19 By wisdom Yahweh founded the earth. By understanding, he established the heavens.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Hereto Wisdom has been thought of in relation to men. Now the question comes, What is she in relation to God? and the answer is, that the creative act implies a Divine Wisdom, through which the Divine will acts. This thought, developed in Prov. 8, is the first link in the chain which connects this "Wisdom" with the Divine Word, the Logos of John's Gospel. Compare Psalm 33:6; John 1:3. The words of the writer of the Proverbs take their place among the proofs of the dogmatic statements of the Nicene Creed.
The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth - Here wisdom is taken in its proper acceptation, for that infinite knowledge and skill which God has manifested in the creation and composition of the earth, and in the structure and economy of the heavens. He has established the order as well as the essence of all things; so that though they vary in their positions, etc., yet they never change either their places, or their properties. Composition and analysis are not essential changes; the original particles, their forms and properties, remain the same.
The LORD by wisdom hath (k) founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.
(k) By this he shows that this wisdom of which he speaks is everlasting, because it was before all creatures and that all things even the whole world were made by it.
The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth,.... He has created all things, and made the world by his Son, the Wisdom of God, Ephesians 3:9, Hebrews 1:2; not using him as an instrument; but, he being an efficient cause with him, to him, as to the first cause, the creation of all things is ascribed, John 1:1; and particularly the laying the foundation of the earth, Hebrews 1:10; and though this is true of the divine perfection of wisdom, Jeremiah 10:12; yet from the context it appears best to understand it of the essential Wisdom of God, Christ Jesus; the Jerusalem Targum of Genesis 1:1; is, "by wisdom God created", &c. and this serves greatly to set forth the dignity and excellency of Wisdom, or Christ, and so the happiness of that man that finds him; with this the account of him is closed and crowned;
by understanding hath he established the heavens: or prepared, adorned, and beautified them, by placing the luminaries in them, and directing their station, motion, and influence; the making of the heavens, with all the host of them, is ascribed to the essential Word or Wisdom of God, Psalm 33:6.
The place of wisdom in the economy of creation and providence commends it to men, who, in proportion to their finite powers, may possess this invaluable attribute, and are thus encouraged by the divine example of its use to seek its possession.
This place of a mediatrix - the speaker here now continues - she had from the beginning. God's world-creating work was mediated by her:
19 Jahve hath by wisdom founded the earth,
Established the heavens by understanding.
20 By His knowledge the water-floods broke forth,
And the sky dropped down dew.
That wisdom is meant by which God planned the world-idea, and now also wrought it out; the wisdom in which God conceived the world ere it was framed, and by which also He gave external realization to His thoughts; the wisdom which is indeed an attribute of God and a characteristic of His actions, since she is a property of His nature, and His nature attests itself in her, but not less, as appears, not from this group of tetrastichs, but from all that has hitherto been said, and form the personal testimony, Proverbs 8:22., of which it is the praeludium, she goes forth as a divine power to which God has given to have life in herself. Considered apart from the connection of these discourses, this group of verses, as little as Jeremiah 10:2; Psalm 104:24, determines regarding the attributive interpretation; the Jerusalem Targum, I, when it translates, Genesis 1:1, בראשׁית by בּחוּכמא (בּחוּכמתא), combines Proverbs 8:22 with such passages as this before us. יסד (here with the tone thrown back) properly signifies, like the Arab. wasad, to lay fast, to found, for one gives to a fact the firm basis of its existence. The parallel Pil. of כּוּן (Arab. kân, cogn. כהן, see on Isaiah, p. 691) signifies to set up, to restore; here equivalent to, to give existence.
Wisdom - Either by Christ, or by that Divine perfection of wisdom, which is the fountain of wisdom in man.
*More commentary available at chapter level.