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Selected Verse: Proverbs 8:22 - King James

Verse	Translation	Text
Pr 8:22	King James	The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.

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A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]
Strictly, God's attributes are part of Himself. Yet, to the poetical structure of the whole passage, this commendation of wisdom is entirely consonant. In order of time all His attributes are coincident and eternal as Himself. But to set forth the importance of wisdom as devising the products of benevolence and power, it is here assigned a precedence. As it has such in divine, so should it be desired in human, affairs (compare Pro 3:19). possessed--or, "created"; in either sense, the idea of precedence. in the beginning--or simply, "beginning," in apposition with "me." before . . . of old--preceding the most ancient deeds.

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]

Strictly, God's attributes are part of Himself. Yet, to the poetical structure of the whole passage, this commendation of wisdom is entirely consonant. In order of time all His attributes are coincident and eternal as Himself. But to set forth the importance of wisdom as devising the products of benevolence and power, it is here assigned a precedence. As it has such in divine, so should it be desired in human, affairs (compare Pro 3:19).

possessed--or, "created"; in either sense, the idea of precedence.

in the beginning--or simply, "beginning," in apposition with "me."

before . . . of old--preceding the most ancient deeds.

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]
A verse which has played an important part in the history of Christian dogma. Wisdom reveals herself as preceding all creation, stamped upon it all, one with God, yet in some way distinguishable from Him as the object of His love Pro 8:30. John declares that all which Wisdom here speaks of herself was true in its highest sense of the Word that became flesh Joh 1:1-14 : just as Apostles afterward applied Wisd. 7:22-30 to Christ (compare Col 1:15; Heb 1:3). Possessed - The word has acquired a special prominence in connection with the Arian controversy. The meaning which it usually bears is that of "getting" Gen 4:1, "buying" Gen 47:22, "possessing" Jer 32:15. In this sense one of the oldest divine names was that of "Possessor of heaven and earth" Gen 14:19, Gen 14:22. But the idea of thus "getting" or "possessing" involved, as a divine act in relation to the universe, the idea of creation, and thus in one or two passages the word might be rendered, though not accurately, by "created" (e. g., Psa 139:13). It would seem accordingly as if the Greek translators of the Old Testament oscillated between the two meanings; and in this passage we find the various renderings ἔκτισε ektise "created" (Septuagint), and ἐκτήσατο ektēsato "possessed" (Aquila). The text with the former word naturally became one of the stock arguments of the Arians against the eternal co-existence of the Son, and the other translation was as vehemently defended by the orthodox fathers. Athanasius receiving ἔκτισεν ektisen, took it in the sense of appointing, and saw in the Septuagint a declaration that the Father had made the Son the "chief," the "head," the "sovereign," over all creation. There does not seem indeed any ground for the thought of creation either in the meaning of the root, or in the general usage of the word. What is meant in this passage is that we cannot think of God as ever having been without Wisdom. She is "as the beginning of His ways." So far as the words bear upon Christian dogma, they accord with the words of Joh 1:1, "the Word was with God." The next words indeed assert priority to all the works of God, from the first starting point of time.

The Scofield Bible Commentary, by Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, [1917]
The Lord possessed me That wisdom is more than the personification of an attribute of God, or of the will of God as best for man, but is a distinct adumbration of Christ, is sure to the devout mind. (Pro 8:22-36); (Joh 1:1-3); (Col 1:17) can refer to nothing less than the Eternal Son of God.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
Wisdom takes now a new departure, in establishing her right to be heard, and to be obeyed and loved by men. As the Divine King in Psa 2:1-12 opposes to His adversaries the self-testimony: "I will speak concerning a decree! Jahve said unto me: Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten Thee;" so Wisdom here unfolds her divine patent of nobility: she originates with God before all creatures, and is the object of God's love and joy, as she also has the object of her love and joy on God's earth, and especially among the sons of men: "Jahve brought me forth as the beginning of His way, As the foremost of His works from of old." The old translators render קנני (with Kametz by Dech; vid., under Psa 118:5) partly by verbs of creating (lxx ἔκτισε, Syr., Targ. בּראני), partly by verbs of acquiring (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, Venet. ἐκτήσατο; Jerome, possedit); Wisdom appears also as created, certainly not without reference to this passage, Sir. 1:4, προτέρα πάντων ἕκτισται σοφία; 1:9, αὐτὸς ἕκτισεν αὐτήν; 24:8, ὁ κτίσας με. In the christological controversy this word gained a dogmatic signification, for they proceeded generally on the identity of σοφία ὑποστατική (sapientia substantialis) with the hypostasis of the Son of God. The Arians used the ἔκτισέ με as a proof of their doctrine of the filius non genitus, sed factus, i.e., of His existence before the world began indeed, but yet not from eternity, but originating in time; while, on the contrary, the orthodox preferred the translation ἐκτήσατο, and understood it of the co-eternal existence of the Son with the Father, and agreed with the ἔκτισε of the lxx by referring it not to the actual existence, but to the position, place of the Son (Athanasius: Deus me creavit regem or caput operum suorum; Cyrill.: non condidit secundum substantiam, sed constituit me totius universi principium et fundamentum). But (1) Wisdom is not God, but is God's; she has personal existence in the Logos of the N.T., but is not herself the Logos; she is the world-idea, which, once projected, is objective to God, not as a dead form, but as a living spiritual image; she is the archetype of the world, which, originating from God, stands before God, the world of the idea which forms the medium between the Godhead and the world of actual existence, the communicated spiritual power in the origination and the completion of the world as God designed it to be. This wisdom the poet here personifies; he does not speak of the person as Logos, but the further progress of the revelation points to her actual personification in the Logos. And (2) since to her the poet attributes an existence preceding the creation of the world, he thereby declares her to be eternal, for to be before the world is to be before time. For if he places her at the head of the creatures, as the first of them, so therewith he does not seek to make her a creature of this world having its commencement in time; he connects her origination with the origination of the creature only on this account, because that priori refers and tends to the latter; the power which was before heaven and earth were, and which operated at the creation of the earth and of the heavens, cannot certainly fall under the category of the creatures around and above us. Therefore (3) the translation with ἔκτισεν has nothing against it, but it is different from the κτίσις of the heavens and the earth, and the poet has intentionally written not בּראני, but קנני. Certainly קנה, Arab. knâ, like all the words used of creating, refers to one root-idea: that of forging (vid., under Gen 4:22), as ברא does to that of cutting (vid., under Gen 1:1); but the mark of a commencement in time does not affix itself to קנה in the same way as it does to ברא, which always expresses the divine production of that which has not hitherto existed. קנה comprehends in it the meanings to create, and to create something for oneself, to prepare, parare (e.g., Psa 139:13), and to prepare something for oneself, comparare, as κτίζειν and κτᾶσθαι, both from kshi, to build, the former expressed by struere, and the latter by sibi struere. In the קנני, then, there are the ideas, both that God produced wisdom, and that He made Himself to possess it; not certainly, however, as a man makes himself to possess wisdom from without, Pro 4:7. But the idea of the bringing forth is here the nearest demanded by the connection. For ראשׁית דּרכּו is not equivalent to בּראשׁית דרכו (Syr., Targ., Luther), as Jerome also reads: Ita enim scriptum est: adonai canani bresith dercho (Ep. cxl. ad Cyprian.); but it is, as Job 40:19 shows, the second accusative of the object (lxx, Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion). But if God made wisdom as the beginning of His way, i.e., of His creative efficiency (cf. Rev 3:14 and Col 1:15), the making is not to be thought of as acquiring, but as a bringing forth, revealing this creative efficiency of God, having it in view; and this is also confirmed by the חוללתי (genita sum; cf. Gen 4:1, קניתי, genui) following. Accordingly, קדם מפעליו (foremost of His works) has to be regarded as a parallel second object. accusative. All the old translators interpret קדם as a preposition [before], but the usage of the language before us does not recognise it as such; this would be an Aramaism, for קדם, Dan 7:7, frequently מן־קדם (Syr., Targ.), is so used. But as קדם signifies previous existence in space, and then in time (vid., Orelli, Zeit und Ewigkeit, p. 76), so it may be used of the object in which the previous existence appears, thus (after Sir. 1:4): προτέραν τῶν ἔργων αὐτοῦ (Hitzig).

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]

Wisdom takes now a new departure, in establishing her right to be heard, and to be obeyed and loved by men. As the Divine King in Psa 2:1-12 opposes to His adversaries the self-testimony: "I will speak concerning a decree! Jahve said unto me: Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten Thee;" so Wisdom here unfolds her divine patent of nobility: she originates with God before all creatures, and is the object of God's love and joy, as she also has the object of her love and joy on God's earth, and especially among the sons of men:

"Jahve brought me forth as the beginning of His way,

As the foremost of His works from of old."

The old translators render קנני (with Kametz by Dech; vid., under Psa 118:5) partly by verbs of creating (lxx ἔκτισε, Syr., Targ. בּראני), partly by verbs of acquiring (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, Venet. ἐκτήσατο; Jerome, possedit); Wisdom appears also as created, certainly not without reference to this passage, Sir. 1:4, προτέρα πάντων ἕκτισται σοφία; 1:9, αὐτὸς ἕκτισεν αὐτήν; 24:8, ὁ κτίσας με. In the christological controversy this word gained a dogmatic signification, for they proceeded generally on the identity of σοφία ὑποστατική (sapientia substantialis) with the hypostasis of the Son of God. The Arians used the ἔκτισέ με as a proof of their doctrine of the filius non genitus, sed factus, i.e., of His existence before the world began indeed, but yet not from eternity, but originating in time; while, on the contrary, the orthodox preferred the translation ἐκτήσατο, and understood it of the co-eternal existence of the Son with the Father, and agreed with the ἔκτισε of the lxx by referring it not to the actual existence, but to the position, place of the Son (Athanasius: Deus me creavit regem or caput operum suorum; Cyrill.: non condidit secundum substantiam, sed constituit me totius universi principium et fundamentum). But (1) Wisdom is not God, but is God's; she has personal existence in the Logos of the N.T., but is not herself the Logos; she is the world-idea, which, once projected, is objective to God, not as a dead form, but as a living spiritual image; she is the archetype of the world, which, originating from God, stands before God, the world of the idea which forms the medium between the Godhead and the world of actual existence, the communicated spiritual power in the origination and the completion of the world as God designed it to be. This wisdom the poet here personifies; he does not speak of the person as Logos, but the further progress of the revelation points to her actual personification in the Logos. And (2) since to her the poet attributes an existence preceding the creation of the world, he thereby declares her to be eternal, for to be before the world is to be before time. For if he places her at the head of the creatures, as the first of them, so therewith he does not seek to make her a creature of this world having its commencement in time; he connects her origination with the origination of the creature only on this account, because that priori refers and tends to the latter; the power which was before heaven and earth were, and which operated at the creation of the earth and of the heavens, cannot certainly fall under the category of the creatures around and above us. Therefore (3) the translation with ἔκτισεν has nothing against it, but it is different from the κτίσις of the heavens and the earth, and the poet has intentionally written not בּראני, but קנני. Certainly קנה, Arab. knâ, like all the words used of creating, refers to one root-idea: that of forging (vid., under Gen 4:22), as ברא does to that of cutting (vid., under Gen 1:1); but the mark of a commencement in time does not affix itself to קנה in the same way as it does to ברא, which always expresses the divine production of that which has not hitherto existed. קנה comprehends in it the meanings to create, and to create something for oneself, to prepare, parare (e.g., Psa 139:13), and to prepare something for oneself, comparare, as κτίζειν and κτᾶσθαι, both from kshi, to build, the former expressed by struere, and the latter by sibi struere. In the קנני, then, there are the ideas, both that God produced wisdom, and that He made Himself to possess it; not certainly, however, as a man makes himself to possess wisdom from without, Pro 4:7. But the idea of the bringing forth is here the nearest demanded by the connection. For ראשׁית דּרכּו is not equivalent to בּראשׁית דרכו (Syr., Targ., Luther), as Jerome also reads: Ita enim scriptum est: adonai canani bresith dercho (Ep. cxl. ad Cyprian.); but it is, as Job 40:19 shows, the second accusative of the object (lxx, Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion). But if God made wisdom as the beginning of His way, i.e., of His creative efficiency (cf. Rev 3:14 and Col 1:15), the making is not to be thought of as acquiring, but as a bringing forth, revealing this creative efficiency of God, having it in view; and this is also confirmed by the חוללתי (genita sum; cf. Gen 4:1, קניתי, genui) following. Accordingly, קדם מפעליו (foremost of His works) has to be regarded as a parallel second object. accusative. All the old translators interpret קדם as a preposition [before], but the usage of the language before us does not recognise it as such; this would be an Aramaism, for קדם, Dan 7:7, frequently מן־קדם (Syr., Targ.), is so used. But as קדם signifies previous existence in space, and then in time (vid., Orelli, Zeit und Ewigkeit, p. 76), so it may be used of the object in which the previous existence appears, thus (after Sir. 1:4): προτέραν τῶν ἔργων αὐτοῦ (Hitzig).

Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65]
Possessed me - As his son by eternal generation, before the beginning. Of old - His works of creation.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826
The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way - Wisdom is not acquired by the Divine Being; man, and even angels, learn it by slow and progressive degrees; but in God it is as eternally inherent as any other essential attribute of his nature. The Targum makes this wisdom a creature, by thus translating the passage: אלהא בראני בריש בריתיה Elaha barani bereish biriteiah, "God created me in the beginning of his creatures." The Syriac is the same. This is as absurd and heretical as some modern glosses on the same passage.

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¹⁹ The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.

¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

¹³ For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.

²² And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth,

¹⁹ And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth:

¹⁵ For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land.

²² Only the land of the priests bought he not; for the priests had a portion assigned them of Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them: wherefore they sold not their lands.

¹ And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

³ Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

¹⁵ Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
² The same was in the beginning with God.
³ All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
⁴ In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
⁵ And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
⁶ There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
⁷ The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
⁸ He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
⁹ That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
¹¹ He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
¹² But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
¹³ Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
¹⁴ And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

³⁰ Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him;

¹⁷ And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

²² The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.
²³ I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.
²⁴ When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water.
²⁵ Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth:
²⁶ While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.
²⁷ When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:
²⁸ When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep:
²⁹ When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth:
³⁰ Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him;
³¹ Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men.
³² Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways.
³³ Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not.
³⁴ Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.
³⁵ For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD.
³⁶ But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.

⁷ After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.

¹ And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

¹⁵ Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

¹⁴ And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;

¹⁹ He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him.

⁷ Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

¹³ For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.

¹ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

²² And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.

⁵ I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.

¹ Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
² The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,
³ Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
⁴ He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
⁵ Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.
⁶ Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
⁷ I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.
⁸ Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
⁹ Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
¹⁰ Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
¹¹ Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
¹² Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.