+II. Divine wisdom and prudence act in union for the promotion of moral ends+ (verse 13). There is a wisdom and prudence which do not act in concert for this purpose, but for the very opposite. There is a manifestation of prudence choosing the best time, place, and method in which to work out an evil design. The plan of the tempter to ruin our first parents was a great display of united wisdom and prudence. The _time,_ the _place,_ the _means_ chosen were all calculated to effect the purpose. But the wisdom and prudence of God unite to put down sin, to banish its evil influence from the universe. As we see the combination of wisdom and prudence in the Father's plan of redemption, so we see them combined in every act and word of the Son of God while He was manifest in the flesh. The means He used to silence His enemies, to instruct His disciples, to enlighten the ignorant multitude, were all revelations of His Divine wisdom and prudence. _OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._ Verse 12. That is, this spiritual light, which the very first proverb (ch. i. 2, 3) says is holiness; takes possession of any _intellect; dwells in it;_ nay, _makes a dwelling in it;_ for holiness can dwell in nothing else; and that intellect, though it may be the very mind of God, is stirred up by nothing else to _do_ all that is grand in its total history (verses 22-30). Satan, with such splendid intellect, what is he but the universe's insanest fool? He toils for worse wages than anybody in the whole creation. But could wisdom get a lodging in that peerless intellect, what different results! She gets a lodging in our earthly faculties, and turns us about from sowing to our death, to a splendid harvest of eternal favour.--_Miller._ Wisdom, in the most comprehensive aspect, is to be regarded as giving origin to all arts and sciences, by which human life is improved and adorned; as by her inventive skill developing all the varied appliances for the external comfort and well-being of mankind; as planning the "wondrous frame" of universal creation, which, with all its varied beauty, fills us, in the view with astonishment and delight; and conceiving, in the depths of eternity, the glorious scheme--a scheme "dark with brightness all along"--which secures the happiness of man for ever, and in which she appears in her noblest and most attractive display, the whole, from first to last, discovering "the manifold wisdom of God."--_Wardlaw._