Wisdom of Solomon 1–5: The Souls of the Righteous Are in the Hand of God": Two Ways of Reckoning with Death

Scripture: World English Bible · commentary free in this preview

The book opens by addressing the rulers of the earth, and its first claim is that God did not make death. Then it lets the ungodly speak: life is short and comes to nothing, so let us enjoy it, and let us crush the righteous man whose life reproaches ours. Against them the book sets its hope: the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God. The childless and the early dead are honored, and at the end the mockers see the righteous man in glory, and understand too late.

Love righteousness, all you who are judges of the earth.Think of the Lord with a good mind.Seek him in singleness of heart,because he is found by those who don’t put him to the test,and is manifested to those who trust him.for crooked thoughts separate from God.His Power convicts when it is tested,and exposes the foolish;because wisdom will not enter into a soul that devises evil,nor dwell in a body that is enslaved by sin.For a holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit,and will depart from thoughts that are without understanding,and will be ashamed when unrighteousness has come in.

For wisdom is a spirit who loves man,and she will not hold a blasphemer guiltless for his lips,because God is witness of his inmost self,and is a true overseer of his heart,and a hearer of his tongue.Because the spirit of the Lord has filled the world,and that which holds all things together knows what is said.Therefore no one who utters unrighteous things will be unseen;neither will Justice, when it convicts, pass him by.For in his counsels the ungodly will be searched out,and the sound of his words will come to the Lord to bring his lawless deeds to conviction;because a jealous ear listens to all things,and the noise of murmurings is not hidden.Beware then of unprofitable murmuring,and keep your tongue from slander;because no secret utterance will go on its way void,and a lying mouth destroys a soul.Don’t court death in the error of your life.Don’t draw destruction upon yourselves by the works of your hands;because God didn’t make death,neither does he delight when the living perish.For he created all things that they might have being.The generative powers of the world are wholesome,and there is no poison of destruction in them,nor has Hades royal dominion upon earth;for righteousness is immortal,but ungodly men by their hands and their words summon death;deeming him a friend they pined away.They made a covenant with him,because they are worthy to belong with him.

For they said within themselves, with unsound reasoning,“Our life is short and sorrowful.There is no healing when a man comes to his end,and no one was ever known who was released from Hades.Because we were born by mere chance,and hereafter we will be as though we had never been,because the breath in our nostrils is smoke,and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our heart,which being extinguished, the body will be turned into ashes,and the spirit will be dispersed as thin air.Our name will be forgotten in time.No one will remember our works.Our life will pass away as the traces of a cloud,and will be scattered as is a mist,when it is chased by the rays of the sun,and overcome by its heat.For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow,and our end doesn’t retreat,because it is securely sealed, and no one turns it back.

“Come therefore and let’s enjoy the good things that exist.Let’s use the creation earnestly as in our youth.Let’s fill ourselves with costly wine and perfumes,and let no spring flower pass us by.Let’s crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither.Let none of us go without his share in our proud revelry.Let’s leave tokens of mirth everywhere,because this is our portion, and this is our lot.Let’s oppress the righteous poor.Let’s not spare the widow,nor regard the gray hair of the old man.But let our strength be a law of righteousness;for that which is weak is proven useless.But let’s lie in wait for the righteous man,because he annoys us,is contrary to our works,reproaches us with sins against the law,and charges us with sins against our training.He professes to have knowledge of God,and calls himself a child of the Lord.He became to us a reproof of our thoughts.He is grievous to us even to look at,because his life is unlike other men’s,and his paths are strange.We were regarded by him as something worthless,and he abstains from our ways as from uncleanness.He calls the latter end of the righteous happy.He boasts that God is his father.Let’s see if his words are true.Let’s test what will happen at the end of his life.For if the righteous man is God’s son, he will uphold him,and he will deliver him out of the hand of his adversaries.Let’s test him with insult and torture,that we may find out how gentle he is,and test his patience.Let’s condemn him to a shameful death,for he will be protected, according to his words.”

Thus they reasoned, and they were led astray;for their wickedness blinded them,and they didn’t know the mysteries of God,neither did they hope for wages of holiness,nor did they discern that there is a prize for blameless souls.Because God created man for incorruption,and made him an image of his own everlastingness;but death entered into the world by the envy of the devil,and those who belong to him experience it.But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,and no torment will touch them.In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died.Their departure was considered a disaster,and their travel away from us ruin,but they are in peace.For even if in the sight of men they are punished,their hope is full of immortality.Having borne a little chastening, they will receive great good;because God tested them, and found them worthy of himself.He tested them like gold in the furnace,and he accepted them as a whole burnt offering.In the time of their visitation they will shine.They will run back and forth like sparks among stubble.They will judge nations and have dominion over peoples.The Lord will reign over them forever.Those who trust him will understand truth.The faithful will live with him in love,because grace and mercy are with his chosen ones.

But the ungodly will be punished even as their reasoning deserves,those who neglected righteousness and revolted from the Lord;for he who despises wisdom and discipline is miserable.Their hope is void and their toils unprofitable.Their works are useless.Their wives are foolish and their children are wicked.Their descendants are cursed.For the barren woman who is undefiled is happy,she who has not conceived in transgression.She will have fruit when God examines souls.So is the eunuch which has done no lawless deed with his hands,nor imagined wicked things against the Lord;for a precious gift will be given to him for his faithfulness,and a delightful inheritance in the Lord’s sanctuary.For good labors have fruit of great renown.The root of understanding can’t fail.But children of adulterers will not come to maturity.The seed of an unlawful union will vanish away.For if they live long, they will not be esteemed,and in the end, their old age will be without honor.If they die young, they will have no hope,nor consolation in the day of judgment.For the end of an unrighteous generation is always grievous.It is better to be childless with virtue,for immortality is in the memory of virtue,because it is recognized both before God and before men.When it is present, people imitate it.They long after it when it has departed.Throughout all time it marches, crowned in triumph,victorious in the competition for the prizes that are undefiled.But the multiplying brood of the ungodly will be of no profit,and their illegitimate offshoots won’t take deep root,nor will they establish a sure hold.For even if they grow branches and flourish for a season,standing unsure, they will be shaken by the wind.They will be uprooted by the violence of winds.Their branches will be broken off before they come to maturity.Their fruit will be useless,never ripe to eat, and fit for nothing.For unlawfully conceived children are witnesses of wickednessagainst parents when they are investigated.

But a righteous man, even if he dies before his time, will be at rest.For honorable old age is not that which stands in length of time,nor is its measure given by number of years,but understanding is gray hair to men,and an unspotted life is ripe old age.

Being found well-pleasing to God, someone was loved.While living among sinners he was transported.He was caught away, lest evil should change his understanding,or guile deceive his soul.For the fascination of wickedness obscures the things which are good,and the whirl of desire perverts an innocent mind.Being made perfect quickly,he filled a long time;for his soul was pleasing to the Lord.Therefore he hurried out of the midst of wickedness.But the peoples saw and didn’t understand,not considering this, that grace and mercy are with his chosen,and that he visits his holy ones;but a righteous man who is dead will condemn the ungodly who are living,and youth who is quickly perfected will condemn the many years of an unrighteous man’s old age.For the ungodly will see a wise man’s end,and won’t understand what the Lord planned for him,and why he safely kept him.They will see, and they will despise;but the Lord will laugh them to scorn.After this, they will become a dishonored carcassand a reproach among the dead forever;because he will dash them speechless to the ground,and will shake them from the foundations.They will lie utterly waste.They will be in anguishand their memory will perish.

They will come with coward fear when their sins are counted.Their lawless deeds will convict them to their face.Then the righteous man will stand in great boldnessbefore the face of those who afflicted him,and those who make his labors of no account.When they see him, they will be troubled with terrible fear,and will be amazed at the marvel of salvation.They will speak among themselves repenting,and for distress of spirit they will groan,“This was he whom we used to hold in derision,as a parable of reproach.We fools considered his life madness,and his end without honor.How was he counted among sons of God?How is his lot among saints?Truly we went astray from the way of truth.The light of righteousness didn’t shine for us.The sun didn’t rise for us.We took our fill of the paths of lawlessness and destruction.We traveled through trackless deserts,but we didn’t know the Lord’s way.What did our arrogance profit us?What good have riches and boasting brought us?

Those things all passed away as a shadow,like a rumor that runs by,like a ship passing through the billowy water,which, when it has gone by, there is no trace to be found,no pathway of its keel in the waves.Or it is like when a bird flies through the air,no evidence of its passage is found,but the light wind, lashed with the stroke of its pinions,and torn apart with the violent rush of the moving wings, is passed through.Afterwards no sign of its coming remains.Or it is like when an arrow is shot at a mark,the air it divided closes up again immediately,so that men don’t know where it passed through.So we also, as soon as we were born, ceased to be;and we had no sign of virtue to show,but we were utterly consumed in our wickedness.”Because the hope of the ungodly man is like chaff carried by the wind,and as foam vanishing before a tempest;and is scattered like smoke by the wind,and passes by as the remembrance of a guest who stays just a day.

But the righteous live forever.Their reward is in the Lord,and the care for them with the Most High.Therefore they will receive the crown of royal dignityand the diadem of beauty from the Lord’s hand,because he will cover them with his right hand,and he will shield them with his arm.He will take his zeal as complete armor,and will make the whole creation his weapons to punish his enemies:He will put on righteousness as a breastplate,and will wear impartial judgment as a helmet.He will take holiness as an invincible shield.He will sharpen stern wrath for a sword.The universe will go with him to fight against his frenzied foes.Shafts of lightning will fly with true aim.They will leap to the mark from the clouds, as from a well-drawn bow.Hailstones full of wrath will be hurled as from a catapult.The water of the sea will be angered against them.Rivers will sternly overwhelm them.A mighty wind will encounter them.It will winnow them away like a tempest.So lawlessness will make all the land desolate.Their evil-doing will overturn the thrones of princes.

The Meaning

Love righteousness, all you who are judges of the earth.

The book begins by addressing the powerful. It is spoken to rulers and judges, as Psalm 2 was, and it will come back to them in chapter 6, and its first instruction is moral before it is intellectual: love justice, think of God with a good mind, seek him in singleness of heart. Wisdom, it says, will not enter into a soul that devises evil. The book's whole argument is in that sentence. Wisdom is not cleverness; it is a kind of goodness, and it cannot live where cruelty does.

Because God didn't make death, neither does he delight when the living perish. For he created all things that they might have being.

Then the book says something no one in the Hebrew Bible says in so many words. God did not make death. He made things that they might have being, and the generative powers of the world are wholesome; death is not part of the design. It is an intruder, invited in, as the chapter puts it with a chilling image, by people who made a covenant with him because they had decided he was their friend.

"Because we were born by mere chance, and hereafter we will be as though we had never been."

And then the book does the generous thing that the best arguments do. It lets the other side speak, at length, in its own words. The ungodly are not monsters. They are people who have looked honestly at death and drawn a conclusion. Life is short; no one comes back; we came from nothing and go to nothing; our name will be forgotten in time. Some of this is very close to Ecclesiastes — "the dead know nothing... the memory of them is forgotten" — and many readers have thought the author was answering people who read Qoheleth as a license.

What makes the speech so powerful is where it goes. It begins, reasonably enough, with pleasure: let's enjoy the good things that exist... let's crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither. Within a few lines it has arrived somewhere else entirely: let's oppress the righteous poor. Let's not spare the widow... But let our strength be a law of righteousness; for that which is weak is proven useless. The author has watched the slide happen. If there is no God and nothing lasts, the only law left is strength, and the weak are in the way.

"He boasts that God is his father. Let's see if his words are true."

And the strong cannot bear the one person who lives otherwise. The righteous man annoys us; his life is a reproach; he calls himself a child of the Lord. So they decide to test his claim: For if the righteous man is God's son, he will uphold him... Let's condemn him to a shameful death. No Christian can read this without hearing the crowd at the cross: "He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now if he wants him. For he said, 'I am the Son of God.'" The author was not predicting Jesus; he was describing what happens to the righteous in every age when the powerful decide that nothing is sacred. That is why the gospels could find Jesus in it.

Because God created man for incorruption, and made him an image of his own everlastingness; but death entered into the world by the envy of the devil.

This is probably the earliest writing in scripture where the serpent of Genesis is named as the devil, and where death's entry into the world is given a cause beyond the human. Paul will tell it differently: "sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin." The two accounts are not in contradiction; they are two ways of saying that death was not God's intention.

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will touch them.

Then the sentence for which the book is best known, and which is read at funerals in churches that have never heard of the book. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died... but they are in peace. The righteous who were tested and killed were tested like gold in the furnace, and their hope is full of immortality.

The same chapter turns to two kinds of people the ancient world counted as cursed: the woman who had no children, and the eunuch. For the barren woman who is undefiled is happy, and the eunuch who has done no wrong will receive a delightful inheritance in the Lord's sanctuary. Isaiah had promised the eunuchs "a name better than that of sons and daughters." In a culture that measured blessing in children, the book says that a life is not measured that way. And in chapter 4 it says the same of those who die young: honorable old age is not that which stands in length of time, but an unspotted life is ripe old age. Of the one taken early: Being made perfect quickly, he filled a long time. I do not know a gentler sentence in the Bible for parents who have buried a child.

"This was he whom we used to hold in derision, as a parable of reproach."

The section ends in a courtroom at the end of time. The ungodly see the righteous man standing in glory, and the people who mocked him speak again, and this time they repent, too late. Their lives, they say, passed like a ship through water, a bird through air, an arrow through its target: no evidence of its passage is found. Their reasoning in chapter 2 has come true for them. It was only their own lives that left no trace.

On the hard places. Two. The first is the book's language about the children of adulterers: they will not come to maturity, their illegitimate offshoots won't take deep root. That is a curse on children for their parents' acts, and the scriptures themselves refuse it, in Ezekiel: "A son will not bear the iniquity of his father." The rule of love says it more simply. There is no such thing as an illegitimate child before God, and no reading of this book should be allowed to suggest that there is.

The second is the hope itself. The book speaks of immortal souls, in language much closer to Greek philosophy than to the Hebrew Bible, and later it will say that a corruptible body weighs down the soul. The Christian hope is not quite that. It is the resurrection of the body, the whole person raised, not a soul escaping a body. The two hopes have often been blurred together, and it is worth keeping them distinct. But they agree on the thing that matters on the day of a funeral: the dead are not lost. They are in the hand of God.