Matthew 11:19-30 to Wisdom 9:10 etc.
Matthew 11:19-30 to Wisdom 9:10 etc.
The tenth example, also from the Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary:
Interestingly, Sirach had described the wise scribe in detail about two centuries before the ministry of Jesus. … But, although Jesus fit these descriptions well, he had not attained this wisdom in the way Sirach thought necessary. … The wise scribe had to “travel in foreign lands” to learn “what is good and evil in the human lot” (Sir 39:4). … Yet, Jesus astonished those who had attended synagogue all their lives with his wisdom as an interpreter of the Hebrew Scriptures. The attendees asked the obvious question, “Where did this man get this wisdom?” His wisdom did not come from the respected rabbinic schools of Hillel or Shammai. Yet Jesus implied that he had greater wisdom than even Solomon (Matt 13:54). In fact, he not only claimed to have wisdom, but he also claimed to be Wisdom (Matt 11:19). (p. 355-56).
Again, we see that Jesus is not just fulfilling the Old Testament but surpassing it. The expected Messiah was just a man, but the true Messiah was God; and so, too, the wisest man was not just a wise man but the actual Wisdom of God.
Although Matthew does not explicitly identify Jesus as the “Wisdom of God” like Luke 11:49-51 does, Jesus’s words strongly imply this identity. The context of Matt 11:19 shows that Jesus’s words, “Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds!” refer to how Jesus himself is vindicated by his deeds. Soon after this (Matt 11:25-30 [see Example Eleven, below]), Jesus’s teaching makes repeated allusions to the words of personified Wisdom from an intertestamental Jewish book called the Wisdom of Ben Sira or Sirach (Sir 51:23, 26, 28). By speaking like personified Wisdom spoke, Jesus identifies himself as Wisdom. The Old Testament contains several descriptions of personified Wisdom …Jewish literature written between the time of the Old Testament and the New Testament further developed the concept of personified Wisdom. The most important examples appear in the Wisdom of Solomon, which describes Wisdom as “a breath of the power of God and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty” (Wis 7:25)… (p. 72-73).
(Wisdom 7:25-26 is of course the verse from Wisdom that is (1) referenced in the Epistle to the Hebrews 1:3 per the KJV, (2) part of a Christological hymn, (3) referenced in 1 Clement, and (4) alluded to in the Nicene Creed.)
… who can “do all things” (Wis 7:27) and is “fashioner of what exists” (Wis 8:6). The book assigns to Wisdom the mighty deeds of Yahweh from the Old Testament, such as rescuing God’s people from the flood, bringing about the exodus, and parting the waters of the Red Sea (see Wis 7:25-8:5). Two important texts refer to what might fairly be described as an incarnation of Wisdom. In Wis 9:10, Wisdom is sent “from the holy heavens” and “from the throne of [Yahweh’s] glory” to the earth to live with humans and show them how to live rightly. Similarly, Bar 3:36-37 says that after God granted Wisdom to Israel, “she appeared on earth and lived with humankind.” This background forms a bridge between the descriptions of Wisdom in Proverbs and Jesus’s identification of himself as Wisdom. The title affirms Jesus’s deity and his roles in both creation (Col 1:16) and the exodus (Jude 5). (p. 72-73).
A bridge between Proverbs and Jesus. This means Proverbs, alone, is not sufficient. Apocrypha are the bridge and what Jesus’ identification connects to is the bridge—His identification does not actually connect Himself to Proverbs. Jesus connects Himself to the Apocrypha.
Let’s consider what Biblical Prophecy looks like. From the book Messianic Prophecy Revealed by Rabbi Kirt A. Schneider:
Notice the last sentence in the passage [Matthew 2:15]: “This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Out of Egypt I called My Son.’“ When we go to the Hebrew Bible, we find that there is only one place where the phrase “Out of Egypt I called My Son” is used: Hosea 11:1. In its historical context, this verse doesn’t seem to be written as a prophecy. Rather, Hosea just seems to be speaking on the Lord’s behalf, recounting Israel’s history when he says, “When Israel was a youth I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son” (Hos. 11:1, emphasis added). Again, in its initial historical context, this verse does not seem to be anticipating an event that was to be fulfilled in the future. … So how does Matthew now say that Jesus fulfilled this? … Much of the time, the way the New Testament speaks of Jesus’ fulfillment of Messianic prophecy is not in the sense that He fulfilled some type of event the Hebrew people were looking forward to coming to pass. Rather, it is pointing to the fact that when Yeshua came, He filled Israel’s history up by repeating it in His own life. (p. 4).[1]
We often think of prophesy chronologically, i.e., moving from the Old Testament to the New. But actually, Christians see the prophecies because of Jesus, not the other way around.
The truth of Messiah was already in the texts, but it had to be revealed … Buried deep beneath the surface of the Scriptures were prophecies that pointed to Jesus but were not immediately evident as Messianic prophecies at the time they were written.[2] (P. 36).
Bearing that ‘reversal’ in mind, read again what the Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary on Matthew told us (but with emphasis added):
Jesus’s teaching makes repeated allusions to the words of personified Wisdom from an intertestamental Jewish book called the Wisdom of Ben Sira or Sirach (Sir 51:23, 26, 28). By speaking like personified Wisdom spoke, Jesus identifies himself as Wisdom. … Jewish literature written between the time of the Old Testament and the New Testament further developed the concept of personified Wisdom. The most important examples appear in the Wisdom of Solomon, … Two important texts refer to what might fairly be described as an incarnation of Wisdom [the Book of Wisdom and Baruch]. … This background forms a bridge between the descriptions of Wisdom in Proverbs and Jesus’s identification of himself as Wisdom. The title affirms Jesus’s deity and his roles in both creation (Col 1:16) and the exodus (Jude 5).
To add all the underlined and emphasized points up: when preaching to the Jews, Jesus Christ made repeated allusions to the words of personified Wisdom in Sirach and identified Himself as the personified Wisdom described in the Book of Wisdom, in order to show that He was the incarnation of Wisdom as described in the Books of Wisdom and Baruch. Thereby, He affirmed His deity.
All this was recorded by Matthew, in his Divinely-inspired Gospel to the Jews, among whom “a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7).[3]
[1] Charisma House 2023.
[2] For a more scholarly discussion of these points, see e.g., The Spirit and the Letter: Studies in the Biblical Canon, Chapter 3, by John Barton.
[3] And yet of course the Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary on Matthew uses the conclusory label “intertestamental” for these Apocrypha, with no discussion or analysis of any canon implications involved with the substance of what it is saying.
