Wisdom of Solomon 9: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter is a prayer for wisdom. The speaker, whom God chose to be king and judge and who was commanded to build a temple and an altar, says he is weak, short-lived, and understands too little of judgment and laws, and he asks God to send wisdom from the throne of glory to work beside him. He says human thoughts are unsteady, the perishable body weighs down the soul, and people barely grasp even earthly things. He ends by saying no one has known God's plan unless God gave wisdom and sent his Holy Spirit, and that this is how people on earth were set right and saved.

Claim by Claim

1. 9:1
   • The speaker addresses God as the God of his fathers.
   • The speaker addresses God as Lord of mercy.
   • God made all things by his word.
2. 9:2
   • God formed man by his wisdom.
   • Man was formed so that he should have dominion over the creatures God made.
3. 9:3
   • Man was formed to rule the world in holiness and righteousness.
   • Man was formed to execute judgment with an upright soul.
4. 9:4
   • The speaker asks God to give him wisdom.
   • Wisdom sits beside God's throne.
   • The speaker asks God not to reject him from among God's children.
5. 9:5
   • The speaker says he is God's servant.
   • The speaker says he is the son of God's handmaid.
   • The speaker says he is a feeble man.
   • The speaker says he is short-lived.
   • The speaker says he is too small in understanding of judgment and laws.
6. 9:6
   • Even if a man is perfect among the sons of men, he will be counted as nothing if the wisdom that comes from God is not with him.
7. 9:7
   • God chose the speaker to be king of God's people.
   • God chose the speaker to be a judge of God's sons and daughters.
8. 9:8
   • God commanded the speaker to build a temple on God's holy mountain.
   • God commanded the speaker to build an altar in the city where God dwells.
   • The temple is a copy of the holy tabernacle.
   • God prepared the holy tabernacle from the beginning.
9. 9:9
   • Wisdom was with God.
   • Wisdom knows God's works.
   • Wisdom was present when God made the world.
   • Wisdom knows what is acceptable in God's sight.
   • Wisdom knows what is right according to God's commandments.
10. 9:10
    • The speaker asks God to send wisdom out of the holy heavens.
    • The speaker asks God to send wisdom from the throne of his glory.
    • The speaker asks that wisdom, being present, may labor with him.
    • The speaker asks this so that he may know what is pleasing to God.
11. 9:11
    • Wisdom knows all things.
    • Wisdom understands all things.
    • Wisdom will lead the speaker soberly in his doings.
    • Wisdom will preserve him in her power.
12. 9:12
    • The speaker's works will then be acceptable.
    • The speaker will then judge God's people righteously.
    • The speaker will be worthy to sit on his father's throne.
13. 9:13
    • No man can know the counsel of God.
    • No one can conceive what the will of the Lord is.
14. 9:14
    • The thoughts of mortal men are miserable.
    • The devices of mortal men are uncertain.
15. 9:15
    • The corruptible body weighs down the soul.
    • The earthy tabernacle weighs down the mind that is full of many cares.
16. 9:16
    • We scarcely guess rightly at the things that are upon earth.
    • We find the things that are at hand only with labor.
    • No one has searched out the things that are in heaven.
17. 9:17
    • No one has known God's counsel except by God giving wisdom.
    • No one has known God's counsel except by God sending his Holy Spirit from above.
18. 9:18
    • The ways of those who lived on earth were corrected in this manner.
    • Men were taught the things that are pleasing to God.
    • Men were saved through wisdom.

Words Worth Explaining

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

9:1

The prayer is spoken in the voice of a king who was chosen to rule, told to build the temple, and expects to sit on his father's throne (verses 7, 8, 12). The book never gives his name, but every detail points to Solomon, and the prayer is a reworking of his request for wisdom in 1 Kings 3 and 2 Chronicles 1.

9:2

These words echo the beginning of Genesis, where God makes people and puts the animals and the earth in their care.

9:3

The King James word "equity" means fairness: treating people evenly and giving each one what is right.

9:4

From here on wisdom is spoken of as "she." The Greek word for wisdom, sophia, is grammatically feminine, and this book, like Proverbs 8, presents wisdom as a woman who stands beside God. "Reject me not from among thy children" asks not to be struck off the list of God's household; some Greek copies read "servants" here rather than "children."

9:5

A "handmaid" is a female servant or slave, and "son of thine handmaid" is a set phrase of humility in prayer: it places the speaker in the position of a servant born inside the master's house. The Greek behind "too young" says only that he falls short in the understanding of judgment and laws; the KJV's "too young" picks up young Solomon's words in 1 Kings 3:7, where he calls himself a little child.

9:6

"Though a man be never so perfect" is an old English construction meaning "however perfect a man may be." "He shall be nothing regarded" means he will be counted as worth nothing. "Perfect" here means complete or blameless by human measure, not flawless.

9:7

"Judge" here means ruler. In Israelite usage, judging covered governing the people and settling disputes between them, not only deciding cases in a courtroom.

9:8

The holy mountain is Mount Zion, and "the city wherein thou dwellest" is Jerusalem. The "holy tabernacle" is the portable tent shrine that Israel carried through the wilderness before any temple existed. The claim is that the temple copies a tent that God prepared from the beginning, an idea drawn from Exodus 25:9, where Moses is shown a pattern on the mountain and told to build to match it.

9:9

Wisdom being present when the world was made echoes Proverbs 8:22 to 31, where wisdom says she was beside God at creation.

9:10

Glory means shining greatness, like a very bright light.

9:11

"Soberly" here means with good sense and self control, not the modern opposite of drunk. Where the KJV says wisdom will preserve him "in her power," the Greek word is glory, the visible splendor that surrounds her.

9:12

"My father's seat" means the throne of David. "Seat" was the ordinary English word for a throne in 1611.

9:13

The King James word "counsel" here means a plan or a decision. It does not mean advice someone gives you.

9:14

Two words have shifted since 1611. "Miserable" here means feeble and liable to fail, not unhappy. "Devices" means plans and schemes, not machines or gadgets.

9:15

"Tabernacle" here simply means tent, a different use from verse 8: the body is pictured as a temporary tent made of earth in which the soul lives. "Museth upon many things" describes a mind loaded with cares and calculations. The picture of a heavy body dragging at the soul uses the vocabulary of Greek philosophy current when this book was written in Greek.

9:16

"Hardly" means with difficulty, and "guess aright" means guess correctly. "With labour" means only by hard toil. The sentence is about how much effort even nearby things cost us to work out.

9:17

Greek is written without capital letters, so the phrase here is "holy spirit from on high," standing in the same sentence as a parallel to "wisdom." The capitals in the KJV are the translators' reading of it.

9:18

"Reformed" here means set right or corrected, and carries none of the later sense of religious reform. The line sets up chapter 10, which runs through Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph and Moses as cases of people whom wisdom guided and rescued.