Wisdom Revealed: The Message of Biblical Wisdom Literature—Then and Now

By Robert P. Vande Kappelle

Humans, seeking to understand the nature of reality, have learned to discern life's patterns and to respond to life's vicissitudes by acting wisely, doing what brings happiness and success. The Bible is a record of that journey. It represents the inspired attempt to become wise at the deepest level, living harmoniously with one's community, the earth, and the Creator. Through their inspirational teachings, the sages of the biblical wisdom tradition offer time-honored advice about some of life's most difficult concerns, including the problem of pain, the suffering of the innocent, the nature of evil, the justice of God, and the pervasiveness of death.

Wisdom Revealed, a survey of biblical wisdom literature, offers perspective on topics that arise as one follows the text, always with an eye on the big picture, namely, daily living. Those who read this literature will be exposed to a set of core values necessary for vital citizenship and effective leadership at all levels of life. They will also obtain time-honored advice about how to deal with life's uncertainties in a holistic and pragmatic manner, focusing on what it means to be human in the presence of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Dec 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781498217491

Robert P. Vande Kappelle

Robert P. Vande Kappelle is professor emeritus of religious studies at Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania, and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). He is the author of forty books, including biblical commentaries, volumes on ethics and church history, and discussion guides on faith, theology, and spirituality. Recent titles include Holistic Happiness, Radical Discipleship, A Bible for Today, Christlikeness, and Soul Food: 106 Stories for Life’s Journey.

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Introduction

No matter how gifted the author, inventor, or creator, every supreme achievement of the human spirit, whether in art, music, literature, religion, or science, necessarily builds upon the work of predecessors. It is they who have laid the foundation of the tradition and worked out the techniques utilized by their successors. Pioneers find their reward in breathtaking glimpses of new and unsuspected vistas, but they almost never attain the highest level of achievement. That experience is reserved for later practitioners.

When we encounter a great work that seems to have no forerunner, like the Hebrew Torah or the Homeric epics, we would do well to heed the words of Qoheleth: What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new’? It has already been, in the ages before us (Eccl. 1:9–10). The biblical wisdom literature is no exception to this rule. In spite of its universal significance, it is the product of a specific time and culture. In spite of its antiquity, it is the end result of a long process of development. It can therefore be fully understood only against the background from which it arose. This will entail a study of the period between about 960 BC and AD 100, examining the role of sages in early Judaism and some of the earliest forms, themes, and trends in biblical wisdom literature as they appear in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job, followed by a discussion of crucial material in books such as Sirach, the Wisdom of Solomon, and in the New Testament.

The Emergence of Wisdom: The Cultural and Historical Background

In ancient Israel there were three principal intellectual and spiritual currents, referred to by the Hebrew prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who foretold the downfall of the Jewish state in 587 BC and who lived to see their prophecies come true. Jeremiah quotes his opponents as saying, Come, let us make plots against Jeremiah—for instruction shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet (Jer. 18:18). Ezekiel declares that in the day of disaster people shall keep seeking a vision from the prophet; instruction shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders (Ezek. 7:26). These revealing statements recognize three learned professions in ancient Israel: priests, who taught Torah; prophets, who delivered messages from the Lord; and sages, who dispensed advice based on observations of nature and human experience. These specialists left an imperishable record of their respective functions and goals in the three sections of the Hebrew Bible: Torah (the Law), Nebiim (the Prophets), and Ketubim (the Writings).

The Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures, expanded the Writings to include a fourth category: Wisdom Literature, adding to that literature the books of Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon. A tripartite division of scripture appears in Sirach: How different the one who devotes himself to the study of the law of the Most High! He seeks out the wisdom of all the ancients and is concerned with prophecies (38:34b–39:1). What is unusual about this division is that wisdom is placed second, after law but before prophecy. The passage continues by extolling the activity of the scribe: he preserves the sayings of the famous and penetrates the subtleties of parables; he seeks out the hidden meanings of proverbs and is at home with the obscurities of parables (34:2–3).

Whatever the origin and early stages of the Torah, it may be regarded as certain that its final compilation took place during the Babylonian Exile (587–539 BC), which followed the conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, the center of public worship. The Babylonian Exile, therefore, threatened the extinction of the people and their faith. The sudden and surprising collapse of the Babylonian empire and the rise of the Persian empire (539–336 BC) gave the Jewish people a new lease on life. Cyrus II, the enlightened Persian ruler (550–530), permitted those Jews who so desired to return to their homeland and reconstitute their community life under cultural and religious autonomy. A century later, Ezra (a priest and a scribe) inspired the struggling Jewish settlement in Jerusalem to accept the Torah as its constitution. The Torah now proved an indispensable instrument for uniting and governing the Jewish community. Though a priest, Ezra instituted a major reform that stripped the priests of their religious and intellectual leadership, leaving them only in charge of the conduct of the Temple ritual. Instead of a hereditary priesthood, which all too often exhibited the marks of decadence and moral corruption, the spiritual leadership of the people became vested in scholars. Being recruited from all classes, they represented a non-hereditary, democratic element. The creative impulse in Judaism was henceforth centered in the synagogue, in which all Jews were equal and which became at once a house of prayer, study, and communal assembly.

The importance of this revolution, unparalleled in ancient religion, can scarcely be exaggerated. Ezra’s successors, the scribes and the rabbis, not only preserved the Torah but gave it new life. By their painstaking study and interpretation of the biblical text they endowed the Jewish tradition with some of its most noteworthy characteristics—its capacity for growth and its fusion of realistic understanding and idealistic aspiration. Their activity made the Bible relevant to the needs of later generations confronted by new problems and perils. They contributed not only to the survival of the Jewish people but also to the background from which Christianity arose, for they formulated many of the basic teachings shared by Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism.

The period of the Restoration (also known as the Second Temple period), which followed the return from exile, was challenging and difficult for the tiny, modest, and insecure Jewish community, surrounded as it was by a welter of foreign peoples—Samaritans, Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, Philistines, and later, Greeks. The small Jewish settlement was a tributary of the great Persian, Ptolemaic, Seleucid, and Roman empires, which arose in succession and for five centuries held sway over the Jewish community in this part of the world. The Maccabean War (167–142 BC) was followed by a period of independence (142–63), which proved to be only a brief interlude, ending with the surrender of the Hasmonean state to the Roman general Pompey in 63 BC.

The masses, burdened by poverty and fleeced by taxation, nevertheless held fast to their trust in the righteousness of God. They could no longer believe, however, that the reign of God would take place in history through normal human processes. Only a supernatural cataclysm could rout the forces of evil and usher in the era of peace. Hebrew prophecy was driven underground, emerging in radically altered form as apocalyptic. This new literature described the ultimate conflict between the forces of light and darkness and foretold the final triumph of good over evil, a triumph that must surely be imminent. Apocalyptic literature, with its promise of the advent of God’s supernatural messenger, a messiah or anointed king, was initially frowned upon by the official custodians of normative Judaism. They were aware of the dangers of such mystical and extravagant hopes and of the despair likely to arise in the wake of unfulfilled expectations. Ultimately, however, the doctrine of a supernatural messiah became the faith of Pharisaic Judaism and of fringe groups such as the Essenes, a semi-monastic order of Jews revered for its piety, and of other messianic sects whose hopes for a supernatural deliverance grew stronger as the tyranny of Roman rule became increasingly intolerable. Among them were the Christians, who began as a Jewish sect but who differed in their recognition of Jesus of Nazareth as the heaven-sent Redeemer.

Thus, on two levels classic Jewish hopes lived on after the Babylonian Exile. On the surface were the written words of the great prophets preserved in the Bible. And on a deeper level was the submerged drive of the prophetic faith, finding new expression in esoteric circles as apocalypse, a revelation of hidden mysteries. During the Second Temple period, both the Law and the Prophets had become scripture, a sacred core of authoritative books to which the entire people looked for guidance.

As we know, the Law, which was the province of the priest and later of the scribe, and the Prophecy, which was the experience of the prophet and later of the apocalyptist, did not exhaust the range of spiritual activity in early Judaism. A third strand was supplied by Wisdom (hokmah), which was cultivated by the sage or the elder. Wisdom was essentially an intellectual discipline, concerned with the education of upper-class youth. It is highly probable that the sage was a professional teacher whose function was to inculcate in his pupils all the elements of morality aimed at achieving worldly success.

It is clear that Hebrew wisdom was not an isolated creation in Israel. On the contrary, it was part of a vast intellectual activity that had been cultivated for centuries in the Fertile Crescent, especially in Egypt and Babylonia. Situated at the cultural crossroads of the ancient world, the Israelites were influenced from an early time by Eastern wisdom writings. These writings, which circulated far beyond the land of their origin, dated back to the Egyptian Pyramid Age (about 2600–2175 BC) and to the Sumerian era in Mesopotamia. But wisdom had a timeless quality, transcending time and culture. Though ancient sages reflected on problems of society as they knew them, these were human problems found in varying forms in every society. Thus the wisdom movement was fundamentally international.

According to the historian Charles A. Beard, one of the lessons of history can be summarized by the proverb, The bee fertilizes the flower it robs.¹ This is particularly true of the Jews during the Exile and the Restoration. Although the experience seemed bitter to many at the time, the people came to realize that God was working for good. While the surrounding culture was regarded as a threat to Israel’s faith, the Exile also awakened a new world-consciousness, enlarging Israel’s faith to an extent never before seen, not even in the cosmopolitan age of Solomon. The exiles realized that they must look beyond their own community to the whole civilized world, if they would behold the glory and majesty of God’s purpose in history. The time was ripe for a deeper understanding of the conviction that Israel was called to be God’s agent in bringing blessings to all the nations of the earth.

This new understanding of Israel’s special place in world history was magnificently expressed by an unknown prophetic writer in the latter part of the book of Isaiah, beginning with chapter 40. This anonymous poet, called Second Isaiah or Deutero-Isaiah, has been acclaimed as one of the greatest writers and poets of the Hebrew scriptures, a visionary with a distinctly universalistic vision.

The view that world-shaking events may have a double and seemingly contradictory effect on people’s lives also characterized a small but highly literate and influential group of Palestinian Jews living in Judah under Persian rule during the fourth and fifth centuries BC. These sages flourished during this Golden Age of Wisdom, a peaceful era of two hundred years aided by a common lingua franca (Aramaic) across the Persian empire, a new sense of Jewish identity, and a new internationalism. During this period the books of Job and Ecclesiastes were written and the wisdom material found in the book of Proverbs was collected and finalized.

The wisdom of the biblical sages, unlike the regulations of the priests or the oracles of the prophets, usually made no claim to being divine revelation. It was, of course, self-evident that God was the source of Hebrew wisdom, as of every creative aspect of human nature. Thus, when Isaiah described the ideal Davidic king who would govern in justice and wisdom, he envisions the spirit of the Lord resting upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord (Isa. 11:2). Some of wisdom’s most fervent advocates went further. By endowing wisdom with a cosmic role, they sought to win for wisdom a status almost equal to that of Torah and Prophecy. In their most lavish praise of wisdom, the Hebrew sages attributed her with great antiquity, declaring her to have been established at the first, before the beginning of the earth (Prov. 8:23). In Job’s magnificent Hymn to Wisdom (Job 28), wisdom is endowed with cosmic significance and is virtually personified (28:20–28). Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), written in the first half of the second century BC, also personifies wisdom: I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and covered the earth like a mist. I dwelt in the highest heavens, and my throne was in a pillar of cloud (Sir. 24:3–4).

In Palestinian Judaism, where the study and interpretation of the Torah ultimately produced the Mishnah, wisdom was equated with the Mosaic Law. In the Diaspora, outside of Palestine, where Greek ideas were more influential, wisdom received a more philosophic interpretation. In the Wisdom of Solomon, the spirit of the Lord and wisdom are explicitly identified and are taken to encompass both the creation of the natural world and its moral government: For wisdom is more mobile than any motion; because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things. For she is a breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her. For she is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness . . . ; in every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God (Wis. 7:24–27). In some circles the earlier personifications of wisdom were taken literally and served as the point of departure for a complex development. In the case of Philo, the celebrated Alexandrian Jew of the first-century AD, wisdom assumed the doctrine of the Logos or the Divine Word, which became the instrument by which God creates and governs the universe. It is only a further step to conceive of the Divine Word as the intermediary between God and the world, even as a distinct person or aspect of the divine nature (cf. the Logos Hymn in John 1:1–5).

Ultimately, however, biblical wisdom’s claim to authority rested on its pragmatic truth. The Hebrew sages insisted that the application of wisdom worked, meaning that when coupled with human reason and careful observation, it brought human beings success and happiness. Its origin might be in heaven, but its justification was to be sought in society and nature: keep sound wisdom and prudence, and they will be life for your soul and adornment for your neck. Then you will walk on your way securely and your foot will not stumble. If you sit down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet. Do not be afraid of sudden panic, or of the storm that strikes the wicked; for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught (Prov. 3:19–26).

The magnificent description in the Wisdom of Solomon (7:22b—8:1) hints at the complexity of the biblical concept of wisdom. The Bible, being an anthology of books and containing a rich array of natural, moral, and theological perspectives, nowhere defines wisdom. Rather, wisdom appears in many guises, including as (1) a tree of life (Prov. 3:18), (2) the fear of the Lord (Job 28:28), (3) instruction for moral formation, (4) human experience, (5) the mysteries of creation, (6) Law or Torah, (7) a mysterious divine call, and even as (8) a spouse.² Despite her inestimable value, the embracing of wisdom (Prov. 3:18; 4:8) is precarious, because there is more hope for a fool than for those who are conceited (26:12). Ben Sira said it best: The first man did not know wisdom fully, nor will the last one fathom her (Sir. 24:28).

Solomon: The Exemplar of Israelite Wisdom

The origin of Israel’s wisdom movement is unknown. A vigorous Canaanite wisdom movement might have been assimilated by Israel in the pre-monarchic period, as suggested by various affinities between the book of Proverbs and the Ugaritic Ras Shamra literature. Balaam, the Babylonian diviner (Num. 22–24), was related to Israel’s early wisdom movement. From the earliest period of Israel’s oral tradition come the proverb (1 Sam. 24:13), the riddle (see Judg. 14:14), and the fable (Judg. 9:8–15), ancient types of Near Eastern wisdom. By the time of the early monarchy, sages were well-known and respected leaders in Israelite society. We are told that the counsel of Ahithophel, one of David’s court advisers, was as if one consulted the oracle [word] of God (2 Sam. 16:23). During Absalom’s rebellion a wise Israelite woman used dramatic skill as well as literary inventiveness to present an imaginary case to King David (2 Sam. 14:1–24); later, during the same crisis, another wise woman negotiated with Joab (2 Sam. 20:14–22). The remark that the woman went to the people with her wise plan indicates that she was a recognized leader with professional standing, perhaps like the wisest ladies found in the Canaanite court in the Song of Deborah (Jud. 5:29).

The Bible regards Solomon as the source and symbol of its wisdom. Just as the Pentateuch was ascribed to Moses and the Psalms to David, so Israelites attributed much of their wisdom literature to Solomon, including the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes as well as the Song of Songs. Outside the Hebrew Bible, a vast literature was also attributed to Solomon, including the book of Wisdom. Though this tradition is not to be taken literally—this literature was written over a period of nine hundred years—these claims reflect the established historical fact that Solomon’s reign was marked by wide international contact and internal prosperity, which contributed to the flowering of culture in general and to the intensive cultivation of wisdom in particular.

In biblical times, religious texts were often attributed to a famous person from the past. Such practice, called pseudepigraphic because authorship was falsely attributed, was commonly accepted in the ancient world, when old was considered superior to new. In the biblical tradition, the attributed author was usually either a famous person from the remote past (such as Enoch, Moses, David, Solomon, and Ezra) or the actual author’s own teacher (after his or her death). A pseudepigraphic work, then, was composed as if it were written by a person from the past, while the actual author remained anonymous.

The reasons for such practice are well known. For example, if an ancient or biblical author claimed her teaching was new or original, few people would pay attention. But if she wrote in the name of a recognized authority, or if she transmitted what her teacher said (who may have learned from previous authorities), then people would be interested. In addition, writing in the name of a famous personage or authoritative teacher such as Isaiah, Daniel, or a disciple of Jesus stressed continuity with tradition, enabling the actual author to adapt or apply that tradition to new historical circumstances. Pseudepigraphy characterized the wisdom literature of antiquity, including the Jewish wisdom tradition.

Solomon’s cosmopolitan interests admirably qualified him to be the patron of wisdom. When the Queen of Sheba visited from far-off Arabia, Solomon displayed his wisdom by propounding and solving riddles (1 Kgs. 10:1–10). During his reign Israel broke out of the confines of the former Tribal Confederacy, with its limiting religious institutions and perspectives, and enlarged its horizons of faith beyond the boundaries of the Mosaic covenant heritage. Solomon was extremely hospitable to the cultural influences of the Fertile Crescent, in particular fostering close relations with Phoenicia and Egypt. Close parallels between the Instruction of Amenemope (c. 1100 BC) and Proverbs 22:17—23:11 indicate that this section of Proverbs depended heavily on its Egyptian source. Parallels in form and content have also been found between Proverbs and the most important Canaanite wisdom text, the work of Ahiqar, which was so widely known in the ancient world that it became part of many literatures and was transmitted in about a dozen languages. Written perhaps as early as the seventh century BC, the text combines a narrative of the fall and subsequent restoration of the courtier Ahiqar with a collection of about a hundred aphorisms, riddles, fables, and instructions. The sayings, which may have originated in the Aramaic kingdoms of Syria, apparently circulated independently of the narrative.

Solomon appears on the pages of scripture as the wisest man who ever lived (1 Kgs. 3:12; 4:29–31). We are told that Solomon had a dream in which God appeared to him, granting him one wish. Because Solomon requested wisdom, God gave him riches and honor as well. Renowned for his literary brilliance, he is said to have composed three thousand proverbs and one thousand and five songs (1 Kgs. 4:32). His proverbs became the basis for the claim that he authored the book of Proverbs. Solomon might have composed or collected some of the proverbs, particularly those found in the oldest section of the book of Proverbs (Prov. 10–29), but we cannot be sure. According to later tradition, some of his sweetest songs made up the Song of Songs, though there is little evidence that Solomon composed these sensual love lyrics. Nevertheless, their association with Solomon and their popularity at wedding festivities established them firmly in Israelite life. Eventually the songs were accepted as sacred scripture on the ground that they presented an allegory of the covenant love between God and Israel.

During the patristic and early medieval periods, writing at a time when Christianity was becoming accepted in the Greco-Roman world not only religiously but as a philosophical tradition, Christians envisioned the three canonical books associated with Solomon as representing three stages of spiritual progression, parallel to the graded disciplines in the schools of philosophy known as ethics, physics, and logic: (1) Proverbs (ethics), meant for beginners, teaches how to live virtuously in the world; (2) Ecclesiastes (physics), meant for "proficientes (middlers)—sophomores and juniors" advancing in their studies—teaches to treat mundane things as vain and transitory; and (3) Song of Solomon (logic), meant for initiates, teaches the love of God to advanced students.

The Sources of Wisdom Literature

The theories of scholars on the origins of the wisdom movement can be reduced to two sources: (1) the clan or tribe, within which moral guidance would have been transmitted in the home; and (2) the court schools, in which more technical instruction was available. The home must have served as a focal point for the training of youth, as suggested by numerous references to father and mother and the phraseology frequent in Proverbs: my son/my child. Of course, the term son/child can be understood metaphorically to indicate a teacher-pupil relationship. The teachings would have been transmitted orally at first, forming the legacy about life and living that parents communicate to children. The everyday topics of the maxims in the book of Proverbs point to the oral sayings of common folk in society, which may have been collected by scribes. Eventually, however, evidence points to the role of the school, probably originally attached to the royal court (although there would have been no court schools in the postexilic period), as the direct source of the majority of the biblical wisdom tradition.

Wisdom has a long association with royalty and the court, as can be inferred from the role of Solomon, the mention of the officials of King Hezekiah (Prov. 25:1), and the many king sayings in Proverbs. One may infer from the reign of Solomon that court schools would have been necessary for the training of scribes and other royal officials. An analogy may be drawn between Israel and the courtiers of Mesopotamia and Egypt, where schools certainly existed. In Egypt a class of sages instructed children of the pharaohs and other potential bureaucrats. Eventually there developed a system of private education for which instructors began composing texts on correct speech, proper etiquette, and skills in interpersonal relationships. In Mesopotamia this class was associated with temple schools as well as with the royal court. As we learn from the book of Daniel, Babylonian scribes and sages were required to attain skills in interpreting omens and dreams (Dan. 2:2–6).

During the period of the Restoration following the Babylonian Exile, Jewish sages proliferated in Judah. Other than the mention of the officials of King Hezekiah in Proverbs 25:1, which suggests that a distinctive class of sages already existed in Jerusalem in the eighth century BC (800–700), additional evidence appears in the expression the sayings of the wise