CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 8:12. Dwell with or “inhabit.” Witty inventions, “skilful plans” (Stuart), “sagacious counsels” (Zöckler)
Proverbs 8:14. Sound wisdom, the same word as in chap. Proverbs 2:7 (see note there). Stuart reads here, “As for me, my might is understanding;” Delitzsch, “Mine is counsel and promotion.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH— Proverbs 8:12-13
WISDOM AND PRUDENCE
I. Wisdom and prudence are here represented as dwelling together to express unity of action. Elster remarks upon this passage: “Prudence denotes here right knowledge in special cases, in contrast with the more comprehensive idea of intelligence in general; the practical realisation of the higher principle of knowledge found in wisdom.” Prudence is as necessary to wisdom, as the hand is to the will. Prudence asks what is the best time, the best place, and the best manner in which to carry out what wisdom has designed. It has therefore been defined as “wisdom applied to practice.” Wisdom decrees that a certain word is to be spoken. Prudence decides upon the best time, place, and manner in which to say it. Prudence must always dwell with wisdom, if the designs of a wise man are to be brought to a successful issue. In all God’s plans both are always in operation. Consider their manifestation in the plan of redemption. The wisdom of God is manifested in the conception of plan. His prudence was shown in the choice of the time, place, and manner of the manifestation.
1. The time was “the fulness of time” (Galatians 4:4), when all the streams of human wisdom and greatness which had been flowing through the world for ages, had converged into one head and were seen to be powerless to accomplish the regeneration of the world. Then “God sent forth His Son.”
2. The place of the manifestation. When the wisdom of a commander has decided that a battle must be fought, his prudence is called in to decide where it must take place, where all lawful advantage will be upon his side. Our world was chosen by Divine prudence as the scene of the battle between the powers of Good and Evil because, seeing that here the human race had been most shamefully defeated by the devil, it was most fitting that here the Prince of Darkness should be defeated by One in human form—that the victory should be won where the defeat had been sustained.
3. The manner in which, or the means by which, man’s redemption was accomplished. The life of the Incarnate Son of God was adapted to influence the hearts of men. His death for their sins was calculated, as probably no other event could have been, to beget within them a love which is powerful enough to make them new creatures. The fact that millions of men and women have been thus born to a new life through the cross of Christ is a revelation of its adaptation to human needs, and a manifestation that Divine wisdom dwelt with Divine prudence in the plan of redemption; that in this, as in all His other workings, there was an exhibition of “sagacious counsels” (see Critical Notes).
II. Divine wisdom and prudence act in union for the promotion of moral ends (Proverbs 8:13). There is a wisdom and prudence which do not act in concert for this purpose, but for the very opposite. There is a manifestation of prudence choosing the best time, place, and method in which to work out an evil design. The plan of the tempter to ruin our first parents was a great display of united wisdom and prudence. The time, the place, the means chosen were all calculated to effect the purpose. But the wisdom and prudence of God unite to put down sin, to banish its evil influence from the universe. As we see the combination of wisdom and prudence in the Father’s plan of redemption, so we see them combined in every act and word of the Son of God while He was manifest in the flesh. The means He used to silence His enemies, to instruct His disciples, to enlighten the ignorant multitude, were all revelations of His Divine wisdom and prudence.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Proverbs 8:12. That is, this spiritual light, which the very first proverb (ch. Proverbs 1:2-3) says is holiness; takes possession of any intellect; dwells in it; nay, makes a dwelling in it; for holiness can dwell in nothing else; and that intellect, though it may be the very mind of God, is stirred up by nothing else to do all that is grand in its total history (Proverbs 8:22-30). Satan, with such splendid intellect, what is he but the universe’s insanest fool? He toils for worse wages than anybody in the whole creation. But could wisdom get a lodging in that peerless intellect, what different results! She gets a lodging in our earthly faculties, and turns us about from sowing to our death, to a splendid harvest of eternal favour.—Miller.
Wisdom, in the most comprehensive aspect, is to be regarded as giving origin to all arts and sciences, by which human life is improved and adorned; as by her inventive skill developing all the varied appliances for the external comfort and well-being of mankind; as planning the “wondrous frame” of universal creation, which, with all its varied beauty, fills us, in the view, with astonishment and delight; and conceiving, in the depths of eternity, the glorious scheme—a scheme “dark with brightness all along”—which secures the happiness of man for ever, and in which she appears in her noblest and most attractive display, the whole, from first to last, discovering “the manifold wisdom of God.”—Wardlaw.
In the first address of Wisdom (ch. Proverbs 1:22-33), her words were stern and terrible. The first step in the Divine education is to proclaim “the terrors of the Lord,” but here she neither promises nor threatens, but, as if lost in contemplation, speaks of her own excellence. “Prudence.” The subtilty of the serpent, in itself neutral, but capable of being turned to good as well as evil. Wisdom, high and lofty, occupied with things heavenly and eternal, does not exclude, yea, rather, “dwells with” the practical tact and insight needed for the common life of men.—Plumptre.
Wisdom here beginneth to draw her own picture, and with her own pencil.… The force of the verse is, that Wisdom is there where there is a fitness of worth to entertain her.—Jermin.
I draw all into practice, and teach men to prove by their own experience, what is “that good, and holy, and acceptable will of God” (Romans 12:2). Trapp.
All arts among men are the rays of Divine wisdom falling upon them. Whatsoever wisdom there is in the world, it is but a shadow of the wisdom of God.—Charnock.
Prudence is defined, wisdom applied to practice; so, wherever true wisdom is, it will lead to action.… The farther wisdom proceeds in man the more practical knowledge it gains, and, finding out the nature and properties of things, and the general course of Providence, it can contrive by new combinations to produce new results.—Adam Clarke.
Proverbs 8:13. To fear retribution is not to hate sin. In most cases it is to love it with the whole heart. It is a solemn suggestion that even the religion of dark, unrenewed men is in its essence a love of their own sins. Instead of hating sin themselves, their grand regret is, that God hates it. If they could be convinced that the Judge would regard it as lightly as the culprit, the fear would collapse like steam under cold water, and all the religious machinery which it drove would stand still.—Arnot.
The godly avoid evil and do good—not merely from habit, education, the hope of reward, or the fear of punishment, but from hatred of evil and love of goodness.—Cartwright.
The affection of hatred as having sin for its object is spoken of in Scripture as no inconsiderable part of true religion. It is spoken of as that by which true religion may be known and distinguished.—Jon. Edwards.
Wisdom having shown where she dwelleth, she showeth likewise where she dwelleth not.… He that saith, “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil,” is Himself the Lord that hateth evil. And, doubtless, every one should hate that which He hateth, whom all must love. Now, in an evil way, there be some ringleaders, and such are “pride, arrogancy, and the froward mouth,” for these draw many other after them.… And as for the Eternal Wisdom, how much He hateth them, His little regard of Himself showeth plainly and fully. For it was His hatred of Satan’s pride, reigning in wickedness, as well as His love to man captivated by it, that made Him to become man; yea, a worm, and no man, and by His humility to destroy pride, which He so greatly hated.—Jermin.
It is not only Divine holiness, observe, that “hates evil,” it is Divine wisdom. This conveys to us the important lesson that the will of God, along with his abhorrence of all that is opposed it, is founded in the best of reasons. All that is evil is contrary to His own necessary perfection, and, consequently, to “the eternal fitness of things.”—Wardlaw.
As it is impossible to hate evil without loving good; and as hatred to evil will lead a man to abandon the evil way, and love to goodness will lead him to do what is right in the sight of God, under the influence of that spirit which has given the hatred to evil, and the love of goodness; this implies the sum and substance of true religion, which is here termed the fear of the Lord.—Adam Clarke.
God’s people partake of the Divine nature, and so have God-like sympathies and antipathies (Revelation 2:6). They not only leave sin, but loathe it, and are at deadly feud with it. They purge themselves—by this clean fear of God (Psalms 19:7)—from all pollutions, not of flesh only, worldly lusts, and gross evils, but of spirit also, that lie more up in the heart of the country, as pride, arrogancy, etc.—Trapp.