Scripture Daily

Context No. 94 of 4322 · Wisdom

Context · Reflection

Wisdom 2:17-24: in context

17Let’s see if his words are true. Let’s test what will happen at the end of his life. 18For if the righteous man is God’s son, he will uphold him, and he will deliver him out of the hand of his adversaries. 19Let’s test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and test his patience. 20Let’s condemn him to a shameful death, for he will be protected, according to his words.” 21Thus they reasoned, and they were led astray; for their wickedness blinded them, 22and they didn’t know the mysteries of God, neither did they hope for wages of holiness, nor did they discern that there is a prize for blameless souls. 23Because God created man for incorruption, and made him an image of his own everlastingness; 24but death entered into the world by the envy of the devil, and those who belong to him experience it.

The Wisdom of Solomon is a late book, written in Greek by a Jew in Alexandria, and kept in the Catholic Bible. Its opening chapters quote the reasoning of people who have decided that life is short and meaningless and that strength is the only law. This passage is the end of that speech, where they turn on the one man who bothers them.

The righteous man is inconvenient because he reproaches them merely by living differently. So they propose a test, and the logic is precise. He claims to be God's child. Let us find out if his words are true. Let us test him with insult and torture, so we can see how gentle he really is, and condemn him to a shameful death, since by his own account he will be protected. They are proposing an experiment with a man as the apparatus.

Then the narrator's judgment: they reasoned this way and were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them. They did not know God's hidden purposes. Christians reading this after the crucifixion found the scene unmistakable, and the passage is read in the liturgy of Holy Week for that reason, though it was written before. The trap is that torturing someone to see whether God rescues them cannot fail. Silence proves the point either way. Where have I set up a test that was designed so that only one answer could come back?

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