Proverbs 8:22 - Meaning and Application

That it is a wise and divine person speaking here seems very clear. It is not just an inner trait of God, because Wisdom is given personal words and actions. That wise divine person can be no one else but the Son of God himself, since other Scripture says the same things about him, and Scripture should explain Scripture.

If Solomon meant only to praise wisdom as one of God’s qualities, and to urge people to seek that wisdom, the Holy Spirit carried him beyond that. As often happened with David, his words rise to a level that fits only the Son of God. So these verses lead us to great truths about Christ, and all God’s revelation is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him. Here we are shown who he is, in God’s eternal plan, as the Mediator, the one who brings God and people together.

The best explanation of these verses is found in the opening of John’s Gospel, especially the first four verses, where it says, “In the beginning was the Word.” Looking at the Son of God, we first see his personhood and his distinct being. He is one with the Father and of the same divine nature, yet he is also a person in himself. The Lord possessed him (Proverbs 8:22), he was set up (Proverbs 8:23), he was brought forth (Proverbs 8:24, Proverbs 8:25), and he was beside God (Proverbs 8:30). He is the exact image of the Father’s being (Hebrews 1:3).

We also see his eternity. He was begotten of the Father, since the Lord possessed him as his own Son, his beloved Son, and placed him in his bosom, a picture of close love. He was brought forth as the only begotten of the Father, and all this was before the world began, which is strongly emphasized here. The Word is eternal and had existence before the world and before time began, so he must be from eternity. The Lord possessed him at the beginning of his way, that is, in his eternal plans, for those came before his works.

This way truly had no beginning, since God’s purposes within himself are eternal like himself. Yet God speaks to us in human language. Wisdom says, “I was set up from everlasting” (Proverbs 8:23). In God’s eternal counsel, the Son was appointed and honored as the Father’s wisdom and power, his light and life, and everything in creation and redemption. The many ways this is stated here are much like the ways Scripture describes God’s own eternity, as in “Before the mountains were brought forth” (Psalm 90:2).

He was before the earth, which was made in the beginning, before man was made. So the second Adam, Christ, existed before the first Adam, because the first was made from the earth, but the second had being before the earth and is not from the earth (John 3:31). He was before the sea was formed (Proverbs 8:24), before there were deep waters gathered together, before any fountains rose up, and before that deep over which the Spirit of God moved when the visible world was made (Genesis 1:2).

He was also before the mountains, the everlasting hills (Proverbs 8:25). Eliphaz asked Job, to show how little Job knew of God’s plans, “Were you born before the hills?” (Job 15:7). The answer was no. But before the hills, the eternal Word had already been brought forth. He was before the inhabited parts of the world, where people work the land and enjoy its fruit (verse 26). He was before the fields in valleys and plains, which the mountains shelter like a wall, and before the dust of the world was formed in any sense. He was before man, who was made from the dust of the ground and is dust, yet is the chief part of the dust, dust made alive and refined. The eternal Word existed before man, for in him was the life of men.

We also see his role in making the world. He did not merely exist before the world, he was present when it was made, not as a bystander, but as the architect. God humbled Job by asking, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations? Who determined its measurements?” (Job 38:4). Was Job that eternal Word and wisdom who directed that great work? No, he was only of yesterday. But here the Son of God, apparently referring to that kind of challenge, says that he took part in what Job could not claim to witness or do, the creation of the world. By him God made the world (Ephesians 3:9; Hebrews 1:2; Colossians 1:16).

When God said, “Let there be light,” on the first day, and light came by his word, this eternal Wisdom was that almighty Word. “Then I was there,” he says, “when he prepared the heavens,” the source of that light, which is whatever it may be here, but there is substantial. On the second day, he was active when God stretched out the sky, the vast expanse, and set it like a compass over the deep (Proverbs 8:27), covering it on every side like a canopy or curtain.

This may also mean the exact order and plan by which God formed all parts of the universe, as a builder marks out his work with line and compass. Nothing in the finished work strayed from the plan formed in the eternal mind. He was also involved in the third day’s work, when the waters above the heavens were gathered by setting the clouds above, and the waters under the heavens were gathered by strengthening the fountains of the deep, which send out those waters (Proverbs 8:28). He also kept the sea within its bounds (Proverbs 8:29).

This shows the honor of eternal Wisdom. By this, God proves himself a God to be feared greatly (Jeremiah 5:22), because he set sand as the sea’s boundary so that dry land would stay above the water and remain fit for people to live on. In this way he established the earth’s foundation. How fit the Son of God is to be the Savior of the world, since he was its Creator.

Finally, we see the Father’s great pleasure in him, and his pleasure in the Father (Proverbs 8:30). “I was beside him, like one brought up with him.” As he was eternally begotten by the Father, so he was eternally brought up with him in counsel. This shows, first, the Father’s endless love for the Son, who is therefore called the Son of his love (Colossians 1:13). It also shows their shared understanding and full agreement about the work of human redemption, which the Son would undertake. The counsel of peace was between them both (Zechariah 6:13).

He was the Father’s pupil, if I may say it that way, trained from eternity for the work he would carry out in time, when the right time came. In that work he was under the Father’s special care and support, “my servant, whom I uphold” (Isaiah 42:1). He did what he saw the Father do (John 5:19), pleased his Father, sought his glory, and did everything according to the command he received from the Father, all as one brought up with him.

He was always the Father’s delight, “my chosen one, in whom my soul delights” (Isaiah 43:1), and he also always rejoiced before him. This can mean the endless joy the persons of the blessed Trinity have in one another, which is part of the happiness of God’s own nature. Or it can mean the pleasure the Father took in the Son’s work when he made the world, for God saw everything the Son made and it was very good, which pleased him. Then the Son also rejoiced before him in the beauty and order of the whole creation (Psalm 104:31).

It can also mean the joy they had in one another with respect to the great work of human redemption. The Father delighted in the Son as the Mediator, that is, the one who stands between God and people, and was pleased with what the Son proposed (Matthew 3:17). So the Father loved him because he agreed to lay down his life for the sheep. He trusted him to carry out the work fully and not turn back.

The Son also always rejoiced before him, delighting to do his will (Psalm 40:8). He stayed close to his task, fully satisfied with it, and when the time came he said, “Look, I have come to do your will, as it is written about me in the scroll of the book.” This shows the willing heart with which he took up the work of salvation.

Wisdom also had a gracious concern for humanity, Proverbs 8:31. She did not so much rejoice in the earth’s rich products or hidden treasures as in the inhabited parts of the world, for her delight was with the children of men. This is true not only of man’s creation, where God said with special pleasure, “Let us make man” (Genesis 1:26), but also of man’s redemption and salvation. The Son of God was appointed before the world began for that great work (1 Peter 1:20).

A remnant of the children of men were given to him, to be brought by his grace into his glory, and these were the ones in whom he delighted. His church was the inhabited part of his earth, made fit for him, so that the Lord God might dwell even among those who had been rebellious. He rejoiced in this when he looked ahead and saw his seed. Even though he knew all the difficulties ahead, the service and suffering he would endure, he still looked on it with the greatest satisfaction, because it would end in the glory of his Father and the salvation of those children of men given to him. That gives us every encouragement to come to him and trust him for all the blessings his great work was meant to provide.