Wisdom

No. 94 Wisdom 2:17-24
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...
No. 112 Wisdom 12:1-16
The Wisdom of Solomon was written in Greek by a Jew in Alexandria, and its later chapters reread Israel's history. This passage takes up the hardest question in that history: the destruction of the Canaanites....
No. 534 Wisdom 5:1-16
This passage imagines a scene at the end of all things, and it is arresting. The righteous man, the one who was mocked and afflicted and whose life the world counted as a failure, stands in confidence before...
No. 712 Wisdom 11:1-16
The Wisdom of Solomon spends its last chapters rereading the exodus, looking for the logic in it, and this passage states the pattern it finds. Moses, the holy prophet, leads the people through a trackless...
No. 739 Wisdom 10:17-21
The Wisdom of Solomon walks back through Israel's history and credits every rescue to the same figure, Wisdom herself, personified as God's guiding presence. This passage reaches the exodus. Wisdom, it says,...
No. 815 Wisdom 8:17-21
The book of Wisdom imagines Solomon reflecting on how he came to be wise, and it walks through everything wisdom promised him: kinship with what lasts, delight in her friendship, wealth that does not fail,...
No. 1127 Wisdom 14:1-16
The Wisdom of Solomon reflects on idolatry, and in the middle of praising God's providence over sailors on their fragile boats, it offers a striking account of where idols come from. Among its explanations is...
No. 1263 Wisdom 18:1-16
The Wisdom of Solomon retells the night of the exodus, the Passover, when God struck the firstborn of Egypt while sheltering Israel. It describes the holy ones offering sacrifice in secret and singing while...
No. 1328 Wisdom 14:17-31
The writer of Wisdom traces how idolatry began and where it leads. It started, he suggests, in ordinary human impulses: a grieving father made an image of a dead child, or subjects made statues of an absent...
No. 1501 Wisdom 7:17-30
Solomon, in the book of Wisdom, praises the wisdom God gave him. God taught him the structure of the world, the seasons and stars, the natures of creatures and plants; but the hymn soon rises beyond such...
No. 1557 Wisdom 16:17-29
The writer of Wisdom reflects on the wonders of the exodus, when creation itself served God's purposes, fire that burned even in water against the wicked, and manna that fed God's people, suited to every...
No. 1711 Wisdom 4:1-20
This chapter of Wisdom weighs a life not by its length but by its quality. Better to be childless with virtue, it says, for virtue is remembered before God and men, while the offspring of the wicked come to...
No. 1901 Wisdom 12:17-27
Wisdom reflects on how God, who holds all power, exercises it: you, being sovereign in strength, judge with gentleness, and govern us with great forbearance. Even toward those who deserved judgment, God gave...
No. 1938 Wisdom 2:1-16
The book of Wisdom records the reasoning of the ungodly. Life is short and there is no hereafter, they say; we came by chance and will be forgotten; so let us seize every pleasure, crown ourselves with...
No. 2214 Wisdom 6:1-16
After warning rulers that their authority comes from God and that they will answer to him, the passage turns to wisdom, and describes how readily she is found by those who want her. Wisdom is radiant and...
No. 2225 Wisdom 17:17-21
Reflecting on the plague of darkness that fell on Egypt, the writer of Wisdom describes not merely an outward darkness but an inner terror. The Egyptians, he says, were paralyzed with fear; ordinary sounds, a...
No. 2306 Wisdom 11:17-26
The writer of Wisdom marvels at God's restraint and mercy toward sinful people. God, who created the world and holds all things in his hand, could have destroyed the wicked in a single moment, by a mere...
No. 2579 Wisdom 13:1-19
The Wisdom of Solomon diagnoses a particular foolishness: people who looked at the beauty and grandeur of the world, fire and stars and rushing water, and took those things themselves for gods, never reaching...
No. 2915 Wisdom 6:17-25
The Wisdom of Solomon lays out a chain, one link leading to the next. The true beginning of wisdom is the desire for instruction; and desire for instruction is love; and love is keeping her laws; and keeping...
No. 3062 Wisdom 17:1-16
The Wisdom of Solomon reflects on the plague of darkness over Egypt. The lawless who thought they held God's people captive were themselves trapped in a long night, shut in their houses, terrified by phantoms...
No. 3075 Wisdom 5:17-23
The Wisdom of Solomon paints God arming himself against the wicked, and his armor is made of his own attributes: zeal for a suit of armor, righteousness as a breastplate, impartial judgment as a helmet,...
No. 3131 Wisdom 15:1-19
The Wisdom of Solomon sets the living God against the dead idols of the nations. It opens with a lovely confession: you, our God, are gracious and true, patient, and ordering all things in mercy; and to know...
No. 3134 Wisdom 16:1-16
The Wisdom of Solomon contrasts God's dealings with Egypt and with Israel. Where Egypt was tormented by creatures, Israel was given quail; and when serpents bit Israel in the wilderness, the writer insists...
No. 3489 Wisdom 9:1-18
This is a prayer for wisdom, humble and searching. The one who prays, in the tradition of Solomon, confesses his own weakness: I am a weak and short-lived man, with little understanding of judgment and law. He...
No. 3552 Wisdom 1:1-16
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...
No. 3579 Wisdom 8:1-16
This passage celebrates wisdom in beautiful, personal terms, as a bride the wise seek to live with. Wisdom orders all things well, reaching from one end of creation to the other. And the one who loves her...
No. 3630 Wisdom 3:1-19
This is one of the comforting passages in Scripture about death and the righteous. The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed...
No. 4088 Wisdom 10:1-16
This passage surveys the whole sweep of early biblical history and traces one constant thread through it: the wisdom of God, his providence, watching over and delivering the righteous in every generation....
No. 4096 Wisdom 19:17-22
This passage reflects on the wonders God worked in delivering his people from Egypt, how the very elements of creation, fire and water and living creatures, were rearranged to protect Israel and confound their...
No. 4270 Wisdom 18:17-25
This passage recalls a moment when a deadly plague swept through the wilderness camp, and the dead were falling in heaps. And it tells how the plague was stopped: a blameless man hurried to be their champion,...
No. 4277 Wisdom 7:1-16
Solomon, renowned for his wisdom and wealth, begins his reflection on wisdom with a startling confession of his ordinariness. I too am mortal, he says, like everyone else; I was born as all are born, and drew...
No. 4304 Wisdom 19:1-16
This passage reflects on the judgment that fell on the Egyptians, and it names the root of their guilt in a striking way: their grievous hatred of strangers. They had received the Israelites as guests and then...