Texts in Conversation
Psalm 7 describes the unrighteous digging a pit for a trap and then falling into it themselves, showing how their plans backfire. The Wisdom of Solomon uses this language to teach that people are punished by the very things they do when sinning.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Psalm 7:15
Hebrew Bible
13 He has prepared deadly weapons to use against him; he gets ready to shoot flaming arrows. 14 See the one who is pregnant with wickedness, who conceives destructive plans, and gives birth to harmful lies— 15 he digs a pit and then falls into the hole he has made. 16 He becomes the victim of his own destructive plans— and the violence he intended for others falls on his own head. 17 I will thank the Lord for his justice; I will sing praises to the Lord Most High!
Date: 600–201 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Wisdom of Solomon 11:16
Deuterocanon
14 For him who long before was thrown out and exposed they stopped mocking. In the end of what happened, they marveled, having thirsted in another manner than the righteous. 15 But in return for the senseless imaginings of their unrighteousness, by which they were led astray to worship irrational reptiles and wretched vermin, you sent upon them a multitude of irrational creatures to punish them, 16 that they might learn that by what things a man sins, by these he is punished. 17 For your all-powerful hand that created the world out of formless matter didn’t lack means to send upon them a multitude of bears, fierce lions, 18 or newly-created and unknown wild beasts, full of rage, either breathing out a blast of fiery breath, or belching out smoke, or flashing dreadful sparks from their eyes;
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... In the context of the present revelation of God’s wrath, Paul makes a universal claim about human beings: that they are “without excuse (ἀναπολογήτους)” because they failed to honor the Creator, about whom it is possible to know something (taking τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ to mean “what is knowable about God”) by observing the works of creation, which God manifested to them (1:19–20). Their failure to acknowledge God leads to folly (1:21–22), which is demonstrated, on the one hand by their idolatry, and on the other by their immorality. Paul presents these sins as punishments in themselves; three times, he states that God “gave them up” or “handed them over” (παρέδωκεν; 1:24, 26, 28) to idolatry (1:25), “degrading passions” (1:26–27) and “every kind of wickedness” (1:29–31). This way of explaining human sinfulness resembles a principle articulated in the Wisdom of Solomon that was fairly widespread in apocalyptic texts: “one is punished by the very things by which one sins” (Wisdom of Solomon 11:16; compare Testament of Gad 5:10; Jubilees 4:32) ..."
Karina M. Hogan, “The Apocalyptic Eschatology of Romans,” in The Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition and the Shaping of New Testament Thought, ed. Loren T. Stuckenbruck (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017), 155–174.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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