Wisdom Calls in the Streets

Overview

• Testament: Old
• Book: Proverbs
• Chapters: Proverbs 1:20-33; 8:1-36
• Summary: Woman Wisdom cries out in the public squares, streets, and gates, calling all to hear her reproof and turn from folly. In Proverbs 8, Wisdom gives her great self-commendation, declaring her antiquity before creation, her role alongside God as a master workman, and her delight in mankind, bidding all who love her to find life.

Significance

The personification of Wisdom as a woman calling in the streets presents divine instruction as universally available and urgently offered. Wisdom’s pre-creation existence in Proverbs 8 establishes her as the ordering principle of all God made, pointing forward to later reflection on the Word and divine wisdom. Those who reject her cry are warned that calamity will come and she will not answer — but those who hearken find favour with the LORD.

Key Verses

“Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: she crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words.” — Proverbs 1:20-21 (KJV)

“The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.” — Proverbs 8:22-23 (KJV)

“Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways.” — Proverbs 8:32 (KJV)

Cross-References

• Proverbs — source book for both passages
• Wisdom and Folly — the central theme Wisdom personified embodies
• Job — Wisdom as hidden treasure and ordering principle (Job 28)
• The Word — Wisdom’s pre-creation role foreshadows the eternal Word