Albert Barnes Commentary Proverbs 8:26

"While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, Nor the beginning of the dust of the world." — Proverbs 8:26 (ASV)

The highest part of the dust of the world - literally, “the head of the dusts of the world”; an image of either:

1. the dry land, habitable, fit for cultivation, as contrasted with the waters of the chaotic deep; or
2. man himself. Compare (Ecclesiastes 3:20).