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Proverbs 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"). The question is what the seven pillars mean.

Stable text: no manuscript differences in meaning

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains this verse · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. The proverb as first composedCollections from the monarchy to the Persian period (debated)
  2. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from The proverb as first composed
Greek
  1. Greek Proverbs (library: Giguet's French)Old Greek c. 2nd century BC; French 1872Translated from the Old Greek Proverbs
Latin
  1. Latin Vulgate (Clementine)Jerome c. AD 398, from Hebrew; edition 1592Translated from the Hebrew text Jerome used
English
  1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

Every witness, in order

  1. Collections from the monarchy to the Persian period (debated)

    The proverb as first composed

    – No copy survives

    No original survives. The oldest Hebrew copies of Proverbs are two small Qumran fragments (4Q102, 4Q103, 1st century BC – 1st century AD, reported).

  2. Jerome c. AD 398, from Hebrew; edition 1592

    Latin Vulgate (Clementine)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Hebrew text Jerome used

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

    Sapientia ædificavit sibi domum: excidit columnas septem.

    Latin position: Proverbs 9:1. Jerome translated Proverbs from Hebrew (c. AD 398), so the Vulgate is an indirect witness to a Hebrew text, with Jerome's interpretation.

  3. AD 1008

    Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

    ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from The proverb as first composed

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

    חָ֭כְמוֹת בָּנְתָ֣ה בֵיתָ֑הּ חָצְבָ֖ה עַמּוּדֶ֣יהָ שִׁבְעָֽה׃

    Wisdom (chokhmot) has built her house; she has hewn her pillars, seven

    Hebrew position: Proverbs 9:1.

  4. 1611

    King James Bible

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

    Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars:

  5. Old Greek c. 2nd century BC; French 1872

    Greek Proverbs (library: Giguet's French)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Old Greek Proverbs

    How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

    La Sagesse a édifié pour elle une maison, et elle l’a appuyée sur sept colonnes.

    Greek (digital file) position: Proverbs 9:1. Giguet's 1872 French of a printed Greek text (D check). No Göttingen critical edition of Greek Proverbs is published yet; a C check needs Rahlfs–Hanhart and specialist studies.

What changed, and why

Interpretations: (1) a large, splendid house (ordinary Israelite houses had a few pillars around a courtyard); (2) completeness, seven as the number of fullness; (3) the seven days of creation, linking to Wisdom's role in 8:22–31; (4) the seven heavens or planets of ancient cosmology; (5) the structure of the book itself (some scholars count seven sections or seven poems in chapters 1–9).

Archaeology has excavated many four-room pillared houses and some large pillared buildings, but no building can be identified as a model for Wisdom's house; the image is literary. The Hebrew of the first word, chokhmot ("Wisdom," plural form as in 1:20), may be a plural of majesty.

What the evidence shows

  • Independently documentedThe witnesses agree on 9:1 in substance.
  • Plausible, not confirmedThe seven pillars symbolize completeness.
  • Not independently verifiedThe seven pillars correspond to an identifiable building.

Sources

    Related lessons

    • Proverbs 9: Two Houses, Two Invitations →Proverbs 1–9 ends with two hostesses. Wisdom has built her house with seven pillars, prepared meat and wine, and sends her servant girls to call the simple: "Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled… Forsake the foolish, and live" (vv. 1–6). Between the two invitations stand sayings about correcting scorners and the wise, and the motto again: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (vv. 7–12). Then Woman Folly, loud and ignorant, sits at her door and calls the same passers-by: "Stolen waters are sweet"; but "the dead are there" (vv. 13–18).