The LORD founded the earth by wisdom and established the heavens by understanding.
Parallel translations
- WEB By wisdom Yahweh founded the earth. By understanding, he established the heavens.
- KJV The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.
- NKJV The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; By understanding He established the heavens;
- NASB The Lord founded the earth by wisdom, He established the heavens by understanding.
- NLT By wisdom the Lord founded the earth; by understanding he created the heavens.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The LORD founded the earth by wisdom and established the heavens by understanding. The same wisdom that ordered creation is the wisdom offered to us.
Overview
Here wisdom is shown to be no mere human prudence but the principle by which God himself created and ordered the cosmos. To pursue wisdom is to align with the very grain of reality. The New Testament reveals Christ as the one through whom all things were made (John 1:3; Col 1:16), the wisdom of God in person.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Ps 104:24How many are Your works, O LORD! In wisdom You have made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures.
- Jer 10:12The LORD made the earth by His power; He established the world by His wisdom and stretched out the heavens by His understanding.
- John 1:3Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.
- Jer 51:15The LORD made the earth by His power; He established the world by His wisdom and stretched out the heavens by His understanding.
- Ps 136:5By His insight He made the heavens. His loving devotion endures forever.
- Prov 8:27–29I was there when He established the heavens, when He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep,
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 3:19 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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