WISDOM 7:7-11
Therefore I prayed, and understanding was given to me; I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I preferred her to scepters and thrones, and I considered riches as nothing in comparison to her. Neither did I liken her to any priceless gem, because all gold is but a little sand before her, and silver will seem like clay in her presence. I loved her more than health and beauty, and I chose to have her rather than light, because her radiance never yields to night. All good things came to me along with her, and in her hands, uncountable wealth.
Let us remember that in this book, the last of the Old Testament, written at the end of the 1st century BC, or perhaps even later, it is about the “Wisdom of Solomon,” although this is merely a literary fiction. Solomon is presented to Israel as a model of Wisdom, and in this text, he is depicted as one who despises riches, which are as clay compared to the value of wisdom. The last two verses should be understood symbolically, since he has despised the goods of the earth as clay.
The reality was very different, because in fact, Solomon amassed and flaunted riches, he showed his greatness with innumerable foreign concubines, who ended up introducing the worship of other gods into Israel… Those last two verses we commented on were the bitter reality: his “wisdom” led him to wealth and away from God. The myth of the wise Solomon, beloved of God, builder of the Temple, has nothing to do with the sad historical reality, but it has survived in Old Testament literature.
HEBREWS 4:12-13
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
This short text is part of the great exhortation of chapters 3 and 4, in which, by drawing a parallel between Jesus and Moses, the exhortation is to listen to the Word. It is a notable example of the Hebrew conception of man: body – soul – spirit, without a very clear differentiation between them, without a possible identification with our concepts of body and soul. The translation that would serve us would be “penetrating to the innermost being.”
On the other hand, the text has a direct application to any topic of conversion or attention to the Word, since it is not a matter of any external compliance or human appearance, but of “conversion of the heart,” there in the most intimate place, where the eyes of God reach even though perhaps our own eyes do not dare to go.
On the other hand, the last paragraph, (all things are naked and laid bare to the eyes of him to whom we must give account), shows the typical threatening mentality of the Old Testament. For someone who is in the Kingdom, who believes in God as Abbá, the more correct expression would be: “all things are naked and laid bare to the eyes of him who is our physician, our Shepherd, our Father.” And thus, instead of a threat, the fact that God knows us thoroughly is a relief, a reason for total confidence.
José Enrique Galarreta