All right, well, we made it. This is the fourth and final lesson on our study, the Wisdom of Solomon. This lesson is entitled, Wisdom's Salvation. And we're going to be tackling chapters 10 through 19 to complete the book.
We'll try to do this in one lesson. It's going to be, I don't know, maybe long lesson. I probably should have done this in two separate lessons, because there's a lot of really great stuff here. And a lot of very, very important details about God's patience, his mercy, but of course, talking about his righteousness and his justice towards people, his own people who listen to his commands and obey him versus people, of course, we reject him.
So things that we've been talking about all along now are going to be applied here in a very unique way in salvation history. So this titled Wisdom Salvation. Now, just to kind of serve as a link in the chain here, a segue, just understand, remember, that with the past couple lessons, we've been studying chapters one through nine. And the consistent theme is that God's wisdom is with the righteous, but he punishes the wicked.
We saw this in various contexts, especially in this application for the afterlife, where God's righteousness, or his blessings, I should say, will be with the righteous. Then there's going to be everlasting punishment for the unrighteous. So we talked a lot about that. So now here in chapters 10 through 19, we're applying that maxim, that principle, that statement, that truth to history.
So we're going to apply it from the author of Wisdom. It's going to apply it from the creation of the world, going through the patriarchs. And he's going to spend a lot of time talking about Israel's deliverance from Egypt and the Exodus. And so the interlining theme here is that God is with the righteous, he saves the righteous, but the unrighteous are going to be punished.
So there is not a complete break here in the narrative, where the author's talking about something completely different when he goes through salvation history. He's actually talking about his truths from chapters one through nine here in these various contexts. So as one commentary says very briefly, the wisdom of Solomon, before the wisdom of Solomon, for this book, Sophia, wisdom, is active in the world throughout the very beginning of human history for this purpose, to save the righteous, but also to punish the unrighteous. Now, that is a big picture link between these two major halves of the book, chapters one through nine.
Now, 10 through 19, but there's also a very important little link here at the end of chapter nine, verses 17 and 18. Let me just reread it here for you. 9 17 says, who has learned your counsel unless you have given wisdom and sent your Holy Spirit from on high? And remember really quickly, that's a wonderful connection between wisdom and the Spirit, the Holy Spirit himself.
Remember wisdom typifies the Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ, but I won't repeat all of that from last lesson. But verse 18 is very important for today's lesson. And thus the paths of those on earth were set right, and men were taught what pleases you and were saved by wisdom. And now these men who were taught what pleases God and these men who were saved by wisdom are going to be listed here.
And the next number of chapters, especially chapter 10, we're going to go through a whole slew of them here, right? So chapter nine, verse 18 is the link between these two separate halves of the book. So don't miss that little detail right there. Solomon's quest for wisdom, his prayer for wisdom is desire for wisdom as an example for everyone else is not going to be applied to a variety of different people throughout salvation history, various righteous men who have been saved by her.
That's the reason why I'm calling this lesson here, wisdom is salvation. All right, now, who are these people? Chapter 10 here, very interestingly, lists seven righteous figures in contrast to seven opposing unrighteous figures. So you've got Adam, as far as the righteous figures concerned, you've got Adam, the Noah, Abraham, Lot, Jacob, Joseph, and then Israel.
Now, they're not named here. All kinds of commentaries will have little insets or little call out boxes, they'll address like, why does the book of wisdom never identify these people? Remember, before we talked a lot about Enoch, but Enoch wasn't mentioned. Same thing is true.
Their names aren't mentioned, it's just their stories are. And so the reader is supposed to use intelligence and education to identify. It's a little game of who done it, really? Who done it?
And that's what's kind of going on here for the reader. But you've got these seven righteous figures. And in contrast to them, seven unrighteous figures. So Cain is opposed to Adam.
Cain's descendants is opposed to Noah, really, all the unrighteous nations, the whole right, unrighteous humanity opposed to Noah. And then you've also got the various unrighteous nations at the Tower of Babel that is opposed to Abraham. And then after that, you have the various men of Sodom, the Sodom and Gomorrah, and those five ungodly cities that are opposed to Lot. Then Jacob's persecutors Esau and Laban are opposed to Jacob, of course.
And then Joseph has various accusers opposed to himself, most specifically Potiphar's wife and maybe some others. And then of course, most famously, the Egyptians are opposed to Israel. So seven righteous versus seven unrighteous. Now, the commentaries don't spend any time talking about the importance of the number seven, which surprises me because I thank you my own personal reflection here.
This is a huge deal, right? So seven is the number of the covenant. A lot of people say it's the number of perfection, completion, totality. Not really, it's really 10 that is perfection, completion, totality.
Seven is first and foremost, covenant. So it could be totality of perfection in regards to the covenant. And that's fine to say, but primarily it's covenant. So when you have seven righteous figures opposed to seven unrighteous figures, you really what you have here, here are two teams, one team is for the covenant and one team is against the covenant.
So it's covenant versus anti-covenant. That's what's going on here. If you are seeking wisdom and righteousness, seeking God's kingdoms and obeying God's laws, you are part of God's covenant, right? That's the seven righteous figures.
And then the contrary is obviously true. Another application, you find this in Deuteronomy and other places, especially Deuteronomy, it's really everywhere that when you obey the covenant, you're blessed, right? So you always have blessings for obedience to the covenant and then you have curses or punishments for your disobedience to the covenant. And those are really the two ways.
We've been talking about the two ways, a couple of different times I know here in this Bible, so I don't wisdom, but I talk about the two ways all the time because that's one of the major sub-themes that runs throughout Genesis to Revelation. The two ways is everywhere from the Garden of Eden, all the way down to the book of Revelation. So this is what you have here as well, the two ways covenant versus anti-covenant. If you love God and wanna be righteous, if you love righteousness as chapter one verse one began, you're gonna be blessed and that's what these seven figures are representing.
But if you are unrighteous and you are futile in your thinking and you're errant in your thinking, then you're going in your unrepentant in your actions, then you're going to be cursed. So I think that's really what's going on here, why the author picks seven figures on each team as opposed to eight or five or whatever it may be because we're talking about covenant versus anti-covenant. So I think that's worth mentioning there. Now in this chapter, you have a bunch of examples here.
I can only spend some time on highlights of these, but let me just begin with chapter 10 verse one and you'll see exactly what I mean by the author, talking about who this person is, but there's that game of who done it, like name that person, right? So you can kind of play that game, you can shout it out if you want to. But here's chapter 10 verse one, you get the idea of the pattern really quickly. It says, actually, let me reread chapter nine verse 18 so you can see that hinge, that link one more time.
So nine 18 says, the pads of those on earth were set right, men were taught what pleases you and were saved by wisdom. So who were these men saved by wisdom? Chapter 10 verse one, wisdom protected the first form the father of the world when he alone had been created. She delivered him from his transgression and gave him strength to rule all things.
Name that person, well obviously that's Adam, he's the first form father of the world, that he was the only person who was created and she delivered him from unrighteousness or from his transgression. This is really, really interesting here. I'll just share this with you right now. It's down here in the bottom of your notes in the middle of page one actually.
But this is interesting that she, wisdom delivered Adam from his transgression. What that means is that Adam was pardoned for his sin. This is very interesting. So tradition, Jewish and Christian tradition has it, that Adam and Eve with him really repented for their sin.
They didn't remain in a state of impenitance. They were truly contrite and sorrowful for what they had done and then God forgave them of their sins. So you see this often, it's really beautiful in various pieces of artwork or icons and things like that where through the cross of Jesus Christ when he descends into the realm of the dead on Holy Saturday, he reaches across the chasm of death or it could be depicted in various forms of art as a tomb or a grave and he grabs Adam and brings him out of the tomb because he had repented. He delivers, Jesus the new Adam delivers the first Adam.
So that's really beautiful when you find that in art. But I wanna read this little footnote here for you since we have a little bit of time. This may take up too much time, but I think this is really, really interesting from the Navarre Bible on Adam's repentance. It says that the pardoning of Adam and Eve after their fall figures in some of the pocketful Jewish writings of the Hellenistic period, such as the life of Adam and Eve, which say that they did penance after committing their sin.
The book of wisdom belongs to that current of Jewish tradition without getting involved in the details of it. But it credits wisdom with the salvation of the first man who meant calls no less the father of the world. So in quote, I think that's really, really interesting. If you ever wondered, well, what happened Adam and Eve?
They committed the worst sin that any human being has ever created. I mean, you can think of a lot of atrocities, crimes that people commit, a horrible, horrible sin that people commit, but really Adam and Eve, they were the worst ones because they had every ability to know what to do, to do what was good, and then they failed to do that. So that's really interesting. They did repent and they were delivered, or he was delivered from his transgression.
I find that really interesting. Let me keep reading on here, verse two, excuse me, verse three, when an unrighteous man departed from her and his anger, he perished because in rage, he slew his brother. That would obviously be Cain. But you can see here, again, the word righteous versus unrighteous, those are the two teams that the author is painting for us and describing for us.
Verse four, when the earth was flooded because of him, wisdom again saved it, steering the righteous man by a paltry piece of wood, that of course is Noah. Note really quickly here. I'll come back to this in the next chapter two. When it talks about this paltry piece of wood, the theme of the flood and salvation through the flood is gonna be an important detail later on.
And that's gonna be an important typology as well in application of Jesus Christ. So just hold that in the back of your mind, chapter 10, verse one, when the righteous man rather wisdom steered the righteous man by a paltry piece of wood. So there's no one more example here, verse five, wisdom also in the nations and wicked agreement had been confounded, recognized the righteous man and preserved him, the blameless before God, kept him strong in the face of his compassion for his trial. Actually, I'm kind of blending two examples there.
So verse five was the nations had been confounded, that's battle, all right, and then Abraham is the one who wisdom kept strong in the face of his compassion for his trial, that's the story of Isaac binding of Isaac, then you're sacrifice of Isaac. So you get the idea of what chapter 10 is all about, listening to seven righteous figures with their opposing unrighteous figures. Now, I'm gonna skip down here to verse 10. So we talked about Adam briefly, which is kind of cool.
There's a couple more little details, fun things I wanna share with you, and especially in connection with the motif of the kingdom. Because remember how previously the voice of Solomon, not necessarily Solomon himself, but it could be, we won't know what to have him, but certainly the voice of Solomon is speaking to all the various rulers and monarchs saying, if you really wanna rule, if you really wanna reign forever, then you have to pursue wisdom, you have to be faithful to God. He gives himself as an example. He like every single human being was born as a baby, right?
Weak and vulnerable and crying and soiling himself and all the rest of it, right? He wanted wisdom, he prayed for wisdom, he was granted wisdom and that was what enabled him to rule so well. Okay, so in connection with that theme of the kingdom here, there's a couple of things. Let's get down to verse nine.
This is gonna be the story of Jacob, you'll recognize it here pretty quickly. Verse nine, wisdom rescued from troubles, those who served her. When a righteous man fled from his brother's wrath, she guided him on straight paths, and she showed him the kingdom and gave him knowledge of angels, she prospered him in his labors and increased the fruit of his toil. So, him fleeing from his brother, this is Jacob fleeing from Esau, and she, verse 11 talks about how his oppressors were coveted, she stood by him and made him rich, that's gonna be the story of Laban.
So very interesting references here, and again, it's the game, who done it, who is it name that person, we know this is Jacob versus his oppressors, first Esau, then Laban. But his little detail here is really interesting, when she guided him on straight paths, she showed him the kingdom of God and knowledge of angels. That refers to his famous dream, in the middle of the wilderness, on his way up to Laban, his uncles, estate, where he's looking for a job, and, you know, a wife, then he gets more than what he bargained for, I tell you what, well, he dreams that there is this ladder set up between heaven and earth, and the angels have got ascending and descending upon it. Then God speaks to him, it's gonna bless you, and your descendants, and the whole world, et cetera.
All right, well, this is what wisdom calls a glimpse into the kingdom of God. Jacob just didn't see some old construction ladder, this is gonna take a lot of time, you gotta go back to the Bible, starting on Genesis for more. He basically sees the opposing tower of battle. So there's the bad tower of battle, he sees the good version of it, he sees the kingdom of God, which is the true thing that unites heaven and earth.
The people that battle were very wicked, and they were opposed to God, and tried to force their way into the heavens without God, and God completely destroys their plans and scatters them. But he gives Jacob this glimpse of what wisdom calls the kingdom of God. Well, what is this kingdom of God ultimately? It's gonna be Jesus Christ himself.
At the end of the Gospel of John, chapter one, Jesus is speaking to Philip, and he says, truly, truly, say to you, you're gonna see heaven open in the angels, ascending and descending upon the Son of God, because Jesus is the fulfillment of that vision of Jacob there. And so I just think it's really cool here that wisdom gives us a little bit more theology, and says that ladder, it wasn't just again a little construction ladder where you climb up to paint your roof or whatever it is, or to hang your Christmas tree lights. It's actually glen to the whole kingdom, which Jesus applies to himself. I think that's pretty awesome there.
Okay, so one more quick point about Jacob is that it's talking about his persecutors. That is an interesting echo to chapter two. Remember we saw a couple lessons ago. In chapter two, the unrighteous will always persecute the righteous man.
And we saw a little more detail when we stated that passage that's ultimately applied to Jesus Christ. It's one of the greatest prophecies, excuse me, of the persecution, rejection of Jesus Christ. So that's really interesting how Jacob is a foreshadow of that. Same thing is true with Joseph, if we skip down to verse 14.
All right, let's go down to chapter 13. When a righteous man was sold, Joseph, sold by his brothers, wisdom did not desert him, but she delivered him from sin. She descended with him into the dungeon, and when he was in prison there, she did not leave him until she brought him to the scepter of a kingdom. So Joseph is another example used here of someone who is able to rule and have dominion over all nations, because that's exactly what Joseph had.
He had, he was second in command affair. He was the al-qaba'i in Hebrew, which means the prime minister, the grandpuba, the head honcho, and it was wisdom who gave him that kingdom there. That's just another example of what was said in previous chapters. If you, O monarch, O ruler, O judge, want to rule, follow my example, and here are some other examples as well, like Joseph, who was guided, protected, saved by wisdom, and given authority and rule and reign over everyone.
All right, so that's pretty awesome. And then finally here in verses 15 and following, it gets to Israel versus Egypt. And that's gonna be the focus of the rest of the book, of wisdom. The next chapter is 11 through 19, is gonna be a long discussion about Israel versus Egypt.
God's righteous people versus the unrighteous Egyptians there. Okay, so we're gonna have plenty of time to unpack that. But this is the essence of chapter 10. This is the segue, the flow from chapters one through nine.
Again, you got the two ways, righteousness versus unrighteousness. If you want to reign and rule, O rulers and monarchs, follow my example, follow these examples. And again, I would like to emphasize which I haven't seen commentaries do, that doesn't mean that they haven't, maybe I missed it, but there's very much a focus of covenant versus anti-covident. Blessings for obedience, curses for disobedience, and that's what these two teams of individuals and figures represent.
All right, sound good. So with that then let's go transition to chapter 11 through 19, where wisdom, salvation is going to be present now for the people of Israel, and then wisdom is going to punish the Egyptians, all in the context of the story of the Exodus. Now what's interesting about this, let me actually tee this up with a little quote from your Catholic commentary on sacred scripture. Highly recommend that book.
It's in your recommended reading by Dr. Mark Eastcheck. Let me just share this quote for you. So chapters 11 through 19 is well structured.
It's well ordered, and there is a rhyme and a reason. At first glance you may not have any idea what the author is rambling on and on about, but of course there's always a structure, right? That's one of my great things I love to share with students to look for the structure, and then the lessons are just gonna pop off the page much easier. So here's what Dr.
Eastcheck says in Catholic commentary on sacred scripture, in a series of seven antitheses, or they're called in Greek synchresies. A synchresis is just a comparison, right? And I have another footnote for you on that. But there's the seven antitheses.
The author will draw out the major lesson of the divine pedagogy. Pedagogy simply meaning God's teaching methodology. So the major lesson of God's teaching methodology, and this is worth repeating a couple of times, what is the major lesson in this section? That God uses the same means to punish the wicked and bless the righteous.
That's pretty mind-blowing, and that's gonna be the major theme in these chapters. God uses the same means to punish the wicked and bless the righteous. It takes a lot of thought, I encourage you, take this to your prayer chair, take it to your adoration chapel, or when you're pondering these things into the car, driving to work with Avroic. That's pretty, I'm gonna give you seven examples, as a matter of fact, the author of Wisdom Will, it's really, really interesting.
So you can use the same means to punish the wicked and bless the righteous. The quote goes on saying, he will compare the miraculous plagues that God sent against Egypt with the miraculous blessings he provided for the Israelites and the wilderness. Not every Israelite was a perfect saint, of course. Not every Egyptian was a wicked person, of course.
Rather, the author uses these two groups, Israelites and Egyptians as teaching examples, end quote. All right, so broadly speaking here, Israel is going to be depicted as God's righteous people, and Egypt is God's unrighteous people, really the enemies of God's people. Now, where many Israelites wicked, of course, just go back and read the books of Exodus and Numbers, and you'll see that's definitely the case. And even Israelites, many Israelites were pented, which is really important to point out, if you read carefully in the book of Exodus, when Israel left after the 10th plague of the Passover, you find that there's a mixed multitude of nations that left with Egypt, or student with left with Israel, those are converted Egyptians and presumably any other non-Israelite peoples, Gentiles.
So that's really interesting how you find some converted Egyptians in the story. But broadly speaking here, these are the two groups that we're gonna be focusing on. All right, so keep that in mind then. We're talking seven antithesis or contrast comparisons, Y7, it's exactly what I said before, in my personal opinion, this is covenant versus anti-covent.
This is blessings for obedience, or at least blessings for repentance and obedience to God's law, versus curses and punishments for disobedience or unrepentance to God's law. All right, so let's look at the first one. The first antithesis here is chapter 11, verse four and following. Let's read a little bit of this.
Hey, this is Doc Neck. Thank you so much for listening to this course sample. If you enjoyed it and want to listen to the entire lesson, please become a student over at scripture and tradition.com where you can listen to this entire course, but also all the other courses that we have available in the S&T audio library, where you can listen to them on demand, however, and whenever you want. So thank you so much, God bless you and keep setting your Bible.