Proverbs 3:15-16 She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. (16) Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour.
I give my students five Bible verses a week to journal. I tell them that if the verse starts with a pronoun, they need to search for the noun it refers to in the preceding verses. If I would give them this verse to journal, without a little bit of linguistic knowledge, they would find it difficult to find the noun that ‘she’ refers to.
In the Hebrew text, "she" refers to ‘wisdom’ found two verses above. In English, the word wisdom is genderless. But in Hebrew, it is feminine. This causes a little problem for translators.
It is important to understand here that ‘wisdom’ here is not a virtue that is brought to us because we have received and accepted Jesus as our Redeemer. It is not a form of magic formula that gives us health, wealth and a long happy life. This verse does not represent promises of prosperity conditional to making Jesus our Lord and Master; that would sound more like the devils’ promises to Jesus in the desert.
Wisdom is Jesus: He is the one that is better than the merchandise of silver and than the gain of fine gold. He is the One more precious than rubies and than all the things we desire. He is the One who has length of days in His right hand, and riches and honor in His left hand. The idea here is that having Jesus makes us feel like worldly treasures are just husks, husks, husks!
Jesus has treasured us in that way; do we Him?
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