Wisdom of Solomon 7: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The speaker says he is mortal like everyone else, born the way all people are born, and that no king begins life any differently. He tells how he prayed and a spirit of wisdom came to him, and how he valued her above scepters, riches, precious stones, health, beauty and light itself. He lists the knowledge that came with her: how the world is put together, the seasons and stars, animals, winds, human thoughts and plants. He then describes the spirit in wisdom with a long list of qualities, and calls her a breath of God's power, a mirror of God at work, and one who makes people friends of God and prophets.

Claim by Claim

1. 7:1
   • The speaker says he is himself mortal, the same as everyone else.
   • The speaker says he is a descendant of the first-formed man, who came from the earth.
2. 7:2
   • The speaker was shaped into flesh in his mother's womb.
   • The shaping in the womb took the time of ten months.
   • He was compacted in blood.
   • He came from the seed of a man.
   • He came from the pleasure that accompanies sleep.
3. 7:3
   • When the speaker was born, he drew in the common air.
   • He fell upon the earth, which is of like nature to himself.
   • His first utterance was a cry, the same as that of everyone.
4. 7:4
   • The speaker was reared in swaddling clothes.
   • The speaker was reared with cares.
5. 7:5
   • No king had any other beginning of birth.
6. 7:6
   • All people have one and the same entrance into life.
   • All people have a like going out of life.
7. 7:7
   • Because of this, the speaker prayed.
   • Understanding was given to the speaker.
   • The speaker called upon God.
   • A spirit of wisdom came to the speaker.
8. 7:8
   • The speaker preferred wisdom above sceptres and thrones.
   • The speaker considered riches to be nothing in comparison with wisdom.
9. 7:9
   • The speaker did not liken any priceless stone to wisdom.
   • All gold, set beside wisdom, is a little sand.
   • Silver will be counted as clay before wisdom.
10. 7:10
    • The speaker loved wisdom above health and beauty.
    • The speaker chose to have wisdom instead of light.
    • The light that comes from wisdom never sleeps or goes out.
11. 7:11
    • All good things came to the speaker together with wisdom.
    • Innumerable riches are in wisdom's hands.
12. 7:12
    • The speaker rejoiced over all these good things.
    • Wisdom leads and goes before these good things.
    • The speaker did not know that wisdom was the mother and origin of them.
13. 7:13
    • The speaker learned without guile.
    • The speaker imparts wisdom liberally and without grudging.
    • The speaker does not hide wisdom's riches.
14. 7:14
    • Wisdom is a treasure for men that never fails.
    • Those who use that treasure become friends of God.
    • They are commended for the gifts that come from instruction.
15. 7:15
    • God grants the speaker to speak according to his own mind.
    • God grants the speaker to think worthily of the things that have been given him.
    • God is the guide of wisdom.
    • God is the corrector of the wise.
16. 7:16
    • We ourselves are in God's hand.
    • Our words are in God's hand.
    • All understanding is in God's hand.
    • Knowledge of craftsmanship is in God's hand.
17. 7:17
    • God gave the speaker unerring knowledge of the things that are.
    • God gave the speaker knowledge of how the world is put together.
    • God gave the speaker knowledge of the working of the elements.
18. 7:18
    • The speaker was given knowledge of the beginning, the end, and the middle of times.
    • The speaker was given knowledge of the alternations of the solstices.
    • The speaker was given knowledge of the changes of the seasons.
19. 7:19
    • The speaker was given knowledge of the cycles of years.
    • The speaker was given knowledge of the positions of the stars.
20. 7:20
    • The speaker was given knowledge of the natures of living creatures.
    • The speaker was given knowledge of the rages of wild beasts.
    • The speaker was given knowledge of the violence of winds.
    • The speaker was given knowledge of the reasonings of men.
    • The speaker was given knowledge of the varieties of plants.
    • The speaker was given knowledge of the powers of roots.
21. 7:21
    • The speaker knows all things that are hidden and all things that are visible.
22. 7:22
    • Wisdom is the craftsman of all things.
    • Wisdom taught the speaker.
    • There is in wisdom a spirit.
    • That spirit is intelligent.
    • That spirit is holy.
    • That spirit is unique and one only.
    • That spirit is manifold.
    • That spirit is subtle.
    • That spirit moves easily.
    • That spirit is clear.
    • That spirit is undefiled.
    • That spirit is distinct and plain.
    • That spirit cannot be harmed.
    • That spirit loves what is good.
    • That spirit is keen.
    • That spirit cannot be hindered.
    • That spirit does good.
23. 7:23
    • That spirit loves mankind.
    • That spirit is steadfast.
    • That spirit is sure.
    • That spirit is free from care.
    • That spirit has all power.
    • That spirit oversees all things.
    • That spirit passes through all spirits that are intelligent, pure, and most subtle.
24. 7:24
    • Wisdom is more mobile than any motion.
    • Wisdom pervades and passes through all things because of her purity.
25. 7:25
    • Wisdom is a breath of the power of God.
    • Wisdom is a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty.
    • Because of this, nothing defiled enters into wisdom.
26. 7:26
    • Wisdom is the radiance of everlasting light.
    • Wisdom is the unspotted mirror of God's working.
    • Wisdom is the image of God's goodness.
27. 7:27
    • Though wisdom is one, she can do all things.
    • While remaining in herself, wisdom makes all things new.
    • In every generation wisdom passes into holy souls.
    • Wisdom makes those souls friends of God and prophets.
28. 7:28
    • God loves no one except the one who dwells with wisdom.
29. 7:29
    • Wisdom is more beautiful than the sun.
    • Wisdom is above every arrangement of the stars.
    • Compared with light, wisdom is found to come before it.
30. 7:30
    • Night succeeds the light.
    • Evil does not prevail against wisdom.

Words Worth Explaining

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

7:1

The whole book speaks in the voice of a king of Israel who asked God for wisdom, which readers have always taken to mean Solomon, though the name is never used. "Him that was first made of the earth" is Adam, the first human being, formed out of the ground in Genesis.

7:2

Ancient writers usually counted a pregnancy as ten lunar months of about twenty eight days each, which comes to roughly nine of our months. "Compacted in blood" reflects the standard medical theory of the time, that the child was formed when the father's seed curdled and set the mother's blood in the womb, the way rennet sets milk. "The pleasure that came with sleep" is a polite way of saying sexual intercourse; some Greek copies read "the pleasure of marriage" instead.

7:3

"Of like nature" points back to Genesis, where the first man is formed from the dust of the ground, so that a human body and the earth are made of the same stuff. Newborns were commonly laid on the ground before being lifted and wrapped, which is what "fell upon the earth" pictures.

7:4

"Swaddling clothes" were long narrow strips of cloth wound tightly around a newborn, binding the arms and legs straight. It was ordinary infant care, not a hardship, and the point of the verse is that a king's infancy looked exactly like anyone else's.

7:5

The one talking is a king. He says kings are born just like everyone else.

7:6

The door is being born. Going out the same way means dying. Rich and poor both do it the same.

7:7

The scene recalls the young Solomon at Gibeon in 1 Kings 3, who is offered anything he asks for and asks for an understanding mind rather than wealth, long life, or victory over enemies.

7:8

A scepter is the ornamented rod or staff a ruler holds as the visible sign of authority; "sceptres and thrones" together is a standard way of saying royal power itself. From here on wisdom is "she" because the word is grammatically feminine in Greek (sophia) and in Hebrew (hokmah); the pronoun follows the grammar of the language, and the book then develops the picture of wisdom as a woman.

7:9

Clay is common mud, the stuff cheap pots were made from. Next to wisdom, silver is worth no more than that.

7:10

"Light" here means daylight, which ancient writers regularly used as a figure for being alive at all, so choosing wisdom instead of light is a deliberately extreme comparison. The reason given is that wisdom's own light, unlike the sun's, never sets.

7:12

Calling wisdom their mother means every good thing is born from her. She comes first, and the rest follow after.

7:13

In 1611 English "communicate" meant to share out or hand on something you possess, not to talk. "Learned diligently" renders a Greek word meaning learned without guile or grudging, which is why the second half of the sentence answers it: he took it honestly and gives it away freely.

7:14

The Greek is compressed and can be read more than one way. The "gifts that come from learning" may be the benefits education confers on a person, which commend that person to God, or gifts that a trained person presents to God, imagined as offerings. "Friends of God" was an established phrase, used in Jewish tradition of figures like Abraham and Moses who dealt with God directly.

7:15

"Meet" in 1611 English means fitting or suitable. The second half of the verse is genuinely difficult in Greek: it can mean that God is the guide who leads people to wisdom, which is how the King James reads it, or that God guides wisdom herself, which is how most modern translations read it.

7:16

"Knowledge of workmanship" means skill in a craft, the practical know-how of a builder, a metalworker or a weaver, rather than book learning.

7:17

The list running from here to verse 20 is a summary of the standard Greek curriculum of the period: natural philosophy, astronomy, the calendar, zoology, meteorology, the study of human character, botany and medicine. "The elements" are the four basic substances Greek science held the world to be made of: earth, water, air and fire.

7:18

"The turning of the sun" means the solstices, the two moments in the year when the sun stops creeping north or south along the horizon and turns back, fixing the longest and shortest days. Tracking them was the basic work of ancient astronomy.

7:19

"The circuits of years" are the repeating cycles a calendar is built on, chiefly the problem of keeping the solar year and the lunar month in step with each other. "The positions of stars" means the constellations and where they stand in the sky at a given season.

7:20

"Virtues" in 1611 English means powers or potencies, and "the virtues of roots" refers to the healing power of roots and herbs, which was the subject matter of ancient medicine. "Furies of wild beasts" means their savage rage, not supernatural beings.

7:22

"The worker of all things" translates a Greek word meaning craftsman or master builder, picturing wisdom as the artisan who made everything. The qualities listed here and in the next verse number twenty one, which is three times seven, and the count is almost certainly deliberate. Three of the King James words have shifted meaning since 1611: "subtil" does not mean crafty but fine and rarefied, able to pass through solid things the way air or light does; "lively" means agile and freely moving, not cheerful; and "letted" means hindered, since "let" then meant to obstruct, the opposite of its modern sense. The phrase "loving the thing that is good quick" has lost its punctuation: "quick" is a separate quality on the list, meaning keen or sharp.

7:23

"Free from care" means untroubled, not careless. The last words of the verse are hard to follow in the King James because the commas fell in the wrong places: the sense is that wisdom passes through all spirits that are intelligent, pure and the finest of all.

7:24

Language of this kind, a fine substance pervading and penetrating everything because of its purity, was standard in Greek philosophy of the period for describing the force that holds the universe together. The writer is using the scientific vocabulary of his own day.

7:25

"Influence" in 1611 English meant a flowing in, a stream pouring out from its source; it had nothing to do with persuasion. The Greek word behind it is used of a vapor or fine mist given off by something. "Breath" is the ordinary word for a puff of air.

7:26

Mirrors in the ancient world were sheets of polished bronze or silver, not glass, and they tarnished and scratched easily, so a spotless mirror meant one kept perfectly bright and therefore giving back an exact image. Where the King James has "the power of God," the Greek word means God's activity or working.

7:27

"Remaining in herself" means staying unchanged in her own being while changing everything else. "Friends of God" was a set phrase for figures such as Abraham and Moses, and a prophet in this sense is a person who speaks on God's behalf.

7:28

The King James "loveth none but him" is stronger than the Greek, which says that God loves nothing so much as the person who lives with wisdom.

7:29

"The order of stars" means the constellations, the fixed patterns the stars keep. "She is found before it" is open either way: wisdom may rank ahead of light, or may come before it in time.

7:30

"Vice" translates a Greek word meaning wickedness or evil in general, not a particular bad habit. The contrast is between two things that look alike but are not: daylight always yields to night, whereas wisdom never yields to evil.