I was appointed in ages past, at the very first, before the earth began.
Parallel translations
- WEB I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, before the earth existed.
- KJV I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.
- BSB From everlasting I was established, from the beginning, before the earth began.
- NKJV I have been established from everlasting, From the beginning, before there was ever an earth.
- NASB “From eternity I was established, From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth.
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
Wisdom was established from everlasting, before the earth existed. She belongs to the eternal foundations of God's purposes.
Overview
Wisdom's origin is placed in the remotest past, 'from everlasting,' underscoring her priority over the created order. This poetic personification highlights that God's wise design preceded and undergirds the world he made. Christians see this ultimately fulfilled in the eternal Word, through whom and for whom all things were made (Colossians 1:16-17).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- John 17:24Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory, which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.
- Gen 1:26God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
- Ps 2:6“Yet I have set my King on my holy hill of Zion.”
- Mic 5:2But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, being small among the clans of Judah, out of you one will come out to me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings out are from of old, from ancient times.
- John 17:5Now, Father, glorify me with your own self with the glory which I had with you before the world existed.
- 1 Jn 1:1–2That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we saw, and our hands touched, concerning the Word of life
- Eph 1:10–11to an administration of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, in him;
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 8:23 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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