Does the Book of Proverbs clearly distinguish between 'wisdom' and 'knowledge'?

Question

In terms of spirituality, wisdom is defined as the ability to understand life from God's perspective and to apply truth in specific situations for godly ends. It is a moral and intellectual quality that is more than just intelligence or knowledge.

We see the Book of Proverbs profusely using the words ' wisdom' and ' knowledge' , sometimes with the same purport. For instance we read in Pro 1:7(KJV):

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

And in 9:10(KJB):

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

Now, wisdom tops up knowledge with value addition. The latter can however, exist without the former . My question is : Does the Book of Proverbs clearly distinguish between 'wisdom' and 'knowledge' ? Or, are the two terms given contextual meaning ?

Answer 1

First, the words themselves - two Hebrew words are involved:

דַּעַת (da'ath) = "knowledge", but also "skill (in workmanship)", but also sometimes used with the meaning of 'wisdom"

חָכְמָה (chokmah) = "wisdom", but also skill (in war), shrewdness

It is immediately clear that the meanings of these two words overlap, especially when used in synthetic parallelism as occurs frequently in the Psalms and proverbs.

That is, these poetic Biblical writings use these two near-synonyms in a way that exploits and further blurs their distinctions. This can be clearly seen in the two verses quoted by the OP:

• Prov 1:7 - The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, But fools despise wisdom and instruction.
• Prov 9:10 - The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

In both cases, the parallel nature of these bifurcated (two clause) proverbs, the two words, "wisdom" and "knowledge" are used synthetically as near-synonyms.

Answer 2

Genre of Literature
It is best to keep in mind the type of literature that the writer of Proverbs engages in: pithy proverbs (adages). And each of these proverbs are complete and stand by themselves. (With a few rare exceptions like the "Words of Agar", or the "Words of king Lemuel".)

So there may be several occurrences where a different word is used in the same kind of sentence. Such as quoted by the OP. (1:7, 9:10) There was not probably a "technical" meaning intended to distinguish the two...they are jut two different proverbs given on different occasions. After all Proverb is a "collection" of sayings written over time.

Having noted this, there is an interesting proverb relating the three similar words which is given in chapter 24:

Through wisdom is a house builded
and by understanding it is established
and by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches! (24:3-4)

So we do not try to delineate different meanings from a technical approach, we jut enjoy the poetic proverb...and glean from it an application for life.