Anakalypsis / Unveiling the Word
← →
⚙ Annotations & References ▾
Historic voices 2 ▾
Catechism of the Catholic Church 3× 16-21, 25-26, 29-30 City of God 2× 22, 24
Manuscript witnesses 2 ▾
Codex Sinaiticus Aleph c. AD 330-360 Codex Vaticanus B c. AD 300-325
What is Wisdom 7 about?

Speaking now in the person of Solomon, the seventh chapter has the king confess that he too is a mortal man, born like all others and destined to die, who received prudence only because he prayed for her. He tells how he esteemed wisdom above scepters, thrones, health, and beauty, counting riches as nothing beside her, and found that all good things came to him in her company. The author then describes wisdom in soaring terms, as the breath of the power of God, a pure emanation of His glory, the brightness of everlasting light, and the spotless mirror of His working. By exalting wisdom as God's own splendor poured into the world, the chapter grounds the book's plea that she be sought above every earthly good.

Historical backdrop

The book comes from Alexandria, the Greek city on the Nile that Alexander founded and the Ptolemies made the intellectual capital of the age. There the largest community of the dispersion lived in Greek, read its Scriptures in the Greek of the Septuagint, and argued philosophy beside the great library, all under the constant pull of a cultured paganism. Wisdom is written into that pressure, in the elegant Greek of a Jew who would not trade the God of his fathers for the wisdom of the Greeks.

The Church Fathers on Wisdom 7
Deuterocanon (Catholic & Orthodox) · Accepted as canonical Scripture by the Catholic and Orthodox traditions and included in the original 1611 KJV (between the Old and New Testaments). Not in the Protestant 66-book canon. Read with the same care you bring to other Scripture, conscious that Protestants and Catholics weigh its authority differently.

Wisdom 7

Wisdom Chapter 7
7
← Chapter 6 Chapter 8 →
What is Wisdom 7 about?

Speaking now in the person of Solomon, the seventh chapter has the king confess that he too is a mortal man, born like all others and destined to die, who received prudence only because he prayed for her. He tells how he esteemed wisdom above scepters, thrones, health, and beauty, counting riches as nothing beside her, and found that all good things came to him in her company. The author then describes wisdom in soaring terms, as the breath of the power of God, a pure emanation of His glory, the brightness of everlasting light, and the spotless mirror of His working. By exalting wisdom as God's own splendor poured into the world, the chapter grounds the book's plea that she be sought above every earthly good.