5.1 Τότε στήσεται ἐν παρρησίᾳ πολλῇ ὁ δίκαιος κατὰ πρόσωπον τῶν θλιψάντων αὐτὸν καὶ τῶν ἀθετούντων τοὺς πόνους αὐτοῦ. The just man “will stand” boldly and proudly before the face of those who gave him suffering in life. This public vindication does not necessarily require a flesh resurrection, which is out of view in Wisdom, despite the language of “standing” (ἀνάστασις is a form of ἀνίστημι), or, if we can describe this as “resurrection,” it’s not the resurrection of a flesh body but a revelation of the spiritualized man. 5.2 ἰδόντες ταραχθήσονται φόβῳ δεινῷ καὶ ἐκστήσονται ἐπὶ τῷ παραδόξῳ τῆς σωτηρίας· The image has the quality of a theophany or epiphany, in which the divine apparition of a god or angel causes the confusion, turmoil, or otherwise panic (indeed, think Zeus’s panic-inspiring aegis, or Yhwh’s Ark in the Hebrew Bible); the implication is that the just man stands in an epiphanic glory, while the impious “are driven out of their senses” (ἐκστήσονται, from ἐξίστημι, which contrasts with the just man who merely στήσεται), or else “confounded” because of their contrafactual expectation of salvation. 5.3 ἐροῦσιν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς μετανοοῦντες καὶ διὰ στενοχωρίαν πνεύματος στενάξονται καὶ ἐροῦσιν 5.4 Οὗτος ἦν, ὅν ἔσχομέν ποτε εἰς γέλωτα καὶ εἰς παραβολὴν ὀνειδισμοῦ οἱ ἄφρονες· τὸν βίον αὐτοῦ ἐλογισάμεθα μανίαν καὶ τὴν τελευτὴν αὐτοῦ ἄτιμον. Cue “wailing and gnashing of teeth.” The revelation of the just man in glory leads to the change of mind (μετανοοῦντες) of the impious as they realize their error in accounting “his life” as “madness” and “his death as without honor.” 5.5 πῶς κατελογίσθη ἐν υἱοῖς θεοῦ καὶ ἐν ἁγίοις ὁ κλῆρος αὐτοῦ ἐστιν; The deification of the just man is unintelligible to the impious: his life does not match any of the values they hold. But the just man is indeed a god: “among the sons of God,” “among the holy ones.” In Jewish literature, these regularly signify divine beings, gods or angels. Among Greek and/or Roman readers, “sons of God” would likely have implied demigods, heroes, kings, and emperors. 5.6 ἄρα ἐπλανήθημεν ἀπὸ ὁδοῦ ἀληθείας, καὶ τὸ τῆς δικαιοσύνης φῶς οὐκ ἐπέλαμψεν ἡμῖν, καὶ ὁ ἥλιος οὐκ ἀνέτειλεν ἡμῖν· “The light of justice” and “the sun” are familiar images both from Greek philosophy as well as from the Hebrew Bible, especially those texts that postdate the solarization of Yhwh in the Jerusalem cult. The impious are as though the cave-dwellers in Plato’s allegory, blind to the sunlight of truth and justice. 5.7 ἀνομίας ἐνεπλήσθημεν τρίβοις καὶ ἀπωλείας καὶ διωδεύσαμεν ἐρήμους ἀβάτους, τὴν δὲ ὁδὸν κυρίου οὐκ ἐπέγνωμεν. The image is one of exile. Where the impious previously felt as though they were established and theirs was the might of the earth, they now think that they have “wandered in the paths of destruction” and gone through “deserted impasses.” 5.8 τί ὠφέλησεν ἡμᾶς ἡ ὑπερηφανία; 5.9 παρῆλθεν ἐκεῖνα πάντα ὡς σκιὰ καὶ ὡς ἀγγελία παρατρέχουσα· The impious realize the error of their ways. The unbefitting superbia of the impious, the transience of “all things” (πάντα) as shadow (σκιά), and so on are images with archetypical grip on the imagination. Notably, the impious are not here accused by anyone else: they declare their own sinfulness. 5.10 ὡς ναῦς διερχομένη κυμαινόμενον ὕδωρ, ἧς διαβάσης οὐκ ἔστιν ἴχνος εὑρεῖν οὐδὲ ἀτραπὸν τρόπιος αὐτῆς ἐν κύμασιν· The image of naval instability was a constant fear for Greeks and Romans, for merchants, and for military sailors, and speaks to the Alexandrian provenance of Wisdom. Ancient people generally regarded the sea as dangerous, unpredictable, and navigation thereof to be a good metaphor for self-control (in philosophy and oratory) or statesmanship (in politics). Those who had no occasion to go to sea were better off. Horace, for example, calls blessed the man who neque excitatur classico miles truci / neque horret iratum mare (Ep. II.5-6). In the Hebrew Bible, the sea is the origin of the powers of chaos and death. 5.11 ἢ ὡς ὀρνέου διιπταντος ἀέρα οὐθὲν εὑρίσκεται τεκημήριον πορείας, πληγῇ δὲ μαστιζόμενον ταρσῶν πνεῦμα κοῦφον καὶ σχιζόμενον βίᾳ ῥοίζου κινουμένων πτερύγων διωδεύθη, καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο οὐχ εὑρέθη σημεῖον ἐπιβάσεως ἐν αὐτῷ· The use of ταρσός for “wing” or “feather” as opposed to its more usual meaning of “crate,” “basket,” “mat,” or “flat” shows erudition. The extended meaning may derive from the word’s usage for any extreme appendage: it can mean, for instance, “palm,” “ankle,” “oar,” “tail,” even the very edge of the eyelash. The larger point of both the naval and the aerial imagery here is that these are two kinds of furious motion—a ship on a storm-tossed sea and a bird stirring up the air—that leave behind no trace. Likewise, the impious leave no trace behind in the world after the parousia of the just man. 5.12 ἢ ὡς βέλους βληθέντος ἐπὶ σκοπὸν τμηθεὶς ὁ ἀὴρ εὐθέως εἰς ἑαυτὸν ἀνελύθη ὡς ἀγνοῆσαι τὴν δίοδον αὐτοῦ· 5.13 οὕτως καὶ ἡμεῖς γεννηθέντες ἐξελίπομεν καὶ ἀρετῆς μὲν σημεῖον οὐδὲν ἔσχομεν δεῖξαι ἐν δὲ τῇ κακίᾳ ἡμῶν κατεδαπανήθημεν. σημεῖον has a broad semantic (pun intended) range. In oratory, logic, and so on, it is often a “proof,” and that is probably the sense it has here given the building theme of παιδεία to this point in the work. 5.14 ὅτι ἐλπὶς ἀσεβοῦς ὡς φερόμενος χνοῦς ὑπὸ ἀνέμου καὶ ὡς πάχνη ὑπὸ λαίλαπος διωχθεῖσα λεπτὴ καὶ ὡς καπνὸς ὑπὸ ἀνέμου διεχύθη καὶ ὡς μνεία καταλύτου μονοημέρου παρώδευσεν. The tempestuous imagery hearkens back to biblical theophanies, in which the deity often appears in whirlwind, rides on cloud or winds, or in a stormcloud. The wicked are scattered at the time of the manifestation of the just man, the theophanic character of which has been established over many verses now. 5.15 Δίκαιοι δὲ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα ζῶσιν, καὶ ἐν κυρίῳ ὁ μισθὸς αὐτῶν, καὶ ἡ φροντὶς αὐτῶν παρὰ ὑψίστῳ. The just are said to live “for the age” (εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα), which might mean through the duration of this cosmic cycle or, idiomatically, forever. In any event, “their reward is in the Lord” and “the concern” or even “guardianship of them is with the Most High.” The just appear to die in this world, but live on with and in God. 5.16 διὰ τοῦτο λήμψονται τὸ βασίλειον τῆς εὐπρεπείας καὶ τὸ διάδημα τοῦ κάλλους ἐκ χειρὸς κυρίου, ὅτι τῇ δεξιᾷ σκεπάσει αὐτοὺς καὶ τῷ βραχίονι ὑπερασπιεῖ αὐτῶν. διὰ τοῦτο is a normal way to say “because of this” in Greek prose (Latin equivalents include propterea quod, ob eam causam, qua de causa, etc.). Last we heard of a βασίλειον it was the palace of Hades whose presence in the world was denied; here, they receive a “palace of comeliness” or “majesty.” The “diadem” (διάδημα) was the ordinary crown of the Judean monarch: Herod the Great famously looked to surrender it back to Octavian when the two met on the island of Rhodes following the failure of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium and the Bellum Alexandrinum, which Octavian returned to him. (Herod had backed Antony.) After Herod, no Jewish king wore the diadem again until his grandson Herod Agrippa, whose brief reign beginning in 41 (he had been named earlier, by Caligula) came to an end with his abrupt death in 44 (of some intestinal consumption). Josephus describes many of the rebels during the period of the first century as upstart diadem-wearers. This may well lend more plausibility to Wisdom’s dating in the early first century, somewhere during the time of Caligula, rather than the late first century BCE. Possibly, the argument could go, Herod was alive and wearing the royal diadem as king in Jerusalem, there would have been no reason to reclaim it as a symbol: only when it lacked an incumbent wearer did it become an idiomatic object of religious and political symbolism that might be malleably useful in other contexts. Alternatively, the diadem might be intended to invoke the accoutrements of the high priest. The diadem is that “of beauty from the hand of the Lord.” In Second Temple literature it is sometimes the case that righteous people are clothed in heaven and/or the afterlife with glorious garments that allow them to serve priestly and angelic functions in the heavenly/cosmic temple. The idea that the just are now under the protection of the Lord’s “right hand” and “arm” certainly make the suggestion that the palace and diadem in question are celestial or angelic, not earthly. 5.17 λήμψεται πανοπλίαν τὸν ζῆλον αὐτοῦ καὶ ὁπλοποιήσει τὴν κτίσιν εἰς ἀμυναν ἐχθρῶν· The most recent subject was God, and that’s who is in view here. God dresses like a Greek hoplite here (πανοπλία) where in earlier Jewish literature the deity dressing for battle typically resembles a Near Eastern warrior, suggesting a new cultural hegemony for the writer compared to his ancient forbears. God also “makes creation his weapon for the requital of enemies” (ἄμυνα means “vengeance” or “requital” in Pseudo-Phocylides). The weaponization of creation implies God’s cosmic supremacy. The reader should not require much convincing that the author is not really Solomon, but one proof is here, that in the Iron Age Yhwh was considered a very large but still bounded god who lived within the sanctuary, where in this text, we have the deity of the late monarchic, exilic, and postexilic periods, whose body is cosmic or mystical, enthroned in the heights of, above, and spilling out and over into the universe. 5.18 ἐνδύσεται θώρακα δικαιοσύνην καὶ περιθήσεται κόρυθα κρίσιν ἀνυπόκριτον· 5.19 λήμψεται ἀσπίδα ἀκαταμάχητον ὁσιότητα, 5.20 ὀξυνεῖ δὲ ἀπότομον ὀργὴν εἰς ῥομφαίαν, συνεκπολεμήσει δὲ αὐτῷ ὁ κόσμος ἐπὶ τοὺς παράφρονας. Scholars are not wrong to compare this text to the Deutero-Pauline tradition of putting on the “armor of faith” (Eph 6:10-18), and it may well be that the author of Ephesians has read Wisdom. The metaphor may have been stock: even if not everyone served in the military, pretty much everyone knew a soldier. The suggestion that the kosmos itself will fight with God against the impious suggests that the universe is not fallen or subject to the rule of evil powers or elements (στοιχεία), as in apocalyptic thought or as in Paul: again, its origins are saving and its nature is good, as God’s creation and reflection. That said, we are getting here an apocalyptic scenario, in which the killed-but-divinely-glorified just are revealed to the impious, who realize their error, accuse themselves, and then are put to the sword by God and the assisting universe. 5.21 πορεύσονται εὔστοχοι βολίδες ἀστραπῶν καὶ ὡς ἀπὸ εὐκύκλου τόξου τῶν νεφῶν ἐπὶ σκοπὸν ἁλοῦνται, 5.22 καὶ ἐκ πετροβόλου θυμοῦ πλήρεις ῥιφήσονται χάλαζαι· ἀγανακτήσει κατ’ αὐτῶν ὕδωρ θαλάσσης, ποταμοὶ δὲ συγκλύσουσιν ἀποτόμως· Several of these are the elements that attend the Exodus and the Sinai theophany in particular, which may imply that the event of the revelation of the exalted righteous ones calls back to the biblical tradition of expectation for a new exodus event, as in Deutero-Isaiah (references to which we have already clocked in previous entries). 5.23 ἀντιστήσεται αὐτοῖς πνεῦμα δυνάμεως καὶ ὡς λαῖλαψ ἐκλικμήσει αὐτούς· καὶ ἐρημώσει πὰσαν τὴν γῶν ἀνομία, καὶ ἡ κακοπραγία περιτρέψει θρόνους δυναστῶν. There’s one more “stander” here, and it’s the πνεῦμα δυνάμεως, the “spirit of power,” and given that the only named spirit we have had to this point in the book is Sophia, we are on safe ground seeing this as her entry into the fray. Sophia has her sociological origins in Ancient Israel and Judah’s cultic worship of Asherah as the bride of Yhwh, and given the Egyptian provenance of Wisdom, it is probably worth mentioning too that the Jewish Temple in Elephantine worshiped Yhwh alongside Anat, probably as his consort. Both goddesses, Asherah and Anat, are warriors as well as stateswomen; Anat is the sister of Baal in the Baal Cycle, and a precedent for the Greek world’s Aphrodite, the Roman Venus. So, there’s precedent for Sophia’s participation in the battle. She will “winnow” (ἐκλικμήσει) the impious. Why is Sophia as the “spirit” or “wind of power” winnowing? The image hearkens back to a variety of images of judgment in the prophets that parallel God’s intervention to judge with the normative act of winnowing grain from wheat on a threshing floor (e.g., Isa 28:27-28; 41:15-16; Amos 1:3; Joel 3:13; Habb 3:12), probably, as Jaime L. Waters argues, because threshing floors in Ancient Israel were sacred space to Yhwh.1 Threshing floors are located near city gates, where judgment was offered in the ancient Near Eastern city, and there’s also a distinctly erotic set of undertones to meetings at threshing floors in the literature, suggesting the possibility of a rendezvous that subverts the legal/judicial qualities of the space.2 The idea here is that “the agricultural process of treading grain to obtain seed has a transferred sexual meaning: to ‘tread’ a woman.”3 Here, Sophia, the “spirit of power,” takes on the role of God as the winnowing judge. There is an eery parallel between this text and a common idiom that connects wind and winnowing which recurs frequently in the Near East. E.g.: “As the wind chases away the chaff and carries it far across the sea, so also may it chase away the bloodshed and impurity of this house and carry them far across the sea.”4 The connection between wind and winnowing comes from the practice of throwing chaff into the air and/or of using a fan to blow it across the threshing floor. But the most striking and relevant for our purposes is that in the Baal Epic, Anat, the sister (and consort?) of Baal, kills Mot, the god of death, with “the imagery of threshing: Anat cleaves Mot with a sword—apparently a threshing sledge—roasts his remains in the fire, grinds them between millstones, and scatters them in a field so that the birds will eat them.”5 Insofar as Sophia is a literary descendant of the goddess consort figure, variously represented by Asherah and Anat, and insofar as Yhwh’s own battle-lust in the Prophets is thought to derive in part from a transference of Anat’s qualities as warrior goddess onto Yhwh,6 Sophia’s role here as the winnower is a natural, logical choice. It is hard to ignore the observation that if Wisdom was written in the 40s it was composed roughly five years after the death of John the Baptist, whose prediction of a coming divine and/or messianic figure who would winnow the threshing floor in judgment appears in the Gospels (Matt 3:12; Lk 3:17), since John had a widespread and well-known movement even in the Diaspora. Like John’s figure, Sophia’s winnowing has a worldwide effect, clearing the world of lawlessness (ἀνομία) and overturning the “thrones of the dynasts.” Could John have been talking about Wisdom? Plausibly: Q has Jesus call both John and himself “children of Wisdom.” Assuming that John was an Essene, and had spent time at Qumran, he likely knew Enochic traditions that assimilated the figure of Wisdom to the figure of various, more masculine messianic figures, like the Son of Man. In Parables, which does not occur at Qumran, we have the two straightforwardly conflated. It is worth pointing out that the eschatological scenario in question has three divine actors: the divinized “just man,” who is periodically a stand-in for the multitude of just people unjustly killed by the impious (just like Daniel’s Son of Man who is exalted in Daniel 7 and whose exaltation simultaneously represents the exaltation of the “holy ones of the Most High”), God himself, who activates the universe against the impious, and Sophia, here the “spirit of power,” who mediates between God, kosmos, and the just, and therefore true, original humanity. Assuming Wisdom was not the composition of a Christian author, which remains the consensus view, this may well testify to a shared eschatology across the broader genera of some “apocalyptic” and “sapiential” texts.
Jaime L. Waters, Threshing Floors in Ancient Israel: Their Ritual and Symbolic Significance (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015). See also M.A. Littauer and J.H. Grouwel, “Ceremonial Threshing in the Ancient Near East,” Iraq 52 (1990): 15-23.
See Irit Ziffer, “The Threshing Floor in Reality and Metaphor.”
Ziffer, “The Threshing Floor in Reality and Metaphor,” 6.
I owe this reference, which is a Hittite magical formula, to Ziffer.
Ziffer, “The Threshing Floor in Reality and Metaphor,” 5.
See the relevant section of Michael D. Coogan and Mark S. Smith, Stories from Ancient Canaan, 2nd ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), on Anat.