Read & explore together
Former mockers confess the emptiness of their lives
This dialogue presents people who once mocked a righteous man, then finally admit how wrong they were. Their fear and regret are matched with vivid pictures showing how empty arrogance, riches, and ungodly hope prove to be.
Understanding the passage
Listening in context
In this passage, the righteous man stands boldly before people who afflicted him and dismissed his labours. Seeing him, they are terrified and amazed. They then confess their past scorn, admit that they went astray from truth and the Lord’s way, and describe how their confidence vanished.
Wisdom of Solomon 5:1–14Main takeaway
This passage shows that scorning the righteous and trusting in arrogance, riches, or wickedness ends in regret and no lasting gain.
Look closely at the words
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01A reversal in public viewThe passage opens with a reversal. The righteous man stands in great boldness before those who afflicted him and counted his labours as nothing.
Explanation
The passage opens with a reversal. The righteous man stands in great boldness before those who afflicted him and counted his labours as nothing. The people who once looked down on him are now the ones shaken. They are troubled with terrible fear and amazed at the marvel of salvation.
02Former mockers admit their mistakeThe speakers remember their earlier words with regret. They had held the righteous man in derision and treated him as a reproach.
Explanation
The speakers remember their earlier words with regret. They had held the righteous man in derision and treated him as a reproach. They had judged his life as madness and his end as without honour. Now they are astonished that he is counted among sons of God and his lot is among saints.
03They confess going astrayTheir confession is direct. They say, “we went astray from the way of truth” and “we didn’t know the Lord’s way.”
Explanation
Their confession is direct. They say, “we went astray from the way of truth” and “we didn’t know the Lord’s way.” The line about the light of righteousness and the sun not rising for them expresses their lost condition. They also say they took their fill of paths of lawlessness and destruction.
04What arrogance and riches could not keepThe speakers ask what profit came from arrogance, riches, and boasting. The answer is that these things passed away.
Explanation
The speakers ask what profit came from arrogance, riches, and boasting. The answer is that these things passed away. The passage compares them to a shadow and a rumour, then to a ship, a bird, and an arrow, each leaving no lasting trace behind after it has gone.
05A bleak verdict on ungodly hopeThe confession ends with a bleak self-assessment. The speakers say that, as soon as they were born, they ceased to be, and had no sign of virtue to show, but were consumed in wickedness.
Explanation
The confession ends with a bleak self-assessment. The speakers say that, as soon as they were born, they ceased to be, and had no sign of virtue to show, but were consumed in wickedness. The final line explains the point: the hope of the ungodly is as fleeting as chaff, foam, smoke, or a briefly remembered guest.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01How does the passage contrast the righteous man with those who afflicted him?
Look at who stands in boldness and who is troubled with terrible fear when they see him.
02What past judgements do the speakers now admit were false?
Notice the harsh names they once gave the righteous man’s life and end, then compare their surprise in verse 5.
03What do the images of shadow, ship, bird, arrow, chaff, foam, and smoke add to the warning?
These comparisons all stress how quickly ungodly confidence disappears and how little trace it leaves.
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
Wisdom of Solomon 5:1–14
1Then the righteous man will stand in great boldness before the face of those who afflicted him, and those who make his labors of no account.
2When they see him, they will be troubled with terrible fear, and will be amazed at the marvel of salvation.
3They will speak among themselves repenting, and for distress of spirit they will groan, “This was he whom we used to hold in derision, as a parable of reproach.
4We fools considered his life madness, and his end without honor.
5How was he counted among sons of God? How is his lot among saints?
6Truly we went astray from the way of truth. The light of righteousness didn’t shine for us. The sun didn’t rise for us.
7We took our fill of the paths of lawlessness and destruction. We traveled through trackless deserts, but we didn’t know the Lord’s way.
8What did our arrogance profit us? What good have riches and boasting brought us?
9Those things all passed away as a shadow, like a rumor that runs by,
10like a ship passing through the billowy water, which, when it has gone by, there is no trace to be found, no pathway of its keel in the waves.
11Or it is like when a bird flies through the air, no evidence of its passage is found, but the light wind, lashed with the stroke of its pinions, and torn apart with the violent rush of the moving wings, is passed through. Afterwards no sign of its coming remains.
12Or it is like when an arrow is shot at a mark, the air it divided closes up again immediately, so that men don’t know where it passed through.
13So we also, as soon as we were born, ceased to be; and we had no sign of virtue to show, but we were utterly consumed in our wickedness.”
14Because the hope of the ungodly man is like chaff carried by the wind, and as foam vanishing before a tempest; and is scattered like smoke by the wind, and passes by as the remembrance of a guest who stays just a day.