Does Proverbs 8:22 refer to Jesus?

Proverbs 8:22  “The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old.

The writer of this poetry had in his mind that he was personifying wisdom as a beautiful woman who leads men to righteousness and happiness, in contrast to the superficially attractive prostitute described in Proverbs 7 who leads men to desolation and death.

Does this second woman in Proverbs 8:22 refer to Jesus pre-existing at the time that the Book of Proverbs was written? Clearly, no.

 

Not directly about Jesus.

Some readers, pre-disposed to believe that Jesus existed before his birth search for appearances of Christ in the Old Testament not as prophecies and foreshadows, which the Old Testament does contain, but for actual evidence that Jesus had a life in heaven before he was conceived and born. It has to be clearly said that, no, Proverbs 8:22 does not use the image of Wisdom as a beautiful woman, in the sense that Trinitarian or Arian or Oneness readers sometimes claim, as proof that Jesus existed before birth as the second person of the Trinity, or as an archangel, or in any other personal sense.

Apart from anything else, common sense should tell those looking for proof that Jesus existed before he was born that they should not be making a case from a chapter which personifies wisdom as a beautiful woman. This is desperate.

 

Then can wisdom be seen as a foreshadow of Christ?

Nevertheless we can look for foreshadows of Jesus in every book of the Old Testament. This is how Jesus himself taught his disciples to read the Hebrew scriptures:

Luke 24:27 And Jesus explained to them what was said about himself in all the Scriptures, beginning with the books of Moses and the writings of all the prophets.

When John wrote his prologue, the primary reference would be to verses such as Psalm 33:6  “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made” (where the Greek Old Testament has Logos), but other verses including others with ‘word’ and ‘speech/ but also with other ideas connected to God’s purpose and foreknowledge.

It is possible that wisdom passages such as Proverbs 8:22 would not have been part of John’s background context. But remember that Proverbs 8 does not use the term ‘word’ (in the Greek Old Testament version of Proverbs 8 the word for wisdom is the feminine Greek noun “sofia”, not the gender-neuter Greek noun used by John for ‘word’ in the New Testament “logos” )  In Hebrew the noun for wisdom is ‘hakma’, the noun for word ‘dabar’ is not used in this chapter.

John 1:1-5  In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.  (2)  The word was in the beginning with God.  (3)  All things were made through it, and without it nothing was made that was made.  (4)  In him was life, and the life was the light of men.  (5)  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (Greek – note that Greek uses “it” for word)

The Greek expression for “word” (Greek logos) is the basis of the English word “logic”. In just the same way that “wisdom” is personified as a woman in Proverbs, so God’s word, speech, idea, plan or “logic” was from the beginning. This purpose was only made actual when Jesus the son of God was miraculously conceived and born.

Sometimes God has more in mind than did an Old Testament prophet:

1 Peter 1:10-12  Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully,  (11)  inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.  (12)  It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

It was not just a matter of John making use of an old Hebrew poem to express a new truth (though it was that too). The old Hebrew poem was originally intended by God to express a greater truth that would come to fruition hundreds of years after the poem was written; Jesus was planned by God from the very beginning.

So, yes. Proverbs 8:22 refers in a general sense to the wisdom of God which would later find real fulfillment in the birth of Jesus. But only in looking forward, not already existing when Proverbs was written.