In my book, Solomon Says: Directives for Young Men (Amazon, Kindle) I mention that Solomon portrays wisdom as a woman. But I don’t ask (or answer!) why he did so.
Solomon uses the figure of Lady Wisdom without apology or explanation:
Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you. Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. —Proverbs 1:20–27 ESV
So where did this woman come from in Solomon’s mind? We could assume that it all starts with him under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But I don’t think we should be satisfied with that. While the figure is inspired, we should consider the possibility or precedents in the inspired canon.
In some way, this woman seems to have existed before or at creation (Proverbs 3:19, 20; 8:22-31). This figured into some Christological controversies in the early Church. My guess is that part of the confusion lies in the Bible both teaching that wisdom is divine (and thus eternal) and that wisdom had special application to creation.
But that does not explain why Wisdom is portrayed as female. It is possible to make connections between Wisdom and the Holy Spirit (without calling into question the masculine pronouns in the New Testament), but the data is not consistent. The role of the Spirit at creation (Genesis 1:2) is associated with a husband’s role in sheltering his wife (Ruth 3:9; Luke 1:34, 35). And Jesus seems to identify with Solomon’s wisdom calling out in the streets (Matthew 23:34), promising the Spirit to his followers, inviting all to his meal (compare Proverbs 9). So, I do not think wisdom as a woman is meant to apply especially to any of the persons of the Trinity. Wisdom obviously is an aspect of the Triune God, and women made in God’s image can be used to reveal him. That still leaves us with the question of why Solomon chose to portray wisdom as female.
On one level, the answer might simply lie in the fact that Solomon presents Proverbs as his exhortations to his son. The son needs a wife who can only come from God (Proverbs 19:14) and he also needs to cry out for Wisdom and to listen to her. Wisdom, too, comes from God and is especially needed when one leaves one’s father and mother.
But there is more we can say. I point out in my book (Amazon, Kindle) that Proverbs is easily read as a meditation on Genesis. I think it might be fruitful to consider Wisdom as a glorified composite of the women whom Solomon knows about in the history of creation and redemption.
Starting with Eve.
Eve? The one who was deceived by the Serpent’s “wisdom”?
Yes, Eve.
Eve, the redeemed sinner is named the mother of all living. She is the first Lady Wisdom on a quest for a wise son.
When thinking of Eve as Wisdom, we obviously can’t base this on the fact that she sinned. Some elements of her role in the Fall may be worth looking at, and we will get to those below.
But first, the reason Eve might be seen as a prototype for Wisdom is the way she is mentioned after our first parents are driven from the Garden. While Adam briefly speaks to give her a name because he acknowledges her as the mother of all living, that is all we hear from Adam. After they are exiled east of Eden, only her reactions to subsequent events are mentioned, not Adam’s. When their first child is born, we get Eve’s response, not Adam’s.
Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.” —Genesis 4:1 ESV
And then later, she responds to the birth of another son.
And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” —Genesis 4:25 ESV
Eve’s recorded reflections fit the message God spoke to the Serpent when He confronted the three of them about their disobedience. Eve is looking for a son to win a victory over her and his Enemy.
“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.” —Genesis 3:15 ESV
Her reflections also fit a regular feature of mothers in Genesis:
- Sarah worrying that Isaac’s inheritance is threatened if Hagar and Ishmael stay with Abraham.
- Hagar receives divine help to spare the life of her son.
- Rebekah making sure that Jacob gets the inheritance as God told her he should.
- And the longing of both Leah and Rachel for sons.
And it doesn’t stop there:
- In Exodus, it is Moses’ mother who decides she must save him, tries to hide him, pretends to abandon him in the bulrushes and gets Pharaoh’s daughter to accept him as her own. She is aided by her older daughter.
- In Judges, the unnamed mother of Samson receives messages from God and assures his father, Manoah, that God intends good for them.
- In 1 Samuel, Hannah prays for a son and is blessed with several after she dedicates the first one to the Tabernacle.
- Bathsheba interceded for Solomon to make sure that David would keep his promise and make him king.
- And, of course, we find this theme in the story of Mary, the mother of Jesus. While Joseph obeyed God and took action on behalf of his wife and son, Mary is the one who sang a song about God giving her a son (Luke 1:46-55) and pondered in her heart all that happened at this birth (Luke 2:19). She, like Eve, had “gotten a man, with the help of the LORD.”
- Finally, just as Lady Wisdom is a superhuman figure, we should consider another composite that the Apostle John sees in a vision. “And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth” (Revelation 12:1–2 ESV). This celestial wisdom is the Church, the Bride, and the mother in labor with a wise son who will save her. She is the ultimate composite of all the wise woman who came before her.
So, Eve is a description of a feminine type that is elaborated throughout the Bible. She is the “mother of all living,” who longs for a son who will defeat the serpent and his reign. She is looking for one who will grow to be a worthy man. Despite her initial hope for Cain, she realized later that Abel was the one who was qualified. When Seth was born, she said God gave him to carry on Abel’s mandate, not Cain’s. She had already realized that he was foolish rather than wise.
Lady Wisdom is mostly compared to a wife or a sister who saves a man from Madame Folly. But just as Solomon advises the son to listen to his mother, Wisdom also seems to morph into that role. She says:
And now, O sons, listen to me: blessed are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD, but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death. —Proverbs 8:32–36 ESV
Eve, despite her role in human sin, became a role model of the redemptive wisdom, as Proverbs acknowledges, trusting God and looking for a wise son.
With all this in mind, let us look at Eve’s role in the Fall.
If you take Genesis 1 and 2 together as background to chapter 3, Eve comes out looking pretty good compared to Adam.
- Adam was created first (Genesis 2:7).
- Adam was put in the Garden and told not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:16-17).
- God created Eve (Genesis 2:21-22).
- God told Adam and Eve together that every single plant was given to them for food (Genesis 1:29).
- Nevertheless, Eve knows the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was prohibited on pain of death (Genesis 3:2-3).
This brings up two questions. One is easy to answer: How can a tree be prohibited if Adam and Eve were given “every tree” to eat from? It must have been a temporary prohibition. At some point Humanity would be granted access to that forbidden tree.
The second question is: How did Eve learn of the prohibition? Did God explain it all in the presence of both of them? That is possible. But another possibility would be that Adam told her about it.
Both these possibilities are “speculative” to a degree, but the second option makes more sense of Paul’s reasoning:
For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. —1 Timothy 2:13–14 ESV
If Adam was not “deceived,” it means he was more culpable than Eve. If she heard of the prohibition only from Adam, that would mean he had more direct knowledge and she was to some extent relying on him to be truthful. That would explain how Eve could be deceived in her sin but Adam was flagrantly rebellious. Consider:
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. —Genesis 3:6 ESV
Adam was “with her.” If the text is trying to say that he was with her after she went to find him, that is bizarrely trivial information. At face value, the text is dropping the bombshell that Adam, who heard what God said for himself, remained quiet while his wife was tempted in front of him. What was Eve to make of his silence? Essentially, he backed up the serpent’s lie, let his wife eat the fruit, saw that she remained alive, and then ate some himself. Real brave guy.
Thus, while Eve was foolish, Adam was abusive and rebellious. He used his wife as a human guinea pig. If she had died, then he could have blamed her (like he did anyway–Genesis 3:12) and claimed he never disobeyed the divine commandment.
In light of all this, I wonder if Genesis 3:3 shows Eve being a model of wisdom:
And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” —Genesis 3:2–3 ESV
“Neither shall you touch it.” I have heard some claim that Eve was “adding” to God’s word. But there are no quote marks in ancient Hebrew. It is not clear that Eve was claiming God said things that He didn’t say. More likely, she was pointing out that being near the tree, thinking about violating God’s command, was a really bad idea. She may have been signal=ling to Adam that he should act in the situation rather than silently watching.
After all, when Solomon talks about adultery and fornication, he does not just say “don’t do it.”
And now, O sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house. —Proverbs 5:7–8 ESV
And the first thing a fool does is get too close to temptation:
I have perceived among the youths, a young man lacking sense, passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house in the twilight, in the evening, at the time of night and darkness. —Proverbs 7:7b–9
Tragically, Eve failed to hold on to wisdom, but she initially demonstrated it in answering the serpent. Once restored by God’s promises, she became a Lady Wisdom crying out for a worthy son.
Mark Horne is a member of the Civitas group, and holds an M.Div from Covenant Theological Seminary. He is assistant pastor at Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, and is the executive director of Logo Sapiens Communications. He writes at www.SolomonSays.net, and is the author, most recently, of “Solomon Says: Directives for Young Men” from Athanasius Press.