StrongerBible

ḥokhmah

חׇכְמָה

HebrewH2451“wisdom, skill”

Appears 153 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Exo 28:3Exo 31:3Exo 31:6Exo 35:26Exo 35:31Exo 35:35Exo 36:1Exo 36:2Deu 4:6Deu 34:92Sa 14:202Sa 20:221Ki 2:61Ki 3:281Ki 4:29(5:9)1Ki 4:30(5:10) (3×)1Ki 4:34(5:14) (2×)1Ki 5:12(26)1Ki 7:141Ki 10:41Ki 10:61Ki 10:71Ki 10:81Ki 10:241Ki 11:412Ch 9:32Ch 9:52Ch 9:62Ch 9:72Ch 9:23Psa 49:3(4)Psa 107:27Pro 1:20Pro 5:1Pro 9:1Pro 14:8Pro 24:7Ecc 2:9Ecc 8:1Ecc 9:15Ecc 9:16Isa 10:13Isa 47:10Jer 9:23(22)Jer 10:12Jer 49:7Jer 51:15Ezk 28:4Ezk 28:5Ezk 28:7
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradekhokh-MAHnoun

What ḥokhmah means

skilled mastery: knowing how to do a thing well, from a craft to a whole life

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

At its root this word names competence in a domain. The same word covers:

  • the hands that weave the tabernacle
  • the mind that runs a kingdom
  • the cunning that outmaneuvers an enemy
  • the settled good sense that lets a person live well before God

What ties the range together is not a feeling or a body of facts but a practiced ability to get something right: the weaver knows cloth, the king knows how to judge, the godly person knows how to live.

The Bible pulls this practical word in a religious direction without ever cutting it loose from its everyday meaning. The craftsmen of Exodus are skilled because God put skill in them; the wisest of all human pursuits, says Proverbs and Job alike, begins with standing in awe of the LORD. So the word can sit at the workbench and at the throne and in the fear of God all at once, and the reader has to feel which weight a passage is carrying.

The senses below run along that continuum, from the most concrete (a trade) to the most exalted (the figure of Wisdom who calls people to God). They are shades of one ability, not unrelated words. The cunning of a tyrant and the godliness of a sage are both, in Hebrew, this one word doing what it does: mastering a domain. The difference the Bible cares about is the domain, and whether the skill is bent toward God or away from him.

Nuances

1aexpert skill in a craft or trade: the trained ability of an artisan, weaver, or sailor
Exo 28:3Exo 31:3Exo 31:6Exo 35:26Exo 35:31Exo 35:35Exo 36:1Exo 36:21Ki 7:14Psa 107:27
1bthe competence to govern, judge, and lead well: the wisdom of a ruler or administrator
Deu 34:92Sa 14:202Sa 20:221Ki 2:61Ki 3:281Ki 4:29(5:9)1Ki 4:30(5:10) (3×)1Ki 4:34(5:14) (2×)1Ki 5:12(26)1Ki 10:41Ki 10:61Ki 10:7
1cshrewdness, cleverness, or cunning: practical cleverness that can be turned to pride or evil
Isa 10:13Isa 29:14Isa 47:10Jer 8:9Jer 9:23(22)Jer 49:7Ezk 28:4Ezk 28:5Ezk 28:7Ezk 28:12Ezk 28:17Dan 1:4
1dwisdom for living rightly, which begins with the fear of the LORD: the settled good sense of the godly
Deu 4:6Job 4:21Job 11:6Job 12:2Job 12:12Job 12:13Job 13:5Job 15:8Job 26:3Job 28:12Job 28:18Job 28:20
1eWisdom personified and the wisdom by which God made the world: the figure who cries out to call people to God, and the creative wisdom present at creation
Psa 104:24Pro 1:20Pro 3:19Pro 8:1Pro 8:11Pro 8:12Pro 9:1Jer 10:12Jer 51:15

What scholars say about ḥokhmah

Every major lexicon (BDB, HALOT, TDOT, TLOT, NIDOTTE, DCH) recognizes an unusually broad range for this noun, running from technical craft and seamanship through royal and judicial competence, shrewdness and even mantic lore, to the ethical-religious wisdom of the wisdom books and the personified figure of Wisdom. The shared core is competence in a domain; lexicons differ on whether the religious and cosmic senses are the word's goal or simply one register among many, with DCH and TLOT treating the secular-versus-sacred split as an artificial question (even the tabernacle craftsmen receive their skill from the Spirit of God). The keystone formula, that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10; 1:7; Job 28:28; Psalm 111:10), is read variously as a later Yahwistic reframing (McKane), as the claim that all knowledge of the world is implicitly knowledge of the LORD (von Rad), or as wisdom's necessary precondition rather than its content (Fox). The personified Lady Wisdom of Proverbs 1, 8, and 9 is the most contested feature: a sustained figure of speech (Whybray, Fox, Weeks), a quasi-personification of divine attributes (Ringgren, Murphy), or a figure built from older goddess materials (Lang, Schroer, Baumann). The trajectory from Proverbs 8 into Sirach 24, Baruch 4, and Wisdom of Solomon 7, where Wisdom is identified with the Torah and recast in Hellenistic terms, is an uncontested fact of reception, though scholars dispute whether it was already latent in Proverbs (Murphy) or only visible in hindsight (Fox, Weeks). A recent line of work (Whybray, Weeks, Kynes, Sneed, Dell) has even questioned whether "wisdom literature" is a coherent category at all.

Where scholars disagree about ḥokhmah

Whether the personified figure of Wisdom (Proverbs 1, 8, 9) is merely a vivid figure of speech, a poetic standing-in for one of God's own attributes, or a figure built from older goddess traditions. The same dispute drives how to read two difficult words in Proverbs 8: whether Wisdom was "created" or "brought forth" by God (verse 22), and whether she stood beside him as a "master craftsman" or as a "little child" at play (verse 30).

  • contestedA sustained figure of speech for wisdom itself, with no claim about a real being; Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 1-9 (Anchor Bible 18A, 2000); R. N. Whybray, Proverbs (NCB, 1994); Stuart Weeks, Instruction and Imagery in Proverbs 1-9 (Oxford, 2007)
  • contestedA quasi-personification of God's attributes, between abstraction and a person; Helmer Ringgren, Word and Wisdom (1947); Roland E. Murphy, Proverbs (WBC 22, 1998)
  • contestedA figure built from older ancient Near Eastern goddess materials, later subordinated to the LORD; Bernhard Lang, Wisdom and the Book of Proverbs: An Israelite Goddess Redefined (1986); Gerlinde Baumann, Die Weisheitsgestalt in Proverbien 1-9 (FAT 16, 1996)
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. חׇכְמָהlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. חׇכְמָהlexicon
  • DCH, ed. D. J. A. Clines, s.v. חׇכְמָהlexicon
  • H.-P. Müller and M. Krause, "חָכַם," TDOT 4:364-385dictionary
  • M. Sæbø, "חכם to be wise," TLOT 2:418-424dictionary
  • T. Longman III, "חכם," NIDOTTE 2:130-134dictionary
  • Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 1-9 (Anchor Bible 18A, 2000)commentary
  • Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10-31 (Anchor Bible 18B, 2009)commentary
  • Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs (NICOT, 2004-2005)commentary
  • Roland E. Murphy, Proverbs (WBC 22, 1998)commentary
  • R. N. Whybray, The Intellectual Tradition in the Old Testament (BZAW 135, 1974)monograph
  • Gerhard von Rad, Wisdom in Israel (1972)monograph
  • Stuart Weeks, Instruction and Imagery in Proverbs 1-9 (Oxford, 2007)monograph
  • Stuart Weeks, "The Context and Meaning of Proverbs 8:30a," JBL 125 (2006): 433-442article
  • Helmer Ringgren, Word and Wisdom (1947)monograph
  • Bernhard Lang, Wisdom and the Book of Proverbs: An Israelite Goddess Redefined (1986)monograph
  • Gerlinde Baumann, Die Weisheitsgestalt in Proverbien 1-9 (FAT 16, 1996)monograph
  • Claudia V. Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (1985)monograph
  • Carol A. Newsom, "Woman and the Discourse of Patriarchal Wisdom: A Study of Proverbs 1-9," in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel, ed. P. Day (1989)article
  • Nili Shupak, Where Can Wisdom Be Found? (OBO 130, 1993)monograph
  • Will Kynes, An Obituary for "Wisdom Literature" (Oxford, 2019)monograph
  • James L. Crenshaw, Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction, 3rd ed. (2010)monograph

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of חׇכְמָה

f s absolute

חָכְמָה

Exo 28:3, Exo 31:3, Exo 31:6, Exo 35:26, Exo 35:31, Exo 36:1, Exo 36:2, Deu 34:9

f s construct

חָכְמַת

Exo 35:35, 2Sa 14:20, 1Ki 3:28, 1Ki 4:30, 1Ki 4:30, 1Ki 4:30, 1Ki 4:34, 1Ki 10:4

f s construct

חָכְמָתֶךָ, חָכְמָתְךָ

1Ki 2:6, 1Ki 10:6, 1Ki 10:8, 2Ch 9:5, 2Ch 9:6, 2Ch 9:7, Ezk 28:7, Ezk 28:4

f s construct

חָכְמָתוֹ

1Ki 4:34, 1Ki 10:24, 1Ki 11:41, 2Ch 9:23, Ecc 9:15, Jer 9:23, Jer 10:12, Jer 51:15

f p absolute

חָכְמוֹת

Psa 49:3, Pro 1:20, Pro 9:1, Pro 24:7

f s construct

חָכְמָתִי

Pro 5:1, Ecc 2:9, Isa 10:13

f s construct

חָכְמָתָם

Psa 107:27, Jer 49:7

f s construct

חָכְמָתֵךְ

Isa 47:10

f s construct

חָכְמַתְכֶם

Deu 4:6

f s construct

חָכְמָתָהּ

2Sa 20:22