This text of Proverbs, attributed to Solomon but most probably written by sages, teachers, and bureaucrats of the intellectual elite of Israel and Judah, reflects an urgent cry for wisdom throughout the land. The people are in need of wisdom, and wisdom is in search of people who will practice its virtues and extol forever the higher principles of courage, justice, righteousness, and truth. The absence of wisdom is folly. The beginning of wisdom is the fear and respect of God.

Where then is wisdom? Where then is knowledge of God? Where then are people who embody and espouse its higher values and who are the sacred keepers of her holy writ? It is no accident that the writer uses the imagery of woman's wisdom as a means of personifying the exigency and urgency of the need for wisdom throughou…