Proverbs 8:22-31
New Catholic Bible
By the Side of the God of the Origins[a]
22 “The Lord created me as the firstborn of his ways,
before the oldest of his works.
23 I was established in the earliest times,
at the beginning, before the earth.
24 I was brought forth when there were no ocean depths,
when there were no springs overflowing with water.
25 Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth,
26 when he had not yet made the earth and the fields
or the mass of the world’s soil.
27 “When he set the heavens in place, I was there,
when he designated where the ocean and the horizon[b] meet,
28 when he fixed the canopy of the clouds above
and limited the fountains of the deep,
29 when he assigned the boundaries of the sea
so that the waters would not transgress his command,
and when he established the foundations of the earth,
30 then I was beside him as a master craftsman,[c]
and I was his delight day after day,
exulting in his presence continually,
31 rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the children of men.[d]
Footnotes
- Proverbs 8:22 Wisdom is a craftsman (v. 30)—or “daughter of God,” according to an old translation—in God’s plan of creation. How can we fail to listen to her who is the very echo of God’s inspiration? This passage represents a high point in the thought of the wisdom teachers: in their eyes wisdom is too sublime and too ancient to be a merely human discovery. The inspiration that gives the world its order and beauty becomes a kind of “quality” of God. Here it becomes a person, as it were, created by God after the manner of a father who gives life to his child. She lives in close intimacy with the Lord, “with God,” like the Word of whom the Gospel of John speaks at the beginning of the Prologue. She was created before anything else existed; in God’s presence, and filled with the joy she had from the beginning, she inspired the picture of the world. Is it not she who, in the name of God, joyously associates with human beings and brings them the joy of his presence?
In this song of wisdom and creation Christians may see an anticipation, as it were, of what will become a certitude of faith for John (1:1-5) and Paul (1 Cor 1:24-30; Col 1:15-17), i.e., that there exists in God the eternal Word, inseparable from him. The Catholic Liturgy has readily made use of this passage. In that context, Wisdom personified becomes an image calling to mind the mystery of the Virgin Mary, whom God had in mind from all eternity and who is the masterpiece of his creation. - Proverbs 8:27 Horizon: the vault of heaven.
- Proverbs 8:30 Craftsman: the term “wise” was sometimes applied to a craftsman, e.g., Bezalel, who designed and constructed the tabernacle (see Ex 31:3-4). In this verse, it highlights the skill required for creating the world and everything in it.
- Proverbs 8:31 Delighting in the children of men: made in God’s image, human beings constituted the culminating point of creation (see Gen 1:26-28).
