Wisdom 7 · Hebrews 1 · Featured Study · A Labeled Study Resource Beside Scripture
Wisdom, the Radiance
Before the New Testament said its highest things about Jesus of Nazareth, Jewish writers had spent two centuries saying their highest things about Wisdom— God’s own wisdom, spoken of almost as a person: the breath of His power, the flowing of His glory, the radiance of everlasting light, the unspotted mirror, the image of His goodness. Then the letter to the Hebrews opened with a sentence that reached straight into that vocabulary — down to a Greek word so rare it occurs exactly twicein the entire Greek Bible — and said it all of a Person with a name, a cross, and a throne. This page is the story of one word, and of the moment personification met Person.
One Word, Used Twice
apaugasma: the whole Greek Bible's rarest bridge
“For she is the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty… For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness.”Wisdom 7:25–26 (KJV Apocrypha: study resource) — said of Wisdom, personified
“who being the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;”Hebrews 1:3 (ASV) — said of the Son
“who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;”Colossians 1:15 (ASV) — said of the Son
The King James renders it “brightness”; the American Standard, “effulgence”; the Greek is απαύγασμα — an off-flash, light streaming from light. In the entire Greek Bible it appears exactly twice: Wisdom 7:26, of Wisdom; Hebrews 1:3, of the Son (Attridge, Hebrews, Hermeneia, on 1:3). The author of Hebrews did not reach for a common word and coincide. He reached for the rarest, highest term Hellenistic Judaism had coined for what streams eternally from God — and fastened it to Jesus.
The word door
ἀπαύγασμαapaugasmaan off-flash; effulgence, radiance streaming from a source of lightSun and sunlight: distinct, yet one thing; the light exactly expresses the source, and there was never a moment the sun existed without its shining. The fathers loved the figure for exactly that reason — it says eternally begotten without a syllable of philosophy.
- 2×in the whole Greek Bible
- 1×of Wisdom (Wis 7:26)
- 1×of the Son (Heb 1:3)
When the Figure Found a Face
what the New Testament did with Israel's Wisdom language: said carefully
Israel’s own Scriptures began it: Wisdom crying in the streets, Wisdom beside God at creation “as a master workman” (Prov 8:30). The Alexandrian book carried the figure as far as figure can go — breath of His power, mirror of His working, image of His goodness. Then the apostles wrote about Jesus, and the old vocabulary converged on Him from every side: the effulgence of His glory (Heb 1:3); “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15); the Word who “was in the beginning with God,” through whom all things were made (John 1:1–3).
Two honest cautions guard the claim. The New Testament writers never nameWisdom of Solomon as a source; the case is verbal and cumulative, strongest exactly where this page began, in one unmistakable word. And the traffic runs one direction only: Wisdom’s language does not make the book Scripture — it shows that when God spoke His final word in a Son, He spoke into a vocabulary His people had been given ears to hear. The figure was the schoolmaster; the Son is the substance. Paul says it in five words the old book would have trembled at: Christ “the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24).
Christ Our Wisdom, the full study →The Voices on This Text
with the work named
The Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia; Fortress Press, 1989)
The standard critical commentary on Hebrews, the source for this page's central datum: apaugasma occurs only at Wisdom 7:26 and Hebrews 1:3 in the whole Greek Bible, and Hebrews' opening draws deliberately on Wisdom-language to describe the Son.
Prologue to the Books of Solomon (c. AD 393)
Public domain, verified text: read Wisdom “for the edification of the people, not to give authority to doctrines of the Church.” The page's posture exactly, the doctrine here stands on Hebrews and Colossians, with Wisdom as background.
The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. I (Oxford, 1913)
The standard critical edition, its Wisdom introduction traces the book's Alexandrian setting and the Greek philosophical vocabulary its Wisdom-portrait is built from.
Marcus Brown's own commentary leads above all; within a tier, all voices are equal.
Read the Great Books
the works this study is built on
Wisdom of Solomon 6–9
c. 1st century BC, Alexandria, a labeled study resource, not canon
The whole discourse on Wisdom, the king’s search, the portrait, the prayer, in MannaFest’s own reader.
READ IT →Hebrews 1, God hath spoken in a Son
Scripture, read it in MannaFest’s own reader
The chapter that took the old vocabulary and crowned it, the effulgence, the image, the throne.
READ IT →The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. I
R. H. Charles, ed. · 1913
The standard critical edition, Wisdom with introduction and per-chapter notes, including its Greek philosophical background.
READ IT FREE →