Blog - Proverbs 3:20

If you like this blog, then you will like Get Wisdom, Get Understanding which is Pastor Wagner's commentary series on the book of Proverbs which is available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle. Find out more here. For all the blogs in this series, click here: Proverbs Commentary. Proverbs 3:20 "By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew." (Pro 3:20)

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Solomon expands on his exposition of the depths of the wisdom, understanding, and knowledge of God that he began in the previous verse. By his knowledge the depths are broken up. God's wisdom is creative and productive, which is evident in that He used it to found the earth and establish the heavens (Pro 3:19). But God's knowledge can also be a destructive force which He uses to break up what He once laid down. The depths (a deep water; a deep part of the sea - OED) in this verse refer to the oceans and seas.

Exo 15:4-5 - Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea. 5 The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone.

God knows how to break up the depths, and consequently they are afraid of Him.

Psa 77:16 - The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were afraid: the depths also were troubled.

The most classic and well-known example of God using His knowledge to break up the depths happened when He did so to break open the fountains of the great deep and flood the earth in the days of Noah. Based on the statements of scripture which line up with the scientific "hydroplate theory," it appears that the Almighty in His perfect knowledge designed the earth with a layer of water deep below the earth's crust which was sealed up until the appointed time of judgment when the LORD broke up the seabed which caused the water below to spring forth with awe-inspiring power to flood the entire earth.

Gen 7:11-12 - In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. 12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

And the clouds drop down the dew. God's knowledge is both deep and high, spanning from the ocean floor to the clouds above and beyond. Dew is "the moisture deposited in minute drops upon any cool surface by the condensation of the vapour in the atmosphere; formed after a hot day during or towards night, and plentiful in the early morning" (OED). Scientists may dispute the fact that dew is dropped down from the clouds, but "what saith the scripture?" The scriptures declare that the heavens (the region of the atmosphere in which the clouds float, the winds blow, and the birds fly - OED) give dew (Zec 8:12).

Zec 8:12 - For the seed shall be prosperous; the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things.

Dew comes from moisture in the atmosphere; and since the atmosphere is heaven by definition (the first heaven), therefore, dew comes from heaven just as the scripture declares. The Bible makes reference to "a cloud of dew" in Isa 18:4 which is what we call fog. Dew and fog are formed by the same process according to this excerpt from Wikipedia. "Water vapour will condense into droplets depending on the temperature. The temperature at which droplets form is called the dew point. When surface temperature drops, eventually reaching the dew point, atmospheric water vapor condenses to form small droplets on the surface. This process distinguishes dew from those hydrometeors (meteorological occurrences of water), which form directly in air that has cooled to its dew point (typically around condensation nuclei), such as fog or clouds. The thermodynamic principles of formation, however, are the same. Dew is usually formed at night." (Dew, Wikipedia, 11-4-2019) Since clouds are water vapor in the air, and dew is water vapor in the air that is condensed on the ground, therefore it can be said that "the clouds drop down the dew." The clouds drop down the dew because God in His amazing knowledge designed it that way.