Proverbs 3:18 She is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed. (NIV)
In this verse the “she” pronoun is an antecedent for Wisdom. Verse 13 starts out “Blessed is the man who finds wisdom” and then ends with verse 18 which I quoted above. As I was reading this section, the words “tree of life” jumped out at me. If we go back to Genesis 2 we see there is a tree of life and a tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the Garden of Eden.
This is what struck me. Eve saw that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was “desirable for gaining wisdom” because the serpent told her “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Obviously knowing good and evil is not wisdom, though they knew they had done evil after they ate of the tree. But here in Proverbs it says wisdom is a tree of life.
Looking up “tree of life” in the concordance at BibleGateway.com I found that Proverbs says other things are a tree of life as well: the fruit of the righteous, longing fulfilled, and a tongue that brings healing.
Obviously, “tree of life” is a symbol here and not literal. I do understand that. The literal tree of life brought eternal life. (Genesis 3:22 “He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”) Looking up the other verse which mentions tree of life takes me to Revelations. At the end of the first letter (to Ephesus) in verse 7 it says “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” and then each subsequent letter states “To him who overcomes” but has different endings to the sentence. What I am trying to grasp is what is the spirit of the tree of life which is what the symbol in the Proverbs would stand for?
The tree of life was life everlasting, and healing to the nations. While wisdom, the fruit of the righteous, longings fulfilled, and tongues that bring healing does not bring us true eternal life and healing to the nations forever, they do bring to us what life and healing is. To heal someone you make them whole, sound or well. Life is a source of activity or liveliness. Maybe what is being said here is that wisdom (and the rest) bring those things to a people’s life.
Eve went looking for wisdom thinking she could find it by following what Satan said. A few verses before the first one I quoted in Proverbs 3 it states “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” If Eve had leaned on the Lord’s understanding she would not have eaten from the one tree He told her not to eat from. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and teaches wisdom, and wisdom is a tree of life. It seems that Eve had at her fingertips what Satan was promising her. If she had feared God she would have had knowledge and wisdom. Instead she turned away and went in search of it on her own, trusting her own logic and understanding.
How easy is it for us to fall into the same trap? Looking for contentment, we think we need to purchase one more thing. Looking for happiness, we think we need someone else in our life. Looking for wisdom, we think we need another degree after our name. Looking for knowledge, we think we need more experience in the “hard knocks” of life. But when it comes down to it, all good things come from God, and He is the only true source for the things we need.
