When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water.
When (there were) no depths, I was brought forth; when (there were) no fountains abounding with water.
"Brought forth" [from chuwl (H2342)] is literally applied to birth by parturition; but it is transferred also to the production of things in the way that is after their kind (Job 26:5 - if the English version be correct there; Deuteronomy 32:18, "God that formed thee" - namely, by spiritual generation). So Wisdom's origin is by eternal generation). 'I am begotten, I was begotten, I have been begotten, and I shall be begotten,' may properly be said at every moment by the Divine Word, because all our times (past, present, and to come) correspond successively to the instant of eternity. The Son receives His being in the continuously single moments of God, and emanates from the Father as brightness does from the Sun (Wisdom of Solomon 7:25, 'She is the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty ... She is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of His goodness'). Moreover, we are not to understand this passage as if Wisdom - i:e., the Son of God-passed by degrees from an imperfect to a perfect state; but as in the case of God to think, to will, to speak, to do, is one and the same thing (all signifying the eternal will of God), so in the generation of the Son, to be conceived, to be generated or begotten, and to be brought forth, mean the same thing - i:e., His eternal generation (Gejer).