Theology: Creation, Wisdom, and Covenant

Raymond C. Van Leeuwen

Abstract
Although wisdom is usually seen as separate from Covenant Theology, a full-orbed, canonical
account of Wisdom will lead us to consider wisdom and covenant as linked by their common
root in creation. Biblical Israel conceived of wisdom as a divine or human capacity rooted and
revealed in creation, and implicitly inseparable from covenant as its theological presupposition.
Keywords
Creation, Wisdom, Covenant, Biblical, Israel, Canonical, Theology.
ESSAY
Although wisdom is usually seen as separate from covenant, a full-orbed, canonical account of
wisdom will lead us to consider wisdom and covenant as linked by their common root in
creation. Biblical Israel conceived of wisdom as a divine or human capacity rooted and revealed
in creation, and implicitly inseparable from covenant as its theological presupposition. Since
Zimmerli’s 1964 essay, scholars consider wisdom to be rooted in “creation theology,” but
generally separate wisdom from covenant, because the canonical Wisdom Literature, narrowly
speaking, Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes, never mentions the covenants that mark stages in
Israel’s historical journey. Creation appears to be the condition that makes wisdom and covenant
possible.
Attempts to define wisdom have produced only partial results, like the six blind men
confronting an elephant. Hence, this essay approaches wisdom indirectly, asking, “What are the
necessary conditions that make wisdom possible?” and “What does wisdom do?” Finally,
covenant appears as an implicit but necessary corollary of biblical wisdom.
CREATION: COSMOS AND HISTORY

God created the cosmos with wisdom. Consequently, creation is the universal presupposition for
human wisdom. and all that wisdom does, it does in and with creation. Israel’s wisdom always
has to do with Creator and creation. For Israel, accounts of creation as origin concerned
“building” the world, but also the resultant cosmos as a “building” that continues throughout
time as the normative and provident “house” for God and all creatures. In the ANE, including
Israel, thought was inescapably cosmological, whether explicitly or implicitly (Schmid 1968;
Clifford 1994; Knierim 1995). The three Wisdom books explicitly rooted their wisdom in
creation.
How are we to understand the relationship of creation and wisdom? How are both related
to YHWH? Proverbs 3:19-20; 8:22-31; Job 38 (and Genesis 1 implicitly) all portray creation as
God’s building a house with wisdom. Divine wisdom also “fills” and provisions the cosmic
house with good things (Van Leeuwen 2010). On a lesser scale, humans create micro-cosmic
kingdoms, cities, houses, and persons (Ruth 4:11-22; cf. 1QS 8.5-9; 11.8; Matt 12:22-29, 43-45;
1 Cor 3:9-23; Heb 3:1-3; Philo, de opificio IV-VI) through literal and metaphoric house building
with wisdom. This human imitatio dei presupposes that creation is in some sense revelatory, that
it speaks with the voice of divine, cosmic wisdom (Sommers 2015; see below on Proverbs 8),
and that creatures themselves speak wisdom, rightness (‫)צדקה‬, and praise (Pss 19:1-4; 50:6; 97:6;
148; Prov 6:6-11; Job 12:7-1; Isa 6:3; cf. Acts 14:15-18; 17:22-29; Rom 1:20; 2:13-16). Human
wisdom echoes the divine wisdom in creating a secondary, cultural world (Exod 31:1-3; 1 Kings
Van Leeuwen, Theology: Creation, Wisdom, and Covenant 2

7:14; Prov 24:3-4) within the parameters set by divine wisdom in creation.1 As an accessible
divine “voice,” wisdom gave order not just to “nature” in opposition to “culture” (a prevalent
modern view), but includes both, so that cosmic wisdom was normative for humans and
creatures everywhere (Ps 104:24; Job 12:7-10; von Rad, 1970, 189-228). 2 Human wisdom in
every society needs to harmonize cultural developments with the created world and its creatures
as given, and with YHWH’s laws and norms for reality. Wisdom in creation constitutes the
overarching truth-condition for living wisely, and for building a flourishing society in harmony
with creation. A foolish culture, as is evident in our technological twenty-first-century world, is
one that denies or ignores the requirements of harmony with cosmic order, with its boundaries
and limits.
As in ancient cultures generally, biblical “creation” included both all that exists
concretely and the laws and norms for all that exists, including human culture and its products.
Just as “heaven and earth” and “all that (concretely) fills them” (Ps 24:1; Isa 6:3) were created
“in the beginning,” so also laws and norms for creatures existed, from the beginning. In Israel,
such socio-cosmic laws and norms were called “rightness” (‫צדקה‬, Schmid 1968) or “statute” (‫חוק‬
Knierim 1995, 199-200), and “wisdom” (‫ ;חכמה‬Proverbs 8; cf. Deut 4:4-8 on culturally specific
positive law).
These were not eternal Platonic “forms,” but stable laws for “nature”—revealed most
dramatically in the “right” heavenly bodies (Pss 50:6; 96:6)—and dynamic norms for culture,
which allowed freedom within form, life within law, and love within limits (Proverbs 1-9; Van
Leeuwen 1997, 66)—a historical freedom that is evident from the historically various
Pentateuchal law-codes. In contrast, Job 28 portrayed cosmic wisdom as mysterious and beyond
human reach. Theologically, both are true: wisdom communicates to humans, and yet has
unfathomable depths.
Ecclesiastes famously opens with the declaration that everything is hevel (“breath,”
“mist”). With this thematic metaphor that connotes futility, obscurity, incomprehensibility,
evanescence, and so forth, the book asks, in a world of hevel, of what advantage is a person’s toil
under the sun? The book then proceeds to a poem about cosmic order—“A generation comes and
a generation goes, but the earth remains ever constant” (1:4). This poem is generally read in light
of the sombre view of life that follows. Yet, a contrast is drawn here between the transient cycles
of human generation and the stability of the earth. Human generations are cyclical like the
flowers of the field (Gen 3:19; Job 10:9, 21; 14:1-2; Isa 40:6-7). In contrast, the earth is stable
and irreplaceable; its cycles are the ground for all those who come and go upon it—and for the
created goods that Qoheleth repeatedly tells his readers to embrace.
This wisdom poem reveals something essential about creation that biblical scholarship
has neglected: The importance of cyclical time for life and history. The closest parallel to the
natural cycles in Ecclesiastes is the short poem that precedes the cosmic covenant after the
Flood:
Through all the days of earth,
Seed and harvest,
Cold and hot,

1For the full argument, see Van Leeuwen 2010; Zabán 2012, 19-35.
2See especially von Rad 1972, 148 (1970, 193-94, on Job 28), 153-54 (200, cf. 204, 210-11),
Because the English translation is unreliable, I give English and German references, respectively.
Van Leeuwen, Theology: Creation, Wisdom, and Covenant 3

Summer dry and winter wet,

Day and night shall not cease. (Gen 8:22, my translation).
While the natural cycles of Eccl 1:4-7 are the context for Qoheleth’s sober wisdom for humanity,
these natural constants are positive; they are simply good, the source of joy in life that Qoheleth
recommends. Nature’s regularities are praised as God’s life-giving servants (Psalm 147). When
God sends rain “in its season,” both “man and beast” rejoice. Nothing brings people joy so much
as the cycles that produce bread and “wine that gladdens the heart of man (‫( ”)אדם‬Ps 104:15).
The followers of YHWH were happy when the barns were full and the children fed, seated like
olive saplings around the family table (Ps 128:3; cf. Psalms 126-127).
Knierim (1995, 192-98) demonstrated that Israel’s understanding of time was not
primarily linear and eschatological. Cosmic, cyclical time was the foundation for linear time.
Repetitive, cyclical time was necessary for agrarian life, but it also made history—with its
unique and contingent events—possible. It was at the spring-time “turning of the year” )‫תשובת‬
‫ )השנה‬that kings went to war, and that David instead begot a child with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba,
who was the granddaughter of Ahitophel, David’s extraordinarily wise counsellor. Not
surprisingly, Ahitophel joins Absalom’s revolt against David with catastrophic historical
consequences (2 Sam 11:1-5; 15:12; 23:34b). These contingencies all concerned permanent,
cyclical goods of creation: sex, the begetting of children, loyalty to one’s temporal cohort, and
battle to possess the land securely. Ultimately, historical good and evil, wise and foolish, are
determined by human use or misuse of created goods, according to their proper nature or “name”
(Genesis 2; Isa 28:23-29), limits, and time (Prov 6:6-11; 25:16-17; Eccl 3:1-15; O’Donovan
1994, 31-52). Proper use of creation is wise; misuse is folly and sin.
Nonetheless, Israel depicted history with a depth and subtlety unsurpassed as to human
striving, achievement, and sin, against the backdrop of YHWH’s cosmic purposes. In today’s
historicistic Zeitgeist,3 however, it must be emphasized that the measure of those strivings were
the created goods, and the norms of wisdom (‫ )חכמה‬and righteousness (‫ )צדקה‬which obtain for
them. As for the terrors of history, if God is not Lord of the cosmos, God cannot save in history
(Pss 93–99).
WISDOM AS A CONCEPT
Against the background of creation, a description of wisdom should account for several
conditions that appear constitutive of the biblical usage of “wisdom” and “folly” (‫ חכמה‬and ‫אולת‬,
respectively, with related terms, Fox 2000, 28-43). Hebrew has a rich repertoire of terms for
wisdom and folly, which are often flattened to “wise” and “foolish” in English. Hence, a variety
of Hebrew wisdom words underlie our discussion.
Prior to treating the necessary conditions for wisdom, it is necessary to make some
linguistic comments. In Hebrew as in English, wisdom, folly, wise, and foolish, are comparative
totality concepts. For example, divine wisdom encompasses creation in its totality. Likewise, the
totality of human actions and “creations” can be wise or foolish. Wisdom words are implicitly
relative and comparative in nature, allowing for “more” or “less” of the quality in play, relative
to their referents and situation. Thus, a “small elephant” is bigger than a “big mouse,” and a

3Biblical scholars understand “historicism” variously. I mean it in the classic sense, as the
greater or lesser tendency to eliminate anything constant in the natural or cultural worlds. See
Davaney 2006 for an initial elaboration. I make no objection here to the evolution of species,
but insist that without cosmic constants, evolution would not be possible.
Van Leeuwen, Theology: Creation, Wisdom, and Covenant 4

simple, honest cobbler is wiser than the “wisest” crook—where the nouns relativize the meaning
of the adjectives. The “foolishness of God,” is wiser than human wisdom (1 Cor 1:25). The
snake was “more clever than any creature of the field” (‫ערום‬, Gen 3:1; cf. Prov 30:24).
It is perhaps this totality aspect of wisdom that has led some scholars to fear that without
a strict definition, all of scripture may be labeled “wisdom, and if wisdom can refer to
everything, we do not know what wisdom is” (that is, wisdom’s sense; cf. Longman 2017, 2-3).
This view does not follow, for it mistakes a word’s referent (“everything”) for its meaning or
sense.4 While wise can refer to everything, clearly not everything is wise. Significantly, 2 Tim
3:15-17 (sophisai) implies that the entire Old Testament is wise! Augustine and the Western
Church continued this view that the entire Bible is written wisdom (de doc. Chr., 4.5.7).
The referential scope of wisdom is creation itself and creation’s diversity. All of God’s creatures
are “made with wisdom” (‫בחכמה‬, Ps 104:24; Berlin). In Hebrew, the “skill” of sailors is
“wisdom” (‫חכמה‬, Ps 107:27). The ant’s ways are wise, a model for humans (Prov 6:6-11). A
snake charmer is “wise” (Ps 58:6), as are funeral singers (Jer 9:17,20 [Heb. 9:16,19]), metal-
workers, and the builders of temples, palaces, and ordinary houses. The holy priestly garments,
intended “for glory and beauty,” are made by tailors “wise of heart,” whom God “has filled with
wisdom” for the task (Exod 28:2-3). The totality of human activities can be wise or foolish. As
noted above, all these (ought to) act, build, make with the same wisdom that YHWH used to
“build” the cosmos.
Among humans, God’s gift of wisdom was especially expected of kings (Tavares 2007),
as exemplified in the ideal messianic king (Isa 11:1-5) and in Solomon—to wage war (Prov
21:30-31), to do justice and righteousness (1 Kgs 3:9, 12; 2 Chron 1:10-11; Prov 8:15-16; Psalm
72), and to build palace and temple (cf. 1 Kings 5-7; Eccl 2:4-8). Solomon’s “wisdom and
insight” (1 Kings 4:29; Heb. 5:9; cf. Prov 8:1) included musical and poetic gifts, as well as a
broad knowledge of plants, animals, birds, and fish (1 Kgs 5:12-13 [ET 4:33-34]). Since the king
represented the ideal human, the “democratized” royal language of Gen 1:28 and Ps 8:6-9
suggests that the diversity of wisdom finds its home throughout humanity (cf. Prov 28:6, 11;
Eccl 4:13).
When we look at basic genres that scholars have labelled “Wisdom,” their universal
scope again stands out. Indicative “sayings” and imperative “admonitions” are wisdom’s most
basic and widespread genres. (I will refer to both as proverbs.) Primarily oral in nature, proverbs
also appear in literary genres. Their ability to function in multiple situations is another indication
of wisdom’s total scope. For example, “Out of the wicked comes wickedness’” (1 Sam 24:13
[Heb. 24:14]) and “Go to the ant, you sluggard” (Prov 6:6), can fit almost any foolish activity or
inactivity.
Regarding the totality character of wisdom, two of the most striking recent developments
were T. A. Perry’s analysis (1993) of the logical structure of proverbs and its further refinement
in Michael Fox’s (2009, 494-98, 597-98) discussion of “disjointed proverbs,” of which the
“better-than” sayings are a subtype. Neither author explicitly focused on wisdom as a “totality

4 Loosely speaking, a word’s sense is its primary meaning as found in a dictionary. A referent is
something a word or utterance refers to or talks about. In “The Lord is my rock,” for example,
“the Lord” is the (metaphoric) referent of “rock,” though the sense (meaning) of rock does not
include God. To wisdom’s referential scope, compare Bottéro on divination, “the object of
which was virtually the entire earth. In the eyes of the Mesopotamians, everything in the world
was divinatory” (1992, 105, cf. 107).
Van Leeuwen, Theology: Creation, Wisdom, and Covenant 5

concept,” yet their work supports this idea. Perry showed that proverbs implied quadripartite,
hierarchically comparative, antithetical structures of positive and negative, of good and bad,
rooted in cultural values and taboos. Such structures often form enthymemes, logical “gaps,”
where necessary oppositions are implied but remain unstated. Fox noted that such enthymemes
occur in “disjointed proverbs,” where seemingly non-congruent parallel lines imply gaps to be
filled in by readers, thus making a total set of possibilities explicit.5
Proverbial antitheses can also function as merisms, that is, bi-polar pairs that imply all of
reality, or all of the possibilities in an arena marked by the two terms. “Heaven and Earth,” for
example, indicated the entire creation, as “head to toe” the entire person. In certain saying
collections of Proverbs (e.g., 10–15), the regular opposition of “righteous” (‫ )צדיק‬versus
“wicked” (‫)רשע‬,6 does not mean that the two types are absolutely distinct, and their lines never
crossed, but that these limit concepts include the total spectrum of “good” and “bad” human
types. Thus, “wisdom” and “righteousness” are totality concepts in two senses. They can refer to
any and every human action and to the resultant products; wisdom’s and folly’s scope is the
entire creation. Second, when used as merisms referring to humans, they implicitly include
everyone.
The cosmic totality character of wisdom means that only YHWH is ultimately wise.
Ultimate wisdom would require total knowledge and insight, and the power to do all that wisdom
wills. Such wisdom belongs only to YHWH, who created the cosmos “with wisdom” and
“power” (Jer 10:6-7; 12; Prov 3:19-20). In rare cases, God grants exceptional wisdom and power
to humans such as Joseph (Gen 41:33, 38-41), Solomon (1 Kgs 3:5-15; cf. Wisdom of Solomon),
or Daniel (Dan 2:20-23). Yet, even the greatest human wisdom suffers severe limits, because no
one can experience and know the totality of creation and the mysteries embedded in it (Job 11:7-
9; 28; Ecclesiastes; von Rad 1972, 97-110; 1970, 131-148). Humans know not what tomorrow
might “birth” (‫ילד‬, Prov 21:1); they are afflicted by weakness, injustice, and death (Pss 39; 49;
Ecclesiastes and Job passim). No human possesses the power to do all their wisdom might know
(2 Sam 15:31; 16:23-17:14; Prov 16:9; 19:21; 21:30-31).
There is yet a third totality aspect of wisdom. God’s wisdom and power existed from the
beginning (‫)ראשית‬, and continues through all time, residing in our present world (Proverbs 8;
Genesis 1).7 Cosmic wisdom is master and teacher of reality’s creatures (Job 12:7-10), and of the
laws and norms that govern creatures and their functions, but also master of time, from beginning
to end. This third totality claim, that the divine, cosmic wisdom in effect knows and affects “all
things”8 throughout all time, is echoed in the lesser claim of human sages, that they have the
benefit of age, of experience over time, in contrast to inexperienced youth. In general, “grey
hair” was a symbol of both age and wisdom (Lev 19:32; Prov 20:29; Job 12:12-13; 15:7-10;

5 In Mesopotamian omen and law collections, similar logical gaps were sometimes filled by
scribes striving for completeness, even when certain situations were unlikely or impossible in
reality (Bottéro, 134-35, 176-177)!
6 In Gen 18:23:25 & Ps 11:5 these pairs indicate everyone; see Job 3:19a; 9:22b; Matt 5:45 for

similar merisms with different terms.

7 Genesis Rabbah 1.1-3 insightfully connects Prov 8:22-30 to Gen 1:1. This appears to be the

normative view of creation in the Bible, in spite of remnants of less ultimate views; pace
Levenson 1988.
8 Compare the Pauline ta panta; Rom 11:33-36; 1 Cor 8:6, and Col 1:15-20, where Christ

appears as wisdom active in creation, then and now.

 Van Leeuwen, Theology: Creation, Wisdom, and Covenant 6

32:4, 6-10; Sir 25:3-6). Wisdom’s claims to age are also present in tradition, the distilled
historical experience and cultural memory of Israel’s forebears functioning in the present.
These three totality requirements for wisdom mean that only God is ultimately “wise,” that only
God possesses wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and strength (‫גבורה‬, ‫דעת‬, ‫תבונה‬, ‫ )חכמה‬without
qualification. The corollary to this theological affirmation is that even the best human wisdom,
understanding, knowledge, and strength are limited.
PRESUPPOSITIONS AND CONDITIONS FOR WISDOM
The presuppositions and necessary conditions for human wisdom in biblical Israel appear to be
the following:
A. Fear of the Lord. This phrase no doubt arose in fitting human dread at the mysterium tremendum
that is YHWH, the Almighty Creator, as is evident in God’s presence at Sinai (Exod 19:16-25;
Deut 5:19-30 [ET 22-33], and in theophanies that shatter the earth (Jer 4:22-28; Pss 18:8-16 [7-
15]; 97). But the phrase comes to mean generally Israel’s religion as all of life in awe and
heartfelt service to God,9 both in times of grievous lament or joyful thanksgiving (Job 1:1, 8-10;
2:3; Pss 25; 86; 103; 111-112).
Epistemologically, Israel’s view of creation meant that Israel’s experience of reality was
unified, without the modern dichotomies of faith and reason, or religion and science. Instead, the
“fear of YHWH” was the “beginning of wisdom” (Prov 9:10; cf. Prov 1:7; Eccl 12:13; Job
28:28; Eccl 3:14; 5:6 [ET 5:7]; 8:12-13; 12:13; Pss 111:10; 112:1; Sir 1:16,18),10 because only a
right relation to the Creator enabled one to know creation and its meaning rightly. In the words
of von Rad, “For [biblical Israel], experiences of the world were always also God-experiences,
and experiences of God were for [Israel] also world-experiences”—yet without a pantheistic
confusion of Creator and creation (von Rad 1972 62; 1970, 87, my translation).
Without a right relation to God the Creator, who revealed himself and his Torah to Israel
(Psalms 119; 147), it was not possible to gain global wisdom concerning the complex
interrelationships of life’s varied spheres and creatures, and of the laws and cultural norms which
held for their flourishing. Thus, Israel’s Torah and Prophets as revealed knowledge and wisdom
(Deut 4:5-8; Hos 14:10 [9]; cf. O’Dowd) were a necessary presupposition for the generic and
conceptual focus on wisdom in the Wisdom Literature. As “the fear of the Lord” was a
comprehensive indicator that all of life is religion, one’s ultimate love drew one towards God and
wisdom, or towards idols and folly (Cf. Proverbs 1-9; Deut 6:4-9; Lev 19:18, 32-34; cf. Sir 1:1-
20). One’s ultimate love also relativized and limited the love of non-ultimate created goods,
preventing them from becoming destructive idols. In Proverbs, the desire of a young man for a
woman (as wife or “strange woman”) was emblematic of humanity’s ultimate love and desire for
Woman Wisdom or her deadly opposite, Woman Folly (9:13-18). Love of Wisdom was
tantamount to the love of God, for though cosmic Wisdom had a certain independence from
YHWH, she was not separable from God.
Consequently, the statement, found in each book of the Wisdom Literature, that “The fear
of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge/wisdom,” was the basic theological and
epistemological principle of biblical wisdom. For Israel, knowledge of God as creator ennabled
knowledge of creation and humans, and vice versa (von Rad 1972, 53-73; 1970, 75-101).

9 Note the “fear the Lord” commands (Deut 6:2,13; Cf. 10:12-20) which form an inclusion
around the Shema (6:4-9), and that the Shema uses merisms to indicate the totality of life (6:7);
cf. Wolters 1984, 15-29, on Prov 31:10-31.
10 See the data and discussion in THAT I, 770-78.
 Van Leeuwen, Theology: Creation, Wisdom, and Covenant 7

B. Knowledge and praxis according to the general patterns of reality. Biblical wisdom presupposed
knowledge of the general patterns of reality and praxis in harmony with those patterns. That is,
biblical wisdom presupposed a divinely given worldview11 that, in principle revealed that the
meaning of all things lay in their relation to God, in their intrinsic, though relative, goodness as
creatures, and in their mutual relations to one another. Israel’s Torah provided this global
meaning-context for humanity’s limited knowledge and experience of reality’s laws, norms, and
concrete facts.
Thus, agricultural wisdom required of farmers diligent labor in season, in harmony with
the general laws for nature, and with respect to the generic classes of creatures (Prov 6:6-11;
10:4-5; Isa 28:23-29; Vayntrub 2015; Van Leeuwen 2017). Among these cosmic “laws” and
patterns was the knowledge that good character and conduct led to good outcomes and well-
being (‫(שלום‬, while wicked character and behavior led to bad outcomes and ultimately death.
These general patterns of reality had to be mastered and acknowledged, even if they did not
always obtain. This was plain to see in the much discussed “Act-Consequence nexus,” which,
however, admitted of exceptions, when the wicked prospered and the righteous suffered. In spite
of exceptions, these general patterns possessed a relative Eigengesetzlichkeit, a relatively
independent “lawfulness” or even “autonomy”12 that had to be respected and trusted. Hard work
did not always bring prosperity, but that was no reason not to work hard! This general nexus was
not exclusive to the Wisdom Literature, but pervaded the biblical writings, appearing in
Pentateuchal tales of judgment, in Deuteronomistic and Chronistic narratives, and in Prophetic
oracles of judgment or blessing. Nevertheless, insight into general patterns was not enough to
make one wise. Acts and consequences are a worldview pattern that runs all through the Hebrew
Bible, though some books emphasize general patterns, and others emphasize individuals and
exceptions.
C. Knowledge and right action in relation to individual realities.
Knowing general patterns did not produce a wise Israelite. General patterns constituted
only the ABC’s of wisdom. What most sharply distinguished wisdom from folly was right
knowledge and fitting praxis regarding concrete individuals. Such individuals include natural
and cultural specifics, situations and relations, and individual creatures, persons, societal and
natural groups (cf. Isa 28:23-29), and institutions with which humans deal.
Fortunately, humans deal with people and things whose generic “kind” and
“individuality” completely intersect. Thus, no individual something or someone is totally unique
and unknowable, nor are they totally generic and thus interchangeable (O’Donovan 1986, 76-85,
189-92). Yet, life is lived not only generically, but in the particularities of here and now, of this
and that, and of “I and Thou.” In the religious-moral spheres of life, with their oppositions of
good and bad, righteous and wicked, biblical narratives afforded exceptions to the general norms
and patterns of reality, cases where the wicked prospered and the righteous suffered—as many
“better-than” proverbs, psalms of lament, and the books of Ecclesiastes and Job especially make

11 By “worldview” I mean a social group’s committed basic beliefs about reality, whether
explicit, or implicit and tacitly assumed. At a minimum, a worldview answers basic human
questions: 1. Where are we in cosmos and time? 2. Who are we? 3. What is wrong? 4. What is
the solution? See Naugle 2002.
12 A more appropriate rendering of the term than “determinism,” commonly found in the

frequently misleading English translation of von Rad’s standard work, Weisheit in Israel (1970;
cf. 83-85; Eng. 59-61).
Van Leeuwen, Theology: Creation, Wisdom, and Covenant 8

clear. The unexpected death of righteous King Josiah defied the patterns laid down by the
Deuteronomistic writers. Life’s anomalies and peculiarities lead us beyond wisdom’s knowledge
of the generic patterns of reality to the next requirement of wisdom, engagement with
particularity, its graduate school, so to speak.
Wisdom presupposed a praxis rooted in the knowledge of individual creatures, things,
persons, circumstances. That is, wisdom requires discernment. Discernment means the ability to
distinguish among situations, objects, events, or persons of the same kind, objects whose
similarities may obscure crucial differences and render them ambiguous. “Blessings” are good
and “curses” bad, but not all blessings or curses are the same (Prov 26:2 27:14)! In terms of
attractiveness, the “strange woman” of Proverbs 1–9 may even be superior to one’s wife (cf.
5:15-20; 8:35//18:22). Yet, one entails death, the other life.
What Gadamer (1960, 38-39) remarks about taste and judgment applies to wisdom. “Both
taste and judgment evaluate an object in relation to the whole in order to see whether it fits in
with everything else—that is, whether it is ‘fitting.’ One must have a ‘sense’ for it—it cannot be
demonstrated.” Gadamer continues, arguing that in morality and law, the rules are never
complete, requiring judgment according to the “concrete instance.” It is never enough to apply
“general principles.” “The individual case,” he writes, “is not exhausted by being a particular
example of a universal law or concept…. [T]he rule does not comprehend [the special case].”
What Gadamer describes here, aesthetically, morally, and legally, is wisdom in action.
Wisdom is characterized by “fittingness.” In the context of knowing the general norms and
patterns of reality, wisdom discerns what is fitting in the concrete instance before it, and acts
accordingly. Biblically, such wisdom is a divine gift (e.g., Prov 2:6), the subjective possession of
which varies greatly, with some having a broad wisdom concerning life, others having wisdom in
specific areas such as art, sailing, building, singing and more besides, but lacking it in others.
The wisdom problem of knowing the individual is highlighted in several juxtaposed
proverbs, such as, “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself,” and
“Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes” (Prov 26:4-5). Nothing in
the two admonitions tells readers which fool stands before them, or what the situation requires.
Yet wisdom must know which is which, to speak or be silent. Here wisdom may reach it limits,
not knowing which action is fitting, and standing in danger of oneself becoming a fool. The line
between wisdom and folly is often a fine one. Thus, the depth dimension of wisdom is “Be not
wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord; and turn away from evil” (Prov 3:7; cf. 8:11; Ps 111:10;
Job 1:1; 1:8; 2:3; Eccl 3:14; 5:6 8:12-13; 12:13).
It is especially in knowing and dealing with concrete individuals that mature wisdom
distinguishes itself. The farmer knows that not all seeds and plants are alike, and each type needs
to be treated individually. This field is good for grapes and the other for wheat. One field is
better because it has springs (Judg 1:12-15), and one vineyard is better than another (Ahab and
Naboth; 1 Kgs 21:1-2). It is not enough to know that humans need work. They must know what
kind of work is right for this individual, at this time, in this place, in view of these needs, this
training, and with these innate personal gifts. And out of several possible mates, one marries,
usually, just one—but why this one and not that one? That is a matter of wisdom or folly, as
many have discovered to their bliss or chagrin. As the English proverbs have it, “Happy the
wooing that’s not long in doing.” Yet, “Marry in haste, repent at leisure” (cf. Prov 12:4; 31:10-
31; 27:15-16)
The requirement that wisdom know individuals and specific realia is not unique to Israel;
it is a necessary response to created reality. Levi-Strauss (1966) described the Amazonian
Van Leeuwen, Theology: Creation, Wisdom, and Covenant 9

aboriginal “science of the concrete,” and Aristotle systematized wisdom’s knowledge of

particulars in his Nichomachean Ethics. He says a voluntary act requires an agent “who knows
the particular circumstances in which he is acting” and then goes on to specify “the nature and
number” of the six circumstances involved in any particular action (Eth. Nic. 1111a; Rackham
LCL. More concretely, Aristotle uses the examples of being angry with someone or giving
someone money. These acts are easy to do—but to do them well is difficult, he says, since they
must be done “to the right person, and to the right amount, and at the right time, and for the right
purpose, and in the right way” (NE 1109a, Rackham LCL). More concisely, this issue is
formulated in the Hebrew word, fitting (‫)נאוה‬.13 Indeed, fittingness is the hermeneutical theme of
Prov 26:1-12 as a whole.14 “As rain in Summer, as snow in harvest, so glory for a fool is not
fitting” (26:1). The principle of fittingness is operative even when the predicate fitting/not fitting
is omitted: “Like a gold ring in the snout of a pig is a beautiful woman without taste (‫( ”)טעם‬Prov
11:22).
D. Tradition. Wisdom is traditional, passed on from parents to children, master craftsmen to
apprentices, and teachers to students. The symbol of tradition is the “path,” emblem of good and
bad “ways” of traveling through life. It takes many feet to make a path, all seeking the “best
way” from the here and now to some goal further on. Paths are literal and metaphorical means of
negotiating one’s individual and collective (Jer 32:39) journey through reality, from beginning to
end (cf. B and C above). In an ultimate theological sense, the journey on life’s path is motivated
by faith, love, and hope towards an ultimate goal at its end (cf. 1 Cor 13; Heb 11:1-12:2 “race” =
“path”). This symbol is as fundamental in Proverbs 1–9, as it is in Genesis 12–25 for Abraham’s
journey with God to the Promised Land (cf. Gen 12:1-3; Heb 11:8-11), and in Acts, where
following Christ was simply called “the way” (9:2; 19:9, 23; 24:14,22).
E. Excellence. Wisdom requires that the mentioned requirements be possessed and exercised
with excellence. As a comparative adjective, wisdom may be increased, which, for humans,
requires giftedness (mysterious, God-given), training/discipline (‫מוסר‬, Greek, paideia), hard
work, and love (Proverbs 1–9). Love for God and “woman wisdom” as ultimate good is the
motive force that drives one’s journey towards life, while love for the “strange woman” and folly
is the path to death (Prov 2:16-19; 9:13-18). It is this ultimate love that limits and overcomes the
human tendency to love and idolize created goods beyond reason. What we humans, as
individuals or groups, love drives us on our path towards life or death, as well as towards
excellence or folly in lesser matters.
The three basic wisdom books of the Hebrew Bible each in its own way exercises itself
concerning the presuppositions and conditions for wisdom described in our A to E list above.
The conflict between Job and his friends, for example, concerns the failure of the friends, who in
their focus on the “general patterns” of God’s ways with humanity, quite forget that there are
exceptions to the rules, individual cases which escape the “wisdom of the wise.” Job is one such
extraordinary case (cf. John 9). And in terms of that essential requirement of wisdom, “the fear
of the Lord,” the friends overstep the bounds of their humanity; they lack the humility that comes
with fearing God, presuming to take God’s place in judging Job, and failing to recognize the

13
What is fitting, by semantic extension, is beautiful and thus desirable, a source of delight
(Song 1:5; 2:14; 4:3 6:4; note the parallelism with ‫ ;יפה‬cf. Prov 5:15-20; 8:11,17, 30-31, 34-36).
For the relation of fittingness and beauty, see Nicolaus Wolterstorff 1980, 91-121.
14 For analysis of fittingness as the hermeneutical theme of Prov 26:1-12, see Van Leeuwen

(1988, 99 and 1997 on the passage) and O’Dowd (2009, 126-136).

 Van Leeuwen, Theology: Creation, Wisdom, and Covenant 10

divinely set limits of human wisdom. Ironically, it is Job’s friends who accuse him of impiety, of
failing to fear God rightly, echoing the satan’s question, “Does Job fear God gratis?” (Job 1:9;
22:4-5). In the end, YHWH chastises the friends and declares that only rebellious Job has
“spoken rightly” of God, implying that he has maintained his original integrity and “fear of God”
(Job 42:7-8; cf. 1:1,8-9; 2:3). Job and his friends also argue intensely over who has better
“expertise” (excellence!) in the ancestral wisdom, in the traditional paths set down by their wise
forbears long ago.
WHAT DOES WISDOM DO?
To simply ask, “What topics does wisdom address?” is not an especially fruitful guide to the
nature of wisdom. Given the “totality” character of wisdom, any topic can be grist for wisdom’s
mill. And given the use of metaphor in wisdom, to say that Proverbs 1–9 concerns finding or
avoiding women is true—but largely misses the point. To gain insight into the nature of wisdom,
it is more fruitful to ask, “What does wisdom do or effect?” In this, I follow the sterling example
of Wisdom of Solomon, in which God and Wisdom together teach Solomon, who recounts
personified Wisdom’s deeds (7:15-9:18;), including within Israel’s history (passim), something
not found in the Hebrew Bible.
A. Wisdom solves problems that reality presents, often through others who give counsel. The more
difficult the problem, the greater the wisdom required. Joab goes to a “wise woman from Tekoa”
to return estranged Absalom back to David’s court (2 Samuel 14). Love-sick Adonijah consults
wise Jonadab for a way to woo Tamar; Solomon solves the harlots’ dilemma. A wise architect
solves building problems in the context of landscape, materials, physical laws, costs, and the
genre of building required (Exodus 31; 35-40; 1 Kings 5–7). An artist considers colors, forms,
lines, light, and much more.
In Proverbs 1–9, the young man seeks the “right woman” to love, as opposed to the
“strange woman.” These women, licit and illicit, are both desirable, and ultimately counterparts
of personified Wisdom and Folly. Woman as wife (Prov 5:15-20; 31:10-31), parallels cosmic
Lady Wisdom as the ultimate figurative object of love, desire, and delight (8:17, 21, 30-31; 9:1-
6; cf. 8:35 and 18:22), in contrast to the “strange woman” and Woman Folly (9:1-6, 13-18; cf.
2:16; 14:1). These flesh-and-blood women in Proverbs are also emblematic of any desirable
good (cf. Genesis 3). Like desirable women, created goods are only legitimate within the
normative bounds of righteousness and wisdom. Else, even good things are “out of order,” “out
of bounds,” foolish, dangerous, a problem. Of course, discernment of licet and illicit does not yet
solve the problem of which individual licit woman or man might be an appropriate wife or
husband.
While wisdom is needed in solving difficult problems of any kind, the king, as ideal
human (Psalm 8) is emblematically wise: “The glory of God is to hide a matter (‫ ;)דבר‬the glory
of kings is to search out (‫ )חקר‬a matter (‫)דבר‬. The heavens for height, the underworld for depth,
and the heart of kings are unfathomable (‫( ”)אין חקר‬Prov 25:2-3). Yet, even kings are human:
“Water streams, the king’s heart—they’re in YHWH’s hands; he inclines it any way he pleases”
(21:1).
B. Wisdom negotiates the spectrum of relative goods, since these are limited and constantly
competing (Job 34:1-4). Fox (2009, 598) even suggests that “the negotiation of values [is] the
locus of wisdom.” Nothing in this world is absolute or ultimate (Job 9:3-10; cf. Bonhoeffer 1998,
137-62), and humans are subject to cosmic limits of time, strength, knowledge, wealth, beauty,
love, and life. How they negotiate these limited goods, especially the goods they primarily love,
largely determines whether a person, group, or society is “righteous” (‫ )צדיק‬or “wicked” (‫—רשע‬a
 Van Leeuwen, Theology: Creation, Wisdom, and Covenant 11

term sometimes rendered as “godless”).15 The opposition of “righteous” and “wicked” is

pervasive in Proverbs 10–15 and 25–27, strongly implying that wickedness is folly, and
goodness is wise. Hence, the “fear of the Lord” is often associated with “turning from evil” (Prov
3:7; Job 1:1; 2:3; 28:28). Moreover, “doing good leads to good,” while doing bad leads to bad
consequences—the so-called act- or character-consequence nexus (von Rad 1972, 124-37
[1970,165-88]). Humans are also subject to the mysterious constraints of personal, social, and
institutional evil, so that wisdom needs also to rank moral evils. At times, humans are confronted
with options, none of which are good. The righteous must choose “the lesser evil.” It is
especially the sub-genre of “better-than” sayings that shows wisdom as a subtle negotiator
among things good and bad, by asserting that this or that created “good” is “less good” than its
opposite “bad”—if the first “good” is not accompanied by a more “ultimate” (religious-moral)
good such as “rightness” or “fear of the Lord” (Prov 15:16-17; 16:8; Eccl 7:2-3).
Wisdom considers the goods of creation in their diversity of kinds and ends (i.e.,
potential “purposes,” O’Donovan 1986, 31-52) and discerns their mutual relations, giving
priority to those that are best—all things considered.
C. The diversity of things that wisdom does fittingly, it does in characteristic ways. The wise see
things that others do not. They “find a way” where others cannot. Wisdom knows things that
matter: “The righteous knows the needs (‫ )נפש‬of his animal; but the mercies of the wicked are
cruel” (Prov 12:10). Wisdom knows the “times,” a type of historical knowledge, which sees both
the similarities and differences between then and now, and acts accordingly (von Rad 1972, 263-
83; 1970, 337-63). Wisdom knows its limits; consequently, it trusts the outcome of things to
God: “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what the day will “birth” (‫ילד‬, Prov
27:1). Wisdom perceives relations among things that are significant, but not obvious. And
wisdom notes the obvious thing that others ignore to their hurt. Wisdom acts, and is inactive, as
cases require. The wise speak well—or are silent. Wisdom delights in beauty and artistic
excellence: “As apples of gold in settings of silver…” (Prov 25:11). What wisdom does is
effective, sometimes surprisingly so: “By patient tact a prince is persuaded, and a ‘soft tongue’
breaks bone” (Prov 25:15). Human wisdom builds its secondary reality, its cultural “houses” in
harmony with the way YHWH has built the world.
Can we say how wisdom knows and does these things? Probably not. Wisdom, like so
many basic reality functions, is an inexplicable gift from God. We can describe it, recognize it,
but—like worship, music or art—never fully grasp it in words. To paraphrase the adage of
Michael Polanyi, The wise artist “knows more than she can say” (Polanyi 1966, 4).

COVENANT
The Wisdom Literature famously never mentions the covenants that seemed to define Israel’s
unique historical traditions (e.g., Eichrodt; Cf. Genesis 9; 15; 17; Exodus 19-24; 2 Samuel 7;

15In his City of God, Augustine contrasts the City’s “love of God” with Rome’s “love of
domination” (amor dominandi) as two ultimate loves that define the historical “path” and
culture of the two societies. E. Rosenstock-Huessey (1969) is a 20th Century instance of such
Christian historical analysis of societies.
Van Leeuwen, Theology: Creation, Wisdom, and Covenant 12

Jeremiah 31)16. Modern scholarship separated the Wisdom Literature—and thus wisdom itself—
from the rest of the Hebrew Bible. This move created a false dichotomy for theology. Biblical
religion was either covenant, history, and cult, or it was wisdom and (perhaps) creation theology.
The problem was exacerbated by the nineteenth- and twentieth-century tendency to valorize
history and ignore creation as unscientific. The concomitant tendency to equate wisdom with
select genres, and to restrict wisdom (mostly) to the Wisdom Literature, meant that the broader
biblical presence of wisdom was largely overlooked—except for attempts to find Wisdom
“influence” and “traditions” here and there.17 Theologically, wisdom became an anomaly, the
product of international influences, and not proper to Israel’s Yahwistic religion.
Yet, relations between covenant and the wise creation, and between covenant and human
wisdom, need closer scrutiny. Covenant and creation are often seen as almost mutually exclusive
(e.g., Schifferdecker, 2008, 13-14; 20). Oddly, this view ignores the primal Noahic covenant,
which is explicitly a covenant with creation. It is also the necessary presupposition for Israel’s
historical covenants. Without a stable creation, there can be no history (Knierim 2000). Thus,
Israelite covenants presuppose Yahweh’s wise cosmic sovereignty, even when they do not
mention creation. When we look at key moments in the biblical narrative, wisdom and folly play
a key role. Of signal importance is Deuteronomy 32, a poem which implicitly presupposes the
book’s covenantal theology, and where creation, cult, wisdom, history, and eschatology (‫אחרית‬,
32:20, 28-29; cf. Hosea 14:10 [9]; Jer 9:12[11]; Ps 107:43) all play integral roles in Israel’s
turbulent life before God (O’Dowd 2009, 91-110).
The Intersection of Wisdom and Covenant
Among the conditions for wisdom outlined above, the crucial step to “practical wisdom,” is
knowledge of the concrete in its generic and individual aspects. This is also the most difficult
and mysterious. How is it possible to know something unique, whether a person or a block of
stone set before a sculptor? How is it possible to act wisely with something new and not
experienced previously? Every “something,” however, is both generic—a kind of something
already known—as well as unique. A block of stone is quickly known generically (marble,
granite, or diamond), but to know its individuality takes time and a certain loving attention. With
individual humans and groups, the problem is yet more complex. Humans are free to act in
unexpected ways. Knowing humans requires a historical knowledge of past persons, institutions,
and events that are both typical (generic) and individual. Such knowledge is passed on in
tradition and writing. Understanding individual persons and events in the present also requires
love and attention, but more mysteriously, it requires the other’s active self-revelation over time,
something a stone cannot do.
The biblical answer to this problem of knowing one God and other humans in their
individuality is covenant. Biblical covenants govern relationships between individuals and
groups through mutual promises, promises to be kept over time. Persons and groups become
known through their behavior with one another and with creation’s creatures, in accord (or not)
with their covenant obligations and promises. Covenants set limits (“thou shall not…”) and give
positive guidelines for relationships of “brotherhood,” of marriage, of sovereigns and vassals,

16 W. Eichrodt’s great Theology of the Old Testament focused on covenant as its organizing
principle, which seemed to necessitate his sharp denigration of wisdom’s importance (1967, 80-
83, 87-91).
17 The pervasive presence of wisdom in the Qumran scrolls also suffers from similar confusion

and neglect.
Van Leeuwen, Theology: Creation, Wisdom, and Covenant 13

and notably between YHWH and Israel (“You shall love the Lord your God…. You shall love
your neighbor as yourself.”). In keeping covenant promises or not, the respective parties come to
know one another, as they reveal themselves as loving and faithful, or as corrupt and unfaithful.
While not all folly is wicked, the wickedness of covenant breaking is always folly. There is no
human wisdom without godly rightness (‫)צדקה‬, as defined by the covenant’s wise cultural
articulation (positivation) of creation’s laws and norms. Concerning this point, Psalm 119 bears
splendid witness—without ever mentioning covenant!
YHWH’s making and keeping of covenantal promises, through all the contingencies of
history, is the mysterious means through which Israel and the world come to know YHWH, as
shown by the pervasive Erkenntnisformel (“You shall know YHWH”) found in Exodus and
Ezekiel. When Israel ceases to be wise, and becomes foolish (Deut 32:28-29; Hos 14:10 [9]; Jer
4:22; 9:12 [11]; Ps 107:43]), as a metaphoric “wife,” who is unfaithful to her divine “husband,”
then YHWH laments that his people “do not know me” (Hos 5:4; 8:2; 11:3; Jer 2:8; 4:22; 9:3,6;
22:16). God also laments that “they do not know his way,” that is, the laws that govern their
covenantal relationship (Hos 4:1-3, 6; Jer 5:4; 8:7) in respect to created goods. God’s laws for
Israel are culturally specific guides for living wisely in and with the cosmos (Deut 6:4-9; 10:12-
22). They also set limits to behaviors that remove one from the cosmic realm of life in “the land”
into the “house” of death (Deut 30:15-20; cf. Prov 2:16-22; 5:3-8; 7:21-27; 9:13-18; 10:30). One
enters the realm of death through theft, adultery, coveting, and the pursuit of gods that are not
YHWH, who alone brought Israel out of bondage into their law-bound freedom to keep their
promises in the land God gave them.
The ultimate criterion for Israel’s wisdom is her faithfulness to the covenants she made
with YHWH. In the cosmic-historical specifics of dealing with reality over time, Israel reveals
who she is with YHWH, in terms of her use of the God-given land, and of the creatures and
humans who dwell in it. In this lies Israel’s greatness and wisdom—or her folly leading to death
by exile. It is God’s grace and wisdom to resurrect Judah from the dead (Ezekiel 37), in order to
keep God’s promises to Abraham and bless all nations (Gen 12:3).
Creation, wisdom, and covenant entail a perennial, unfinished task for Synagogue and
Church, of reclaiming the theological integrity of the Hebrew Bible; for Christians, the first
Scripture of the Church.18 Modern scholarship has rightly explored the surface level historical,
social, literary, and conceptual differences in the Bible. At the deepest level of worldview,
however, these writings possess a coherence amid their diversity, to guide God’s “servants” on
their path through creation. Finally, wisdom’s delight in creation and Creator returns us to the
fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom and the sine qua non for covenant-keeping.

FURTHER READING
Eichrodt provided the classic attempt to treat Old Testament theology entirely under the rubric of
covenant. The recent collection of essays edited by Sneed presents leading voices on issues in
wisdom and the Wisdom Literature. Schmid, Knierim, and Clifford are excellent resources for
theological consideration of creation. Dell provides a recent guide to social and theological
matters in Proverbs, Israel’s basic wisdom book. Schippers & Teeter provide a collection on the
Second Temple trajectory of explicit integration of wisdom and Torah. A splendid introduction
to worldview is Naugle.

18Christian Old Testament canons vary at their periphery; the Hebrew Bible is their common,
canonical core.
Van Leeuwen, Theology: Creation, Wisdom, and Covenant 14

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Van Leeuwen, Theology: Creation, Wisdom, and Covenant 15

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