Proverbs 4:7 · Symbol · Wisdom
The Words Chokmah and Sophia
The Bible's words for wisdom reach from the tailors of the tabernacle to Paul's praise of the depth of God's riches.
The King James Version renders chokmah as skilful as well as wisdom, wisely and wit.
Wisdom is supreme; so acquire wisdom. And whatever you may acquire, gain understanding.
- The word
- חׇכְמָה (chokmah), H2451
- First appears
- Exodus 28:3 “You are to instruct all the skilled craftsmen,…”
Summary
Chokmah, the Hebrew noun for wisdom, names skill of hand, a ruler's insight and a godly life. The Hebrew words for prudence, 'ormah and 'arum, can mean sound judgment or cunning, and three words for understanding stand beside them. In the Greek New Testament sophia is the broad word for wisdom, of God or of the world, and phronimos names the good sense Jesus praised.
- The Berean text renders chokmah as skill where God fills Bezalel for his craft.
- Proverbs holds more verses with chokmah than any other book of the Hebrew Bible.
- The Aramaic chapters of Daniel and Ezra use their own form of chokmah, which the tagging counts apart.
- Sophia stands most often in 1 Corinthians, and phronimos most often in Matthew.
Chokmah, Skill and the Godly Life
Exodus 28:3 and Exodus 31:3 use the noun for the makers of the priest's garments and of the tabernacle.
Chokmah is the Old Testament's chief Hebrew noun for wisdom, and sophia is the New Testament's chief Greek one. Wisdom is one of the values Scripture asks of every believer, and these words, with the words for prudence and understanding beside them, carry it through both Testaments.
The question this study answers is what the words meant to the writers who used them and how far that meaning reaches. It gives the senses, the verses where each word stands, a count of their uses and the cautions a careful reader keeps.
You are to instruct all the skilled craftsmen, whom I have filled with a spirit of wisdom, to make garments for Aaron’s consecration, so that he may serve Me as priest.This is the first use of chokmah in the order of the canon, and it names the gift of the men who made Aaron's garments.
And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability, and knowledge in all kinds of craftsmanship,The tagged Hebrew sets chokmah, tevunah and da'at in one phrase for the gift of a single craftsman.
Bezalel's gift of skill for the tabernacle has its own study.
Proverbs ties the noun to yir'ah, the fear of the LORD, which is called the beginning of chokmah (Proverbs 9:10).
The Words and Their Uses
Fifteen Hebrew and Greek words carry wisdom, prudence and understanding through the canon.
The verb bin and the noun chokmah are the commonest of the Hebrew words, and sophia is the commonest of the Greek.
| Word | Sense in Strong's dictionary | Uses | Books with the most verses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hebrew words for wisdom | |||
| chokmah, חׇכְמָה, H2451, noun | wisdom (in a good sense) | 153 | Proverbs 41, Ecclesiastes 25, Job 18; 14 books in all |
| chokmah, חׇכְמָה, H2452, Aramaic noun | wisdom | 8 | Daniel 6, Ezra 1 |
| chakam, חָכָם, H2450, adjective | wise, (i.e. intelligent, skilful or artful) | 138 | Proverbs 47, Ecclesiastes 20, Jeremiah 11; 18 books in all |
| chakam, חָכַם, H2449, verb | to be wise (in mind, word or act) | 27 | Proverbs 12, Psalms 4, Ecclesiastes 4; 8 books in all |
| Hebrew words for prudence | |||
| 'ormah, עׇרְמָה, H6195, noun | trickery; or (in a good sense) discretion | 5 | Proverbs 3, Exodus 1, Joshua 1 |
| 'arum, עָרוּם, H6175, adjective | cunning (usually in a bad sense) | 11 | Proverbs 8, Job 2, Genesis 1 |
| sakal, שָׂכַל, H7919, verb | to be (causatively, make or act) circumspect and hence, intelligent | 62 | Proverbs 13, Psalms 11, Daniel 9; 16 books in all |
| sekel, שֶׂכֶל, H7922, noun | intelligence; by implication, success | 16 | Proverbs 6, 1 Chronicles 2, 2 Chronicles 2; 9 books in all |
| Hebrew words for understanding | |||
| bin, בִּין, H995, verb | to separate mentally (or distinguish), i.e.(generally) understand | 170 | Proverbs 30, Psalms 26, Job 23; 18 books in all |
| binah, בִּינָה, H998, noun | understanding | 38 | Proverbs 14, Job 9, Isaiah 5; 8 books in all |
| tevunah, תָּבוּן, H8394, noun | intelligence; by implication, an argument | 42 | Proverbs 19, Job 4, Psalms 4; 11 books in all |
| Greek words | |||
| sophia, σοφία, G4678, noun | wisdom (higher or lower, worldly or spiritual) | 51 | 1 Corinthians 15, Luke 6, Colossians 6; 12 books in all |
| sophos, σοφός, G4680, adjective | wise (in a most general application) | 19 | 1 Corinthians 10, Romans 3, Matthew 2; 6 books in all |
| phronimos, φρόνιμος, G5429, adjective | thoughtful, i.e. sagacious or discreet | 14 | Matthew 7, Luke 2, Romans 2; 5 books in all |
| phronesis, φρόνησις, G5428, noun | mental action or activity, i.e. intellectual or moral insight | 2 | Luke 1, Ephesians 1 |
'ormah, עׇרְמָה, H6195, noun, 'arum, עָרוּם, H6175, adjective, sakal, שָׂכַל, H7919, verb, sekel, שֶׂכֶל, H7922, noun, Hebrew words for understanding, bin, בִּין, H995, verb, binah, בִּינָה, H998, noun, tevunah, תָּבוּן, H8394, noun and 5 more
Chokmah in Daniel and Ezra
Daniel's prayer and the Persian king's letter to Ezra use the noun.
The king's letter in Ezra 7 charges him to appoint judges “according to the wisdom of your God which you possess” (Ezra 7:25).
He changes the times and seasons; He removes kings and establishes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.Daniel's prayer names God as the giver of wisdom to the wise, and the tagged text has the Aramaic noun with the wise men who receive it.
When the king's dream was shown to him, Daniel gave the wisdom back to its giver. He prayed, “To You, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, because You have given me wisdom and power” (Daniel 2:23).
Prudence, a Word That Cuts Both Ways
'Ormah and 'arum name the sound judgment of Proverbs and the cunning of a schemer and of the serpent.
The tagged text glosses 'ormah “with cunning” where a man plots to kill his neighbour (Exodus 21:14), and where the Gibeonites “acted deceptively” with worn-out sacks and old wineskins (Joshua 9:4).
To impart prudence to the simple and knowledge and discretion to the young,Proverbs names prudence among the first gifts the book offers to the simple and the young.
I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion.Wisdom speaks in the first person, and the tagged Hebrew sets chokmah, 'ormah and da'at in one line.
The adjective 'arum first describes the serpent, who “was more crafty than any beast of the field” (Genesis 3:1). Eight of its uses stand in Proverbs, where it is the prudent man's word.
The prudent see danger and take cover, but the simple keep going and suffer the consequences.Proverbs gives the prudent man's skill as seeing danger before it arrives, where the tagged text glosses 'arum as a sensible person.
Albert Barnes, in his Notes on Proverbs 8:12, called this prudence “in itself neutral, but capable of being turned to good as well as evil”.
Bin, Binah and Tevunah
Bin, binah and tevunah stand beside chokmah in Proverbs, Job and the Psalms.
The LORD founded the earth by wisdom and established the heavens by understanding.The verse sets chokmah and tevunah in parallel as the two means by which the LORD made the earth and the heavens.
And He said to man, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.’”The tagged Hebrew has chokmah for the fear of the Lord and binah for turning from evil, so the two words name one life.
Knowledge, da'at in Hebrew and gnosis in Greek, often stands in the same verses as these words, and its relation to wisdom has its own study.
Sophia, Sophos and Phronimos
Paul's letters and the Gospels set sophos and phronimos beside the noun sophia.
Paul uses sophia for the wisdom of the world and for the wisdom of God in the opening chapters of 1 Corinthians. The adjective sophos stands most often in the same letter, where Paul asks where the wise man of this age has gone (1 Corinthians 1:20).
Paul names Christ “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24), and how that title bears on Proverbs 8 and its verb qanah has its own study.
Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.Jesus' word for the wise builder is phronimos, the man whose good sense shows in what he does.
Behold, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves; therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.The same adjective is rendered shrewd here, and Jesus sets it beside innocence so that it cannot turn to cunning.
Matthew 25 uses phronimos for the wise virgins who “took oil in flasks along with their lamps” (Matthew 25:4).
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in your knowledge of Him.The verse joins sophia to revelation and to the knowledge of God Himself.
Cautions in Reading the Words
Three cautions keep a word study from reading more into a word than its sentence holds.
A word's sense is set by the sentence it stands in. The serpent's 'arum does not make every prudent man of Proverbs a serpent.
The counts are those of the STEP Bible tagging, and a printed concordance on another text may differ by a few.
Adam Clarke's note on Exodus 31:3 traces the English word wisdom to its Saxon roots, and it tells the reader nothing about the Hebrew chokmah.
A Voice on the Spirit of Wisdom
Tertullian's Against Marcion draws on Ephesians 1:17.
died 220 · Tertullian
Paul's spirit of wisdom is read as one of the seven gifts of the Spirit in Isaiah 11:2.
“From Him also is besought ‘the spirit of wisdom,’ at whose disposal is enumerated that sevenfold distribution of the spirit of grace by Isaiah.”
Tertullian · Against Marcion Book V · on Ephesians 1:17Patristic
The Depth of God's Wisdom
Paul closes his chapters on Israel's place in God's plan with praise of the wisdom behind it.
Across both Testaments the words for wisdom name a gift that begins with God.
O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and untraceable His ways!Paul sets sophia and gnosis side by side to praise a God whose ways no one can trace.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible TBESH and TBESG glosses (Tyndale House, Cambridge, CC BY 4.0), with the Strong's definitions (1890) the rows carry.
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament, the tagged texts (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- James Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, with its dictionaries of the Hebrew and Greek words of the original (1890)
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832 to 1869), on Proverbs 8:12.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, on Exodus 31:3.
- Tertullian, Against Marcion, book 5, on Ephesians 1:17 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, volume 3)
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