Proverbs 8 Bible study: Doesn't wisdom cry out?

The chapter opens with a question: "Doesn’t wisdom cry out? Doesn’t understanding raise her voice?" (8:1). She takes her stand where people pass: "On the top of high places by the way, where the paths meet, she stands" (8:2), and "Beside the gates, at the entry of the city, at the entry doors, she cries aloud" (8:3). Here is what almost everyone misses: from 8:4 to the end of the chapter every word is hers, in the first person. "I call to you men! I send my voice to the sons of mankind" (8:4). "I, wisdom, have made prudence my dwelling" (8:12) (tap wisdom). Chapter 1's notes set this call beside her first one (Proverbs 1:20-33). Here she says what her words are like: "For my mouth speaks truth. Wickedness is an abomination to my lips" (8:7), and "All the words of my mouth are in righteousness. There is nothing crooked or perverse in them" (8:8). And she says what they are worth: "Receive my instruction rather than silver, knowledge rather than choice gold" (8:10), "For wisdom is better than rubies" (8:11). That verse goes on, "All the things that may be desired can’t be compared to it" (8:11), and says again what Proverbs 3:15 said: in Hebrew rubies is the same word in both verses, and their second halves are nearly the same words. Chapter 3's study of rubies looks at it.

חָכְמָהchokhmahsay khokh-MAH

Brown-Driver-Briggs gives "wisdom", and among its uses "wisdom, ethical and religious"; Strong's, "wisdom (in a good sense)". The chapter opens with it, "Doesn’t wisdom cry out?" (8:1), and has it again in "For wisdom is better than rubies" (8:11) and in Wisdom's own name for herself: "I, wisdom, have made prudence my dwelling" (8:12). Where she calls in 1:20 and builds her house in 9:1, the word is chokhmot, another form (chapter 1's study of Wisdom in 1:20 looks at it).