the sky (as aloft · noun, common masculine plural absolute
set
בְּח֥וּקוֹbe.Chu.kov
H2710
properly · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
compass
ח֝֗וּגChug
H2329
a circle · noun, common masculine singular absolute
face
פְּנֵ֥יpe.Nei
H6440
the face (as the part that turns) · noun, common masculine plural construct
depth
תְהֽוֹםte.Hom
H8415
an abyss (as a surging mass of water) · noun, common feminine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Job 26:10 He hath compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end.
Isaiah 40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a cu…
Proverbs 3:19 The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.
Psalms 136:5 To him that by wisdom made the heavens: for his mercy endureth for ever.
Colossians 1:16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions,…
Isaiah 40:11 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those th…
Jeremiah 10:12 He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion.
Hebrews 1:2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Proverbs 8:22-31
That it is an intelligent and divine person that here speaks seems very plain, and that it is not meant of a mere essential property of the divine nature, for Wisdom here has personal properties and actions; and that intelligent divine person can be no other than the Son of God himself, to whom the principal things here spoken of wisdom are attributed in other scriptures, and we must explain scripture by itself. If Solomon himself designed only the praise of wisdom as it is an attribute of God, by which he made the world and governs it, so to recommend to men the study of that wisdom which belongs to them, yet the Spirit of God, who indited what he wrote, carried him, as David often, to such…
when he set . . . depth--marked out the circle, according to the popular idea of the earth, as circular, surrounded by depths on which the visible concave heavens rested.
John Gill on Proverbs 8:27
When he prepared the heavens, I was there,.... Made, beautified, and adorned them; when he gave them their form, figure, magnitude, and motion; when he garnished them with the sun, moon, and stars; then was Christ present, not as a mere spectator, but as a co-worker; see Hebrews 1:10; and even the third heaven, the place and state of glorified saints, prepared for them from the foundation of the world, Matthew 25:34;
when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: or "compassed the waters with bounds", as Job says, Proverbs 26:10; or made the earth with the sea globular, which make one terraqueous globe: or "made a circle" (p); all around it, called the circle of the earth, on which he si…
But not only did her existence precede the laying of the foundation of the world; she was also actively taking part in the creative work:
"When He prepared the heavens, I was there,
When He measured out a circle for the mirror of the multitude of waters."
Again a sentence clothed with two designations of time. The adv. of place שׁם is used, chiefly poetically, for אז, eo tempore (Arab. thumm, in contradistinction to thamm, eo loco); but here it has the signification of place, which includes that of time: Wisdom was there when God created the world, and had then already long before that come into existence, like as the servant of Jahve, Isa 48:16, with just such a שׁם אני, says that He is the…
The Church Fathers
This Wisdom uttered made the sky, The sky and light and all besides; All by the Word's almighty power Were fashioned, for the Word was God.
Learn also that the Father was with him, and he with the Father, when all things were being made. Wisdom says, "When he was preparing the heavens I was with him, when he was making the fountains of waters." And in the Old Testament the Father … showed that the Son was to be worshiped with himself as the maker of all things. As, then, those things are said to have been created in the Son, of which the Son is received as the Creator, so too when God is said to be worshiped in truth by the proper meaning of the word itself often expressed after the same manner it ought to be understood, that the Son too is worshiped. So in like manner is the Spirit also worshiped because God is worshiped in Spirit. Therefore the Father is worshiped both with the Son and with the Spirit, because the Trinity is worshiped.
For in the beginning when He created the world and all that therein is, and when He was establishing things, wisdom worked with Him, even as Solomon saith, "The Lord by His wisdom laid the foundations of the earth, and He constructed the heavens by His understanding; and by His knowledge were the depths broken up, and the clouds distilled water." And again wisdom saith, "When He constructed the heaven I was with Him, and when He made a circle upon the face of the deep, and when He made firm the clouds from above, and when the fountains of the depths became strong." Now wisdom was with God in His primaeval works, but in this second creation faith is with Him; and in this second giving of birth He hath taken to Himself faith as a helpmeet. In everything faith cleaveth to God, and without it to-day He worketh no new things. It were an easy thing for Him to give thee birth from water and spirit without it, but until it is satisfied He doth not give thee new birth. He is able to make thee a new creature, and from being old to make thee new, but until He receiveth from thee faith as a pledge He neither changeth thee nor maketh thee a new creature.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Sea, The · God: Set bounds to, by a perpetual decree — God: Set bounds to, by a perpetual decree
Wisdom · .UNCLASSIFIED SCRIPTURES RELATING TO — .UNCLASSIFIED SCRIPTURES RELATING TO
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
God used his wisdom to establish the created order, so wisdom can tell us how the world works and testifies to God’s greatness.
Rashi on Proverbs 8:27
when He drew a circle over the face of the deep When He drew the circle of the earth over the water, to draw a boundary that it may not pass.
חוג is an expression of encircling, as in (Isa. 44: 13): “and with a compass (ובמחוגה) he rounds it.” (Compas in French, zirkel in German, as in Gen. 29: 17, Isa. 5:22, 44:13, and Job 22: 14.)
