Wisdom of Solomon 5 · The Lantern

Then shall the righteous man stand in great boldness before the face of such as have afflicted him, and made no account of his labors.

When they see it, they shall be troubled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at the strangeness of his salvation, so far beyond all that they looked for.

And they repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit shall say within themselves, This was he, whom we had sometimes in derision, and a proverb of reproach:

We fools accounted his life madness, and his end to be without honor:

First, the punishments and the torments of sinners are decreed. The righteous will see their fate and understand the difference between a good and a bad life and from how many evils they have escaped by living well.

This is the unexpected salvation: they considered the life of the righteous madness, and though insane, they believed themselves to be sane and did not expect the retribution of divine justice. They therefore neglected to correct their lives.

(Verse 4). We fools etc, living in the manner of foolish children: fools, I say, because we did not perceive things as they were: Ecclesiasticus 16: "In all these things the heart is foolish"; 1 Corinthians 14: "Do not be children in understanding." Their life, that is, their manner of life, which was in poverty, labor, lowliness, fasting, etc.: we esteemed madness.

How is he numbered among the children of God, and his lot is among the saints!

The unhoped-for salvation, that is, not hoped for by the wicked, will surely be given to the righteous, not to the wicked.

"What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is Spirit." The nature of the Spirit is invisible, that of the flesh, visible. Thus generation according to the flesh occurs visibly, with visible growth—one born of the flesh grows with the passage of time. Generation according to the Spirit, by contrast, takes place completely invisibly.

(Verse 5). How then are they numbered among the children of God? Through grace: Romans 8: "You have not received again the spirit of bondage in fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption of children," etc.; likewise John 1: "He gave them power to become children of God," etc.

Therefore have we erred from the way of truth, and the light of righteousness has not shone to us, and the sun of righteousness rose not upon us.

One must not believe that we owe religious cult to the heavenly lights or must worship them because they are sometimes used as images to refer to the saints. We will now explain this in the name of Christ, showing how illogical it would be to want to worship the sun or the moon or the stars or the sky, because an image has been derived from them to indicate the saints.

Readers must exercise great discernment, so that when any single word is used in sacred Scripture, it is not believed to always signify one and the same thing—just as sometimes "sun" is taken in a good sense, and sometimes in a bad sense. For by the name of sun, sometimes our Redeemer Himself is signified, and sometimes persecution.

The impious say: "Therefore we have erred from the way of truth and justice: the light has not shone upon us, and the sun of intelligence has not risen upon us." This is the sun that illumines all: from which some go astray. Insofar as God is the reason of understanding, he enters the soul as the sun of intelligence.

We wearied ourselves in the way of wickedness and destruction: yes, we have gone through deserts, where there lay no way: but as for the way of the Lord, we have not known it.

Then the pain of punishment will come without the fruit of repentance, regret will be fruitless and prayer useless. Too late will those who did not want to believe in eternal life believe in eternal punishment.

The philosophers were left on the path of evil and destruction, because by reasoning they wished to elevate the machinery of the world to divine honor, and chose rather to serve the creature than the Creator: in their very inquiry they failed, and found not salvation but destruction.

We are wearied etc. Here he touches upon the confession of the error of the impious concerning their own life: and first they confess the toilsomeness of their own life; second, the blindness: But the way of the Lord; third, the uselessness: What has profited us etc.; fourth, the instability: They have passed away. (Verse 7).

What has pride profited us? or what good has riches with our vaunting brought us?

They placed their hope in corruptible things, and therefore their hope will become vain, whereas our hope will then become reality. So that God's promise to us would remain whole, fixed and certain, let us say with hearts full of faith, "Do not destroy in the end." Do not fear, therefore, that some power might ruin the promises of God.

Through the five types of likenesses, which, by presenting, he laments that the fruitless repentance of the wicked causes their efforts to flow away, the fleeting nature of life and the deficiency of earthly things are shown to us.

(Verse 8). What has pride profited us, namely in the excellence of honors, as if to say: nothing; indeed rather it has harmed us, because it is said in the Psalm: "He will repay abundantly those who act with pride"; Proverbs 16: "Pride precedes destruction"; Luke 1: "He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart." Or the boasting of riches, namely concerning the abun…

All those things are passed away like a shadow, and as a post that hurried by;

"The posterity of the godless will perish." This is because the posterity of the godless are their works. But we again see that the child of the godless prospers in the world and, at times, becomes righteous and prospers in Christ. Observe therefore how you must understand this, so as to open the roof and come to Christ.

The rich person dies and finds nothing—certainly nothing of the things that he had. In fact, the sin of those things is brought with him, even if all of that for which the sins were committed is left here. Consequently, now one can boast in what he has received, exalt himself over others, be proud of having what his neighbor does not have.

They passed away etc. Here he touches on the confession of the instability of the state of the reprobate under a manifold metaphor: first under the metaphor of a shadow; second, of a messenger: As a messenger; third, of a ship: And as a ship; fourth, of a bird: Or a bird; fifth, of an arrow: Or as an arrow. (Verses 9, 10).

And as a ship that passes over the waves of the water, which when it has gone by, its trace cannot be found, neither the pathway of the keel in the waves;

There is no doubt that the boat symbolizes the church, bearing in mind what the Holy Spirit says, through Solomon: "She is like a merchant ship, securing her provisions from afar." This can be speaking of nothing other than the church for these reasons: under the guidance of the Lord, with the apostles for its pilots, being blown by the Holy Spirit, this church, by the preachin…

"Can you find the tracks of a passing boat or of an eagle seeking its prey?" As indeed the sea does not preserve the tracks of a boat, or the air, those of an eagle seeking its prey, in the same way that their tracks are not found, so the abundance of this world, when it passes, leaves no trace of happiness. It is forgotten along with what caused it.

Or as when a bird has flown through the air, there is no token of her way to be found, but the light air being beaten with the stroke of her wings and parted with the violent noise and motion of them, is passed through, and in it afterwards no sign where she went is to be found;

Or like as when an arrow is shot at a mark, it parts the air, which immediately comes together again, so that a man cannot know where it went through:

Even so we in like manner, as soon as we were born, began to draw to our end, and had no sign of virtue to show; but were consumed in our own wickedness.

For the hope of the ungodly is like dust that is blown away with the wind; like a thin froth that is driven away with the storm; like as the smoke which is dispersed here and there with a tempest, and passes away as the remembrance of a guest that stays but a day.

But the righteous live for evermore; their reward also is with the Lord, and the care of them is with the most High.

Therefore shall they receive a glorious kingdom, and a beautiful crown from the Lord’s hand: for with his right hand shall he cover them, and with his arm shall he protect them.

He shall take to him his jealousy for complete armor, and make the creature his weapon for the revenge of his enemies.

He shall put on righteousness as a breastplate, and true judgment instead of a helmet.

He shall take holiness for an invincible shield.

His severe wrath shall he sharpen for a sword, and the world shall fight with him against the unwise.

Then shall the right aiming thunderbolts go abroad; and from the clouds, as from a well drawn bow, shall they fly to the mark.

And hailstones full of wrath shall be cast as out of a stone bow, and the water of the sea shall rage against them, and the floods shall cruelly drown them.

Yes, a mighty wind shall stand up against them, and like a storm shall blow them away: thus iniquity shall lay waste the whole earth, and ill dealing shall overthrow the thrones of the mighty.

That there will be only one divine judgment through Christ, the apostle Paul explicitly states when he says, "God will judge people's secrets through our Lord Jesus Christ." Moreover, the same apostle tells us that the Spirit will also judge the antichrist, saying specifically of this figure, "The Lord Jesus will destroy him with the Spirit of his mouth." If the antichrist will…

And the water of the sea will burn upon them, and the rivers will rush together violently. He calls the disturbances of the sea the troubles of the world, the rivers the agitations of persecutions; because often the hearts of the wicked, which the teachings of preaching do not soften, are broken by the scourges of various corrections through fear.

(Verse 24). Against them shall stand the spirit of power, that is, a strong wind, according to that passage of Exodus 15: "Your spirit blew" etc., proceeding from the caverns of the earth, according to that passage of the Psalm: "Who brings forth winds from his storehouses"; likewise in the Psalm: "With a vehement wind you shall shatter the ships of Tarshish"; likewise Job 1: "…

Wisdom of Solomon5