Reading Proverbs – 24:3 The House that Wisdom Built

August 24th, 2009 by Steve

By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.– Prov 24:3-4

The idea of ‘building a house’ implies to us Westerners a literal building; but that is not the sense intended here – this is something more than bricks and mortar. In the first place, the word ‘house’ can refer to a home (of Mary & Martha, Luke 10:38); secondly it can be a family (Prov 14:1); it can also mean a dynasty (the house of Ahab, 2 Kings 8:27) or descendants (the house of David, Luke 2:4).

So there is an intimation of family welfare and growth in these verses; wisdom will enable the family to put down the roots needed to grow and flourish and endure through generations. In the house built through wisdom, there is safety:

“In righteousness you shall be established; you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near you.– Isa 54:14

Again, wisdom should be seen as walking hand-in-hand with righteous thinking, and elsewhere there are warnings about folly and greed regarding the building of one’s house:

“Woe betide you who seek unjust gain for your house, to build your nest on a height, to save yourself from the grasp of wicked men!– Hab 2:9

Not to mention the warning from Christ Himself:

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. … And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.”– Matt 7:24,26

God employed wisdom to build His universe, as was mentioned in an earlier post, and as Jeremiah also tells us:

It is He who made the earth by his power, who established the world by His wisdom, and by His understanding stretched out the heavens.– Jer 10:12

… and His house is not limited to Heaven, or to the universe as a whole, but includes His people specifically:

For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.– 1 Cor 3:9
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