Beginning of Wisdom

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. Beginning holds both senses, the first step and the head of the list. Proverbs has already run the line once about knowledge: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Job's long poem about where wisdom is found ends on the same result: Behold, the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom.

Where the line sits is the surprise. Chapter nine is two dinner invitations issued on one street. Wisdom has builded her house, hewn out her seven pillars, killed her beasts, mingled her wine, furnished her table, and sent forth her maidens: she crieth upon the highest places of the city. Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither. Three verses on, a second woman is sitting at the door of her own house, in the high places of the city, to call passengers who go right on their ways, and her words are printed identically. Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither. The pitch is word for word. What differs is the table: Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. The last line of the chapter names the other guests. He knoweth not that the dead are there.

Two callers on one street, both of them warm, and no way to tell them apart by listening to the invitation. What tells them apart is whether the person hearing it knows who God is. So before you accept anything this week that arrives sounding generous, wait long enough to find out who set the table.

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