The King's Scribes and God's Wisdom Text: Proverbs 25:1
Introduction: A Chain of Custody for Truth
We live in an age that is deeply suspicious of all authority, and particularly suspicious of any authority that claims to be ancient. Our modern sensibilities prefer the new, the novel, the "relevant." We want our truth manufactured fresh, like a morning newspaper, and we want it tailored to our personal preferences. The idea of receiving wisdom that has been handed down, carefully preserved and transcribed by dead men from a forgotten kingdom, strikes the modern mind as quaint at best, and oppressive at worst.
But the Christian faith is not a modern invention. It is a received faith. It is a faith that depends entirely on a chain of custody, a faithful transmission of God's Word through the generations. We did not invent the gospel; we received it. Paul tells the Corinthians, "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received" (1 Cor. 15:3). This is the apostolic pattern. This is the biblical pattern. God speaks, His words are recorded, and they are faithfully preserved and passed on by His people.
Proverbs 25:1 gives us a fascinating glimpse into this very process. It is a verse that functions as a title page, an editor's note placed right in the middle of holy Scripture. It tells us the origin of the wisdom that follows, and it tells us how it got to us. And in doing so, it teaches us a profound lesson about the nature of God's Word, the duty of godly rulers, and the preciousness of received truth. This verse is a rebuke to our age of chronological snobbery. It reminds us that wisdom is not something we create, but something we curate. It is not something we invent, but something we inherit.
We see here a godly king, Hezekiah, who understood that one of his primary duties was not just to win battles or build aqueducts, but to preserve the Word of God for the people of God. He saw the collected wisdom of Solomon not as a dusty relic of a bygone golden age, but as living and active truth, essential for the life of his own kingdom. And so he put his men to work. This was a royal commission, a state-sponsored project of biblical preservation. What a concept. This is what godly governance looks like. It concerns itself with the spiritual health of the nation, and it understands that such health is impossible apart from the revealed wisdom of God.
The Text
These also are proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, transcribed.
(Proverbs 25:1 LSB)
God's Providence in Preservation
Let us consider the first part of this simple statement:
"These also are proverbs of Solomon..." (Proverbs 25:1a)
The book of Proverbs is not a monolithic block. It is a collection of collections. We are told in 1 Kings 4:32 that Solomon "spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005." What we have in our Bibles is a curated, Spirit-inspired selection of that vast output. The first major section runs from chapter 10 to chapter 22. Now, here in chapter 25, we are told that we are embarking on a new section, also originating with Solomon. This is important for a number of reasons.
First, it affirms the divine inspiration and authority of what follows. These are not the musings of some anonymous court philosopher. They are from Solomon, the man to whom God gave a unique "wisdom and understanding beyond measure" (1 Kings 4:29). This is a stamp of authority. The wisdom here is not just shrewd human observation; it is divinely-endowed insight into the grain of the universe. It is God's wisdom, mediated through God's chosen king.
Second, it shows us the humanity of the biblical process. God did not dictate the Bible to a series of trance-induced secretaries. He worked through historical processes, through authors and editors, through kings and scribes. These proverbs of Solomon apparently existed for some two hundred years, perhaps in various scrolls or oral traditions, before they were officially collected and added to the canon of Scripture. This does not make the Bible less divine; it makes it more wonderfully so. God is not afraid to work through the mess of human history. He superintends the entire process, ensuring that what He intended for His people is preserved for His people. The doctrine of preservation is a necessary corollary to the doctrine of inspiration. It does no good for God to inspire a perfect word if He cannot then preserve it for us.
This is a profound encouragement for us. The Bible we hold in our hands is not an accident. It is the product of a long, God-breathed, God-overseen process of writing, collecting, copying, and preserving. From Solomon's pen to Hezekiah's scribes to the Masoretic text to our modern translations, God has been watching over His Word to perform it. We can have confidence that what we are reading is what God wanted us to read.
The Piety of a Godly King
Now we come to the second half of the verse, which tells us who did the work.
"...which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, transcribed." (Proverbs 25:1b)
This little historical note is a sermon in itself. Who was Hezekiah? He was one of the great reforming kings of Judah. He came to the throne after his wicked father, Ahaz, had thoroughly paganized the kingdom. Ahaz had shut the doors of the temple, set up pagan altars in every corner of Jerusalem, and even sacrificed his own son in the fire. Judah was a spiritual train wreck.
And what was Hezekiah's first order of business? "In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the LORD and repaired them" (2 Chron. 29:3). He cleansed the temple, restored the Levitical priesthood, and reinstituted the Passover. Hezekiah was a man who understood that the foundation of a healthy nation is right worship. He was a man who treasured the law of God and the wisdom of God.
This project of transcribing Solomon's proverbs was part and parcel of that great reformation. A nation is not reformed by political maneuvering alone. It is reformed by the Word. Hezekiah knew that for Judah to be strong, for its people to be wise, and for its king to rule justly, they needed God's wisdom. And so he commissioned his men, his "secretaries" or "officials," to find, collect, and copy out these precious words. This was an act of profound piety. It was an act of national leadership. Hezekiah was saying, "This wisdom is our national treasure. It is more valuable than gold, more strategic than a strong army. We must preserve it. We must study it. We must live by it."
This stands as a stark rebuke to the modern secular state, which sees its role as entirely materialistic. Our rulers think their job is to fix the economy and manage healthcare. Hezekiah understood that the king's primary duty is to point the people to God and to uphold His Word. He knew that "righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people" (Prov. 14:34). How do you teach a nation righteousness? You give them the righteous standard of God's Word. Hezekiah's scribal project was one of the most profoundly political acts of his reign.
Transcribed for Us
The word translated "transcribed" or "copied" is significant. It means to remove, to transfer. These men carefully lifted the words from their original sources and placed them into a new, authoritative collection for the life of the nation. This was not a casual affair. This was painstaking, careful work, done by men who believed they were handling the very oracles of God.
And why does any of this matter to us, thousands of years later? It matters because this work was not ultimately for Hezekiah's generation alone. It was for us. Paul tells us that "whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope" (Rom. 15:4).
Hezekiah's men were transcribing these proverbs for you. They were working so that you, a believer living in the 21st century, could have access to this same divine wisdom. This is the communion of the saints across time. We are debtors to those who came before us, who faithfully guarded and passed on the sacred text. We drink from wells we did not dig. We are warmed by fires we did not build.
And this puts a responsibility upon us. If godly men went to such lengths to preserve this wisdom, how casually can we afford to treat it? If a king devoted royal resources to ensure these words were not lost, how can we let them sit unread on our shelves? To neglect the book of Proverbs is to neglect a great inheritance, paid for by the diligence of our forefathers in the faith.
The Greater Solomon and His Scribes
As with all Scripture, we must ultimately read this verse with our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ. The proverbs are the wisdom of Solomon, but the New Testament tells us that "something greater than Solomon is here" (Matt. 12:42). Jesus Christ is the incarnation of the wisdom of God. He is the one "in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:3).
Solomon, for all his wisdom, was a flawed and fallen man who ended his life in folly and idolatry. His wisdom could diagnose the world's problems, but it could not save the world. But Jesus is both the wisdom of God and the power of God unto salvation. He did not just speak proverbs; He is the divine Proverb, the Word made flesh.
And just as Solomon's wisdom was transcribed by the men of a later king, so the wisdom of our greater Solomon, Jesus Christ, was transcribed for us. Who were the men of our King? They were Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They were Peter and Paul and James. These were the scribes of the New Covenant, commissioned by the King of Kings. They did not just copy down old proverbs; under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they wrote down the story of redemption, the gospel of the kingdom, the very words of eternal life.
Hezekiah's men preserved the wisdom of the first Solomon. The apostles delivered to us the saving wisdom of the second and final Solomon. The work of Hezekiah was a shadow, a type, pointing to the greater work of Christ in giving us His completed Word. Hezekiah's project was an act of faith, looking back to a golden age. The apostolic writing is an act of fulfillment, establishing the eternal age.
Therefore, when we read these proverbs, we do so as Christians. We read them through the lens of the cross. We see in them the practical, street-level outworking of the righteousness that Christ has purchased for us and works in us by His Spirit. And we give thanks for the entire chain of custody, for Solomon's insight, for Hezekiah's piety, for the scribes' diligence, and above all, for the providence of God who has ensured that His wisdom, both old and new, has been faithfully delivered to us, His people.