Wisdom of the Aged

Proverbs 3:2 (KJV) For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.

One of the answers I’ve always come up with on why supposedly wise men die young and why being obedient doesn’t guarantee old age is that you don’t know how long somebody would’ve lived without the wisdom or obedience.  If someone dies at 45 it’s possible that they would have died at 35.  We can’t know that.

Another reason is that we’re wrong about the presence of wisdom.  There are many great thinkers in our history who have died young.  The reasons are buried, but they don’t live very long.  It’s possible that we are confusing intelligence with wisdom.  The two are not the same but from a distance might be hard to discern.

So?  Just because we don’t understand how to apply God’s promises doesn’t mean that they don’t apply.