Here is an under-appreciated piece of Solomon's wisdom.  It says here that there is hope for the living " because a live dog is better than a dead lion." Its application to wisdom is important.

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First, let us examin what is wisdom. The Hebrew word is chokmâh, and it was used throughout the Old Testament to talk about people who did things with skill. The basic meaning of the word chokmâh or châkam is skill. It was used to describe the people who embroidered the priest's garments back in the book of Exodus. These garments were to be beautiful; they were to represent the nature and work of God.

So when they selected people to do that embroidery, they selected people who didn't just do embroidery, they did it with châkam, great skill, so that other people who did embroidery would look at the priest's garment and say, " Now that's embroidery.” it's also the people who did the metal work on the tabernacle, who were chosen specifically because they did metal work with châkam, with skill.

People who parented well, people who administrated well, people who led well, various things that people could do with great skill, with great dexterity, they did with châkam. And when we come to the book of Proverbs, for instance, and we read over and over again about wisdom, it is this word châkam or chokmâh.

What Solomon was saying is that when you see a person living life with wisdom, their whole life is characterized by skill. And just as a person who does embroidery would look at the embroidery on the priest's garment, just as somebody who does metal work would look at the metal work on the tabernacle, the Old Testament tabernacle and say, " Now that's how it ought to be done. I do metal work but I wish I could do it like that.” Well, as people looked at a human life and saw how that person related to other people, saw how that person related to their work, saw how that person parented, how that person functioned as a spouse, how that person managed their money, everything about that person they would say, " That person lives life with chokmâh. I think that's how life ought to be lived.

But most especially in the Old Testament wisdom literature as we see how a person relates to God and how that person's relationship with God bleeds out through every other aspect of their life, we say, " That's wisdom. So when you think of wisdom and you read the book of Proverbs, and you read the book of Ecclesiastes, and you read the book of Job, these books that are given to wisdom, what God is showing us in these three books is, this is how life is lived with beauty, with balance, with dexterity. This is how life ought to be lived.

Proverbs 1:1-7 is a particularly important section because it introduces in condensed form the purpose of the Proverbs. And as with poetry, if you don't understand how poetry works, if you don't understand how the Proverbs work, you don't read them with maximum contribution.

It begins this way, " The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel. And then there's a series of infinitives. Now if it's been a long time since you had English, an infinitive is a word that introduces a purpose. it's usually introduced by the word to. Listen to this: " The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel. To know wisdom and instruction, to discern the sayings of understanding, to receive instruction, to give prudence . . . to understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles.

So you see, these infinitives introduce the purpose of Proverbs really as two fold. One is to give us wisdom, but secondly the Proverbs are like a mental gymnasium. The Proverbs being poetry are set up with two lines usually, once in a while more, but usually two lines that work together to produce a thought. And like other poetry, the meaning is in the middle. And the writer of Proverbs had to develop two skills. The first was an astute observation of life. These were wise sages. They looked at life and they saw how life worked and they wanted to capture the lessons that they saw in life.

But then the second skill was an ability to cleverly craft that observation into a proverb, into a poetic structure that forced the reader to ask what is the meaning of the first line, what is the meaning of the second line, and as I put these two lines together what is the truth that comes out of that process?

Proverbs, many times don't give up their meaning easily. They say to the reader: you're going to have to work at this, because the mind is a muscle. And just like a bodybuilder will go into the gym and lift those weights to build those muscles, the wise person goes into the gymnasium of Proverbs and works that mental muscle to strengthen it.

So if you read a proverb, and it doesn't make sense to you right away, that's by design. So if you're a lazy reader, if you're not serious about learning, many of these proverbs will never yield up their meaning to you. So my invitation to you is the same as my invitation to me, if you want to live a wise life, you've got to cultivate wisdom. And if you're going to cultivate wisdom, you're going to have to work at it.

So don't blame the Proverbs if you read one and you say, " Huh? That's by design, that's your challenge, that's my challenge to meditate, to prayerfully think my way through, " My challenge is to ask what is the message here?

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Now what is the application of " for a living dog is better than a dead lion" to wisdom. What information exists between the lines. How is knowledge discovered better than knowledge given here. 

I realize that I lacked some of Solmon's wisdom. I think that often I could have made a wiser decisions by seeing that "a combined certainty of two possible definitions is better than a singular uncertainty of one definition."

Here is what I mean. Recently, I have run across a lot of admissions by great scholars and great minds that some things that they were certain of is more likely than not, something altogether different. The problem for them, quoting some famous translators, is that: "they are wise [that] rather have their judgments at liberty in differences of readings, than to be captivated by one, when it may be the other."

These scholars perceived themselves as potential fools for choosing just one definition " when it may be the other." We often behave foolishly at times, thinking I must be decisive and choose one definition, even in the face of real uncertainty.

Martin Luther explained Solomon's advice this way: "Better a sparrow in hand than a crane in doubt." What is not doubtful is that one of the two definitions with differing probabilities is correct.  This may not look like a majestic crane, yet it is a sparrow without doubt. 
 
Internally, we may have more certainty, but the important thing is the evidence we can present to others. There may be a 70% probability of us being correct, but that leaves a significant 30% chance of being wrong on a very important point being defined correctly. Better to be aware it might be another meaning than to kid myself.

I choose to go with Solomon's dog and Luther's sparrow. I want to be wise. I want to avoid a situation of uncertainty that risks "throwing out the baby with the bathwater." Past scholarship have thrown out some bathwater. Let's proceed with caution and make sure the next toss is bathwater too.

From this position of wisdom, learning and studying can then create a stronger and stronger argument for one or the other definition. Then and only then may one definition take a singular place without the other. The nice thing is that I can relax and commit myself to understanding rather than to making sure I don't look like a fool.

So when you sometimes see the uncertainty of two definitions, know that I am wiser than I was before. I am wiser and I am hopeful, because "a [sure] dog is better than a [doubtful] lion." Be wise and have a Happy New Life!-