Question

I’ve got a good one that came up in a small group tonight! In Proverbs (and probably many other places) why is wisdom a woman? It’s obviously referring to Jesus in many ways. But regardless, why female? 

Answer

The wisest man on the planet at the time, Solomon, asked for wisdom to lead God’s people rather than wealth and riches and power. If you’re brilliant, you want to communicate simply. The first 10 chapters of Proverbs are how to understand the lectures he’s giving. So it’s like an introduction to the Proverbs. There is proverbial wisdom in there. The easiest way to see this when you read Proverbs, is that the adulterous woman is juxtaposed to the wise woman.

So he says, “Don’t follow her down the pathways to her chambers, Where she says, ‘my husband is gone.” You have the path and way metaphors throughout the Proverbs. She is an iteration of wisdom. We must step away from sexist language and see this as the Biblical corpus of wisdom. How do you explain wisdom to a young man? You talk about it as a woman. 

It is not bad for a woman to want to be like the woman described in Proverbs 31, but that’s not the point. Solomon is explaining what wisdom looks like. She gets up early; She takes care of her family; She makes investments and buys a field. So how do you learn? Get up early, make a good investment, take care of your family, etc. Solomon personifies wisdom not as Jesus, but he makes wisdom a woman. 

Christ and Wisdom

Christ is wisdom in the sense that He has always existed. He is the Godhead, so of course He is wise in all ways. We can push it to say you can find Christology in the book of Proverbs, however thats not the primary emphasis of the book. The point of wisdom is to fear God, not just to be smart. 

From a communication standpoint in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, to speak to a man was to speak to the head of the household. It wasn’t to differentiate that women aren’t important right now. Jesus does more to speak to women. Jesus had a high regard for women. 

Related Resources

Proverbs 31 Woman Ask Dr. E

Michael Easley Sermons Proverbs Series

Find more episodes of Ask Dr. E here.

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