With the thought of Wisdom being utilized by God in creating the world (“Then was I by him, as a master workman”), one must compare the thought of God having created the world by means of His _Word_; this thought is already adumbrated in such a passage as Psalms xxxiii. 6: “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made”[313]; these words were, at any rate, interpreted in later times to mean that the whole of the Creation, as described in Genesis i., was accomplished by means of the Word of God, “Word,” or _Memra_, having become, in the meantime, a quasi-personality like Wisdom. This development may be seen at work in the Wisdom Literature; for example, in Ecclesiasticus xlii. 15 it is said: “By the Word of God (are) His works,” i.e. were His works created; the context shows that it is the works of the Creation which are referred to. In Wisdom iv. 1 we have the same thought: “O God of my fathers, and Lord of mercy, Who hast made all things by Thy Word, and by Thy wisdom didst form man ...”; and, much later, in 2 (4) Esdras vi. 38, it is said again: “Thy Word was (i.e. made) a perfect work,” where the reference is to the first day of Creation. We are here irresistibly led to think of the opening words of the fourth Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that hath been made” (John i. 1-3). It is very striking to notice here how Christian truth was adumbrated in pre-Christian times. In the Book of Job, as everywhere in the Wisdom Literature, Wisdom is of divine origin, e.g. xi. 5, 6: But oh that God would speak, And open His lips against thee; And that He would show thee the secrets of Wisdom, For sound wisdom is manifold (cp. xv. 8). As a general rule the wisdom spoken of in this book is that of experience; but in one striking passage there is a definite personification of Wisdom, viz. xxviii. 12-28; it begins with the question: “Where shall Wisdom be found?” And after its priceless value has been described, the writer continues (verses 23 ff.): God understandeth the way thereof, And He knoweth the place thereof ... When He made a decree for the rain, And a way for the lightning of the thunder: Then did He see it, and declare it; He established it, yea, and searched it out.... But in this book where problems of great perplexity are treated, there is less scope than in the other Wisdom books for dealing specifically with Wisdom. In Ecclesiastes (B.C. 200) Wisdom, as one would naturally expect, is always something abstract; but in this book, with its terribly pessimistic tone, we come across a phenomenon which is found nowhere else in the Wisdom literature; the Preacher’s pessimism is seen to affect even his estimate of Wisdom; what, for example, could be more dismal than this?