What are some examples of personification in the Bible?

Verses 1-11. This is one of the most interesting chapters in the entire book. It begins with a call and appeal of wisdom, much like the call and appeal of the first chapter. If wisdom calls, has a voice, then wisdom must also be a person. Who 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.

A. ― In the passage it is "Wisdom" who speaks crying in the streets to the simple, the scorner, and the fool, to turn at her reproof, and to love not their own ways; and that Wisdom's spirit would be given them, and Wisdom's words made known to them. (The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, v. 7.) When they would therefore be reaping the fruits of the folly they had sown, under the retributive government of God in this world, in their fear and calamity they would call upon Wisdom to guide them, but they would not be heard ― it would then be too late to learn Wisdom's ways. Wisdom would then laugh at them as it were (it is a figure of speech), for what they were suffering; having set at nought Wisdom's counsels and reproof, when she cried to them to learn her ways.

230 Wisdom speaks with the authority of God and aloud, "she utters her voice in the streets." This is an important principle as regards the results of sin. We have seen the parental care of the young to preserve from evil, but in the ways of God there is another testimony - the public warning and call to sinners which wisdom sends forth amongst them. "Wisdom cries without; she utters her voice in the street" - in the concourse of men, to the simple and to the scorner, the guilty yet misled ones, and the open and insulting adversary, and calls them to turn at her reproof, and proposes to bring forth to them, and lead them into, the full outpouring of the Spirit's teaching and the words of God. It is not here pouring out the Holy Ghost on them: that is quite another thing; but the Spirit of wisdom was there for them, and the words of wisdom to teach and build them up. The expression is remarkable. You have the Spirit and the word, though the former, in the sense of its utterances of truth for blessing, poured forth to them. You have the Lord's complaints in Luke 7, where yet wisdom in all her ways is justified of all her children. But it is in vain. Hence, when in the day of desolation and judgment, they will call, but there is no answer. They may fear the judgment, but there was no love, no submission to the truth; they will eat the fruit of their own ways. The ease and prosperity and carelessness they have been in, will be their ruin. The passage does not go beyond judgment (but God's final judgment) in this world, and that there peace would be the portion of those who hearkened to wisdom. Nor be it further remarked, is there any reference to grace or its power in renewing or quickening. It is man in this world dealt with in his responsibility.

"Doth not wisdom cry, and understanding give forth her voice. On the top of high places by the way, at the cross-paths she taketh her stand. Beside the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors, she crieth aloud," Prov. 8:1-3.

"Doth not wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her voice? On the top of high places by the way, where paths meet, she stands; beside the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors, she cries aloud. To you, O men, I call, and my voice [is] to the sons of man. O ye simple, understand prudence; and, ye foolish, be of understanding heart. Hear, for I will speak excellent things, and the opening of my lips [shall be] right things. For my palate shall meditate truth, and wickedness [is] an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth [are] in righteousness; [there is] nothing crooked or perverse in them. They [are] all plain to him that understands, and right to them that find knowledge. Receive my instruction, and not silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold; for wisdom [is] better than rubies, and all the things that may be desired are not comparable to her." vv. 1-11.

Here is no courting of the dark, no flattery of the heedless, no fair speech to seduce into foul deeds and illicit indulgence. The wisdom which has its root in the fear of Jehovah is aboveboard and earnest with man. "Doth not wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her voice? On the top of high places, where paths meet, she stands; beside the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors, she cries aloud." John the Baptist not only bore witness to Jesus, but "cried" (John 1:15). So did our Lord in the temple as He taught (John 7:28), and notably at the close of His rejected testimony (John 12:44) in importunate love.

How often in the Old Testament as in the New we are reminded of divine favour to mankind! Not with angels but with the human race does God plead, 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"; nay more, it beseeches the weak and the unwise. "O ye simple, understand wisdom, and ye fools, be of understanding heart."

"Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out her seven pillars; she has slaughtered her slaughtering [or, sacrifice], she has mingled her wine, she has also furnished her table. She has sent forth her maidens; she cries upon the summits of the high places of the city, Whoso [is] simple, let him turn in hither. To him that is void of understanding she says, Come, eat ye of my bread, and drink of the wine I have mingled. Forsake follies [or, simplicities] and live, and go in the way of understanding." vv. 1-6.

The blood of Abel was heard by God when Cain slew him, for God has said to Cain, “What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood cries to me from the ground” (Gen. 4:10). Abel’s blood called for divine judgment on his murderer; and does not the blood of Jesus call for judgment on those who crucified and slew Him? There were those who said to Pilate, “His blood be on us, and on our children,” (Matt. 27:25) and this judgment that they called upon themselves has in part been executed, but not yet to the full.

Though God spoke to Cain directly, Cain showed no faith in God's omniscience. How futile and foolish it is to lie to God! but as well as lying, he asks irritably, "Am I my brother's keeper?" God did not have to answer this: Cain knew well enough that he was responsible to have some honest care for his brother, but he had not only neglected this: he had been guilty of the total opposite. God then speaks with solemn words to the criminal's conscience, "What have you done! The voice of your brother's blood cries out to Me from the ground" (v.10). Of course this means that Abel's blood cries out to God for righteous retribution (Compare Revelation 6:10).

The blood speaks better things than of Abel

Abel’s blood cried to God from the ground, and it brought a curse upon Cain, for God said to Cain, “Now thou art cursed from the earth, which has opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand” (Gen. 4:10-11). In marked contrast the blood of Jesus has secured all the blessings for all who believe in Him, and rest upon His finished work. Abel’s blood cried for cursing: the blood of Jesus cries for blessing.

It is a solemn truth, reader, that sin has a voice, which cries to heaven for God's righteous retribution. The word of God, both in the Old Testament and ii the New, confirms it. God says to Cain, "What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto Me from the ground." God then pronounces judgment upon Cain. To Abraham the Lord said, "Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto Me; and if not, I will know." Further, in the New Testament, "Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth" (James 5:4).