This Week's Focus Passage

Proverbs 8:30 ‘And I was daily his delight.’

Proverbs 8:30

‘And I was daily his delight.’

This brief statement of fact contains, in the English, only six words, but of what beautifully grand realities those words speak to the understanding of our hearts. They are found in this eighth proverb among….

The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel; to know wisdom and instruction; to discern the words of understanding; to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness and justice and equity; to give prudence to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion: that the wise man may hear, and increase in learning; and that the man of understanding may attain unto sound counsels: to understand a proverb, and a figure, the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.—Prov. 1:1-6.

The eighth proverb of Solomon begins with the question, Doth not wisdom cry, pointedly suggesting that the subject of the chapter is wisdom itself. Authorities will inform us that ‘wisdom is the quality of being wise; good judgment.’ But is that all that it is? Is it not also prudence and knowledge and discretion? Our writer suggests each of these and more. We may not overlook counsel, effectual working, understanding, and might. In point of fact, our author extends his thoughts of wisdom to many of its results. He claims for wisdom, My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold, and my increase than choice silver. He then, however, takes something of a turn in the twenty-second verse and seems to personify more deeply the things of which he speaks. Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of the way, he declares. A

Nineteenth century Scottish pastor and commentator made the following observation regarding, in particular, the ten verses beginning at twenty-two:

“Hitherto in this chapter, we have found it possible to speak of wisdom alternately as a property and a person; but henceforth the terms compel us to keep by the personal view. At the beginning something may be understood as applying to divine wisdom in general; but toward the close, the wisdom incarnate, in the person of Emmanuel, stands singly and boldly out. If the terms are not applied to Christ, they must be strained at every turn.”

Matthew Henry has added to William Arnot’s thoughts, his own opinion.

“That it is an intelligent and divine person that here speaks seems very plain, and that it is not meant of a mere essential property of the divine nature, for Wisdom here has personal properties and actions; and that intelligent and divine person can be no other than the Son of God himself, to whom the principal things here spoken of wisdom are attributed in other scriptures, and we must explain scripture by itself.” Give attention to the marvelous words framed and left to us by a lesser Son of David:

  1. Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. 23. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, before the earth was. 24. When there were no depths, I was brought forth, when there were no fountains abounding with water. 25. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth; 26. While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the beginning of the dust of the world. 27. When he established the heavens, I was there: when he set a circle upon the face of the deep, 28. When he made firm the skies above, when the fountains of the deep became strong, 29. When he gave to the sea its bound, that the waters should not transgress his commandment, when he marked out the foundations of the earth; 30. Then I was by him, as a master workman; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, 31. Rejoicing in his habitable earth: and my delight was with the sons of men.

Here’s where it gets really deep……here we are confronted by the mystery of the Trinity; God: One in Three—Three in One. We must necessarily confess our inability to comprehend this mystery. We may offer as many illustrations of it as we will, yet these are only that; illustrations. Here it gets really deep; deeper than our deepest thoughts. And it plumbs the depths of our minds. Here in Proverbs, it plumbs not only the depths of our minds, but the depths of our hearts, to try our best to grasp what we have before us in these words of Solomon; namely, I was daily his delight….And my delight was with the sons of men.

The marvel of grace is that we can understand any of these truths whatever. And it is truly, and only, through the gift of faith accompanying the regeneration of the heart, that we have been enabled to believe these wonders. Here before us we find Wisdom—pre-incarnate—opening a window, as it were, into both our minds and our hearts; shining in with these startling beams of light. The Son of God was, before the beginning, daily the delight of the Father. Reflect upon the infinite bonds of love between the Father and the Son. Then consider anew the marvel of the Father being willing to part with the Son in some mysterious way because of His love for His chosen. How can these things be? The Father surrendering Him who was daily His delight; God so loved the world. If that were not sufficient to put our hearts and our minds in a spin, consider the delight of the Son for those whom His Father had given Him to redeem. His delight was with the sons of men. God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Is this not enough to keep our hearts throbbing after conformity to Christ?

David Farmer, elder

Fellowship Bible Church

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