Proverbs 8:22–25

Footnotes

1. 38 There are two roots קָנָה (qanah) in Hebrew, one meaning “to possess,” and the other meaning “to create.” The earlier English versions did not know of the second root, but suspected in certain places that a meaning like that was necessary (e.g., Gen 4:1; 14:19; Deut 32:6). Ugaritic confirmed that it was indeed another root. The older versions have the translation “possess” because otherwise it sounds like God lacked wisdom and therefore created it at the beginning. They wanted to avoid saying that wisdom was not eternal. Arius liked the idea of Christ as the wisdom of God and so chose the translation “create.” Athanasius translated it, “constituted me as the head of creation.” The verb occurs twelve times in Proverbs with the meaning of “to acquire”; but the Greek and the versions have the meaning “create.” Although the idea is that wisdom existed before creation, the parallel ideas in these verses (“appointed,” “given birth”) argue for the translation of “create” or “establish” (R. N. Whybray, “Proverbs 8:22–31 and Its Supposed Prototypes,” 15 [1965]: 504–14; and W. A. Irwin, “Where Will Wisdom Be Found?” 80 [1961]: 133–42).
2. 39 Verbs of creation often involve double accusatives; here the double accusative involves the person (i.e., wisdom) and an abstract noun in construct ( §10.2.3c).
3. 40 Heb “his way” (so , ). The word “way” is an idiom (implied comparison) for the actions of God. The claim of wisdom in this passage is that she was foundational to all that God would do.
4. 41 The first parallel verb is נִסַּכְתִּי (nissakhti), “I was appointed.” It is not a common word; it occurs here and in Ps 2:6 for the coronation of the king. It means “installed, set.”
5. 42 The verb “existed” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation in the light of the context.
6. 43 The summary statements just given are now developed in a lengthy treatment of wisdom as the agent of all creation. This verse singles out “watery deeps” (תְּהֹמוֹת, téhomot) in its allusion to creation because the word in Genesis signals the condition of the world at the very beginning, and because in the ancient world this was something no one could control. Chaos was not there first—wisdom was.
7. 44 The third parallel verb is חוֹלָלְתִּי (kholalti), “I was given birth.” Some (e.g., , , , ) translate it “brought forth”—not in the sense of being presented, but in the sense of being “begotten, given birth to.” Here is the strongest support for the translation of קָנָה (qanah) as “created” in v. 22. The verb is not literal; it continues the perspective of the personification.
8. 45 Heb “made heavy.”