Proverbs 8:4–5

She meets man where he is. She lifts up her voice above the roar and confusion of man's restless activities in this world. She meets him in the throng, and puts herself forward in the highway where people pass. She comes to bring in the light of God and His claim on man for his good. She calls man's ear to hear, and to think of something besides the pushing of his own will and the muddy stream of his passions and earthly hopes. … Her address was to men. God's word and wisdom are shaped for them and spoken to them.

Here is no courting of the dark. There is no flattery of the careless, and no fair speech to seduce into foul deeds and forbidden indulgence. The wisdom which has its root in the fear of Jehovah is open and earnest with man.

How often the Old Testament, like the New, reminds us of God's favour to mankind! God pleads not with angels but with the human race, that they may hear and live. "The life was the light of men." So it is here when wisdom cries aloud: "To you, O men, I call, and my cry is to the children of man." And more than that, it pleads with the weak and the unwise. "O you simple ones, understand wisdom, and you fools, be of understanding heart."

Wisdom declares her message even where crowds gather. Yet she does not address the crowd in general. She speaks to individuals: "To you, O man, I call", and to the sons of men. She presses the message home in a way that fastens on each person as personally responsible, even though simple or foolish (vv. 4-5).

If wisdom calls, has a voice, then wisdom must also be a person. Who this personified wisdom is we learn most blessedly in this chapter. Wisdom calls to the sons of men. Wisdom speaks of plain and excellent things. She speaks the truth. Her words are the words of righteousness. Wisdom is better than rubies.

Proverbs 8. The wisdom of God is active. It cries aloud; it invites men… But this leads us further; for Christ is the wisdom of God. He is the centre of all relations, according to the perfections of God. In Himself He is the object of God's eternal delight.

At the start of the chapter that gives the magnificent description of Wisdom (Proverbs 8), you get her crying at the gates, "To you, O men, I call." But here is a better invitation: "Come to Me!"

God has seen fit to plant wisdom in the hearts of believers by faith. We read in 1 Corinthians 1:30, "because of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God." So believers become messengers who carry the message of wisdom to the world. They carry it from the top of the high hills, or by the gates of entry into the city, where of course there are crowds of people.

The Old Testament, like the New, reminds us again and again of God's favour to mankind! God does not plead with angels. He pleads with the human race, so that they may hear and live. "The life was the light of men." So it is here when wisdom cries aloud: "To you, O men, I call, and my voice is to the sons of men." More than that, it begs the weak and the unwise: "O you simple, understand wisdom, and you fools, be of understanding heart."

It came to bring the truth, not to find it. It came to the simple and to fools. It brought light and understanding to the simple — the hearing ear, through grace. To the simplest and most foolish it brought divine wisdom for themselves: a light and guide in all the circumstances they were in. They were excellent things, for they came from God and revealed Him. They were right things too. They put everything in its true moral place with God, and with God's authority.

"Prudence" in verse 4 can sink into cunning or crafty ways, as in Exodus 21:14 and Joshua 9:4. But as in Proverbs 8:5 and 12, so here and in related forms, it has the fair meaning of practical good sense.

An understanding heart is what Solomon asked of God (see 1 Kings 3:9-11). There it means, as the margin gives it, a hearing heart: a heart that hears or discerns judgment. The context shows Proverbs 8:5 uses it in the same way. By faith such a heart loves to hear and bow to the excellent things that come out of the mouth of divine wisdom, without reasoning. It is always, and only, the finite human mind that reasons.

This section of nine chapters brings three women before us, and each appears in the three chapters we are looking at: "The strange woman"; "Wisdom"; "The foolish woman." Three things are common to them all — they each have something to say; they each have something to offer; they each make an appeal to those who are simple. So it becomes a question for each one of us: to whom shall I listen? At whose table shall I feed? In which company shall I move?

So "in Christ" believers have wisdom from God. This is wisdom worked in them, which explains why wisdom is spoken of as "she." Christ Himself is wisdom in His own person, but He uses believers to declare His truth. For instance, in Proverbs 8 the first 11 verses are that female voice — Christ in believers declaring the truth. The rest of chapter 8 (verses 12-36) is plainly the voice of the Lord Jesus Himself as the wisdom of God.