Wisdom of Solomon 8: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The speaker tells how he loved wisdom from his youth and wanted to take her as his wife, and he lists what makes her worth having: she is at home with God, she knows the past and reads the future, and she teaches self-control, understanding, justice, and courage. He describes what living with her will bring him, respect from crowds and elders, admiration from great men, rule over nations, lasting memory, and rest at home without bitterness. At the end he says he saw he could not get her unless God gave her to him, and that knowing whose gift she was is itself part of wisdom, so he prayed to the Lord, and his prayer begins.

Claim by Claim

1. 8:1
   • Wisdom extends from one end to the other end with strength
   • Wisdom orders all things well
2. 8:2
   • The speaker loved wisdom
   • The speaker sought wisdom out from his youth
   • The speaker desired to take wisdom as his bride
   • The speaker became a lover of wisdom's beauty
3. 8:3
   • Wisdom lives together with God
   • By living with God wisdom glorifies her noble birth
   • The Lord of all things loved wisdom
4. 8:4
   • Wisdom is initiated into the knowledge of God
   • Wisdom chooses God's works
5. 8:5
   • If riches are a possession to be desired in this life, nothing is richer than wisdom
   • Wisdom works all things
6. 8:6
   • If prudence is effective, no one among things that exist is more a skilled craftsman than wisdom
7. 8:7
   • If a man loves righteousness, wisdom's labours are virtues
   • Wisdom teaches temperance
   • Wisdom teaches prudence
   • Wisdom teaches justice
   • Wisdom teaches fortitude
   • Men can have nothing in their life more profitable than these things
8. 8:8
   • If a man desires much experience, wisdom knows the things of old
   • Wisdom infers what is to come
   • Wisdom knows the subtleties of speeches
   • Wisdom can expound dark sayings
   • Wisdom foresees signs and wonders
   • Wisdom foresees the outcomes of seasons and times
9. 8:9
   • The speaker resolved to take wisdom to live with him
   • The speaker knew wisdom would be a counsellor of good things
   • The speaker knew wisdom would be an encouragement in cares and grief
10. 8:10
    • Because of wisdom the speaker will have esteem among the multitude
    • Because of wisdom the speaker will have honour with the elders
    • The speaker is young
11. 8:11
    • The speaker will be found quick in judgment
    • The speaker will be admired in the sight of rulers
12. 8:12
    • When the speaker is silent, they will wait for him
    • When the speaker speaks, they will pay attention to him
    • If the speaker talks at length, they will lay their hands upon their mouth
13. 8:13
    • Because of wisdom the speaker will obtain immortality
    • The speaker will leave behind an everlasting memorial to those who come after him
14. 8:14
    • The speaker will govern peoples
    • Nations will be subject to the speaker
15. 8:15
    • Dreadful tyrants will be afraid when they hear of the speaker
    • The speaker will show himself good among the multitude
    • The speaker will show himself valiant in war
16. 8:16
    • When the speaker comes into his house, he will rest with wisdom
    • Companionship with wisdom has no bitterness
    • Living with wisdom has no pain
    • Living with wisdom brings gladness and joy
17. 8:17
    • The speaker considered these things in himself
    • The speaker pondered these things in his heart
    • Kinship with wisdom is immortality
18. 8:18
    • In wisdom's friendship is good delight
    • In the labours of wisdom's hands is wealth that does not fail
    • In the exercise of companionship with wisdom is prudence
    • In fellowship with wisdom's words is renown
    • The speaker went about seeking how to take wisdom to himself
19. 8:19
    • The speaker was a well-endowed child
    • The speaker received a good soul
20. 8:20
    • Rather, being good, the speaker came into an undefiled body
21. 8:21
    • The speaker perceived that he could not possess wisdom unless God gave her to him
    • Knowing whose gift wisdom was is itself a point of prudence
    • The speaker appealed to the Lord
    • The speaker besought the Lord
    • The speaker spoke with his whole heart

Words Worth Explaining

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

8:1

The Greek does not name wisdom here; it simply says "she," carrying on a sentence begun at the end of chapter 7. Chapter and verse divisions were added many centuries after the book was written. Wisdom is "she" throughout because the Greek word for wisdom, sophia, is grammatically feminine, and the book builds on that by speaking of her as a person. "From one end to another" means from one limit of the world to the other.

8:2

The speaker in chapters 7 to 9 is presented as Solomon, the king remembered for asking God for wisdom instead of wealth, though the book never gives his name. From here on, the search for wisdom is described in the language of courtship and marriage, a figure also used in Proverbs; "spouse" means bride.

8:3

The nobility in view is noble birth, eugeneia in Greek. In the Greek-speaking world, high ancestry was one of the strongest claims a person could make to public honor. The verse says that wisdom's living at God's side both proves that claim and raises it higher.

8:4

"Privy to the mysteries" translates a Greek word meaning an initiate: someone admitted to the secret rites of a mystery religion, which outsiders were forbidden to watch or be told about. The image is of wisdom as the one let inside.

8:6

"Cunning workman" in 1611 English meant a skilled craftsman, with nothing sly about it. The Greek word is technitis, the feminine form of the word for a craftsman or architect: the one who designs and builds.

8:7

The four named qualities, self-control, good sense, justice and courage, are the four cardinal virtues of Greek philosophy: sophrosyne, phronesis, dikaiosyne and andreia. This is the only place in the Bible where that standard Greek list appears as a list, and it is one of the clearest marks of a writer at home in Greek thought. In the King James wording, "temperance" means self-control in general, not abstaining from drink, and "prudence" means practical good judgment, not caution.

8:8

"Conjectureth aright" means reasons correctly to a conclusion, not guesses luckily. "Dark sentences" are riddles and puzzling sayings; solving them was a recognized test of a wise man, as when the Queen of Sheba came to test Solomon with hard questions. "Signs and wonders" are startling events taken as pointing to something beyond themselves, and "the events of seasons and times" covers how stretches of time turn out, including the reckoning of calendars and omens.

8:10

Elders were the senior men of a community, the ones who settled disputes and held public authority. A young man was expected to keep silent in their presence, which is the force of "though I be young": the honor described is out of order for someone of his age.

8:11

"Quick conceit" in 1611 English means a quick grasp or understanding; "conceit" then meant a conception or an idea, and carried none of its modern sense of vanity. "Judgment" here is the settling of legal cases, the work a ruler did in public.

8:12

Putting a hand over the mouth was a recognized public gesture of respectful silence, the sign that a listener is yielding the floor, not a sign of shock. Job describes leading men doing it when he rose to speak (Job 29:9). In the King James wording, "bide my leisure" means wait until I am ready.

8:13

The Greek word is athanasia, deathlessness. The verse sets it beside a memory that lasts forever among later generations, and readers have long argued whether the second phrase explains the first, meaning lasting fame, or makes a separate claim about life beyond death. The wording leaves both readings open.

8:14

The person speaking talks like a king. Kings ruled whole countries and led armies.

8:15

In 1611 English "horrible" meant filling people with dread rather than disgusting. The Greek word behind "tyrants" is tyrannos, which meant a single absolute ruler and did not by itself imply cruelty, though the dread named here points that way.

8:16

In 1611 English "conversation" meant living together and keeping company, the whole of shared daily life, not merely talking. The same wide sense lies behind "the exercise of conference with her" in verse 18.

8:17

"Allied unto" translates a Greek word for kinship: being bound to someone as a relative, by blood or by marriage. It keeps the family figure of the chapter running.

8:18

A good name means a good reputation. It means people speak well of you and trust you.

8:19

In 1611 English "witty" meant quick-witted and naturally able, not amusing. "A good spirit" renders a word for the soul or life-breath, and the Greek says he was allotted, or given, a good soul. That phrasing sets up the difficulty of the next verse.

8:20

This verse is among the most discussed in the book. Read one way, "being good, I came into a body undefiled" says that an already good soul entered a body, which assumes the soul exists before the body, an idea at home in Greek philosophy rather than in the Hebrew scriptures. Read another way, it is a compressed way of saying that a good soul and a sound body were given together as a single gift. The Greek is too tight-packed to settle the question. "Undefiled" means unstained, not soiled by anything.

8:21

The sentence does not end here. The words the speaker is about to say are the prayer that fills the whole of chapter 9. In the King James wording, "besought" means begged or pleaded with, and "a point of wisdom" means a mark or an item of understanding.