The following is taken from the monumental work titled The Incarnate Christ and His Critics: A Biblical Defense, authored by Robert M. Bowman Jr. & J. Ed Komoszewski, published by Kregel Academic, Grand Rapids, MI, 2024, Part 2: Like Father, Like Son: Jesus’ Divine Attributes, Chapter 13. Was Christ the First Creature?, pp. 251-255.
In my estimation this is THE best and most comprehensive exposition and defense of the biblical basis for the Deity of Christ. Every serious Trinitarian Christian student of the Holy Bible, apologist, and/or theologian must have this book in the library.
WISDOM AND CREATION (PROVERBS 8:22)
Proverbs 8:22 is one of the most controversial verses in the Old Testament. It was the focus of much debate in the fourth century between the Arians, whose view of Christ was similar to that of the Jehovah’s Witnesses today, and those who believed in the Trinity, notably Athanasius. Both groups in the early church assumed that Proverbs 8, which presents itself as a speech given by “Wisdom,” was referring to the preincarnate Christ, but they differed as to what the text meant. There is considerable debate today about how to translate the verse as well as how to interpret it.13 The following four versions of Proverbs 8:22 are representative:
The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way,
Before His works of old. (NKJV)
The Lord acquired me at the beginning of his creation,
before his works of long ago. (CSB)
The Lord begot me, the beginning of his works,
The forerunner of his deeds of long ago. (NABRE)
The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of long ago. (NRSV)
Looking closely at these four versions, we find three significant differences in the way they translate Proverbs 8:22. The translations differ on how to translate the main verb, whether wisdom existed at the beginning or was the beginning, and whether the second line means that wisdom existed “before” God’s works or was “the first” of those works. The Hebrew text, it seems, can be translated in any number of ways. On the other hand, the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, is unambiguous: “The Lord created [ektisen] me as the beginning of his ways for his works” (LES). This wording in the Septuagint, which was the version of the Old Testament with which most Christians were familiar in the early church, seemed to support the Arian view that the preexistent Son had been created.
As the variations in the English versions (mostly based on the Hebrew text) reflect, the meaning of the Hebrew verb qānāh is the main question. There are four main choices here: “possessed” (ESV, KJV, NKJV); “acquired” (CSB); expressing birth, either “begot” (NABRE) or “brought forth” (NIV); and “created” (GNT, LEB, NASB, NEB, NET, NJB, NRSV, TNK; also “formed,” NLT).
In the vast majority of occurrences in the Old Testament, qānāh means “buy” or “acquire.”14 This is the case in all of the other thirteen occurrences in Proverbs. Moreover, in all but one of those occurrences, what a person is said to buy, acquire, or get is wisdom or another intellectual virtue such as understanding or knowledge (1:5; 4:5, 7; 15:32; 16:16; 17:16; 18:15; 19:8; 23:23). Since Proverbs instructs its reader to “acquire wisdom” (Prov. 4:5, 7; 16:16), when we find the same language used for wisdom in Proverbs 8:22 it makes sense to translate it the same way: “The Lord acquired me” (CSB).
On the other hand, the passage goes on to quote Wisdom as saying that it “was brought forth” before the physical world (Prov. 8:24, 25), which suggests that qānāh in verse 22 might be expressing something like birth.15 Perhaps this is the intended meaning, or perhaps the passage exhibits some mixing of metaphors.
Whatever precise translation we use, the verse appears to be saying that the Lord “got” wisdom. At this point the Watchtower argues that the passage must be speaking about Christ. They argue that since the character quality of wisdom “never began to exist because Jehovah has always existed and he has always been wise,” Proverbs 8:22 must be referring to something other than God’s attribute of wisdom. Since the New Testament calls Christ “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24), they conclude that it is referring to Christ.16
The main problem with this argument is that it assumes that Proverbs 8:22 should be understood literally to mean that God “got” a wisdom that he previously lacked. This assumption ignores the context. In Proverbs 1–9, Solomon describes wisdom using the literary device of personification, in which something that is not literally a person is described as if it were. Personification was a familiar rhetorical device in the Old Testament. One commentator points out that in the Old Testament, “Abstract concepts such as faithfulness, justice, love, peace, righteousness, truth and uprightness are all personified (Ps. 85:10 [Heb. 11]; Isa. 59:14).”17 Jehovah’s Witnesses should take this point seriously: The Watchtower’s own publications have made this point when they were not focused on using Proverbs 8:22 as a proof text about Christ but instead commenting on an earlier verse, “Wisdom cries aloud in the street” (Prov. 1:20):
Personification is another figure of speech. We use this when we speak of something inanimate as if it were alive. For example, the Bible tells us, “Death ruled as king from Adam down to Moses”; “grief and sighing must flee away”; “true wisdom itself keeps crying aloud in the very street.” (Romans 5:14; Isaiah 35:10; Proverbs 1:20) Death, grief, sighing and wisdom cannot really rule, flee or cry out. But speaking as if they did, the Bible paints vivid mental pictures, easily visualized and remembered.18
This statement is exactly right. Wisdom is personified not just in a verse here or there (like Proverbs 1:20), but in a sustained way in three passages: Proverbs 1:20–33; 8:1–36; and 9:1–12. In all three passages, Wisdom speaks in the first-person singular, as in the following examples:
“I have called and you refused to listen.” (1:24)
“I, wisdom, dwell with prudence.” (8:12)
“Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.” (9:5)
In an attempt to blunt this point, Greg Stafford notes that only in Proverbs 8:12 does wisdom use the specific formula, “I, wisdom.”19 Evidently he regards all of Proverbs 8 as a speech by the preexistent Christ, not just 8:22–31. However, he does not explain why the use of this particular formula in 8:12 marks the passage as something other than literary personification. If that had been its purpose, one would expect this formula to appear at the beginning of Wisdom’s speech, not in the midst of it. In actuality, the “speaker” called Wisdom in Proverbs 8 is clearly the same as the Wisdom who speaks in Proverbs 1. Both are introduced in the same way:
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. (Prov. 1:20–21)
Does not wisdom call? Does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud. (Prov. 8:1–3)
In both passages, Wisdom speaks in the first person and addresses her audience as “O simple ones” (Prov. 1:22; 8:5). In both passages, Wisdom speaks of “my words” (1:23; 8:8). In the first speech, Wisdom warns that those who refused to listen to her and who fall into calamity “will seek me diligently but will not find me” (1:28 NASB), while in the second speech she promises that “those who diligently seek me will find me” (8:17 NASB), presumably if they do not wait until it is too late. Both speeches conclude by promising good things to those who “listen to me” and warns of death for those who do not (1:32–33; 8:34–36). Clearly, the speaker in both passages is the same “Wisdom.
Proverbs 8 personifies other intellectual virtues besides wisdom. For example, it personifies understanding in the opening lines of the passage: “Does not wisdom call? Does not understanding raise her voice?” (Prov. 8:1). If “wisdom” is a person here, then “understanding” must also be a person. Anyone taking this passage to be referring to “Wisdom” as a person will also have to explain who “Prudence” is in 8:12, since that verse says that Wisdom dwells with Prudence!20 As Old Testament scholar Tremper Longman points out, in Proverbs prudence and other virtues besides wisdom “are themselves personified and considered her colleagues.”21
Another passage in Proverbs 1–9 that contains even more striking parallels to Proverbs 8 is Proverbs 3:13–20, where Solomon extols the value of wisdom and understanding. Note the following parallel:
Blessed is the one who finds wisdom,
and the one who gets understanding,
for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold.
She is more precious than jewels,
and nothing you desire can compare with her.
Long life is in her right hand;
in her left hand are riches and honor. (Prov. 3:13–16)
Take my instruction instead of silver,
and knowledge rather than choice gold,
for wisdom is better than jewels,
and all that you may desire cannot compare with her. . . .
Riches and honor are with me,
enduring wealth and righteousness.
My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold,
and my yield than choice silver. (Prov. 8:10–11, 18–19)
Proverbs 3 goes on to describe the role of wisdom in the creation of the world, anticipating in a briefer way the debated passage in Proverbs 8:22–31:
The Lord by wisdom founded the earth;
by understanding he established the heavens;
by his knowledge the deeps broke open,
and the clouds drop down the dew. (Prov. 3:19–20)
The Lord possessed me [wisdom] at the beginning of his work . . .
When he established the heavens, I was there . . .
when he established the fountains of the deep . . .
when he marked out the foundations of the earth . . . . (Prov. 8:22, 27–29)
If we read Proverbs 8:22–31 in the broader context of Proverbs 1–9 as a whole, what we find is that Solomon was extolling wisdom as something God “had” and that he demonstrated in all of his created works. Wisdom’s poetic statement “The Lord acquired me at the beginning of his way” is a verbally artistic way of saying what Proverbs 3:19–20 says, which is that God created the world in a perfectly wise fashion. This interpretation makes sense of Proverbs 8:22 no matter how we translate qānāh. If we translate it “begot” or “brought forth” (NABRE, NIV), the birth imagery is simply part of the extended metaphor, personifying wisdom as God’s first child who was with him throughout his work of creation. If we translate it “created,” following the Septuagint and several modern English versions, it is still personifying wisdom as having played an essential role in the creation of the world. It is not saying that God made Christ as an angel and then sat back while the angel did the rest of the work of creation.
There is nothing wrong with reading Proverbs 8 as teaching us something about the wisdom that is perfectly revealed in Jesus Christ. Paul stated that in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). Thus, studying what the Old Testament says about wisdom can enrich our understanding of Christ. However, it is a mistake to apply isolated proof texts from Old Testament poetic wisdom literature to Christ in a wooden, literalist fashion. Proverbs 8 was not intended to tell us who Christ is but rather to teach us that wisdom is essential to all of God’s works.
13. For an overview, see Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs, Chapters 1–15, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 408–9.
14. The verb occurs eighty-five times in the Hebrew OT, and other than Proverbs 8:22 the meaning “buy” or “acquire” clearly fits all but two places (Gen. 4:1; Ps. 139:13).
15. This is the conclusion in Waltke, Book of Proverbs, Chapters 1–15, 409.
16. E.g., “Come Be My Follower” (Walkill, NY: Watchtower, 2007, 2012 printing), 131.
17. Ernest C. Lucas, Proverbs, Two Horizons OT Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 262.
18. “The Bible’s Vivid Figures of Speech,” Watchtower (June 1, 1984), 19, bold emphasis added. See also Insight on the Scriptures (1988), 2:1019, 1161.
19. Stafford, Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended, 3rd ed., 408.
20. The 1985 Tanakh (TNK), published by the Jewish Publication Society, translates Proverbs 8:12, “I, Wisdom, dwell with Prudence,” capitalizing the “names” of the personified traits.
21. Tremper Longman III, Proverbs, BCOTWP (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 201.
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