Welcome to week two of the three characters in Proverbs series. If you haven’t read or listened to the first one yet, go start there, since everything this week builds on it.
Last time we learned that hokmah, the Hebrew word behind wisdom, is really a skill word. It’s the word used for craftsmen, sailors, singers, and administrators, anyone good enough at their trade to be called skilled. This week I want to get precise, down to the letter, and show you what that same skill language looks like when it’s attached to actual people in scripture.
Two Words, One Root
The first thing to understand is that we’re actually dealing with two words, not one. Our anchor verse for this whole series is Proverbs 2:2:
Making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding.
The word in that verse is hokmah. But there’s a second word I need to introduce alongside it: chakam. The two share the same three-letter Hebrew root, but they’re not identical. Hokmah is the noun, wisdom itself, the quality. Chakam is the word for a wise person, someone who possesses that quality. Same root, same family, different job in the sentence, the same way “wise” and “wisdom” work in English.
Proverbs 2:2 names hokmah, the target, what we’re pursuing. Chakam is the person who’s actually gotten there, the character this whole series is studying. We want to become chakam. We want to become the person who has embodied wisdom. And to become chakam, we have to receive the hokmah.
Same Word, Three Different People
Chakam isn’t only a Proverbs word. It shows up all over the Old Testament, and seeing it outside of Proverbs is really what makes it land.
When God calls the craftsman to build the tabernacle in Exodus 31, He says He’s filled him with skill for every kind of craft. That’s this word. Bezalel isn’t called talented. He’s called wise, because he can actually do the work with excellence.
Then flip to 1 Kings 3, where Solomon asks God for exactly this: a wise heart to govern his people and discern between good and evil. Same word, now applied to leadership instead of craftsmanship.
Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people? Behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you. (1 Kings 3:9, 12)
That’s Solomon asking in the first part, and God answering in the second. Solomon didn’t ask for more knowledge for knowledge’s sake. He asked for the ability to govern well in real situations with real people. That’s chakam. It’s the same request underneath everything we’re going to study in this series.
And in 2 Samuel 14, the same word gets applied to a woman from Tekoa, someone Joab specifically brings in because she’s known for it, wise enough to handle a delicate situation with the king. Craftsman, king, ordinary woman with good judgment. Same word for all three.
This connects directly to Ephesians 5:15-17:
Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
Paul is describing the exact same thing Bezalel, Solomon, and the woman of Tekoa all had. Wisdom is something you walk in, not something you just possess. The craft changes. The category doesn’t.
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Where This Skill Actually Starts
If wisdom is a skill, where does someone start learning it? Proverbs answers that question twice, almost word for word, and that repetition matters. Whenever you’re reading poetic books like Proverbs or Psalms, repetition is a flag to slow down and pay attention.
Proverbs 1:7 says:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.
We talked about that verse in the last episode. Now compare it to Proverbs 9:10:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
These two verses use the same word, beginning, but it isn’t doing the exact same job in both places. In chapter 9, beginning carries a sense of prerequisite, something that has to be in place before the rest can happen. In chapter 1, beginning carries more of a sense of result, the first fruit that shows up once the fear of the Lord has taken root.¹
Put those two together and you get the full picture. The fear of the Lord isn’t a stage you pass through on your way to something more advanced. It’s the prerequisite that has to be there first, and it’s also the thing that keeps producing knowledge and insight the whole way through. You don’t graduate out of it. You keep standing on it, and you keep building on it.
The fear of the Lord doesn’t get retired once Jesus shows up, either. Acts 9:31 says:
So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.
Luke describes the early church still walking in it, still standing on it. It’s not an Old Testament starter posture. It’s a posture the church kept.
Skill at What, Exactly
So we keep saying skill, but skill at what? Here’s the shape of it: learning, following God, and discretion. The wise person isn’t the one with the most answers. It’s the one who keeps hearing, keeps increasing in learning, and keeps the posture of fearing the Lord as the ground they stand on, whether they’re building a tabernacle, governing a nation, or just giving good counsel to the person in front of them. It’s standing on God.
If you want to build the skill of wisdom, learn about the Lord. Follow the Lord. Pray for discernment, and ask Him to show you what this actually looks like in your own life. Get in your Bible more than you take my word for any of this. Please, be a Berean. Take everything I say here and measure it against scripture for yourself, because if you don’t know the word, you have no way of actually knowing whether I’m teaching you something true or just talking.
Sit With This
Grab a journal, the same one from last week if you started one, and actually write these out.
- Solomon didn’t ask for more knowledge. He asked for the ability to actually govern well. Where in your life have you been collecting knowledge without ever asking God for the skill to actually live it out?
- Is the fear of the Lord something you treated as a starting point you’ve already moved past? If so, what would it look like to actually keep standing on it? And if not, what has helped you keep the fear of the Lord as the foundation you live your life on?
Go read your Bible. I love you. God loves you.
Sources
- Sid S. Buzzell, “Proverbs,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 909-910.
