What does Wisdom Chapter 14 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Voyage and vessel imagery contrasts providence with frail idols. The passage gives grieving father, royal custom and skilled artisan accounts of worship. Its evil catalogue and future punishment remain attributed argument.

Chapter breakdown

Wisdom 14 depicts a voyager calling on wood frailer than the vessel carrying him. Desire for gain devised the vessel and skill built it, but the prayer attributes guidance and a secure sea path to the Father's providence, able to save even without seafaring art. Men entrust life to little wood and cross safely so wisdom's works are not idle. When proud giants perished, a hand-governed vessel preserved the world's generational seed. The text blesses wood through which justice comes, without a local cross-redemption annotation, and curses handmade idols and makers. Wickedness and wicked people are alike hated; object and maker shall suffer, and Gentile idols become temptations and snares.

Devising idols begins fornication and corrupts life; idols were not original or everlasting, arose through vanity and shall soon end. An illustrative grieving father makes his dead son's image, worships him as god and appoints household rites. Over time custom becomes law and tyrants command statue worship. Distant people fashion an absent king's likeness to honor him; an artisan's effort to please his employer makes a beautiful resemblance, and crowds elevate the honored man to god. Affection and royal service lead people to give wood and stone the incommunicable name.

The passage says ignorance calls great evils peace, describing child sacrifice, hidden sacrifices, mad watches, killing through envy, adultery, blood, murder, theft, dissimulation, corruption, unfaithfulness, tumults, perjury, disturbed good people, forgetfulness of God, defiled souls, changed nature and marital disorder. It calls idol worship the cause, beginning and end of evil. Madness in merriment, false prophecy, injustice and easy false oaths follow; trust in lifeless idols anticipates no harm. Punishment is promised for wrongly regarding God through idols and deceitful oaths despising justice, through just vengeance rather than idol power. These claims remain attributed argument, not an independently established inevitable history of all societies.

The story inside

Opening: Voyage and vessel imagery contrasts providence with frail idols. Development: The passage gives grieving father, royal custom and skilled artisan accounts of worship. Conclusion: Its evil catalogue and future punishment remain attributed argument.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Voyage and vessel imagery contrasts providence with frail idols.
2
The passage gives grieving father, royal custom and skilled artisan accounts of worship.
3
Its evil catalogue and future punishment remain attributed argument.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 72661–72661
14:7. For blessed is the wood, by which justice cometh
Lines 72686–72689
14:15. For a father being afflicted with bitter grief, made to himself the image of his son, who was quickly taken away: and him who then had died as a man, he began now to worship as a god, and appointed him rites and sacrifices among his servants.
Lines 72731–72732
14:27. For the worship of abominable idols is the cause, and the beginning and end of all evil.