VIRTUOUS LIVING - Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

While procedural ethics may be evident in such cases, it is generally motivated bylaw, accidental or totally fallen. The prophet Ezekiel announces the folly of such“wisdom”.By your wisdom and understandingYou have gained wisdom for yourselfand amassed gold and silverin your treasuries.By your skills in tradingyou have increased your wealth,and because of your wealthyour heart has grown proud.Therefore this is what the SovereignLORD says:‘Because you think you are wise,as wise as a god … (Ezekiel 28:4-6).Although such wisdom demonstrates skill and understanding and bears materialresults, it is considered as human and self-centred, and as such, devoid of virtuousquality. The prophetic message from the Lord is not to perpetuate such a distortedethical mentality.J. Goldingay, in his commentary on Proverbs in the New Bible Commentary (1994)has argued that the statement under consideration, namely, “the fear of the Lord iswisdom” points to wisdom as the foundation of all wisdom and its discourse. This isbecause there is no single moment when one ceases to need wisdom. He maintains:Proverbs assumes that you cannot make sense of the world or live a full andsuccessful life unless you see God behind it and involved in it, and seekunderstanding of it from God with reverence and humility (Goldingay1994:586).The "fear of the Lord" is indeed a statement that evokes such strong emotion that itrequires close attention in the broader scheme of moral discourse in which ourrelationship with God is foundational to moral living. B.M. Newman in the conciseGreek-English Dictionary (1971) shows three possible applications of the word “fear”(Gk. Phobos), namely reverence for God, respect for people and being terrified. Inour case we shall take reverence for God as the rendering appropriate to this context.Cox qualifies this “fear” as a “healthy one”. As such, this “fear” is not to be taken atthe surface value of the word, such as fear motivated by the concepts of retribution or237