In Yahwist theology, you have to remember that YHVH has no gender – YHVH is neither male nor female. You therefore cannot separate out maleness and femaleness from God; to do so is to suggest that the God of Israel is not One, but is instead divisible. So is Wisdom a separate heavenly Being, a created daughter of YHVH, with her own will and actions? In pagan Hellenist philosophy, just as Logos (‘Word’) was the son of God, representing the divine male, so too was Sofia (‘Wisdom’) the daughter of God, representing the divine female. These may be concepts that help mortal, earth-bound men and women identify with God, but we are actually creating God in our own gendered image – we are worshipping ideal versions of ourselves. Instead, we have to have the humble and faithful courage to accept that YHVH is not like a human, has nothing comparable to a human nature, and has no gender. To stridently force our belief otherwise will prevent a higher, revelatory and life-changing understanding of the true nature of what YHVH is.
The influence of pagan Greek philosophy on the Bible
There are some books in the Hebrew Bible, such as Proverbs, which give us the impression that Wisdom is a created being, a daughter entirely separate from YHVH, with its own will and existence. However, in ancient Yahwist theology, YHVH’s qualities and aspects cannot be separated from God, just as divinity itself cannot be separated from God. All YHVH’s aspects and qualities ARE YHVH, and YHVH is all of YHVH’s aspects and qualities. YHVH is One, and cannot be divided.
Books outside of the Torah had their final edit much later than the Torah did (6th century BCE), because they were not considered to be included in the canon of the Jewish Bible until later. Some books were finalised in the Hasmonean period (140-37 BCE), and some were not finalised until the late 1st century CE at Yavneh, after the destruction of the Temple.
As a result, certain biblical books contain ideas from the time-period in which they were being edited, like the Book of Proverbs. It had one of the longest periods of evolution (from 10th century BCE to the Greek period in the 2nd century BCE). The Wikipedia article on the Book of Proverbs says, “The ‘Proverbs of Solomon’ section, chapters 1–9, was probably the last to be composed, in the Persian or Hellenistic periods“. Proverbs chapter 8 (in which Wisdom is portrayed as a created being) was written during the Hellenistic period, and its concept of Wisdom was heavily influenced by pagan Greek ideas of Wisdom being a separate creation, a distinct entity on its own.
If there is anything in the Hebrew Bible which suggests that Wisdom is a separate being from God, yet who is still doing all the same things that YHVH does, then you have two alternatives: either Wisdom is a god co-equal with YHVH (which would be an idea that speaks against everything that YHVH is, and against the very foundations of the Israelite faith), or the writer is using poetic license, personifying God’s Wisdom for literary and poetic reasons, in order to convey a message about the very power of YHVH’s own Wisdom.
I personally would go with the latter.
The linguistic phenomenon of grammatical gender
You also have to remember that in Semitic languages there are two words for ‘it’, the feminine form and the masculine form. The use of ‘he’ or ‘she’ to describe an inanimate concept does not automatically mean that it is a distinct, living being – ‘Wisdom’ is not literally a ‘she’, as a language with non-gendered nouns like English would understand it. English translations are misleading when they call Wisdom ‘she’, because in Hebrew, ‘hī‘ (pronounced hee) in this context is merely the word for ‘it’, referring back to Wisdom (חוכמה chokhmah), which is grammatically feminine.
Some of you may be familiar with languages that also have this distinction of the grammatically masculine and the grammatically feminine. In which case you must also know that it’s nothing to do with actual gender, they are merely classes of nouns. In Hebrew, the masculine pronoun (hū, pronounced hoo) stands in for grammatically masculine nouns, and the feminine pronoun (hī) stands in for grammatically feminine nouns. Without going into detail, in many languages you can even have male parts of the body which are grammatically feminine, and female parts of the body which are grammatically masculine!
Wisdom’s separateness is poetic, not literal
Prov 8:32 has Wisdom speak and say, “And now, my children, listen to me: happy are those who keep my ways“. Taken literally, this would mean that wise people are the children of the god Wisdom, not of YHVH God. For a monotheist Yahwist, this is an impossible concept! Speaking of Wisdom as a created being is merely poetic license, not to be taken literally. I’ve said it before, but it bears saying again: if Wisdom was something that YHVH had to create, then that would mean that there was a time when YHVH had no wisdom!
In the Miqra, who gives human beings wisdom? Is it a god called Wisdom, or is it YHVH God?
Who gives human beings skill? Is it a god called Wisdom, or is it YHVH God?
Who counsels and advises us? Is it a god called Wisdom, or is it YHVH God?
Who do kings and rulers reign by (Prov 8:15-16)? Is it by a god called Wisdom, or is it by YHVH God?
In Wisdom of Solomon 10:15, it says, “Wisdom once rescued an innocent and holy people from a nation of oppressors.” Is this rewriting the entire story of the Exodus? Was it a divine being called Wisdom who brought us out of Egypt? Or was it YHVH God who redeemed us from Egypt? In this verse, either Wisdom and YHVH are two separate beings, or they are One and the same Being. Both statements cannot be true at the same time.
In Psalm 104:24 and Proverbs 3:19, God created everything in / with wisdom (be-chokhmah). This either means that YHVH created everything in cooperation with a divine being called Wisdom, or YHVH created everything using God’s own wisdom – we can’t have it both ways.
Do you see what happens when we insist on viewing Wisdom as a separate being, created by YHVH? In the original belief system of Yahwism, YHVH alone is Wisdom, and Wisdom is YHVH; they are not two separate beings. Even though it says in various places that YHVH created wisdom, that is purely poetic license, not to be taken literally. As with all the aspects and qualities of YHVH, you cannot separate out Wisdom from YHVH.
Isaiah 28:29 expresses the original Yahwist vision: “This {food from the earth} also comes from YHVH of hosts; [God] is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom“. Wisdom is in YHVH; YHVH is not inside a divine being called Wisdom. If Wisdom were a separate divine being, then one would have to go to utterly ridiculous lengths to reinterpret every single verse in the Miqra which speaks of God’s Wisdom.
I hope that all makes sense. Describing wisdom as a created being is only poetic license, not meant to be taken literally.