Context No. 3552 of 4322 · Wisdom

Wisdom 1:1-16: in context

1Love righteousness, all you who are judges of the earth. Think of the Lord with a good mind. Seek him in singleness of heart, 2because he is found by those who don’t put him to the test, and is manifested to those who trust him. 3for crooked thoughts separate from God. His Power convicts when it is tested, and exposes the foolish; 4because wisdom will not enter into a soul that devises evil, nor dwell in a body that is enslaved by sin. 5For a holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit, and will depart from thoughts that are without understanding, and will be ashamed when unrighteousness has come in. 6For wisdom is a spirit who loves man, and she will not hold a blasphemer guiltless for his lips, because God is witness of his inmost self, and is a true overseer of his heart, and a hearer of his tongue. 7Because the spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which holds all things together knows what is said. 8Therefore no one who utters unrighteous things will be unseen; neither will Justice, when it convicts, pass him by. 9For in his counsels the ungodly will be searched out, and the sound of his words will come to the Lord to bring his lawless deeds to conviction; 10because a jealous ear listens to all things, and the noise of murmurings is not hidden. 11Beware then of unprofitable murmuring, and keep your tongue from slander; because no secret utterance will go on its way void, and a lying mouth destroys a soul. 12Don’t court death in the error of your life. Don’t draw destruction upon yourselves by the works of your hands; 13because God didn’t make death, neither does he delight when the living perish. 14For he created all things that they might have being. The generative powers of the world are wholesome, and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor has Hades royal dominion upon earth; 15for righteousness is immortal, 16but ungodly men by their hands and their words summon death; deeming him a friend they pined away. They made a covenant with him, because they are worthy to belong with him.

This passage calls those who would be wise to seek God in singleness of heart, promising that he is found by those who do not test him but trust him. And it warns that wisdom will not enter a soul bent on evil, nor dwell in a body enslaved to sin; a divided, deceitful heart cannot receive the wisdom that comes from God.

But the striking words come near the end: God did not make death, and he does not delight in the destruction of the living. He created all things that they might exist, for righteousness is immortal. Death and destruction were never God's design or desire; he is the God of life, who made everything to flourish. It is human sin, the passage says, that summons death. There is deep comfort in this. Whatever brokenness and death we see around us, they are not from the heart of God, who is life itself and does not delight when the living perish, but wills instead that all should live and thrive.

Do I seek God with a sincere, undivided heart, and do I hold to the truth that God is the God of life who did not make death and does not delight in destruction?

Sources

Wisdom 1:13: "Because God didn't make death, neither does he delight when the living perish."
Wisdom 1:1: "Love righteousness, all you who are judges of the earth... Seek him in singleness of heart."
Wisdom 1:15: "For righteousness is immortal."