Albert Barnes Commentary Proverbs 8:22

"Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way, Before his works of old." — Proverbs 8:22 (ASV)

A verse that has played an important part in the history of Christian dogma. Wisdom reveals herself as preceding all creation, stamped upon it all, one with God, yet in some way distinguishable from Him as the object of His love (Proverbs 8:30). John declares that all that Wisdom here speaks of herself was true in its highest sense of the Word that became flesh (John 1:1–14), just as the Apostles afterward applied Wisdom 7:22-30 to Christ (Hebrews 1:3).

Possessed – The word has acquired a special prominence in connection with the Arian controversy. The meaning it usually bears is that of “getting” (Genesis 4:1), “buying” (Genesis 47:22), or “possessing” (Jeremiah 32:15). In this sense, one of the oldest divine names was “Possessor of heaven and earth” (Genesis 14:19, 22). However, the idea of thus “getting” or “possessing,” as a divine act in relation to the universe, involved the idea of creation. Thus, in one or two passages, the word might be rendered, though not accurately, as “created” (e.g., Psalms 139:13). It would seem, accordingly, as if the Greek translators of the Old Testament oscillated between the two meanings. In this passage, we find the various renderings ἔκτισε ektise, “created” (Septuagint), and ἐκτήσατο ektēsato, “possessed” (Aquila).

The text with the former word naturally became one of the stock arguments of the Arians against the eternal co-existence of the Son, and the other translation was as vehemently defended by the orthodox fathers. Athanasius, receiving ἔκτισεν ektisen, took it in the sense of appointing and saw in the Septuagint a declaration that the Father had made the Son the “chief,” the “head,” the “sovereign,” over all creation. Indeed, there does not seem to be any ground for the thought of creation either in the meaning of the root or in the general usage of the word.

What is meant in this passage is that we cannot think of God as ever having been without Wisdom. She is “as the beginning of His ways.” So far as the words bear upon Christian dogma, they accord with the words of John 1:1: “the Word was with God.” The next words indeed assert priority to all the works of God, from the first starting point of time.