Proverbs 8b

The following reads like a poem. Solomon has tried, in various ways, to highlight wisdom and to emphasize how close wisdom is to godliness.

How many of you remember your mother saying, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”? At first, that saying seems to be contrary to Solomon’s purposes here. But, let’s take a closer look. Is that a quote from the Bible? Though your mother would like you to believe that it is, it is not. The source may surprise you.

In a sermon late in his life, John Wesley said, “Slovenliness is no part of religion. Cleanliness is indeed next to Godliness." He was not the first to express the idea. Indeed, ‘cleanliness’ was in the process of becoming a virtue. About 50 years after Wesley’s death, during the Victorian era, it did. The upside was the statistical work that Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) did to show that many more soldiers were dying in the hospital of diseases they got there than were dying on the battlefields. She became a champion for washing and sterilizing. On the other hand, soap companies picked up on the cultural trend and began using the idea to sell more soap.  

That’s not the end of the story. Like all proverbs, sayings, and metaphors, there are multiple layers here. In the Bible, physical cleanliness was indeed linked, symbolically, with spiritual cleanliness. The Old Testament purification rites led to declarations like these:

In his great confession of sin, David says to God, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean, wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51: 7). 

Later, the prophet Isaiah warns all the people, “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause. Come now, let us reason it out, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are like crimson, they shall become like wool” Isaiah 1: 16-18). This link between cleanliness and godliness still exists in our ritual of Baptism.

Now, let’s switch gears back to Solomon’s proverb that claims that wisdom is next to godliness.

8: 22-31.  The LORD created me at the beginning of his work,

                               the first of his acts of long ago.

Ages ago I was set up, at the first,

before the beginning of the earth.

When there were no depths I was brought forth,

                               when there were no springs abounding with water.

Before the mountains had been shaped,

                             before the hills, I was brought forth,

when he had not yet made earth and fields

                               or the world’s first bits of soil.

When he established the heavens, I was there;

                               when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,

when he made firm the skies above,

                               when he established the fountains of the deep,

when he assigned to the sea its limit,

                               so that the waters might not transgress his command,

when he marked out the foundations of the earth,

then I was beside him, like a master worker,

and I was daily his delight,

                               playing before him always,

playing in his inhabited world

                               and delighting in the human race.

Who is speaking? It is Lady Wisdom. Personification is a literary device or technique used to highlight the elements of a concept or quality. Solomon implies that Wisdom was God’s first creation and thus wisdom was with God at creation.[1] Certainly, Solomon wants to say that God’s creative activity was wise, and that God’s wisdom can be seen in the order and beauty of creation. Creation includes humanity.

Personification implies that a quality is embodied in a person or, put another way, that the quality is incarnated[2] in a human being. So, another layer that emerges later in Scripture is the identification of Wisdom with the Word. The logos in Greek philosophy was a concept of the divine wisdom that generates the pattern for all creation. The Apostle John was wise to make the connection.   

The Apostle John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word (logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1: 1-5).  

In a poetic flare, the Apostle Paul wrote, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or power—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1: 15-17).

In another letter, Paul concludes: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! (II Corinthians 5: 17). Only the wise one who was there at creation can keep on creating; and that gives us hope.

8: 32-36       And now, my children, listen to me:

                               happy are those who keep my ways.

Hear instruction and be wise,

                               and do not neglect it.

Happy is the one who listens to me,

                               watching daily at my gates,

                               waiting beside my doors.

For whoever finds me finds life

                               and obtains favor from the LORD,

but those who miss me injure themselves;

                               all who hate me love death.

Enough said.

[1] The King James Version, for example, says, “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old” implying that the Lord already had wisdom, and then began creating. Both translations are possible.

[2] Incarnate means ‘in the flesh’. Think ‘chili con carne’ which means ‘chili with meat’.