Investigation: Who Are Woman Wisdom and Woman Folly?

Personification, goddess theories, gender and later reception

Proverbs 1:20–33; 2:16–19; 5; 7; 8; 9; 31:10–31 · Lesson 38 of 42 · 14 min story

"Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets" (1:20). "Doth not wisdom cry?… I was by him, as one brought up with him" (8:1, 30). "Wisdom hath builded her house" (9:1). "A foolish woman is clamorous… Stolen waters are sweet" (9:13, 17).

The Hebrew word chokhmah is grammatically feminine, as are words for wisdom in Greek (sophia) and Latin (sapientia). Personifying it as a woman follows the language. But Proverbs goes much further: Wisdom has a voice, a house, servants, a history with God.

The Israelite gate at Tel Dan — Site or place photographThe Iron Age Israelite gate at Tel Dan, for comparison; Bethlehem's ancient gate has not been excavated.Image credit

Figure	Passages	Traits
Woman Wisdom	1:20–33; 3:13–20; 4:5–9; 8; 9:1–6	Public speaker, prophet-like, older than creation, host of a feast, giver of life
The strange / foreign woman	2:16–19; 5:1–23; 6:24–35; 7:1–27; 22:14; 23:27	Another man's wife, smooth speech, leads to death
Woman Folly	9:13–18	Loud, ignorant, mirror-image of Wisdom's invitation
The woman of strength	31:10–31 (and 12:4)	Capable, generous, wise, fears the LORD

Goddess theories

Scholars have compared Woman Wisdom with Egyptian Ma'at (order, truth), with the Semitic goddesses Asherah or Astarte, or with Isis, who in Hellenistic hymns speaks in the first person of her deeds. Similar features exist; there is no evidence that Israel worshipped Wisdom as a goddess, and Proverbs subordinates her to the LORD ("The LORD possessed me"). The site treats her as personification, with the parallels as context.

The strange woman

She is primarily an adulteress (another man's wife). "Foreign" can mean outside the marriage or ethnically foreign; some scholars see a Persian-period concern about foreign wives (compare Ezra 9–10; Nehemiah 13:23–27). Woman Folly in chapter 9 makes her a symbol. Qumran's 4Q184 ("The Wiles of the Wicked Woman") develops the figure into a cosmic danger. Rabbinic readers took her as heresy or idolatry.

Gendered language

The book is addressed to young men by a father; women appear as wise or dangerous in relation to them. Modern readers note both the power of the images and their limits: the young man's choices are what the text judges (7:7, 22), and the book's highest human portrait is a woman (31:10–31). The site neither erases the patriarchal setting nor treats its images as statements about women in general.

Later identifications

Sirach 24: Wisdom = Torah. Wisdom of Solomon 7–9: Wisdom as God's emanation and Solomon's bride. Philo: Wisdom and the Logos. New Testament: Christ as God's wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:24, 30; Luke 7:35; 11:49; Matthew 11:19). Some early Christians identified Wisdom with the Holy Spirit (Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaeus). Eastern Christian tradition dedicated churches to Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia), understood as Christ.

What the evidence shows

Independently documentedChokhmah, sophia and sapientia are grammatically feminine.
Not independently verifiedIsrael worshipped Wisdom as a goddess.
DisputedThe strange woman of Proverbs reflects Persian-period concerns about foreign wives.
Matter of faithWoman Wisdom is the pre-existent Christ. A Christian reading.

Continue the journey

Journey of a PassageProverbs 9:1: "She hath hewn out her seven pillars""Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars." The library's witnesses agree in substance (the Greek has "set it up on seven pillars").

Why this matters to the rest of Scripture

Wisdom praises herself; Wisdom as Torah.
Christ the wisdom of God.
"Wisdom is justified of her children."