"The Lord Brought Me Forth..."

“The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old; I was appointed from eternity, from the beginning, before the world began. When there were no oceans, I was given birth, when there were no springs abounding with water; before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth, before he made the earth or its fields or any of the dust of the world. I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the deep, when he gave the sea its boundary so the waters would not overstep his command, and when he marked out the foundations of the earth. Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind. (Proverbs 8:22-31)

Just as a bit of trivia, it is on the basis of this passage that the Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that Jesus is a created being. They say this the person described here is Jesus. Wisdom, however, is clearly described as a woman, and as I said yesterday, every reference generally attributed to Jesus has been male. This is one of the Scriptural errors that leads me to conclude that they are mistaken in their beliefs.
          Now we get to move on to the interesting stuff.  Back on June 18, I discussed the idea that God and love both have wisdom (Link to God Is Love 10) Today’s passage gives the impression that wisdom had a beginning, but how could God start to be wise? The first thing to consider is the fact that this whole passage about wisdom as a woman is poetic. If we are going to assume that wisdom didn’t exist prior to the creation, then we must also assume that wisdom is, in fact, a woman. Don’t reverse that, it doesn’t proclaim that women are wise, just that wisdom is a woman. Female chauvinism aside, I think we all recognize that’s not true. So how can wisdom have been brought forth or given birth?
         The first hint is in the fact that a person exists prior to birth. I’m not suggesting that we are somehow eternal, that our spirits have always existed. I’m only saying that from the point of conception to the point birth, while a person has not yet been born or brought forth, that person exists. Until God created, His wisdom could not be “brought forth” to the view of His creation. Wisdom is, after all, knowledge put to work in a way that fits with reality. Someday I’ll have to discuss the idea of the wisdom of God’s creation or discuss it again. While God has eternally been wise, that wisdom was not made visible or brought forth until there was a “forth” that it could be brought that would allow it to be visible to us.