Proverbs 8:22

The Lord created ¹  me as the beginning ²  of his works, ³  before his deeds of long ago.

"The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old;

"The LORD possessed me at the beginning of His way, Before His works of old.

"The LORD formed me from the beginning, before he created anything else.

"GOD sovereignly made me--the first, the basic--before he did anything else.

The Lord made me as the start of his way, the first of his works in the past.

The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago.

"The LORD possessed me at the beginning of His way, Before His works of old.

The Lord created ¹  me as the beginning ²  of his works, ³  before his deeds of long ago.

¹ tn There are two roots קָנָה (qanah) in Hebrew, one meaning “to possess,” and the other meaning “to create.” The earlier English versions did not know of the second root, but suspected in certain places that a meaning like that was necessary (e.g., Gen 4:1; 14:19; Deut 32:6). Ugaritic confirmed that it was indeed another root. The older versions have the translation “possess” because otherwise it sounds like God lacked wisdom and therefore created it at the beginning. They wanted to avoid saying that wisdom was not eternal. Arius liked the idea of Christ as the wisdom of God and so chose the translation “create.” Athanasius translated it, “constituted me as the head of creation.” The verb occurs twelve times in Proverbs with the meaning of “to acquire”; but the Greek and the Syriac versions have the meaning “create.” Although the idea is that wisdom existed before creation, the parallel ideas in these verses (“appointed,” “given birth”) argue for the translation of “create” or “establish” (R. N. Whybray, “Proverbs 8:22-31 and Its Supposed Prototypes,” VT 15 [1965]: 504-14; and W. A. Irwin, “Where Will Wisdom Be Found?” JBL 80 [1961]: 133-42).

² tn Verbs of creation often involve double accusatives; here the double accusative involves the person (i.e., wisdom) and an abstract noun in construct (IBHS 174-75 §10.2.3c).

³ tn Heb “his way” (so KJV, NASB). The word “way” is an idiom (implied comparison) for the actions of God.

sn The claim of wisdom in this passage is that she was foundational to all that God would do.