Proverbs 8:27 Commentary and Bible Study

‘When he prepared the heavens,’ that is the skies, the stars. When God prepared the heavens, I, wisdom, was involved at every stage. Think of the skill with which wisdom made choices about the size, the position, and movement of the earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars. Nothing was done at random; all was carefully thought out with a vast number of implications in mind. The stars were created ‘for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years’ (Genesis 1:14). God knows how far man’s investigation will go before Christ returns to wind up this present universe. He will not fully understand its mysteries, but wisdom does. ‘Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD’ (Jeremiah 31:37).‘When he set a compass’ – drew a circle, literally – ‘upon the face of the depth.’ The most probable solution to the mysterious words, is that it means, when he set the horizon around the scene, or put the earth in its sphere, as one old translator puts it, where it would have a fixed position and shape in its course and its movement. The idea is the certainty of these things. Consider the reliability of the stars, the fixed permanence from wherever you view it of the horizon. The mariner navigates by the stars and he can be certain of them, and that is the thought here – ‘When he prepared the heavens.’ Think also about the vastness of the skies with the greater and the lesser lights, as they are called, with the sun and the moon and the distant stars. Well, wisdom was there before all that was brought about. So we are taught about the extensiveness of truth. The wisdom of God is yet more sure, that is the implication, more certain. God has fixed certain things that do not change. And we know in the wisdom of God there are fixed principles. You can guide your life by this wisdom, and this wisdom alone. It reminds us of the skies, the vast skies. There is so much to learn in the word of God, wonderful things, and even things beyond our grasp. Distant, distant stars that nobody knows anything much about. They are there, and God set them there. And there are some things in the word of God we cannot fathom. Not because the word of God is insufficient, but because God is reminding us of our smallness, and that there are things that we will know in eternity one day. The wisdom of God is like the great skies.