“The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old.
This verse is strange enough that it's worth just sitting with the image before analyzing it: wisdom, personified, speaking in first person, claiming to have existed before creation itself — possessed at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Not a concept invented later to explain the world. Present at the very start of it.
What's the point of imagining wisdom this way, as something ancient and almost alive? Maybe it's to push back on the idea that wisdom is just accumulated life experience, something you get more of as you age and make mistakes. This passage suggests it's older and deeper than that — built into the structure of things before anything else existed to learn from.
If wisdom has always felt like something you're supposed to accumulate through trial and error, this verse offers a different picture: something you can seek out now, rather than something you can only earn later.
If wisdom has always felt like something only time and mistakes could give you, this ancient picture of it might be worth a second look.
A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.