Beginning of Wisdom

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding." This is where wisdom starts. Proverbs has already said something very close at the opening of the book: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction." Job's long poem about where wisdom can be found ends in the same place: "Behold, the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom."

What surprises is where the line sits. Chapter nine is the story of two dinner invitations given out on the same street. First, "Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars." She has killed her beasts, mixed her wine and set her table. "She hath sent forth her maidens: she crieth upon the highest places of the city, Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither." A few verses later a second woman, "a foolish woman," sits "at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city, To call passengers who go right on their ways." Her opening words are exactly the same as Wisdom's: "Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither." The invitation sounds identical, and what differs is the table. She offers this: "Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant." The last verse of the chapter tells you who her other guests are: "But he knoweth not that the dead are there."

So two women call out on one street. Both sound warm, and you cannot tell them apart by listening to the invitation. What tells them apart is whether the one listening knows the Lord, which is the very line in the middle of the chapter: "the knowledge of the holy is understanding." So before you accept anything that comes to you sounding generous, wait long enough to find out who set the table. Wisdom's table is real, and so is her promise: "For by me thy days shall be multiplied, and the years of thy life shall be increased."

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 157 is Never Forsaken (1 Samuel 12:22).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two