Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?
1 “Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold which they refine. 2 Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted out of the ore. 3 Man sets an end to darkness, and searches out, to the furthest bound, the stones of obscurity and of thick darkness. 4 He breaks open a shaft away from where people live. They are forgotten by the foot. They hang far from men, they swing back and forth. 5 As for the earth, out of it comes bread. Underneath it is turned up as it were by fire. 6 Sapphires come from its rocks. It has dust of gold. 7 That path no bird of prey knows, neither has the falcon’s eye seen it. 8 The proud animals have not trodden it, nor has the fierce lion passed by there. 9 He puts his hand on the flinty rock, and he overturns the mountains by the roots. 10 He cuts out channels among the rocks. His eye sees every precious thing. 11 He binds the streams that they don’t trickle. The thing that is hidden he brings out to light. 12 “But where will wisdom be found? Where is the place of understanding? 13 Man doesn’t know its price, and it isn’t found in the land of the living. 14 The deep says, ‘It isn’t in me.’ The sea says, ‘It isn’t with me.’ 15 It can’t be gotten for gold, neither will silver be weighed for its price. 16 It can’t be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. 17 Gold and glass can’t equal it, neither will it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold. 18 No mention will be made of coral or of crystal. Yes, the price of wisdom is above rubies. 19 The topaz of Ethiopia will not equal it. It won’t be valued with pure gold. 20 Where then does wisdom come from? Where is the place of understanding? 21 Seeing it is hidden from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the birds of the sky. 22 Destruction and Death say, ‘We have heard a rumor of it with our ears.’ 23 “God understands its way, and he knows its place. 24 For he looks to the ends of the earth, and sees under the whole sky. 25 He establishes the force of the wind. Yes, he measures out the waters by measure. 26 When he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder, 27 then he saw it, and declared it. He established it, yes, and searched it out. 28 To man he said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom. To depart from evil is understanding.’”
Men can dig anything out of the earth except the one thing they need, and the poem ends by relocating wisdom in a way of living.
The debate has stopped, and what stands here is a poem on its own — the calmest thing in the book, set exactly where the argument has exhausted itself.
It opens with mining, described by somebody who has seen it. A shaft away from where people live; men hanging on ropes, forgotten by the foot of anyone above, swinging in the dark Job 28:4. Rock overturned by the roots, channels cut, streams dammed so they do not trickle into the workings Job 28:9–11.
The achievement is stated without irony: the thing that is hidden he brings out to light. Human ingenuity is genuinely extraordinary, and the poem says so at length before it says anything else.
Two verses mark how far that reach goes. That path no bird of prey knows, neither has the falcon's eye seen it Job 28:7. The falcon has the best eyesight in creation and cannot find what a man has found by digging. The proud animals have not walked there. Human beings go where nothing else goes.
Then the question that breaks the poem in half: but where will wisdom be found? Where is the place of understanding? Job 28:12.
The answer is that it is not in the ground. It is not in the land of the living; the deep says it is not there and the sea says the same Job 28:13–14. It cannot be bought — not with gold, silver, onyx, sapphire, coral, crystal, rubies or topaz Job 28:15–19. Every item on that list is something the miners of the first section actually brought up.
So the poem is built as a contrast between two searches. Everything precious in the earth has been located and extracted by men working in the dark. The one thing they need most is not down there, and no quantity of what they did find will buy it.
The question is asked a second time, and this time the search widens to include the dead. It is hidden from the eyes of all living, and Destruction and Death say, 'We have heard a rumor of it with our ears' Job 28:21–22. Even the grave has only heard a report.
“God understands its way, and he knows its place.
And what he is doing when he knows it is specified: looking to the ends of the earth, weighing the wind, measuring the waters, making a decree for the rain Job 28:24–26. Wisdom is at home in the work of running the world, which is where the whirlwind speech will take Job in ten chapters' time.
And the last verse hands it to human beings after all, in an unexpected form. To man he said, 'Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom. To depart from evil is understanding' Job 28:28.
The words are the ones used of Job in the first verse of the book — a man who feared God, and turned away from evil Job 1:1. What cannot be mined or bought is not withheld; it is available in a way of living, and the man on the ash heap has had it the entire time.
settled What this mark means