20
    • The desire of wisdom brings to a kingdom.
21. 6:21
    • The rulers of the people may delight in thrones and sceptres.
    • If they delight in thrones and sceptres, they are told to honour wisdom.
    • The purpose of honouring wisdom is that they may reign for evermore.
22. 6:22
    • The speaker will tell what wisdom is.
    • The speaker will tell how wisdom came to be.
    • The speaker will not hide mysteries from them.
    • The speaker will seek wisdom out from the beginning of her origin.
    • The speaker will bring the knowledge of wisdom into the open.
    • The speaker will not pass over the truth.
23. 6:23
    • The speaker will not travel with consuming envy.
    • Such a person will have no fellowship with wisdom.
24. 6:24
    • A multitude of wise men is the welfare of the world.
    • A wise king is the upholding of the people.
25. 6:25
    • The hearers are told to be instructed by the speaker's words.
    • Being instructed by them will do them good.

Words Worth Explaining

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

6:1

The book is written in Greek but speaks throughout in the voice of Solomon, the king remembered for wisdom, addressing his fellow rulers. "Kings" and "judges" are not two groups but one: in the ancient world the ruler was also the highest court, so to rule and to judge were the same office.

6:2

A nation is a big group of people with their own land and ruler.

6:3

"The Highest" is a title for God, the one above everyone. In 1611 English "try" meant to test something to see if it is good, the way gold is tested in fire. "Counsels" means the plans you make in private.

6:4

"Ministers" in 1611 meant servants or officers of a ruler and carried no religious sense. The Greek word behind it is the ordinary term for royal administrators, the officials who carry out a king's orders.

6:5

"High places" here simply means high office. Elsewhere in the King James Bible the same phrase usually means hilltop shrines, but the Greek word here has nothing to do with worship sites; it refers to people set up above others.

6:6

"The meanest" does not mean the cruelest. In 1611 "mean" meant low in rank or standing, so "the meanest" is the person of lowest station, the one with no power at all.

6:7

"Shall fear no man's person" is an old English rendering of a biblical idiom about faces: to receive, lift up or regard a person's face meant to be swayed by who they were rather than by what was true. The phrase is about impartiality in a judge, not about courage.

6:8

"Sore" in 1611 meant harsh or severe. A "trial" here is not a courtroom trial but a hard test of what someone is really like.

6:9

This book speaks in the voice of Solomon, an Israelite king remembered as the wisest of all. He is pictured here giving advice to other kings.

6:10

"Find what to answer" is courtroom language. The Greek word is the one used for a defense made by an accused person, so the picture is of standing at a trial and having something to say.

6:11

"Set your affection" is stronger than warm feeling. In 1611 "affection" meant the direction in which a person's desire leans, so the command is to aim one's wanting at these words.

6:12

Wisdom is "she" throughout this book partly as a matter of grammar: the Greek noun sophia is feminine, as the Hebrew hokmah is in Proverbs. The writer also develops the grammar into a full portrait of a woman who searches, appears, waits and welcomes, following the personified Wisdom of Proverbs 8 and 9.

6:13

"Preventeth" in 1611 meant to come before or to get there first, the opposite of its modern sense of hindering. Wisdom arrives ahead of the person looking for her.

6:14

"Seeketh her early" translates a Greek verb meaning to get up at dawn, an image of eagerness rather than of youth. Sitting at his doors is likewise concrete: a city's gateway was where judges sat and public business was done, so Wisdom is already waiting at the place he was on his way to.

6:15

"Without care" means free from anxiety, not careless. In 1611 "care" ordinarily meant worry or burden.

6:16

"Meeteth them in every thought" renders a Greek word that can mean a thought, an intention or a plan, so the line can be read either as Wisdom meeting the seeker in each thought he has or as meeting him at every turn of whatever he sets out to do. The ambiguity is in the original.

6:17

"Discipline" here is the Greek paideia, which covers the whole business of education and upbringing, the training that forms a person. It does not mean punishment, which is how the English word now usually sounds.

6:18

"Incorruption" translates a Greek word meaning the state of not decaying, used of things that do not perish and so, of persons, of deathlessness. "Assurance" renders a legal and commercial word meaning a confirmation or guarantee.

6:20

Verses 17 to 20 form a sorites, a chain argument in which the end of each step becomes the beginning of the next, a device familiar from Greek rhetoric and schoolroom logic. Desire for instruction leads by links to a kingdom, which lands the argument back on the kings addressed in verse 1.

6:21

"Thrones and sceptres" is a stock pair standing for royal office itself. A scepter was the ornamented staff a ruler held in public as the visible sign of the authority to command.

6:22

"Mysteries" translates mysteria, the Greek word for the secrets disclosed only to those formally initiated into a cult such as the rites at Eleusis. The writer borrows the term to promise the opposite of secrecy: nothing will be kept back. "Nativity" is simply birth or origin.

6:23

"Consuming envy" renders phthonos, which in Greek covers not only resenting what another has but grudging what one has oneself and refusing to share it. Ancient writers commonly said that the divine and the truly wise are "without envy," meaning open handed with what they know, which is the claim being made here.

6:24

"Welfare" translates a Greek word meaning safety, preservation or deliverance, the condition of a city that has been kept from ruin. "Upholding" renders a word for stability, what keeps a structure standing.