There is a source for silver
1There is a source for silver and a place where they refine gold. 2Iron is taken out of the dust, and copper is smelted out of stone. 3He puts an end to darkness and searches out the farthest limit: ore in the gloom and the shadow of death. 4He breaks a shaft where no one lodges, in places the foot has forgotten; far from mortals the miners hang and sway.* 5The earth, out of which bread comes, is turned over underneath as though by fire. 6Its stones are the place of lapis, and it holds dust of gold. 7No bird of prey knows that path; no falcon’s eye has caught sight of it. 8The proud beasts have never walked it, and the lion has not passed that way. 9He lays his hand to the flint and overturns mountains at the root. 10He cuts channels through the rock, and his eye sees every precious thing. 11He dams the sources of the rivers and brings what was hidden out into the light.
But wisdom: where is it found?
12But wisdom: where is it found? Where is the place of understanding? 13No mortal knows its worth, and it is not found in the land of the living. 14The deep says, “It is not in me.” The sea says, “It is not with me.” 15It cannot be bought with fine gold, nor its price weighed out in silver. 16It cannot be valued against the gold of Ophir, against precious onyx or lapis. 17Gold and glass are no match for it, and no vessel of pure gold will buy it. 18Coral and crystal are not worth mentioning; the price of wisdom is beyond pearls. 19The topaz of Cush is no match for it; it cannot be valued against pure gold.
God understands the way to it
20So wisdom: where does it come from? Where is the place of understanding? 21It is hidden from the eyes of everything alive, concealed from the birds of the sky. 22Abaddon and Death say, “With our own ears we have heard a rumor of it.” 23God understands the way to it; he knows where it is. 24For he looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens. 25When he gave the wind its weight and measured out the waters, 26when he made a rule for the rain and a road for the thunderbolt, 27then he saw wisdom and appraised it; he set it in place and searched it out. 28And to man he said: “See, the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and turning from evil is understanding.”*
Notes
- 28:4 — The Hebrew moves here from the singular — “a shaft is broken open” — to the plural — “they hang”, “they sway” — without ever naming the new subject. The oddity belongs to the original and is kept.
- 28:28 — Here the Hebrew reads אֲדֹנָי (Adonai), “the Lord”, pointed with qamats: a divine title distinct from the Name, and the only occurrence in the whole book, which elsewhere says Yahweh, Eloah, El and Shaddai. The two other places where those consonants appear are not the title — “from his master” in 3:19, with a possessive suffix, and “its bases” in 38:6, from another root.
