Commentaries and Podcasts

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 30: Requiem for the Wicked

While this last presentation in our commentary On the Wisdom of Solomon is titled Requiem for the Wicked, we certainly are not going to sing dirges for bastards. However we are compelled to illustrate the overarching theme in this Wisdom of Solomon which was purposely designed to impart an essential lesson, a lesson which in itself also contains many smaller lessons. Solomon’s intention here has not been to ramble on about unrelated subjects, where he may appear to have forsaken his first comparisons of the wicked and the righteous and had randomly changed to a discussion of the beginnings of idolatry and its consequences, and then again to a discussion of the Exodus account while presenting the initial prayer in which he had supplicated Yahweh for wisdom. Rather, his prayer illustrates what true wisdom is, which is the fear and the knowledge of God, and culminates by comparing the destinies of two nations, one of them wicked and one of them righteous, at least, in the eyes of God. In the end what is righteous is what Yahweh considers righteous, and not what men consider righteous.

As we read in the 111th Psalm, “10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.” This is the lesson which Solomon conveys throughout this work, while making illustrations of the motives, methods and folly of all of those who depart from it. Therefore all of the changes of course throughout this work were calculated, and all of the themes which he presented here are woven together into a single cohesive lesson. However for reason of its length, for the many analogies which it contains, and for its frequent turns of course, the overarching lesson may be easily overlooked by casual readers. But clearly, by enveloping this work with discourses concerning the beginnings and the ends of the wicked, we see that the Exodus account has been set forth here as an example for both men and nations, that the ungodly, or impious, put themselves on a path to destruction, that wicked men who desire to rule by their own strength become unrighteous rulers, and they ultimately bring entire nations down that same destructive path, where in the end, the righteous will escape their destruction only by the grace of God, as the righteous are in the hand of God whether they themselves realize it or not.

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 29: Born From Above

In the last portion of this commentary, throughout chapter 18 of the Wisdom of Solomon, we saw a description of The Emergent World, as Solomon himself had described the world as being represented by the long garment of the high priest of Israel which had contained twelve gemstones representing each of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. The breastplate of the garment contained little else besides those gemstones and the Urim and Thummim, which ostensibly represented the twelve tribes under the judgment and counsel of Yahweh their God. Yet Solomon described that as “the whole world” where he said in verse 24: “For in the long garment was the whole world, and in the four rows of the stones was the glory of the fathers graven, and thy Majesty upon the diadem of his head.” This world, referring to the particular κόσμος or society and not to the entire planet, was formed by God Himself as He chose the children of Israel, the seed of Abraham, to endure the trials which they had experienced in Egypt, and coming out of Egypt to be established in His laws and to be organized according to His Word. Solomon will repeat that same profession in another way here in Wisdom chapter 19, whereby he also reveals the meaning of the phrase “born from above”.

In Genesis chapter 15, Abraham was forewarned of this by God, where after Yahweh God had made many other promises to him, we read “13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; 14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.” The four hundred years, as it had been reckoned by Paul of Tarsus and as it is evident in the historical narrative of Scripture, included the time from Abraham’s arrival in Canaan to the subsequent sojourn of Jacob in Egypt and the period during which the Israelites were actually enslaved by the Egyptians, which was only something less than 180 years. This method of counting is verified where in verse 16 of that same chapter of Genesis, it says that “in the fourth generation they shall come hither again”, and in the genealogies it is evident that when Jacob went to Egypt with Levi, his son Kohath was already born, and Kohath was the father of Amram, the father of Moses. So Moses was the fourth generation from Jacob, and although several generations were born after him, he led them back “hither” to the land of Canaan.

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 28: The Emergent World

Throughout these late chapters of Wisdom, Solomon had described at length particular elements of the account of the Exodus and the punishments which had come upon Egypt, while contrasting those to the various trials and blessings which were experienced by the Israelites both during and after their own flight from Egypt. Making this comparison, Solomon asserted that Yahweh God had punished the Egyptians for their destruction. However in the process of doing so, He had sheltered Israel from those plagues, although in the preservation of Israel they were also often chastised for their correction. So in his analogy, and especially the manner in which he described the account of the serpents which had beset the children of Israel in the desert, or how they were once fed with the strange-tasting meat of quail-mothers, Solomon conveys the lesson that even when Israel is punished it is to effect their ultimate preservation.

Now, in this 18th chapter of Wisdom, Solomon remains focused on that first Passover upon which the Egyptians had suffered the death of their firstborn. So where he presented an account of this event as an analogy, which continues throughout this chapter, we see that the Egyptians had died of fear in darkness while in the dark of night the children of Israel were preserved in a great light. That light evidently represents the presence of Yahweh God over Egypt, as He both punished the Egyptians and preserved His people Israel. So where we had left off midway through the chapter in our last presentation in this commentary, we had also concluded that: “once The Dark of Night had stricken the Egyptians, the nation never again recovered its former glory, but instead had entered a long period of stagnation and decline. At that same time, the Israelites having enjoyed The Light of Day went on to become a great kingdom.” As Solomon concludes this chapter, we shall indeed see that this was the emergent world, and that in this manner Egypt, representing the old world, also stands as a type, or model, for the future.

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 27: The Light of Day

Before we begin our commentary on this 18th chapter of the Wisdom of Solomon, I would like to make a few notes regarding its timeliness, since here Solomon continues to discuss the very first Passover. By my reckoning, the ancient Israelite calendar had to be fixed to the agricultural cycle of the land in which they lived, or it would not serve them. So the feast of first fruits, or the feast of weeks as it was called, being seven weeks after the Passover, had to come at the same time every year, or the first fruits would not be available at the proper time for the feast. Likewise, the feast of tabernacles had to correspond with the time of the harvest, or there would not have been food sufficient for such a holiday. In Exodus chapter 23 we see in a reference to the feast of tabernacles that it was also called “the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.” There is another reference to Tabernacles as ingathering at Exodus 34:22, which also shows that it was a feast related to the harvest, and dependent upon the harvest.

So for this reason, that the calendar and the cycle of agriculture had to remain in consistent harmony with one another, the year itself must have started at the same time, on the same date, from one year to the next. The feasts were set to fixed dates in the year, so there was no waiting around for the fruits to ripen. Therefore while it is not mentioned in Scripture, that date must have been the day following the observation of the vernal equinox, which for us marks the first day of Spring. It has long been recognized by archaeologists that ancient stone circles and other stone monuments such as those at Stonehenge or Newgrange in Ireland were constructed with features marking the dates of equinoxes and solstices. The Vernal Equinox occurred on March 20th this year. Then, as the Scriptures command, the fourteenth day from that day would be April 3rd on our calendars, and therefore on this very evening, April 2nd, the Passover should begin, in spite of whatever calendar is kept by the Jews or the Roman Catholics or other denominations.

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 26: The Dark of Night

In our last presentation in this commentary on Wisdom, presenting chapter 16, we discussed Solomon’s narrative as a Tale of Two Torments, wherein he made continual analogies which compare the punishment of the Egyptians for their destruction to the frequent punishments of the children of Israel for their correction. Solomon having done this, there must be something of substance to these comparisons which the ancient Israelites of his own time, who were much closer to the actual history of the post-Exodus period, could have understood and from which they could have learned.

In the centuries before and during the approximately 200 years that the children of Israel were in Egypt, it was a great empire which exerted its control or influence far beyond its own borders, and also held subject many of the city-states of the Levant as vassals. But from the time of pharaoh Thutmose III, which is when the Exodus had occurred, to the time of Akhenaten not even a hundred years later, Egypt had rather quickly decreased in power to the point where, as the Amarna Letters fully reflect, it would not even care to defend its vassal states in Palestine against the invading Hebrews.

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 25: A Tale of Two Torments

One thing which we find most striking in Solomon’s descriptions of the origins and practice of idolatry here in Wisdom is that the general patterns of behavior which lead to idolatry do not change, and they have not changed even over the last three thousand years. In ancient times men, worshipping the works of their own hands, had created idols which they said to be gods. Then whether they were artificers seeking to make more money from their craft or whether they pretended to be priests of some god, for their own profit they deceived others into worshipping their idols while offering them vain hope in a dead object. Of course a third way is the idolatry of kings, who compelled men by threat of force to worship idols of their choosing.

So today men worship commercial icons such as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, or perhaps some sports figures who endorse certain products. Men worship these idols by going out and engaging in commerce on account of those images which were created by others for the sake of their own profit. At the same time they teach their children to worship those images through the anticipation that they may receive things from them, and when the children find that they are not real, or that they are only mere men who often fail to live up to their expectations, and who cannot really do much beyond playing a game anyway, the children may wonder why their parents taught them lies.

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 24: The Root of All Evil

As we had noted in the first portion of our commentary on Wisdom chapter 15, when Solomon began his discourse on the subject of idolatry he used the example of a woodworker who in his spare time had made an idol from leftover and otherwise useless wood, and the result of his leisure was that he began to worship the works of his own hands. Now where we had left off in this chapter, Solomon had made a similar analogy of a potter, who purposely and deceitfully crafted and painted images of false gods for men to worship. As a result, men who worship the gods which are made in their own image, or in the images of other men, are led astray into all sorts of other sins which are much more grievous, and ultimately they are led to their own destruction.

So we had also noted that the will to commit idolatry is rooted in pride and arrogance, even when the motive is profit, but that true humility is a willingness to be obedient to God. So even before we began our commentary on chapter 15 of Wisdom, we had concluded that “… forsaking Yahweh we cannot help but sin, and we sin arrogantly as we have purposely forsaken God.” But now as we proceed with Wisdom chapter 15, we may see that even Solomon understood the Christian concept of humility which the apostles had also taught, which is to acknowledge one’s sin and seek forgiveness without imagining that one may escape the judgments of God.”