The Siege Engine of Wisdom Text: Proverbs 21:22
Introduction: The World's Armor and God's Weapon
We live in an age that worships at the altar of brute strength. Our culture is infatuated with the "mighty." This might be the might of military hardware, the might of a booming economy, the might of political influence, or the might of a Supreme Court decision. Men build their cities, their institutions, and their personal lives on what they believe to be unassailable strength. They construct walls of wealth, towers of intellectual pride, and fortresses of godless legislation, and then they stand behind them, confident and secure.
The world believes that power, raw and tangible, is the final arbiter of all things. He who has the most soldiers, the most votes, or the most money wins. This is the foundational assumption of our secular, materialist age. It is a worldview built on what can be seen, measured, and leveraged. And because it is their central premise, they cannot imagine it failing. They trust in their stronghold.
Into this world of clanging armor and fortified arrogance, the book of Proverbs drops a quiet, almost subversive, truth. It presents a different kind of warfare, waged with a different kind of weapon. It tells us that all the world's might, all its confident fortresses, have a fatal vulnerability. There is a way to scale the highest walls and topple the strongest towers, and it has nothing to do with battering rams or siege engines. The weapon God values, the weapon that ultimately triumphs, is wisdom.
This proverb is not a quaint moralism for personal devotion. It is a statement of cosmic, spiritual, and political reality. It describes how the kingdom of God advances against the kingdom of men. It reveals God's strategy for victory, and it is the polar opposite of the world's. The world builds bigger walls. God trains wiser men. And in the end, the wise man always wins.
The Text
A wise man goes up to the city of the mighty
And brings down the stronghold in which they trust.
(Proverbs 21:22 LSB)
The Unlikely Ascent (Clause 1)
Let's look at the first part of this divine observation:
"A wise man goes up to the city of the mighty..." (Proverbs 21:22a)
The scene is set for a complete mismatch. On one side, you have a "city of the mighty." This is a collective noun. It represents consolidated power, the full array of human strength. Think of Jericho with its high walls, or Babylon in its splendor, or Washington D.C. with its entrenched bureaucracies. This is the world system, confident in its numbers, its resources, and its defenses. It is a place of warriors, politicians, and intellectuals who are sure of their own strength.
On the other side, you have "a wise man." Notice the singular. It is one man. He is not described as a mighty man, or a rich man, or a well-connected man. He is simply a wise man. In the book of Proverbs, wisdom is not about having a high IQ or a clever turn of phrase. Biblical wisdom, chokmah, is skill in the art of godly living. It is the practical application of God's truth to every situation. Its foundation is the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10). So, this is a man who thinks God's thoughts after Him, who sees the world as God sees it, and who acts according to God's law.
From a worldly perspective, this is no contest. A lone man, armed only with a biblical worldview, approaches a fortress of secular power. It looks like David approaching Goliath without his sling. It looks like a fool's errand. The mighty men look down from their walls and laugh. They see no army, no threat. They see an irrelevant man with irrelevant ideas.
But the text says he "goes up to" or "scales" the city. He is not intimidated. He does not launch a frontal assault with carnal weapons. He finds a way up. This ascent is not accomplished with grappling hooks and ladders, but with truth, faithfulness, courage, and prayer. He speaks truth to power. He lives a life of integrity that exposes the corruption of the mighty. He builds a faithful family, a faithful church, a faithful business, and these become launching points for the assault. Wisdom gives him leverage that strength does not understand. Think of the prophet Nathan confronting King David, or Athanasius standing against the world, or Luther before the Diet of Worms. These were wise men scaling the city of the mighty.
The Citadel of Unbelief (Clause 2)
The second clause shows us the result of this unlikely assault.
"And brings down the stronghold in which they trust." (Proverbs 21:22b)
The wise man does not just harass the city; he achieves a decisive victory. He brings down the very source of its confidence. What is this "stronghold"? The text tells us it is that "in which they trust." The ultimate defense of any godless system is not its military or its money, but its core beliefs. The stronghold is the central lie, the foundational idol, the arrogant presupposition upon which the entire city is built.
The Apostle Paul gives us the New Testament equivalent of this verse in 2 Corinthians. He says, "For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). A stronghold is an argument, a worldview, a fortress of rebellious thoughts built to keep the knowledge of God out.
The mighty trust in their autonomy. They trust in materialism. They trust in evolution as their creator. They trust in the power of the state as their savior. They trust in their sexual freedoms as their sacrament. These are the strongholds. And how does the wise man bring them down? Not by becoming a better politician or a richer CEO. He brings them down by exposing the lie. Wisdom, which is rooted in the fear of God, sees the crack in the foundation of the unbelieving worldview. It asks the questions the mighty cannot answer. It points out the contradictions they ignore. It speaks the Word of God, which is the ultimate reality, and before which all lies must eventually crumble.
When a culture trusts in the lie that a man can become a woman, the wise man brings that stronghold down by simply and cheerfully asserting the truth of Genesis 1:27. When a city trusts in the lie that a nation can murder its own children and still prosper, the wise man brings that stronghold down by calling it murder and pointing to the judgment of God. He doesn't need a majority vote to do this. He just needs the truth, which is the sharpest of all swords.
Christ, the Wisest Man
This proverb finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the wisest of all men. He came to the "city of the mighty," which was the entire world system arrayed against God, a system empowered by the strong man, Satan himself (Mark 3:27).
From a worldly perspective, His assault was a catastrophic failure. He was a man of no earthly power, from a backwater town. The mighty men of Jerusalem, in collusion with the mighty men of Rome, arrested Him, mocked Him, and executed Him on a cross. They believed their stronghold was secure. They had eliminated the threat. But in that moment of apparent weakness, the wise man was scaling the city walls.
Through His death and resurrection, Jesus brought down the ultimate stronghold in which the mighty trust: the power of sin and death. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him (Colossians 2:15). He did not use their weapons. He used the foolishness of the cross, which is the very wisdom and power of God (1 Corinthians 1:23-25). He overthrew the kingdom of darkness not with legions of angels, but with sacrificial love and resurrection power.
And now, He has given us the same commission. We are to be wise men. We are to go up to the cities of the mighty in our own day. We are to confront the strongholds of unbelief in our culture, in our communities, and yes, in our own hearts. Our weapon is the gospel of this triumphant King. It is the only thing powerful enough to demolish these strongholds, to tear down the arguments of pride, and to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
Therefore, do not be intimidated by the city of the mighty. Do not despair when you see the high walls of secularism and the arrogant confidence of those who trust in their own strength. Their stronghold has already been breached. Their king has already been defeated. Our task is to be wise, to fear God, to speak His truth, and to watch as He uses our simple, faithful wisdom to bring down the fortresses in which they foolishly trust.