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Proverbs 8:21-23
New Catholic Bible
Proverbs 8:21-23
New Catholic Bible
21 bestowing wealth on those who love me
and heaping up their treasuries.
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.
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 8:21-23
New International Version
Proverbs 8:21-23
New International Version
21 bestowing a rich inheritance on those who love me
and making their treasuries full.(A)
Footnotes
- Proverbs 8:22 Or way; or dominion
- Proverbs 8:22 Or The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work; or The Lord brought me forth at the beginning of his work
New International Version (NIV)
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