IX.
(o). Fifteenth Discourse: the Invitations of Wisdom and Folly (Proverbs 9).
(1) Wisdom hath builded her house — i.e., in preparation for the feast to which she is about to invite her guests. It is not an unusual custom in the Old Testament to describe intimate communion with God, and the refreshment which the soul of man thereby receives, under the figure of a festival. Thus in Exodus 24:11, when the elders of Israel were admitted to the vision of the Almighty, they “did eat and drink.” The same idea occurs frequently in the prophets also (as Isaiah 25:6; Isaiah 65:13; Zephaniah 1:7-8); and is brought out in the New Testament with great fulness in the parables of the great supper (Luke 14) and the marriage of the king’s son (Matthew 22). Christ, the supreme Wisdom, has “builded His house” by taking man’s flesh at His Incarnation, and thus rearing for Himself a “temple of the Holy Ghost” (John 2:19); and also by building for Himself a “spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5), “the house of God, which is the church of the living God” (1 Timothy 3:15). (For references to the Fathers, see Bishop Wordsworth.) In the previous chapter Christ’s work as Creator was described; now He is set forth as Regenerator of mankind.
She hath hewn out her seven pillars. — Suggestive of the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit (Isaiah 11:2 Revelation 1:4), typified by the seven-branched candlestick of the Tabernacle (Exodus 25:37).