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Easter Season · A Seventh Reading Easter Vigil · Year A

Baruch 3:9-15, 3:32-4:4 or Proverbs 8:1-8, 19-21; 9:4b-6

The Fountain of Wisdom

April 5, 2026

Sophia, the Wisdom of God, Anonymous Russian icon painter
Sophia, the Wisdom of God, Anonymous Russian icon painter, 1654Novgorod Art and History Museum
A Novgorod icon of Wisdom as a winged, fiery-faced figure on a throne, with Christ above and Mary and the Baptist either side.Learn where there is wisdom, where there is strength, where there is understanding: the reading asks where wisdom is, and this is the answer as an icon.Anonymous Russian icon painterUnnamed, as Russian icon painters generally were; the work belongs to a workshop tradition rather than an individual.Novgorod Art and History MuseumA Russian museum in the Novgorod kremlin, with one of the oldest and finest icon collections in the country.Novgorod Art and History Museum
Revised Common Lectionary
Old TestamentBar. 3:9-15, 3:32-4:4Bar 3:9-15, 3:32-4:4 orProv. 8:1-8, 19-21; 9:4b-6Prv 8:1-8, 19-21; 9:4b-6
PsalterPs. 19Ps 19

Overview & Insights

“Learn where there is wisdom, where there is strength, where there is understanding.” (Baruch 3:14)

Baruch, associated with the prophet Jeremiah, addresses a people in exile and asks why Israel has grown old in a foreign land, defiled among the dead. The answer is that they have forsaken the fountain of wisdom. The passage praises the wisdom that no ruler or hero of old ever found on their own, for God alone knows the way to her; he who established the earth and calls the stars, who fills all things with understanding, has given wisdom to Jacob his servant and Israel whom he loved. Read at the Easter Vigil, the poem sings of the wisdom of God that appeared on earth and lived among men, which the church hears fulfilled in Christ, the wisdom of God who leads his people out of exile into life.

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Take it further: Baruch 3:9-15, 3:32-4:4 or Proverbs 8:1-8, 19-21; 9:4b-6

Commentary

Commentary on Proverbs 8:1-8, 19-21; 9:4b-6Commentary on Prv 8:1-8, 19-21; 9:4b-6 Working Preacher

This is the Working Preacher commentary written specifically for this passage as the seventh Easter Vigil reading.

Proverbs 8 CommentaryPrv 8 Commentary Center for Excellence in Preaching

The Center for Excellence in Preaching walks through wisdom's public call and her role alongside God in creation.

Proverbs 8 Commentary: In Praise of WisdomPrv 8 Commentary: In Praise of Wis Enduring Word · David Guzik

David Guzik gives a verse by verse evangelical reading of wisdom's speech in chapter 8.

Proverbs 8 CommentariesPrv 8 Commentaries BibleHub

Aggregates classic commentaries such as Matthew Henry and the Cambridge Bible for College and Schools on this chapter.

Gill's Exposition on Proverbs 8Gill's Exposition on Prv 8 StudyLight

John Gill's classic exposition works through wisdom's self-description phrase by phrase.

Background & Word Study

Proverbs 8 (Hebrew and English)Prv 8 (Hebrew and English) Sefaria

Gives the Hebrew text of wisdom's call alongside an English translation for word study.

Proverbs 8 InterlinearPrv 8 Interlinear BibleHub

Shows the Hebrew of each phrase with parsing, useful for checking how 'wisdom' and 'understanding' are built.

The Church Fathers

Catena on Proverbs 8Catena on Prv 8 Catena

Collects patristic comment on wisdom's public call, read by many fathers as a figure of Christ.

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