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Proverbs, Book of

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Proverbs, Book of

One of the Sapiential writings of the Old Testament placed in the Vulgate after the Psalms, in the Hebrew among the Sacred Writings. According to the official edition of the Vulgate, the Hebrews called it Misle. The Latin term Proverbium implies a sententious expression of a practical truth. The Hebrew Misle indicates rather the form of expression, viz., “sententious expression in parallelism of individual truths capable of general application.” The Book of Proverbs is a collection of practical rules for wise living set forth in poetical form, containing 31 chapters, divided as follows:

the exordium defines the purpose of the book, i.e., to impart wisdom which will enable men to understand all kinds of proverbs (1, 1-7)

a series of poems concerning wisdom, its pursuit, fruits, enemies, and glory (1-9)

the Proverbs of Solomon; disconnected sayings in couplet form, sometimes repeated (10-22)

other collections of proverbs: those regarded as an epilogue to the preceding (22-24)

proverbs of Solomon collected by the men of Ezechias, King of Juda (25-29)

the words of Gatherer (Agur), son of Vomiter (30)

the words of Lamuel, the king (31, 1-9)

and an alphabetic poem descriptive of brave and strong woman, used as the Epistle in the Mass of Holy Matrons (31, 10-31)

There is no question of individual authorship. The major portion is the work of Solomon, though the book in its present form may have been completed in the time of King Ezechias or even of Esdros. Its Divine origin (canonicity) is vouched for by its frequent use on the part of the rabbis and by the New Testament allusions and citations, , e.g., Romans, 12, 19 and 20.

Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary

Proverbs, Book of

One of the Sapiential writings of the Old Testament placed in the Hebrew Bible among the Hagiographa, and found in the Vulgate after the books of Psalms and Job.

I. NAMES AND GENERAL OBJECT

In the Masoretic Text, the Book of Proverbs has for its natural heading the words Míshlê Shelomoh (Proverbs of Solomon), wherewith this sacred writing begins (cf. x). In the Talmud and in later Jewish works the Book of Proverbs is oftentimes designated by the single word Míshlê, and this abridged title is expressly mentioned in the superscription “Liber Proverbiorum, quem Hebræi Misle appellant”, found in the official edition of the Vulgate. In the Septuagint MSS., the two Hebrew titles are rendered by and , respectively. From these Greek titles again are immediately derived the Latin renderings, “Parabolæ Salomonis”, “Parabolæ”, a trace of which appears in the Tridentine “Decretum de Canon. Script.”, wherein the Book of Proverbs is simply called “Parabolæ”. The ordinary title “Proverbia Salomonis” was apparently taken from the Old Latin Version into the Vulgate, whence comes directly the usual English title of “Proverbs”. In the Church’s liturgy, the Book of Proverbs is, like the other Sapiential writings, designated by the common term “Wisdom”. This is consonant to the practice, common in early Christian times, of designating such books by the word “Wisdom” or by some expresion in which this word occurs, as “All-virtuous Wisdom”, etc. Indeed, it is probable that the title , “Wisdom”, was common in Jewish circles at the beginning of Christianity, and that it passed from them to the early Fathers of the Church (cf. Eusebius, “Hist. Eccl.”, IV, xxii, xxvi). Of the various names given to the Book of Proverbs, that of Wisdom best sets forth the ethical object of this inspired writing. However disconnected the pithy sayings or vivid descriptions which make up the book may appear, they, each and all, are bound by one and the same moral purpose: they aim at inculcating wisdom as understook by the Hebrews of old, that is perfection of knowledge showing itself in action, whether in the case of king or peasant, statesman or artisan, philosopher or unlearned. Differently from the term “Wisdom”, the title Míshlê (St. Jerome, Masloth) has a distinct reference to the symbolic character and poetical form of the sayings which are gathered together in the Book of Proverbs. In general, the Hebrew word Mashal (constr. plur. Míshlê) denotes a representative saying, that is, a statement which, however deduced from a single instance, is capable of application to other instances of a similar kind. Taken in this sense, it corresponds pretty well to the words proverb, parable, maxim etc., in our Western literatures. But besides, it has the meaning of sentences constructed in parallelism; and in point of fact, the contents of the Book of Proverbs exhibit, from beginning to end, this leading feature of Hebrew poetry. Hence, it appears that, as prefixed to this inspired writing, the word Míshlê describes the general character of the Book of Proverbs as a manual of practical rules which are set forth in a poetical form.

II. DIVISIONS AND CONTENTS

As it stands at the present day, the Book of Proverbs begins with the general title, “Míshlê Shelomoh, the son of David, king of Israel”, which is immediately followed by a prologue (i, 2-6), stating the aim and importance of the entire work: the whole collection aims at imparting wisdom and at enabling men to understand all kinds of Mashals. The first part of the book (i, 7-ix), itself a hortatory introduction to the collection of proverbs which follows, is a commendation of wisdom. After a deeply religious epigraph (i, 7), the writer, speaking like a father, gives a series of exhortations and warnings to an imagined pupil or disciple. He warns him against evil company (i, 8-19); describes to him the advantages attending the pursuit of wisdom, and the evils to be avoided by such course (ii); exhorts him to obedience, to trust in God, to the payment of legal offerings, to patience under the Divine chastisements, and sets forth the priceless value of wisdom (iii, 1-26). After some miscellaneous precepts (iii, 27-35), he renews his pressing exhortation to wisdom and virtue (iv), and gives several warnings against unchaste women (v; vi, 20-35; vii), after the first of which are inserted warnings against suretyship, indolence, falsehood, and various vices (vi, 1-19. At several points (i, 20-33; viii; ix) Wisdom herself is introduced as speaking and as displaying her charms, origin, and power to men. The style of this first part is flowing, and the thoughts therein expressed are generally developed in the form of connected discourses. The second part of the book (x-xxii, 16) has for its distinct heading: “Míshlê Shelomoh”, and is made up of disconnected sayings in couplet form, arranged in no particular order, so that it is impossible to give a summary of them. In many instances a saying is repeated within this large collection, usually in identical terms, at times with some slight changes of expression. Appended to this second part of the book are two minor collections (xxii, 17-xxiv, 22; ssiv, 23-34), chiefly made up of aphoristic quatrains. The opening verses (xxii, 17-21) of the first appendix request attention to the “words of the wise” which follow (xxii, 22-xxiv, 22), and which, in a consecutive form recalling that of the first part of the book, set forth warnings against various excesses. The second appendix has for its title: “These also are words of the wise”, and the few proverbs it contains conclude with two verses (33, 34), apparently taken over from vi, 10, 11. The third part of the book (xxv-xxix) bears the inscription: “These are also Míshlê Shelomoh, which the men of Ezechias, king of Juda, copied out.” By their miscellaneous character, their couplet form, etc., the proverbs of this third part resemble those of x-xxii, 16. Like them also, they are followed by two minor collections (xxx and xxxi, 1-9), each suplied with its respective title. The first of these minor collections has for its heading: “Words of Agur, the son of Takeh”, and its principal contents are Agur’s meditation on the Divine transcendence (xxx, 2-9), and groups of numerical proverbs. The second minor collection is inscribed: “The Words of Lamuel, a king: the oracle which his mother taught him.” In it the queen-mother warns her son against sensuality, drunkenness, and injustice. Nothing is known of Agur and Lamuel; their names are possibly symbolical. The book concludes with an alphabetical poem descriptive of the virtuous woman (xxxi, 10-39).

III. HEBREW TEXT AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

A close study of the present Hebrew Text of the Book of Proverbs proves that the primitive wording of the pithy sayings which make up this manual of Hebrew wisdom has experienced numerous alterations in the course of its transmission. Some of these imperfections have, with some probability, been assigned to the period during which the maxims of the “wise men” were preserved orally. Most of them belong undoubtedly to the time after these sententious or enigmatic sayings had been written down. The Book of Proverbs was numbered among the “Hagiographa” (writings held by the ancient Hebrews as less sacred and authoritative than either the “Law” or the “Prophets”), and, in consequence, copyists felt naturally less bound to transcribe its text with scrupulous accuracy. Again, the copyists of Proverbs knew, or at least thought they knew, by memory the exact words of the pithy sayings they had to write out; hence arose involuntary changes which, once introduced, were perpetuated or even added to by subsequent transcribers. Finally, the obscure or enigmatic character of a certain number of maxims led to the deliberate insertion of glosses in the text, so that primitive distichs now wrongly appear in the form of tristichs, etc. (cf. Knabenbauer, “Comm. in Proverbia”, Paris, 1910). Of the ancient versions of the Book of Proverbs, the Septuagint is the most valuable. It probably dates from the middle of the second century B. C., and exhibits very important differences from the Massoretic Text in point of omissions, transpositions, and additions. The translator was a Jew conversant indeed with the Greek language, but had at times to use paraphrases owing to the difficulty of rendering Hebrew pithy sayings into intelligible Greek. After full allowance has been made for the translator’s freedom in rendering, and for the alterations introduced into the primitive wording of this version by later transcribers and revisers, two things remain quite certain: first, the Septuagint may occasionally be utilized for the discovery and the enmendation of inaccurate readings in our present Hebrew Text; and next, the most important variations which this Greek Version presents, especially in the line of additions and transpositions, point to the fact that the translator rendered a Hebrew original which differed considerably from the one embodied in the Massoretic Bibles. It is well known that the Sahidic Version of Proverbs was made from the Septuagint, before the latter had been subjected to recensions, and hence this Coptic Version is useful for the control of the Greek Text. The present Peshito, or Syriac Version of Proverbs was probably based on the Hebrew Text, with which it generally agrees with regard to material and arrangement. At the same time, it was most likely made with respect to the Septuagint, the peculiar readings of which it repeatedly adopts. The Latin Version of Proverbs, which is embodied in the Vulgate, goes back to St. Jerome, and for the most part closely agrees with the Massoretic Text. It is probable that many of its present deviations from the Hebrew in conformity with the Septuagint should be referred to later copyists anxious to complete St. Jerome’s work by means of the “Vetus Itala”, which had been closely made from the Greek.

IV. AUTHORSHIP AND DATE

The vexed questions anent the authorship and date of the collections which make up the Book of Proverbs go back only to the sixteenth century of our era, when the Hebrew Text began to be studied more closely than previously. They were not even suspected by the early Fathers who, following implicitly the inscriptions in i, 1; x, 1; xxiv, 1 (which bear direct witness to the Solomonic authorship of large collections of proverbs), and being misled by the Greek rendering of the titles in xxx, 1; xxxi, 1 (which does away altogether with the references to Agur and Lamuel as authors distinct from Solomon), regarded King Solomon as the author of the whole Book of Proverbs. Nor were they real questions for the subsequent writers of the West, although these medieval authors had in the Vulgate a more faithful rendering of xxx, 1; xxxi, 1, which might have led them to reject the Solomonic origin of the sections ascribed to Agur and Lamuel respectively, for in their eyes the words Agur and Lamuel were but symbolical names of Solomon. At the present day, most Catholic scholars feel free to treat as non-Solomonic not only the short sections which are ascribed in the Hebrew Text to Agur and Lamuel, but also the minor collections which their titles attribute to “the wise” (xxii, 16- xxiv, 22; xxiv, 23-34), and the alphabetical poem concerning the virtuous woman which is appended to the whole book. With regard to the other parts of the work (i-ix; x-xxii, 16; xxv-xxix), Catholic writers are wellnigh unanimous in ascribing them to Solomon. Bearing distinctly in mind the statement in III (A. V. I) Kings, iv, 29-32, that, in his great wisdom, Solomon “spoke 3000 Mashals”, they have no difficulty in admitting that this monarch may be the author of the much smaller number of proverbs included in the three collections in question. Guided by ancient Jewish and Christian tradition they feel constrained to abide by the explicit titles to the same collections, all the more so because the titles in the Book of Proverbs are manifestly discriminating with respect to authorship, and because the title, “These also are Mishle Shelomoh, which the men of Ezechias, King of Juda, copied out” (xxv, 1), in particular, bears the impress of definiteness and accuracy. Lastly, looking into the contents of these three large collections, they do not think that anything found therein with respect to style, ideas, historic background etc. should compel anyone to give up the traditional authorship, at whatever time–either under Ezechias, or as late as Esdras–all the collections embodied in the Book of Proverbs reached their present form and arrangement. A very different view concerning the authorship and date of the collections ascribed to Solomon by their titles is gaining favour among non-Catholic scholars. It treats the headings of these collections as no more reliable than the titles of the Psalms. It maintains that none of the collections comes from Solomon’s own hand and that the general tenor of their contents bespeaks a late post-exilic date. The following are the principal arguments usually set forth in favour of this opinion. In these collections there is no challenge of idolatry, such as would naturally be expected if they were pre-exilic, and monogamy is everywhere presupposed. It is very remarkable, too, that throughout no mention is made of Israel or of any institution peculiar to Israel. Again, the subject of those collections is not the nation, which apparently no longer enjoys independence, but the individual, to whom wisdom appeals in a merely ethical, and hence very late, manner. The personification of wisdom, in particular (chap. viii), is either the direct result of the influence of Greek upon Jewish thought, or, if independent of Greek philosophy, the product of late Jewish metaphysics. Finally, the close spiritual and intellectual relation of Proverbs to Ecclesiasticus shows that, however great and numerous are the differences in detail between them, the two works cannot be separated by an interval of several centuries. Despite the confidence with which some modern scholars urge these arguments against the traditional authorship of i-ix; x-xxii, 16; xxv,- xxix, a close examination of their value leaves one unconvinced of their proving force.

I. NAMES AND GENERAL OBJECT

The Book of Proverbs is justly numbered among the protocanonical writings of the Old Testament. In the first century of our era its canonical authority was certainly acknowledged in Jewish and Christian circles, for the Sacred Writers of the New Testament make a frequent use of its contents, quoting them at times explicitly as Holy Writ (cf. Romans 12:19-20; Hebrews 12:5-6; James 4:5-6, etc.). It is true that certain doubts as to the inspiration of the Book of Proverbs, which had been entertained by ancient rabbis who belonged to the School of Shammai, reappeared in the Jewish assembly at Jamnia (about A. D. 100); but these were only theoretical difficulties which could not induce the Jewish leaders of the time to count this book out of the Canon, and which in fact were there and then set at rest for ever. The subsequent assaults of Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 429), of Spinoza (d. 1677), and of Le Clerc (d. 1736) against the inspiration of that sacred book left likewise its canonical authority unshaken.

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For Introductions to the Old Testament see INTRODUCTION. Recent commentaries–Catholic: ROHLING, (Mainz, 1879); LESÊTRE (Paris, 1879); FILLION (Paris, 1892); VIGOUROUX (Paris, 1903); KNABENBAUER (Paris, 1910). Protestant: ZÖCKLER (tr. New York, 1870); DELITSCH (tr. Edinburgh, 1874); NOWACK (Leipzig, 1883); WILDEBOER (Freiburg, 1897); FRANKENBERG (Göttingen, 1898); STRACK (Nördlingen, 1899); TOY (New York, 1899). General works: MEIGNAN, Solomon, son règne, ses écrits (Paris, 1890); CHEYNE, Job and Solomon, (New York, 1899); KENT, The Wise Men of Ancient Israel (New York, 1899); DAVISON, The Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament (London, 1900).

FRANCIS E. GIGOT Transcribed by WGKofron With thanks to Fr. John Hilkert and St. Mary’s Church, Akron, Ohio

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia

Proverbs, Book Of

the 20th book of the Old Test., according to the arrangement of the English Bible, where it is placed between the Psalms and Ecclesiastes, doubtless from its presumed relation to the other works of Solomon; and in the Hebrew Bible it likewise follows the Psalms as part of the Kethubim, or Hagiographa. In the German MSS. of the Hebrew Old Test. the Proverbs are placed between the Psalms and Job, while in the Spanish MSS., which follow the Masorah, the order is Psalms, Job, Proverbs. This latter is the order observed in the Alexandrian MS. of the Sept. Melito, following another Greek MS., arranges the Hagiographa thus: Psalms. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Job, as in the list made out by the Council of Laodicea; and the same order is given by Origen, except that the book of Job is separated from the others by the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Ezekiel. But our present arrangement existed in the time of Jerome (see Prtf. in Libr. Regum, iii: Tertius ordo possidet. Et primus liber incipit ab Job. Secundus a David….’ Tertius est Solomon. tres libros habens: Proverbia, quae illi parabolas, id est Masaloth appellant: Ecclesiastes, id est,’Coeleth: Canticum Canticorum, quem titulo Sir Asirim prmnotant). In the Peshito Syriac, Job is placed before Joshua, while Proverbs and Ecclesiastes follow the Psalms, and are separated from the Son Song Songs by the book of Ruth. Gregory of Nazianzum, apparently from the exigencies of his verse, arranges the writings of Solomon in this order: Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Proverbs. Pseudo Epiphanius places Proverbs, Ecclesiastes. and Song of Songs between the 1James , 2 d books of Kings and the minor prophets. The following article treats of the book both from an internal and an external point of view. SEE BIBLE.

I. Title. As in the Pentateuch, the book of Proverbs takes its Hebrew title from its opening words , , or , mishly, simply. From this are directly derived the titles it bears in the Sept. , ) and Vulgate (Libel Proverbiorum, quem Hebraei Misle cappellant), and the name by which it is universally known in English. Another title, perlalps more appropriate to the book as a whole, is derived from its chief subject, Wisdom. In the Tosaphoth to Baba Bathra (fol. 14 b), we find Proverbs and Ecclesiastes combined under the name , the book of wisdom, and this title appears to have passed thence into the early Church. Clemens Roman. (Lj. ad Coo-. i, 57) when quoting i, 23-31 says, , a name which, according to Eusebius (H. E. 4:22), was adopted by Hegesippus. Irenteus, and the whole band of the ancients, following the unwritten Jewish tradition, and by Clem. Alex. (Strom. ii, 22). It is styled by Gregory Naz. (Orat. xi) , and by Dion. Alex. . In the catalogue of canonical books compiled by Melito of Sardis preserved by Eusebius (H. E. 4:26), we find . . , a name which, as well as Sopientia, is of frequent occurrence in the early fathers (see Cotelerius in Clem. Rom. l.c.; Vales. ad Euseb. l.c.), though by no means restricted to the book of Proverbs, being equally used. as Cotelerius proves, of Ecclesiasticus and The Wisdom of Solomon, a circumstance from which some confusion has arisen.

The word , mashal. by which the so-called Proverbs of Solomon are designated (Pro 1:1; Pro 1:6; Pro 10:1; Pro 25:1; and 1Ki 4:32 [5:12]), is more appropriately translated in the Vulgate parabola. It is akin to the verb , corresponding with the Arabic mnathala and the Syriac methal, to be like, and primarily signifies a comparison, similitude, parable (Eze 17:2; Eze 24:3); whence it easily passed to those pithy, sententious maxims so often in the East appearing in the form of a terse comparison, of which many are to be found in the book before us e.g. Pro 26:1-3; Pro 26:6-9; Pro 26:11; Pro 26:14; Pro 26:17 and then to proverbs in general, whether containing a similitude or not (1Sa 10:12; 1Sa 24:13 [14]; Ecc 12:9). Its scope was still further enlarged by its application to longer compositions of a poetical and figurative character e.g. that of Balaam (Num 23:7; Num 23:18, etc., and Job 27:1; comp. Psa 49:5; Psa 78:2), and particularly to taunting songs of triumph over fallen enemies-e.g. against the king of Babylon (Isa 14:4), the Chlalleans (Hab 2:6 : comp. also Mic 2:4; Deu 28:37; 1Ki 9:7). SEE PROVERB.

But the book of Proverbs, according to the introductory verses which describe its character, contains, besides several varieties of the mashal, sententious sayings of other kinds, mentioned in 1:6. The first of these is the , chidah, rendered in the A.V. dark saying, dark speech, hard question, riddle, and once (Hab 2:6) proverb. It is applied to Samson’s riddle (Judges 14), to the hard questions with which the queen of Sheba plied Solomon (1Ki 10:1; 2Ch 9:1), and is used almost synonymously with marshal in Eze 17:2, and in Psa 49:4 (5); Psa 78:2, in which last passages the poetical character of both is indicated. The word appears to denote a knotty, intricate saying, the solution of which demanded experience and skill: that it was obscure is evident from Num 12:8. In addition to the chidah was the , melitsah (Pro 1:6, A.V. the interpretation, marg. an eloquent speech), which occurs in Hab 2:6 in connection both with chidch and marshal. It has been variously explained as a mocking, taunting speech (Ewald); or a speech dark and involved, such as needed a melits, or interpreter (comp. Gen 42:23; 2Ch 32:31; Job 33:23; Isa 43:27); or again, as by Delitzsch (Der Prophet Htbclukmk, p. 59), a brilliant or splendid saying (Glanz-oder Vohlrede, oratio splendida, elecyas, lumninibus ornata). This last interpretation is based upon the usage of the word in modern Hebrew, but it certainly does not appear appropriate to the Proverbs; and the first explanation, which Ewald adopts, is as little to the point. It is better to understand it as a dark, enigmatical saying, which, like the mashal, might assume the character of sarcasm and irony, though not essential to it. SEE PARABLE.

As might be expected from the nature of the work contemplated, the proverbs before us almost exclusively bear reference to the affairs of this life; but while a future existence is not formally brought to view, yet the consciousness of such an existence runs throughout, and forms the basis on which many of the strongest, most decisive. and oft-repeated declarations are made. For example, Pro 11:7 has no meaning except on the supposition that the writer believed in a future life, where, if not here, the hope and expectation of good men should be realized. If death were, in his judgment, annihilation, it would be equally the overthrow of the expectation of the righteous as of the wicked. See also, as affording similar indication, Pro 14:32; Pro 23:17-18. SEE IMMORTALITY.

II. Canonicity. The canonical authority of the book of Proverbs has never been called in question, except among the Jews themselves. We learn from the Talmud (Shabbath, fol. 30 b) that the school of Shammai, thus early adopting the principle of the free handling of Scripture, was led by some apparent contradictions in the book (e.g. Pro 26:4-5) to question its inspiration, and to propose to cast it out of the canon. It is indeed certain, if we credit the Jewish tradition, that it did not at once take its place on a level with the other canonical Scriptures, but, like the Antilegomena of the New Test., remained for a time in suspense. According to Wolf (Bibl. Hebr. 2, 119) and Zunz (Gott. Vor’traag. p. 14), it was not till the period of the Persian rule that the men of the great synagogue admitted it to an equal rank with the other Hagiographa. In the remarkable passage of the Talmud, however, which contains the most ancient opinion of the Jews on the formation of the Old-Test. canon (Baba Bathra, p. 14, apud Westcott, Bible in the Church, p. 36), its recognition is fixed earlier: the Proverbs ( Meshalim) being included with Isaiah, Canticles ( Shir Hashirim), and Ecclesiastes ( Koheleth) in the memorial word Jamshak, specifying the books written i.e. reduced to writing-by Hezekiah and his learned men. With the trifling exception mentioned above, its right to a place in the canon has never been questioned since its admission into it, and there is no book of Holy Scripture whose authority is more unshaken. The amount of inspiration in the book has been a matter of speculation since the days of Theodore of Mopsuestia, who believed that the wisdom contained in it was that of Solomon only, not of the Spirit of God; even as some of the rabbins found in Ecclesiastes no divine wisdom, but merely that of Solomon. Leaving such vain and impracticable distinctions, the canonical authority of the book is attested to us by the frequent use of it in the New Test. The following is a list of the principal passages:

Pro 1:16Rom 3:10; Rom 3:15.

Pro 3:7Rom 12:16.

Pro 3:11-12Heb 12:5-6; Rev 3:19.

Pro 3:34Jam 4:6.

Pro 10:121Pe 4:8. *

Pro 11:311Pe 4:18.

Pro 17:13Rom 12:17; 1Th 5:15; 1Pe 3:9.

Pro 17:27Jam 1:19.

Pro 20:91Jn 1:8.

Pro 20:20Mat 15:4; Mar 7:10.

Pro 22:8 (Sept.)2Co 9:7. *

Pro 25:21-22Rom 12:20. *

Pro 26:112Pe 2:22.

Pro 27:1Jam 4:13-14; Jam 4:16.

Of these only those marked with an asterisk are actual quotations; in the others there is a more or less direct allusion. SEE WISDOM PERSONIFIED.

III. Divisions. The thirty-one chapters of the book of Proverbs may be roughly divided into four sections:

1. The hortatory introduction (1-9);

2. The first collection of the Proverbs of Solomon, properly so called, with its appendices (10-24);

3. The second collection, compiled by Hezekiah’s scribes (25-29);

4. An appendix by different writers.

1. The first of these sections has no continuous connection, and is hardly capable of any very accurate subdivision. The separate chapters form in some instances a connected whole (e.g. 2, 5, 7, 8, 9); sometimes the connection does not extend bevond a few verses (e.g. Pro 3:1-10; Pro 3:13-26; Pro 4:14-19; Pro 6:1-11). There is little coherence between the separate chapters, and little unity beyond that of the general subject or the mode of treating it; so that if one chapter were to be removed, the organization of the whole would not be affected, and it would hardly be missed. Ewald, however, who, somewhat in defiance of the internal evidence, looks on this portion as an original whole, thoroughly connected, and cast, as it were, at one gush, after the general introduction (Pro 1:1-7) discovers three subdivisions, marked as well by the contents as by the position of the imperative verb at the beginning of the sections (e.g. Pro 1:8; Pro 4:1; Pro 6:20); while in the smaller divisions mi son stands before the verb (e.g. Pro 1:10; Pro 1:15; Pro 2:1; Pro 3:1; Pro 3:11; Pro 3:20; Pro 4:21, etc.). Ewald’s subdivisions are

(1) a general admonition to the pursuit of wisdom, not fully completed, but running off into particulars (Proverbs 1:8-3);

(2) an exhaustive enumeration of the particular points of his admonition (Pro 4:1 to Pro 6:29), until

(3) the discourse, gradually rising in power and grandeur, at last attains an almost lyrical flight (Pro 6:20-29). According to Delitzsch (in Herzog’s Encyklop.) this section is divisible into fifteen separate strains

(1) Pro 1:7-19;

(2) Pro 1:20-33;

(3) Proverbs 2,

(4) Pro 3:1-18;

(5) Pro 3:19-26;

(6) Pro 3:27-35,

(7) Pro 4:1 to Pro 5:6;

(8) Pro 5:7-23;

(9) Pro 6:1-5,

(10) Pro 6:6-11,

(11) Pro 6:12-19;

(12) Pro 6:20-35;

(13) Proverbs 7;

(14) Proverbs 8;

(15) Proverbs 9.

2. The second section (10-24) evidently contains three subdivisions

(a) the collection of unconnected proverbs or gnomes (Pro 10:1-22; Pro 10:16);

(b) the words of the wise (comp. Pro 1:6; Ecc 9:7; Ecc 12:11), consisting of a more connected series of maxims, with a hortatory preface recalling the style of the first section (Pro 22:17; Pro 24:22);

(c) a shorter appendix of proverbial sayings, with the title these also belong to the wise, ending with a description of a sluggard (Pro 24:23-34).

3. The third section is a continuous series of gnomic sayings without any subdivision (Proverbs 25-29).

4. The fourth section, like the second, separates into three parts

(a) the words of Agur, a collection of proverbial and enigmatical sayings (30),

(b) the words of king Lemuel (Pro 31:1-9); and

IV. History of the Text. The variations from the existing Masoretic text of the book of Proverbs presented by the versions of the Sept., the Peshito- Syriac, the argum, and to some extent by the Vulgate, bear witness to the former existence of copies differing in many and not unimportant points from that which has become the authoritative text. The text, as preserved in these ancient versions, differs from that of our Hebrew Bibles both in excess and defect. They contain clauses, verses, and sometimes paragraphs not to be found in our extant copies, for the existence of which it is difficult to account, unless they formed part of the book which was before the translators; while other portions are wanting, for the absence of which no sufficient account can be given, except that they were not read in the ancient Hebrew MSS. they employed. The very large number of minor discrepancies, both in language and arrangement, which we meet with, all tend to confirm this view, and it well deserves consideration what influence these variations, which every student knows are not confined to this book, should have on the ordinarily received hypothesis of the integrity and purity of the present Hebrew text. This, however, is not the place for the prosecution of this investigation. We shall content ourselves with pointing out the principal points of variation.

1. To commence with the Sept., the earliest of the existing versions. The translation of this book, like that of Job, proves a more competent acquaintance with the Greek language and literature than is usual with the Alexandrine translators. The rendering is more free than literal, giving what the writer conceived to be the general spirit of the passage without strict adherence to the actual words. Bertheau remarks that the version of this book appears to have been undertaken rather with a literary than a religious object, as it was not read in the synagogues or required for their internal regulation. It is to this freedom of rendering that not a few of the apparent discrepancies are due, while there are others which are attributable to carelessness, misconception of the writer’s meaning, or even possibly to arbitrary alterations on the part of the translators. In some cases, also, we find two incompatible translations fused into one e.g. Pro 6:25; Pro 16:26; Pro 23:31. Of the majority, however, of the variations no explanation can be offered but that they represent a different original, and therefore deserve consideration for the history of the text.

In the first division (1-9) these variations are less considerable than in the second. Two verses appended to ch. 4 remove the abruptness of the close and complete the sense. To the simile of the ant (6:8), that of the bee is added. The insertion after 8:21 seems out of place, and disturbs the continuity. In ch. 9 there are two considerable additions to the description of the wise and foolish women, which seem to complete the sense in a very desirable manner. The variations are much more considerable in the section 10-24. A large number of verses are wanting (Pro 11:4; Pro 13:6; Pro 16:1-4; Pro 18:23-24; Pro 19:1-2; Pro 20:14-19; Pro 21:5; Pro 22:6; Pro 23:23 which comes in very awkwardly in the Hebrew text; Pro 24:8); the arrangement of others is dislocated e.g. ch. 15 closes with Pro 24:29, Pro 24:30; Pro 24:32-33 standing at the beginning of ch. 16, while a verse very similar to Pro 24:31 is found after Pro 16:17; Pro 19:3 stands as the last verse of ch. 18; in ch. 20 Pro 19:20-22 come between Pro 19:9-10. The most extraordinary dislocation, hardly to be ascribed to anything but an error of the scribe, appears in ch. 24. After Pro 19:22 is introduced Pro 29:27, to which succeed four distichs descriptive of the wrath of a king and urging attention to the writer’s words, not found in the Hebrew. We then find 30-31, 9 (i.e. the prophecy of Agur and of Lemuel), with the remainder of ch. 24 foisted in between Pro 29:14-15 of ch. 30. The remainder of ch. 31, the acrostic on a virtuous woman, stands in its right place at the end of the book. The additions in this section are also numerous and important. We find proverbs intercalated between the following verses: Pro 10:4-5; Pro 11:16-17 (by which a very imperfect antithesis in the Hebrew is rectified); Pro 12:11-14; Pro 13:9-10; Pro 13:13-14 (found in the Vulgate, Pro 14:15-16); Pro 14:22-23; Pro 15:5-6; Proverbs 18, 19, 27, 28; Proverbs 28, 29; Pro 17:6-7; Proverbs 16, 17; Pro 18:22-23; Pro 19:7-8; Pro 22:8-9 (found with slight variations 2Co 9:7); 2Co 9:9-10; 2Co 9:14-15. In the dislocated ch. 16 five or perhaps six new proverbs appear. Intercalated proverbs are also found in the section 25-29 e.g. Pro 25:10-11; Proverbs 20, 21; Pro 26:11-12 (found also in Ecclesiastes 4:21), Pro 27:20-21; Pro 21:22; Pro 29:25-26. Besides these, a careful scrutiny will discover a large number of smaller interpolations throughout, many of which are only explanatory clauses.

To specify the words and clauses which vary from the Hebrew would carry us far beyond our limits. For these and the comparison of the two versions generally, the student may be referred to Jager, Observ. in Prov. Salom. vers. Alex., and Schleusner, Opusc. Critic. In many of these cases the Sept. has probably preserved the true reading (e.g. 10:10, b); but, on the whole, Ewald and Bertheau agree that the Masoretic text is the better and purer.

2. The Peshito-Syriac version, like the Sept., while it agrees with the Hebrew text generally, presents remarkable deviations in words and clauses, and contains whole verses of which there is no trace in the Hebrew. Some of the variations only prove a different interpretation of the text, but others are plainly referable to a difference in the text itself (e.g. Pro 7:22 sq.; Pro 15:4-15; Pro 19:20; Pro 21:16; Pro 22:21, etc.), and thus confirm the view that at the time the version was executed i.e. anterior to the 4th century the present Hebrew text was not universally recognised.

3. The Vulgate translation of Proverbs, hastily executed by Jerome in three days (together with Ecclesiastes and Canticles), offers largely the same phenomena as the Sept. version. Many of the additions of the Sept. are to be found in it e.g. Pro 10:4; Pro 12:11; Pro 12:13; Pro 15:5; Pro 15:27 (comp. Pro 16:6); 16:5, etc.; and in one or two instances it has indepenennt additions e.g. Pro 14:21; Pro 18:8. There can be little doubt that in these points it preserves an authentic record of the state of the text at a period anterior to any existing Hebrew MS.

4. We may conclude this hasty review with the Targum. That on the Proverbs is considered by Zunz (p. 64), on lingutistic grounds, to be nearly contemporaneous with those on the Psalms and Job, and is assigned by Bertheau to the latter half of the 7th century, though it is not quoted before the 12th. The version is close, and on the whole follows the original text very faithfully, though with some remarkable deviations (the following are quoted by Bertheau Pro 7:22; Pro 10:3; Pro 14:14; Pro 25:1; Pro 25:20, etc.). Its similarity to the Peshito is too remarkable to be accidental (Pro 1:2-3; Pro 1:5-6; Pro 1:8; Pro 1:10; Pro 1:12-13; Pro 2:9-10; Pro 2:13-15; Pro 3:2-9, etc.), and is probably to be accounted for by the supposition of a subsequent recension of the text, which is very corrupt, based upon that version. See Wolf, Biblioth. Hebrews 2, 1176; Dathe, De Rat. Consens. rems. Chald. et Syr. Proverbs Salom.; Zunz, Gottesdienst. Vortrag.

V. Form and Style.

1. The difference of style and structure between the first and second divisions is apparent on the most cursory perusal. Instead of the detached gnomes of the latter, we find a succession of hortatory addresses, varying in length and differing in subject, though for the most part on the same plan and with the same general object, in which the writer does not so much define wisdom as enlarge upon the blessings to be derived from its possession, and the lasting misery which is the consequence of the violation of its precepts, and in the most powerful and moving language urge the young to the earnest pursuit of it as the best of all good things. Whether originally written as a proem or introduction or not, it is certainly well fitted to occupy its present place, and prepare the mind of the reader for the careful consideration of the moral and practical precepts which follow. The style is of a much higher and more dignified character than in the succeeding portions; the language is more rhetorical; it abounds in bold personifications and vivid imagery. The concluding chapters (8, 9) are cast in the grandest mould of poetry, and are surpassed in true sublimity by few portions of Holy Scripture. At the same time, when this portion is viewed as a whole, a want of artistic skill is discoverable. The style is sometimes diffuse and the repetitions wearisome. The writer returns continually on his steps, treating of the same topic again and again, without any apparent plan or regular development of the subject.

As regards the form, we find but little regularity of structure. The paragraphs consist sometimes of no more than two or three verses (Pro 1:8-9; Pro 3:11-12; Pro 6:1-19); sometimes the same thought is carried through a long succession of verses, or event an entire chapter (Pro 2:1-22; Pro 5:1-20; Pro 6:20-35; Proverbs 7, 8, 9). A very favorite arrangement is a paragraph of ten verses (Pro 1:10-19; Pro 3:1-10; Proverbs 11-20; Pro 4:10-19; Pro 8:12-21; Proverbs 22-31), a form which, if we may trust the Sept. version, existed also in the copies employed by them in Pro 4:20-27; Pro 5:6-11; and, according to the Peshito-Syriac, in Pro 4:1-9. The parallelism of members is sometimes maintained, but frequently neglected. The parallels are usually synonymous (e.g. Pro 1:8-9; Pro 1:11-12, etc.). The antithetical parallels found in Pro 3:32-35 belong to a series of gnomes which disturb the harmony of the passage, and appear scarcely in their appropriate place. It may be remarked that the name Elohim occurs only six times in the whole book, and thrice in this section (Pro 2:5-17; Pro 3:4). The other places are, Pro 25:2; Pro 30:5-9. Other unusual words are , wisdoms, for wisdom in the abstract (Pro 1:20; Pro 9:1; found also in Pro 24:7); the strange woman, which occurs repeatedly (e.g. Pro 2:16; Pro 5:3; Pro 5:20, etc., found nowhere else save in Pro 22:14; Pro 23:23); and , the stranger (Pro 2:16; Pro 7:5, etc.; found also in Pro 20:16; Pro 23:27; Pro 27:13); i.e. the foreign prostitute, then as now lurking at the dark corners of the streets, taken as the representative of the harlot sense seducing the youlng and inexperienced from true wisdom. Ewald also notices the unusual construction of , a dual fem. with a verb in the masc. plur. (Pro 5:2); while in the next verse it has properly a fern. plur., and the unusual plur. (Pro 8:4).

2. In the second division, the Proverbs of Solomon, which form the kernel of the book, (Pro 10:1 to Pro 22:17), we find a striking similarity of structure throughout. Every verse (reckoned by Delitzsch at 375) in its normal form consists of two members, each containing three, four, or more rarely five short words. (The one exception to this rule [19:7] is probably due to the loss of a member, which is supplied by the Sept.) Every verse is independent, with no necessary connection with those that precede or follow, and, generally speaking, no attempt at arrangement. Ewald’s theory of a continuous thread of connection running through this collection in its original form, and binding together the scattered sayings, has absolutely no evidence in its favor, and can only be sustained by supposing an almost total dismemberment of this portion of the book. It is true there are cases in which the same subject recurs in two or three successive verses (e.g. Pro 10:2-5; Proverbs 18-21; Pro 11:4-8; Proverbs 24-26), but these are the exceptions, and only occur, as Ewald elsewhere allows, when, from the studied brevity of the proverbial form, a thought cannot be expressed in all its fulness in a single verse. The cases in which the same characteristic word or words recur in successive proverbs are more frequent (e.g. Pro 10:6-7; Pro 8:10; Pro 11:5-6; Proverbs 10, 11, etc.). But in every instance each verse gives a single definite idea. nor do we ever meet with two verses so connected that the latter contains the reason of the counsel, or the application of the illustration given in the former.

Nearly the whole of the proverbs in the earlier part of this division are antithetical; but after the middle of ch. 15 this characteristic gradually disappears, and is almost entirely lost in the concluding chapters. A large number are synonymous (e.g. Pro 11:7; Pro 11:25; Pro 11:30; Pro 12:14; Pro 12:28; Pro 14:13; Pro 14:17; Pro 14:19, etc.), some aphoristic (e.g. Pro 11:31; Pro 13:14), especially with the comparative and (e.g. Pro 12:9; Pro 15:16-17; Pro 16:8-9, etc.), or , much more (e.g. Pro 11:31; Pro 15:11; Pro 17:7). Others are synthetic (Pro 10:18; Pro 11:29; Pro 14:17, etc.); only two are parabolic (Pro 10:26; Pro 11:22). The style is lower and more prosaic than in the former section. Ewald regards it as an example of the most ancient and simplest poetical style, full of primeval terseness, and bearing the visible stamp of antiquity in its language and imagery without any trace of later coloring. He remarks very justly that the proverbs in this collection are not to be looked upon as a collection of popular sayings, embodying mere prudential wisdom. but that they belong to the higher life, and are as broad in their grasp of truth as in their range of thought. The germ of many of them may have been found in popular sayings; but the skill and delicacy with which they have been fashioned into their present shape, though of the simplest kind, display the hand of a master.

Ewald remarks the following peculiar phrases as occurring in this section. Fountain of life, Pro 10:11; Pro 13:14; Pro 14:27; Pro 16:22 (comp. Psa 36:9 [10]): tree of life, Pro 3:18; Pro 11:30; Pro 13:12; Pro 15:4 : snares of death, Pro 13:14; Pro 14:27 (comp. Psa 18:5 [6]): and the following favorite words , healin in in various similes and applications, Pro 12:18; Pro 13:17; Pro 16:24 (but this also occurs in the former section, Pro 4:22; Pro 6:15) , destruction, Pro 10:14-15; Pro 10:29; Pro 13:3; Pro 14:28; Pro 18:7; Pro 21:15; and only in four other places in the whole Bible: , part from , to blow, Pro 12:17; Pro 14:5; Pro 14:25; Pro 19:5-9 (comp. Pro 6:19; Psa 12:6; Psa 27:11): the unfrequent roots , perverseness, Pro 11:3; Pro 15:4, and the verb , to pervert, destroy, Pro 13:6; Pro 19:3; Pro 21:12; Pro 22:12 : the phrase , shall not go unpunished, Pro 11:21; Pro 16:5; Pro 17:5 (comp. Pro 28:20; Pro 6:29): , he that pursueth, Pro 11:19; Pro 12:11; Pro 13:21; Pro 15:9; Pro 19:7 (comp. Pro 28:19), and nowhere else. Ewald instances also as archaic phrases not met with elsewhere, , but for a moment, Pro 12:19 : , hand join in hand, Pro 11:21; Pro 16:5 : , meddled with, Pro 17:14; Pro 18:1; Pro 20:3 : , whisperer, talebearer, Pro 16:28; Pro 18:8 (comp. Pro 26:20-22). The word , there is, though frequent elsewhere, scarcely occurs in Proverbs, save in this section, Pro 11:24; Pro 12:18; Pro 13:7; Pro 13:23; Pro 14:12, etc.

3. With Pro 22:17, the words of the wise (comp. Pro 1:6), we are carried back to the style and language of the proem (ch. 1-9), of which we are also reminded by the continued address in the second person singular, and the use of my son. There is, however, a difference in the phraseology and language; and, as Maurer remarks, the diction is not unfrequently rugged and awkward, and somewhat labored. Parallelism is neglected. The moral precepts are longer than those of ch. 10-22, but not so diffuse as those of the first section. We find examples of the distich, Pro 22:28; Pro 23:9; Pro 24:7-10 : the tristich, Pro 22:29; Pro 24:29 : but the tetrastich is the most frequent, the favorite form being that in which the second member gives the ground of the first, Pro 22:22-23; Proverbs 24, 25; Proverbs 26, 27, etc. We also find proverbs of five members, Pro 23:4-5; Pro 24:3-4 : several of six, Pro 23:1-3; Pro 23:12-14; Pro 23:19-21; Pro 24:11-12 : and one of seven, Pro 28:6-8. We have a longer strain, Pro 23:29-35, against drunkenness.

4. The short appendix, Pro 24:23-34, comprising more words of the wise, can hardly be distinguished in style or form from the preceding. It closes with a proverb-lay of five verses on the evils of sloth.

5. The second collection of the Proverbs of Solomon (ch. 25-29), transcribed (, Sept. , Aq. ; Gr. Ven. ; comp. Pusey, Daniel, p. 322 note) by the scribes of Hezekiah, closely resembles the former one. They are, according to Pusey, identical in language. It has, however, some very decided points of difference. The parabolic proverb is much more frequent than the antithetical, the two members of the comparison being sometimes set side by side without any connecting link (e.g. Pro 25:12-13), which is in other cases given merely by , and, or , so (Pro 26:1-2; Pro 26:18-19; Pro 27:8, etc.). The parallelism is sometimes strict, sometimes lax and free. There is a want of the sententious brevity of the former collection, and the construction is looser and weaker. The proverbs are not always completed in a single verse (Pro 25:6-7; Pro 25:9-10; Pro 25:21-22; Pro 26:18-19); and more frequently than in the former section we have series of proverbs with an internal connection of subject (Pro 26:23-25; Pro 27:15-16; Pro 27:23-27), and others in which the same key-word recurs (Pro 25:8-10; Pro 26:3-12; Proverbs 13-16). This is not foumnd so often after Pro 27:5; but a close examination of the text suggests the idea that this may be due to a disturbance of the original order (comp. Pro 27:7; Pro 27:9; Pro 28:4; Pro 28:7; Pro 28:9; Pro 29:8; Pro 29:10, etc.). Ewald discovers a want of the figurative expressions of the earlier collection, and a difference of language and phraseology, while Rosenmller remarks that the meaning of the proverbs is more obscure and enigmatical. The greater part of them are moral precepts. The earlier collection may be called a book for youth;’ this a book for the people’ (Delitzsch); the wisdom of Solomon in the days of Hezekiah (Stier).

6. The three supplemental writings with which the book closes (ch. 30, 31) are separated from the other portions and from one another no less by style and form than by authorship. Ewald somewhat arbitrarily divides ch. 30 after Pro 29:14 (a division, however, sanctioned by the Sept.), and thinks it not improbable that ch. 30 and Pro 31:1-9 are from the same pen. He also regards the opening verses of ch. 30 as a dialogue, Pro 31:2-4 being the words of an ignorant disciple of Agur, to which the teacher replies. The difference between the enigmatical savings of Agur (which find a counterpart in the collections of Oriental proverbs) and the simple admonitions of Lemuel’s mother is very great if we assign them to one author. In ch. 30 we have, in Ewall’s words, instead of moral aphorisms, a succession of elegant little pictures illustrative of moral truths, evidencing a decay of creative power, the skill of the author being applied to a novel and( striking presentation of an old truth. The ancient terse proverbial form is entirely lost sight of, and the style rises to a height and dignity warranting the use of the term (comp. Isa 13:1; Hab 1:1, etc.) applied to both. In the words of king Lemuel we find much greater regularity. The parallelism is synonymous, and is maintained throughout. The alphabetical ode in praise of a virtuous woman a golden A B C for women (Doderlein) has all its verses of about the same compass. The parallelism is very similar to that of the Psalms, especially those in which the same alphabetical arrangement is found.

VI. Authorship and Date. On these points the most various opinions have been entertained, from that of the rabbins and the earlier school of commentators, with whom some modern writers (e.g. Keil) agree, who attribute the whole book to Solomon (even Pro 30:31 are assigned to him by Rashi and his school), to those of Hitzig and other representatives of the advanced critical school, who, however widely at variance with one another, agree in reducing to a minimum the wise king of Israel’s share in the book which from the remotest antiquity has borne his name. In the face of such wide discrepancies, where the same data lead careful investigators (e.g. Ewald and Hitzig) to exactly opposite conclusions, a satisfactory decision of the question of authorship and date is hardly to be hoped for. It may rather be doubted whether the evidence at present before us is such as to admit of an absolute determination of the question at issue. Where so much indefiniteness exists, all we can do is to balance probabilities and to abstain from dogmatic decisions.

The evidence in favor of a composite origin of the book appears, we must confess, irresistible. No unprejudiced person, we think, accustomed to the consideration of such questions, could read the book for the first time, even in English, without seeing in it the traces of several different authors, or at least editors. Irrespective of the two concluding chapters, the express reference to other sages (, in Pro 22:17; Pro 24:23; comp. Pro 1:6) indicates a diversity of authorship, while the difference of style between various divisions of the work strengthens the hypothesis. Indeed, a careful observer will find at the very outset an indication of the composite character of the book in the introductory verses which profess to give the contents and character (Pro 1:1-7). These prepare us to find in it, not merely proverbs and eloquent speeches (margin, A.V.: interpretation), but also such words of the wise as those we have just referred to, and dark sayings like those of Agur.

Are we, then, to discard the title, the Proverbs of Solomon, and to consider that the designation has been given to the book erroneously? To us this appears rash in the extreme. We know from historical sources that Solomon was the author of a very large number of proverbs; and nothing but that restlessness of speculation which discards old beliefs simply. as it would seem, because they are old, and seeks to unsettle all that hias hitherto been held certain, can discover any sufficient reason for questioning that Solomon was the composer of the greater part of those contained in our present book, especially in the sections Pro 10:1 to Pro 22:16; Proverbs 25-29. However much these collections may have been modified in successive redactions, though too much has probably been conceded to this hypothesis, of which there is no definite trace, and by which a work may be made to assume any form that may suit the theory to be supported, we have no sufficient reason for doubting that Solomon was the originator of the peculiar style of poetry in which they are composed, and that, even if they are not all to be referred to him, the mass are his, and that they are all pervaded with his spirit, and may be assigned to his epoch. Even those attributed to the ancients may have been found by Solomon already floating in a semi-gnomic form, and recast by him in a more distinctly proverbial dress. Eichhorn finds in them no trace of language or thought subsequent to the time of Solomon. Even Ewald, who insists most on the collection as we have it having suffered from abbreviations, transpositions, and unauthorized additions, remarks that the proverbs all breathe the happy peace and growing civilization of Solomon’s age; nor is there any epoch either earlier or later to which we could preferably assign them.

The proverbs in the later collection (ch. 25-29), though they present some diversities, do not differ so essentially from the earlier ones as to give any sufficient grounds for questioning the accuracy of the superscription (Pro 25:1). The title itself informs us that the compilation was not made till four centuries after Solomon, and the differences are not greater than might be looked for in sayings that had been so long floating about among the common people, and thereby subjected to disfigurement and change. The indications of an altered state of society and a decrease of confidence in the rulers, in which Ewald discovers such unmistakable proofs of a later date, are hardly so evident to others as to himself. We know too little of the internal economy of Solomon’s reign to enable us to pronounce authoritatively that such and such expressions are inconsistent with the state of the people and tone of thought at that period.

The objection brought by Eichhorn and others against assigning the proverbs in the two collections to Solomon, that the genius of no one man, not even one as divinely gifted with wisdom as Solomon, is sufficient for the production of so large a number, is puerile in the extreme. Those we possess are but a portion of the three thousand ascribed to him (1Ki 4:32), and scarcely give twenty for each of the forty years of his reign.

The general didactic tone of the book is asserted to be more consistent with the character of a prophet or priest than that of a king (Davidson). To this it is replied that this is true of kings in general. but not of such a king as Solomon, to whom God gave a wise and understanding heart, whose proverbs are eminently didactic, and who has in 1 Kings 8 discoursed on the divine economy towards mall in a way that no prophet or priest could well surpass. The praises of monogamy, and the strict illjunctions against adultery, are urged by Bertholdt as reasons why Solomon, a polygamist himself, and Bathsheba’s son, could not be the author of this section. It is, however, a remarkable feature of the Old Test. in general, and not peculiar to this place, that polygamy, however generally practiced, is never praised; that invariably where the married state is spoken of in terms of praise it is the union of one man to one woman that is held up to honor. Beside the force of this objection is considerably modified by the reflection that precepts are here given for the mass of men, with whom monogamy is the general rule, though polygamy may be common among the richer classes (Wilkinson’s Egypt, 2, 62); and also that the contrast here drawn (Pro 5:18, etc.) is not between monogamy and polygamy, but between the marriage tie and adulterous connection. As to the supposition that the repeated warnings against adultery could not come from one whose own mother fell into that sin, no great weight can be attached to it; for a moral and religious teacher must disregard considerations which would influence other men. The allusions to deeds of violence (Pro 1:11-19; Pro 2:12, etc.) are supposed by Ewald to indicate a state of confusion inconsistent with that state of peace and social security which marked the reign of Solomon (1Ki 4:25). To this it is replied that a condition of great private wealth, such as was the condition of Solomon’s times, always tempts needy and unprincipled men to acts of unlawful violence; and that nothing bevond crimes which now are committed in the most civilized and best-regulated countries are referred to in the passages in question. Besides, Judaea always afforded in its caverns and wildernesses peculiar facilities for robbers (Jdg 6:2; 1Sa 24:1). From a supposed degeneracy of style, Ewald attributes this section to the earlier part of the 7th century B.C. But other critics do not see this. Davidson thinks it indicates a flourishing state of Hebrew literature, and refers it probably to the 9th century B.C., an opinion in which he coincides with Hitzig. The grounds on which Ewald relies for his alleged degeneracy of style seem weak. Thus, he asserts that the plural ishim (Pro 8:4) is so unusual as to indicate a very late date. It is certainly very unusual, for it occurs only three times (Furst). From these, however, we cannot argue as to the (late, as one of them is in Isaiah, another in Psa 141:3, attributed to David, and the third in the passage above referred to.

Similar and equally futile objections have been based, by Bertholdt and others, on the familiarity displayed in the proverbs with circumstances and conditions in life with which it is supposed that Solomon as a king could have had no experimental acquaintance. For example, it is maintained that Pro 10:5; Pro 12:10-11; Pro 14:4; Pro 20:4, must have been written by a landowner or husbandman: Pro 10:15, by a poor man: Pro 11:14; Pro 14:19, by a citizen of a well-ordered state: Pro 11:26, by a tradesman: Pro 12:4, by one who was not a polygamist: Pro 14:1; Pro 15:25; Pro 16:1; Pro 17:2; Pro 19:13-14; Pro 20:10; Pro 20:14; Pro 20:23, by an ordinary citizen: Pro 25:2-7, not by a king, but by one who had lived some time at a court: Pro 27:11, by a teacher of youth: Pro 17:23-27, by a sage who lived a nomadic life: Pro 28:16, by one free from those errors which weakened Solomon’s throne, and robbed his son of his kingdom. It is needless to point out the weakness of these fancied arguments which would affect no one who had not a theory of his own to support. They are akin to those which have been used with as little success to prove that no one man could have written the plays of Shakespeare, and they display the most marvellous ignorance of that many-sidedness and keenness of perception and insight which are characteristic of the highly gifted among mankind.

As little weight is to be assigned to the objections drawn from the repetitions. It is true that we find the same idea, and even the same words, recurring not only in the two collections (e.g. Pro 21:9; Pro 25:24; Pro 18:8; Pro 26:22; Pro 22:3; Pro 27:12; Pro 22:13; Pro 26:13; Pro 19:24; Pro 26:15; Pro 19:1; Pro 28:6), but in the same collection (e.g. Pro 14:12; Pro 16:25; Pro 10:1; Pro 15:20; Pro 16:2; Pro 21:2; Pro 10:2; Pro 11:4; Pro 13:14; Pro 14:27; Pro 26:12; Pro 29:20). This latter is, however, no more. as Umbreit remarks, than is natural in such a compilation, in the formation of which one is very apt to forget what had already been set down; while the former class of repetitions is easily to be accounted fir by the anxiety of the collectors to lose nothing which had the stamp of Solomon’s authorship, even though the same idea had already been expressed in the earlier collection; and it goes far to confirm the view that Solomon was the composer of the whole.

The internal evidence derived from language, construction, ideas, historic background, and the like varies with every successive critic, and is entirely inadequate to varrant any decisive verdict. Its precariousness is proved by the opposite results to which the same data lead various commentators. Keil maintains that every part of’ the book, with the exception of the last two chapters, corresponds to the epoch of Solomon, and that only. Eichhorn agrees with this to a certain extent, but limits the correspondence to ch. 1-24; while Ewald, Hitzig, and Bertheau, and other minor critics, arrive at conclusions expressed with equal confidence and at variance with these and with one another. There is, however, one evidence which speaks strongly in favor of an early date the entire absence of all reference to idolatry. The form of religion appearing throughout is purely Jehovistic (as we have noticed above, Elohim occurs only four times in the body of the work), and false gods and foreign faiths are not even referred to.

The above remarks refer chiefly to the collection of proverbs properly so called, which we have no Difficulty in ascribing, on the whole, to Solomon as their ultimate author. We may, if we choose, suppose that the men of Hezekiah made a collection of unwritten proverbs current among the people, and by them supposed, truly or not, to have come down from Solomon; but the men of Hezekiah, or whoever wrote the superscription of 25:1, declare those they put forth to have been copied from written records. Assuming this to be the correct view, the difference between these proverbs and those which went before is, that whereas in Solomon’s time the latter were arranged as we have them, the former were in Hezekiah’s time selected from more ancient written records and added to the existing collection. It gives us the idea, which is itself an extremely probable one, that voluminous records were made in Solomon’s time of the wise king’s sayings, either by himself or by scribes. This idea derives considerable confirmation from the notice in 1Ki 4:30-34, where we are told of the accurate account taken of his compositions and sayings, and even of the precise number of his proverbs and songs. We are led to suppose, then, that in Solomon’s time a selection (Pro 10:1 to Pro 22:16) was made bv himself, or under his immediate supervision, while in Hezekiah’s time a further selection was made, and an exact transcript taken. A comparison of the proverbs in these two collections lends strong confirmation to this view, In selecting or arranging a collection in Solomon’s time, and under his inspection, the choice would naturally fall upon the most perfect, and as alterations might he freely made by their actual author, these would tend to bring them into a still more finished form. Accordingly, we find in the more ancient collection a certain tastefulness and polish which the others do not possess. In the former each verse contains its own perfect sense, and this usually comprised in a certain number of words, varying from seven to nine, beyond which they very rarely extend. In the latter, while the sense is generally contained in one verse, it not unfrequently runs through two or more verses. Examples from these might easily be produced as concise and perfect in form as the others (e.g. Pro 25:2-3; Pro 25:14); but very commonly the sense is brought out in a much more diffuse manner (e.g. Pro 25:6-7; Pro 25:9-10; Pro 25:21-22; Pro 26:18; Pro 26:20; Pro 27:15-16; Pro 27:23-27). In the individual verses also we find occasionally a far greater number of words than are ever admitted into those of the older collection (e.g. Pro 25:7; Pro 25:20); and the parallelism, which never fails in the verses of the earlier, is often wanting in those of the later division (Pro 25:8; Pro 25:21-22; Pro 26:10; Pro 27:1). This agrees with the idea which we think warranted by a comparison of Pro 25:1 with 1Ki 4:32-33, that the proverbs in this collection are probably much as they fell from Solomon’s lips, and were first committed to writing by himself or others under him; and that while the former collection received his own final corrections, the men of Hezekiah simply copied from the text before them, but did not venture upon any alteration in the form.

The case is somewhat different with regard to the introductory chapters (1- 9), and there is more ground for the diversity of opinion as to their date and authorship. It is certainly quite possible that the whole or a considerable portion of this section may have been written by Solomon. The differences of style, of which Ewald makes much, are, as Bertheau has shown, somewhat exaggerated by him, and are not perhaps greater than may be accounted for by the different nature of the compositions. The terse simplicity of a proverb would be out of place in a series of hortatory addresses such as those which characterize this section. Ewald dwells with emphasis on the internal evidence of a late date afforded by the state of society, and the tone of feeling as portrayed here. But we repeat our former remark, that we know too little of the internal history of Judaea at this time to allow us to speak with so much confidence on these points, and express our conviction that the conclusions drawn by Ewald are not warranted by the premises. The imagery all points to a large and profligate city, such as Jerusalem may well have become during the middle of Solomon’s prosperous reign; and the vivid representation of the habits of the foreign prostitutes and lawless freebooters who roamed its streets is hardly more than could have been attained by one who, lilke Harun Alraschid, was fond of laying aside his kingly state and visiting his city in disguise.

It is evident, from what we have remarked in a former section, that we regard the proem (ch. 1-9) in its present form as a composite work, though very possibly proceeding from one pen. The similarity of style, subject, and treatment, is strongly in favor of unity of authorship, while the internal evidence favors the view that it is compiled of various unconnected members, collected and arranged subsequently to the time of their composition. The date of this compilation it is impossible to fix. The evidence on this point is faint and untrustworthy, and has led different investigators to very opposite conclusions. Ewald places it in the 7th, Hitzig in the 9th century B.C., while Keil, as we have seen, ascribes it to the time of Solomon. The resemblance that may be traced in this portion of the work to the spirit and teaching of the book of Job, and the recurrence of some of the words arid images found there, is employed both by Hitzig and Ewald to aid in determining the date of this section (comp. Job 15:7 with Pro 8:25; Job 21:17, Pro 13:9; Job 28:18, Pro 8:16; Job 5:17, Pro 3:11; see Pusey, Daniel, p. 323, note 7). But as there is no unanimity as to the date of the composition of Job, little help is to be expected from this source, nor can we be surprised at the diversity of opinion among those who have employed it: Ewald maintaining that the writer of Proverbs had read and made use of Job: Hitzig, on the contrary, believing that the former is the earlier work, and that the author of Job borrowed from Proverbs. The adoption of such expedients proves most forcibly the cormplete want of any decisive testimony which will enable us to arrive at any trustworthy conclusion as to the date of this section. In the midst of this uncertainty, the above solution is as probable as any other namely, that it is due to Solomon’s authorship out of materials existing at his time.

The similarity in style between 1-9 and the appendix to the first collection of proverbs (Pro 22:17-24) appears to favor the view that this supplement is due to the same person by whom the proem was prefixed to the book. Ewald enumerates several reasons for ascribing the two to the same writer (p. 42), but finally decides against the unity of authorship. The proverbs themselves, designated as words of the wise, are evidently distinguished from those Qf Solomon, and are probably to be regarded as the adages of other sages, which the compiler of the work thought too valuable to be lost, and therefore appended to his larger collection. The short supplement (Pro 24:23-34) is accounted for by Umbreit on the supposition that the compiler had laid aside his work for a time, and took it up again on the discovery of fresh sayings worthy of preservation. He renders , for, not of the wise, and regards them as directed to the compiler’s scholars. Ewald, Bertheau, Delitzsch, etc., defend the received translation.

It only remains for us to speak of the threefold supplement (30, 31), with regard to the authorship and date of which again nothing can be determined. It would be hardly profitable to discus the marvellous fabric of fanciful history and biography which has been evolved from the scantiest materials by Hitzig, Bunsen, and Bertheau. Those who desire it may refer to their works to see the grounds on which Massa (A.V. the prophecy) is identified with a district in Arabia (Gen 10:30; Gen 25:14; 1Ch 1:30) of which Lemuel was king, and Agur with a descendant of the Simeonites, who in the reign of Hezekiah drove out the Amalekites from Mount Seir (1Ch 4:42); or, again, on which it is sought to prove that Agur and Lemuel were brothers, sons of the reigning queen of Massa. We would rather commend to our reader Eichhorn’s sensible words that Agur should remain Agur, and belong to the wise men of the old world of whom history gives us no further information, and with him deprecate spinning a long thread of tedious conjectures alout a name, which do not advance us an inch in our insight into the literature of the old world, or any profitable learning. As little to the purpose is the fancv of Doderlein that the opening part of ch. 30 is a dialogue that Ithiel is a heathen; Agur a much valued servant of Ithiel, to whom, as his master, his praver (Pro 5:7-9) is addressed. Manv are content with saying that Agur was an unknown Hebrew sage, the teacher of Ithiel and Ucal names from which, also, many unprofitable speculations have been built and that he lived subsequently to the reign of Hezekiah. Still more probable do we regard the view which identifies him with Solomon himself under a fanciful name. SEE AGUR; SEE MASSA.

Lemuel to God, devoted to God, after the analogy of , Num 3:24 (Pusey) may certainly be regarded as a figurative name descriptive of an ideal king, a monarch as he should be (Ewald; Eichhorn; comp. Pusey, Lect. on Daniel, p. 13 note 1, p. 323, note 5). SEE LEMUEL

The alphabetical lay which concludes the whole has usually been thought to belong to the latest period of Hebrew poetry, and hardly to be placed higher than the 7th century. Its style and language seem to distinguish it from the words of Lemuel, with which it has sometimes been confounded; but we are again warned against the precariousness of such grounds of argument as to authorship.

The results of our inquiry may be thus summed up. The nucleus of the book is the larger collection of proverbs (Pro 10:1 to Pro 22:16). These may safely be regarded as really what they profess to be, the proverbs of Solomon. Whether they were arranged as we now have them and published by him, there is not sufficient evidence to determine. It is probable, however, that the collection was either contemporaneous with or not long subsequent to him. The greater part of the hortatory introduction (1-9) may also be, with great probability, ascribed originally to Solomon, though we incline to the belief that its present form is due to a later compiler, who collected the admonitions of the wise king, and prefixed them to his book of proverbs. The same author also appears to have added the appendix (Pro 22:17; Pro 24:22), containing proverbs of which Solomon was not the proper author. but perhaps only the earliest collector, and after this from similar sources were supplied the few supplementary sayings (Pro 24:23-34). The time when this was done cannot be fixed, but there are cogent arguments in favor of a latate date. The second collection, as its name declares, was formed by the scribes of Hezekiah, cir. B.C. 725. The last two chapters contain compositions of the dates and authors of which nothing certain can now be known. They, too, may have been in some important sense due to Solomon, but were probably inserted by a later editor.

It will not be worth while to enumerate the many and widely varying theories of recent critics as to the dates of the composition of the different parts of this book, and the time when it assumed its present form. One or two of the most characteristic may be specified. Suffice it to say that Ewald would place the publication of Pro 10:1 to Pro 22:16 about two centuries after Solomon, and 1-9 in the first half of the 7th century. Not much later the second collection of proverbs (25-29) was added, the sections Pro 22:17-24 being due to the same compiler. Hitzig, on the contrary, views 1- 9 as the earliest part of the book; 10-22, 16 and Pro 28:17-28 being added about B.C. 750. Twenty-five years later Hezekiah’s collection followed; the gaps being filled up and the volume completed by some unknown compiler at a later period. The theory of Delitzsch (Herzog, Encyklop., s.v. Spruche) is marked by more calm sense, but even this is in parts not a little fanciful or conjectural. Rightly regarding 10-22. 16 as the kernel of the book, and mainly composed by Solomon, he divides the whole into two portions

(1) 1-24, 22 put forth in the time of Jehoshaphat; the introduction (1-9) and appendix (Pro 22:16-24; Pro 22:22) being written by the compiler, whom he regards as a highly gifted didactic poet, and an instrument of the spirit of revelation; and

(2) Pro 24:23-31, published in the reign of Hezekiah; the introductory and closing portions (Pro 24:23-34; Pro 30:31) being set on either side of the collection of Soiomon’s proverbs to serve as a kind of foil.

The two periods which are generally selected in opposition to the above views of the Solomonic authorship for the composition of various parts of the book are the reign of Hezekiah and the times subsequent to the captivitv. Neither of these periods seems to suit the general character of Proverbs at all so well as the reign of Solomon. Hezekiah found his kingdom in great domestic miserv-immersed in idolatry and subject to foreign rule. At home his pre-eminent character was that of a social and religious reformer, struggling against the sins and evils of his times; abroad the most active period of his reign was distinguished by a series of wars, during some of which his kingdom was reduced to the verge of ruin, the whole land overrun by hostile armies, its fenced cities taken, and the king forced to submission. The terror of an Assyrian invasion also hung over the land for years. The later period of his reign, indeed, was peaceful; but the evils of preceding reigns were far from being eradicated, and he had before him the certain prospect, conveyed by prophecy, of the utter prostration of his kingdom. His chief works seem to have been the making a pool and conduit to bring water to Jerusalem. On his death Judah relapsed into idolatry. The times subsequent to the captivity were marked by equally strong characteristics, and chiefly of a mournful kind a feeble, struggling, and too often languid and depressed remnant, striving amid many difficulties to maintain their ground and bear up amid manifold discouragements. With neither of these periods does the general character of Proverbs agree. Royalty marks it throughout, sharply distinguishing it from any period subsequent to the captivity; as by other marked features it bears the impress of a time different from Hezekiah’s. Its warnings are not against the public sins which disgraced that period, nor are its consolations suited to the public trials which were threatening to bring both king and kingdom to the ground. Its pointed allusions to a powerful monarchy, a numerous and wealthy people, and such sins as readily spring up in a time of plenty; its fine linens of Egypt, its high places thronged, its roads covered with travellers, its gates and cities crowded and rejoicing, its precious stones and fine gold and architectural illustrations, its people living beneath the eye of their monarch and dependent on his good-will, all seem to mark a reign when an absolute monarch ruled over a great and wealthy people, who lived at ease at home, and had no dreaded’eenemy io their borders; who traded to distant lands and brought their products into common use; when the worship of Jehovah prevailed through the landl, and men had leisure for learningl; when wisdom sat on the throne, personified in Solomon, and the evils which must ever exist while man is a fallen being were evils inseparable from any condition of humanity, and especially from one abounding with the elements of material prosperity. SEE SOLOMON.

VII. Commentaries. The following are the special exegetical helps on the whole book; a few of the most important of them are designated by an asterisk Origen, Commentarii (in Opp. vol. 3); also Scholia (in Bibl. Patr. Gallandii, vol. xiv); Basil, Commentarii (in Opp. II. i); Bede, Expositio (in Opp. vol. iv; also in Works, vol. ix); Honorius, Commentarius (in Opp. p. 1140); Ralbag [Levi ben-Gershon], [with Ben-Meira’s commentary], by Baholes (Leiria, 1492, fol.; afterwards in the Rab. Bibles; also [with Aben-Ezra, etc.] in Latin by Ghiggheo, Amst. 1638, 4to); Arama, (Constantinop. s.a. 4to; with notes by Berlin, Leips. 1859, 8vo); Imm. ben-Salomo, [with Kimchi on Psalm] (Naples, 1486. fol.); Shalom ben-Abraham, (Salonica, 1522, fol.; also in Frankfurter’s Bible); Melancthon, Explicatio (Hag. 1525, and elsewhere later, 8vo); Munster, Adnotatione, (Basil. 1525, 8vo); Jos. ibn-Jachja, [with Job, etc.] (Bologna, 1538, fol.; also in Frankfurter’s Bible); Cajetan [Rom. Cath.], Enarratio (Lugd. 1545, fol.); Fobian, (Constantinop. 1548, 4to); Arboreus [Rom. Cath.], Commnentarius (Par. 1549, fol.); Malvenda [Rom. Cath.], Exrplicatio (in Opp. Lugd. 1550, fol.); Bayne, Commentarii (Par. 1555, fol.; also in the Critici Sacri, vol. iii); Lavater, Commentarii (Tigur. 1562, 4to, 1565, 1572, 1586, fol.); Strigel, Scholia (Lips. 1565, Neost. 1571, 8vo); Jansenius [Rom. Cath.], Adnotationes (Lovan. 1568. 8vo, and elsewhere later, with Psalm, etc.) Sidonius [Rom. Cath.], Commentarii (Mog. 1570, fol.); Mercer, Commentarii (Genev. 1573, fol.; also [with Job] Amst. 1651, fol.); Cope, Exposition (transl. by Outrerd, Lond. 1580,4to); aard. ben-Jakob, (Cracow, 1582, 4to); Is. ben-Miose, (Lublin, 1592, 4to); Drabit, Auslequngq (Erf. 1595, 8vo); Musselt Commentaire (Lond. 1596, 8vo); Wilcocks, Commentary (in Works); Alspach, (Ven. 1601, 4to; and later elsewhere, fol.); Cleaver, Explanation (Lond. 1608, 1615, 4to); Dod, Exposition [on ch. ix-xvii] (Lond, 1609, 4to); Agell [Rom. Cath.], Commentarius (Par. 1611, fol.); Cartwright, Commnentarii (L. B. 1617, anli later elsewhere, 4to); Imninuts, Exipositio (Par. 1619, 2 vols. fol.); De Salazar [Rom. Cath.], Expositio (ibid. 1619-21, and elsewhere later, 2 vols. fol.); Jizchaki, [with Aben-Ezra’s and others] (in Latin by Ghiggheo, Mail. 1620, 4to; by Breithaupt, Gotha, 1714. 4to); Duran, (Ven. 1623, 4to); Egard, Christenthum, etc. [on ch. i- ix] (Lub. 1624, 8vo); Guillebert [Rom. Cath.], Paraphrasis (Par. 1626, 1637, 8vo); A Lapide, Commentarius (Antw. 1635, fol.); Jermin, Commentary (Lond. 1638, fol.); Bohll, Commentarius (Rost. 1640, 4to); Maldonatus [Rom. Cath.], Commentarius [includ. Psalm, etc.] (Par. 1643, fol.); Geier, Curac (Lips. 1653 and later, 4to); Gorse [Rom. Cath.], Explication (Par. 1654, 12mo); Taylor, Exposition [on ch. iix] (Lond. 1655-57, 2 vols. 4to); Leigh, Annotations [includ. Job, etc.] (ibid. 1657, fol.); Deckey, Handbuch (Magdeb. 1667, 4to); Anon. [Rom. Cath.], Recueil [patristic] (Par. 1677, 1704, 8vo; also in Germ., Chemn. 1707. 12mo; Dresd. 1720, 8vo); David ben-Mose, (Amst. 1683, 4to); Bossuet [Rom. Cath.], Notac [includ. Ecclesiastes, etc.] (Par. 1693. 8x-o; also in (Euvres, vol. xxi); Oier, Verklacaring [on ch. i-ix] (Amst. 1698, 4to); Anon. [Rom. Cath.], Analyse [with Ecclesiastes] (Par. 1702, 12mo); )u iHamel [Rom. Cath.], Adnotattiones (ibid. 1703, 12mo); Goldschmidt, (Wilmersd. 1714, 8vo); also (F. a. Mi. 1713, 12mo); Pinto, (Amst. 1714, 1735, 8vo); C. B. Alichaelis, Adnotationes (Hal. 1720, 4to; also in Comment. in Hagiog. vol. i); Meiri, (first in Frankfurter’s Bible, Amst. 1724-27; separately, Fiirth, 1844, 8vo); Wolle, Auslegung (Leips. 1729, 8vo); Is. ben-Elija, (Wandsb. 1731, 8vo); Kortum, Auflosung (Goriz 1735, 4to); Grey, Notes (Lond. 1738, 8vo); Hansen, Betrachtungen (Lib. 1746, 4to); *Schultens, Conmentarius (L. B. 1748, 4to; abridged, with additions by Vogel and Seller, Hal. 1768, 8vo); Gavison, (Legh. 1752, 4to); Lsnser, Observationes (Lips. 1761, 4to; also in Velth. and Kuinil’s Commentt. ii, 270); De Witt, Dissertationes (Amst. 1762, 8vo); Dathe, Prolusio (Lips. 1764, 8vo; Lond. 1838, 18mo; also in Opitsc. Lips. 1796); Judetnes, [with Ecclesiastes] (Amst. 1765, 4to); Vogel, U.,nschreibung (Leips. 1767, 8vo); Hirt, Eklarung (Jen. 1768, 4to); Durel, Remarks [includ. Job, etc.] (Oxf. 1772, 4to); Hunt, Observations (ibid. 177 5,4to); Schnurrer, Observationes (Tiibing. 1776, 4to; also in Disserf. Goth. 1790); Bode, Versio [includ. Ecclesiastes and Cant.] (Helmst. 1777, 4to; also in Germ., Quedlinb. 1791, 8vo); Moldenhauer, Erlaut. [with Ecclesiastes and Cant.] (ibid. 1777, 4to); J. D. Michaelis, Anmerk. (G(tt. 1778, 8vo; also in Bibliothek, 7:168); Doderlein, Anmerk. (Altd. 1778 and later, 4to); also his Scholia [on poet. books] (Hal. 1779, 4to); Reiske, Conjecturc [with Job] (Lips. 1779, 8vo); Zinck, Commentarius [includ. other books] (Augsb. 1780, 4to); Arnold, Anmerk. (Frckft. and Leips. 1781, 8vo); Schleusner, Collatio (Lips. 1782, 4to); also Commentarius (ibid. 1790-94, 4to); Troschel, Salomon’s Moral (Berl. 1782, 8vo); Struensee, Erlaut. [includ. Psalm] (Hal. 1783, 8vo) Schoinhdeder, Erklar. (from the Danish by Wolff, Flensb. 1784, 8vo); De Vilioisin, Versio [from the Veneto-Greek, includ. other books] (Argent. 1784, 8vo); also Dahler’s Animadversiones [on the same] (ibid. 1788, 8vo); Knis, De Usu Proverbs (Giess. 1787, 4to); Hodgson, Notes (Oxf. 1788, 4to); Juger, Observationes [on the Sept.] (Meld. and Lips. 1788, 8vo); Euchel, (Berl. 1789, and later elsewhere, 8vo); Reichard, Smrklar. (Hal. 1790, 8vo); Ziegler, Erlalt. (Leips. 1791, 8vo); reviewed by Hasse (in the latter’s Biblioth., Regensb. 1793, No. 5); Castalio, Notce (Havn. 1793, 8vo); Hensler, Erlaut. [includ. 1 Samuel] (Hamb. and Kiel, 1795, 8vo); Hammond, Paraphrase [on ch. i- ix] (in Works, vol. iv); Wilna, (Sklov, 1798, and later elsewhere, 4to; Konigsb. 1857, 8vo); Rhode, De Poet. Gnomnica (Havn. 1800, 8vo); Tingstadt, Vamice Lectt. (Upsal. 1800, 4to); Wistinitz, (Wilna, 1800, 4to); Muntinghe, Anmerk (fromn the Dutch by Scholl, F. a. M. 1800-2, 3 vols. 8vo); Schellillg, Notce [includ. other books] (Stuttg. 1806, 8vo); Dahler, Uebersetz. [from the Sept.] (Strasb. 1810, 8vo); Mard. Kohen, (Grodno, 1811, 4to); Kelle, Anmerlk. (Freyb. 1815, 8vo); Holden, Notes (Liverp. 1819, 8vo); Melsheimer, Ammerk. (Mannh. 1821, 8vo); Lawson, Exposition (Edinb. 1821, 1855, 2 vols. 12mo); Case, Commnentary (Lond. 1822, 12mo); *Umbreit, Conmmentura (Heidelb. 1826, 8vo); *Gramberg, Annmerk. (Leips. 1828, 8vo); *Rosenmller, Scholia (Lips. 1829, 8vo); Bockel, Em laut. (Hamb. 1829, 8vo); Bridges, Exposition (Lond. 1830 and later, 2 vols. 8’vo); French and Skinner, Notes (ibid. 1831, 8vo); Stern, (Pressb. 1833, 8vo); Lowenstein, Erklar. (Frckft. 1838,8vo); Freund, (Vien. 1839,8vo); Newman, Version (Lond. 1839, 18mo); Maurer, Commentarius (Lips. 1841, 8vo); Nichols, Explanation (Lond. 1842, 12mo); Noyes, Translation [includ. Ecclesiastes and Cant.] (Bost. 1846, 1867, 8vo); *Bertheau. Erklar. (Leips. 1847 8vo); Binney, Lectures (Lond. 1851,18mo); *Stuart, Commentary (N. Y. 1852, 8vo); Gaussen, Reflexions (Toulouse, 1857, 8vo); *Hitzig, Auslegun (Ztir. 1858, 8vo); Elster, Commentar (Gitt. 1858, 8vo); Stein, Bearbeit. (Brilon, 1860, 8vo); Anon., Exposition (Lond. 1860, 12mo); Schulze, Biblische Spruchwoirte (Gott. 1860, 8vo); Brooks, Arrangement (Lond. 1860, 12mo); Wardlaw. Lectures (ibid. 1861, 3 vols. 8vo); Diedrich, Erklar. [includ. other books] (Neu-Rupp. 1665, 8vo); Mtuscher, Version (Gambier, 0., 1866, 12mo); Conant, Translation (N. Y. 1872, 4to); Miller, Commentary (Lond. 1874. 8vo). SEE OLD TESTAMENT.

Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Proverbs, Book of

a collection of moral and philosophical maxims of a wide range of subjects presented in a poetic form. This book sets forth the “philosophy of practical life. It is the sign to us that the Bible does not despise common sense and discretion. It impresses upon us in the most forcible manner the value of intelligence and prudence and of a good education. The whole strength of the Hebrew language and of the sacred authority of the book is thrown upon these homely truths. It deals, too, in that refined, discriminating, careful view of the finer shades of human character so often overlooked by theologians, but so necessary to any true estimate of human life” (Stanley’s Jewish Church).

As to the origin of this book, “it is probable that Solomon gathered and recast many proverbs which sprang from human experience in preceeding ages and were floating past him on the tide of time, and that he also elaborated many new ones from the material of his own experience. Towards the close of the book, indeed, are preserved some of Solomon’s own sayings that See m to have fallen from his lips in later life and been gathered by other hands’ (Arnot’s Laws from Heaven, etc.)

This book is usually divided into three parts: (1.) Consisting of ch. 1-9, which contain an exhibition of wisdom as the highest good.

(2.) Consisting of ch. 10-24.

(3.) Containing proverbs of Solomon “which the men of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, collected” (ch. 25-29).

These are followed by two supplements, (1) “The words of Agur” (ch. 30); and (2) “The words of king Lemuel” (ch. 31).

Solomon is said to have written three thousand proverbs, and those contained in this book may be a selection from these (1 Kings 4:32). In the New Testament there are thirty-five direct quotations from this book or allusions to it.

Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Proverbs, Book Of

PROVERBS, BOOK OF.The second book among the Writings is the most characteristic example of the Wisdom literature in the OT. 1. We may adopt the division of the book made by the headings in the Hebrew text as follows:

I.Pro 1:1-33; Pro 2:1-22; Pro 3:1-35; Pro 4:1-27; Pro 5:1-23; Pro 6:1-35; Pro 7:1-27; Pro 8:1-36; Pro 9:1-18, The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel (heading for more than this section). See below.

II.Pro 10:1 to Pro 22:16, The proverbs of Solomon.

III.Pro 22:17 to Pro 24:22, the words of the wise (Pro 22:17-21 forms an introductory poem).

IV.Pro 24:23-34, These also are the sayings of the wise.

V.Pro 25:1-28; Pro 26:1-28; Pro 27:1-27; Pro 28:1-28; Pro 29:1-27, These also are the proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah copied out.

VI.Pro 30:1-33, The words of Agur, etc.

VII.Pro 31:1-9, The words of king Lemuel, etc.

VIII.Pro 31:10 to Pro 31:31, Without heading, but clearly distinct from VII.

Sections I., II., and III. form the body of the book; sections IV. and V. are additions to the earlier portion, and VI., VII., and VIII. are still later additions.

We consider section II. first, because here the typical Hebrew proverb is best seen, especially if chs. 1015 are taken by themselves as IIa. These chapters consist of aphorisms in the form of couplets showing antithetic parallelism (see Poetry). The couplets are wholly detached, and little order is observable in their arrangement. In content they come nearest being popular, even if they are not so actually. In general they show a contented and cheerful view of life. The wise are mentioned, and with admiration, but not as a class or as forming a school of thought or instruction. They are the successful, upright, prosperous men, safe examples in affairs of common life. In IIb the lines are still arranged in distiches, but the antithetic parallelism has largely given way to the synonymous or synthetic variety. This form gives a little more opportunity for classifying and developing the sentiment of the proverb. My son is addressed a few times, but not regularly. Section III. again marks an advance over IIa and IIb. The verses Pro 22:17-21 are a hortatory introduction. There follows a collection of quatrains, instead of couplets. They are maxims with proverbs among them. Consecutive thought has developed. The truths stated are still the simple every-day ones, but they show meditation as well as observation. Section IV. is an appendix to the third, both coming from the Wise. It is very defective in rhythm, and seemingly the text has suffered corruption. In the few verses three themes are treated, chiefly the sluggard. Section V. is easily subdivided. Chs. 2527:22 contain proverbs in the form of comparisons. Chs. 2829 are in the style of section II. Between the two a little piece (Pro 27:23-27) praises the life of a farmer. Section VI. consists of several independent discourses. The heading (Pro 30:1) separates the chapter from the preceding, but otherwise adds little to our knowledge of the origin, for it is wellnigh unintelligible, Even if it consists of proper names, as is most likely, there is no gain from knowing them and nothing more. In Pro 30:15 ff. are several stanzas of peculiar numerical style: there are three things that and four namely Section VII. is a brief manual for a king or judge, though the maxims are rather rudimentary and homely. If there is a temperance lesson, it is only for the king; the advice to the poor and oppressed is very different (see Pro 30:6-7). The remainder of the chapter, section VIII., is noticeable for two things: its alphabetical structure, each couplet beginning with a new letter in regular order, and the unusual subject, the capable housewife. A most delicate tribute is in the omission of any reference to her virtue, which is tacitly assumed, and not even mentioned.

There remains the important section chs. 19. Its position at the head of the book does not show that it was first in point of time. It is clearly a preface, or hortatory introduction. It does not so much give wise counsel of a concrete kind, as praise the wisdom illustrated in the concrete counsels of the following sections. It is studied, philosophical, flowing in style. It addresses My son at the beginning of a new paragraph, exactly as a teacher addresses My hearers as he begins a lecture. In one chapter at least, the eighth, the adoration of wisdom is carried to the limit, and in spite of the fine personification one feels, regretfully, far removed from the plain practical precepts of sections II. and III. In this cosmogonic hymn wisdom is assigned a dignity in the universe hardly inferior to that of the Creator.

Among the various attempts to explain the form in which the book comes to us, perhaps the following will be found as simple as any. We may suppose that the proverbs of Solomon in IIa and IIb were collected separately and then combined in II.; that the words of the wise in III. at first stood by themselves, and were supplemented by IV.; that the two groups, II. and III.IV., were then joined together, becoming known as the proverbs of Solomon; that the collection in V. was attached; that to this book section I. was then prefixed as an introduction, which was thus stamped as the literature of the school of Wisdom. The few remaining chapters, sections VI., VII., and VIII., were added later from the mass of Wisdom literature which must have been in existence, or later came into existence.

2. As for the date of the book, the traditional ascription of parts of it to king Solomon must, of course, be discarded. And with this rejection there disappears any reason for seeking an early date for it. The time when, all things considered, the compilation is best explained, is between b.c. 350 and 150. From the nature of the case it is impossible to fix even approximately the date of the origin of individual couplets. Many of the arguments valid against an early date of compilation are valueless so far as the single proverbs are concerned.

3. The authors of the Wisdom literature do not claim revealed wisdom; their teachings are only practical common sense. They are humanists, basing their morality upon the universal principles underlying all human nature. From this practical interest the view broadens to the wide sweep of ch. 8. Proverbs may be regarded as a manual of conduct, or, as Bruch calls it, an anthology of gnomes. Its observations relate to a number of forms of life, to affairs domestic, agricultural, urban (the temptations of city life), commercial, political, and military (Toy, Proverbs, p. x.).

O. H. Gates.

Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible

Proverbs, Book of

proverbz:

I.THE BOOK’S ACCOUNT OF ITSELF

1.Title and Headings

2.Authorship or Literary Species?

II.THE SUCCESSIVE COMPILATIONS

1.The Introductory Section

2.The Classic Nucleus

3.A Body of Solicited Counsel

4.Some Left-over Precepts

5.The Hezekian Collection

6.Words of Agur

7.Words of King Lemuel

8.An Acrostic Eulogy of Woman

III.MOVEMENT TOWARD A PHILOSOPHY

1.Liberation of the Mashal

2.Emergence of Basal Principles

3.The Conception of Wisdom

IV.CONSIDERATIONS OF AGE AND LITERARY KINSHIP

1.Under the Kings

2.The Concentrative Point

3.Its Stage in Progressive Wisdom

The Scripture book which in both the Hebrew and the Greek arrangements of the Old Testament Canon immediately succeeds the Psalms. In the Hebrew Canon it stands second in the final or supplementary division called kethubhm Septuagint , Paroimai), writings; placed there probably because it would be most natural to begin this section with standard collections nearest at hand, which of course would be psalms and proverbs. This book is an anthology of sayings or lessons of the sages on life, character, conduct; and as such embodies the distinctively educative strain of Hebrew literature.

I. The Book’s Account of Itself.

1. Title and Headings:

At the beginning, intended apparently to cover the whole work, stands the title: The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel. It seemed good to the compilers, however, to repeat, or perhaps retain an older heading, The proverbs of Solomon at Prov 10, as if in some special sense the collection there beginning deserved it; and at Prov 25 still another heading occurs: These also are proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied out. All these ascribe the proverbs to Solomon; but the heading (Pro 30:1), The words of Agur the son of Jakeh; the oracle, and the heading (Pro 31:1), The words of king Lemuel; the oracle which his mother taught him, indicate that authorship other than that of Solomon is represented; while the mention of the words of the wise (Pro 1:6; Pro 22:17), as also the definite heading, These also are sayings of the wise (Pro 24:23), ascribe parts of the book to the sages in general. The book is confessedly a series of compilations made at different times; confessedly, also, to a considerable extent at least, the work of a number, perhaps a whole guild, of writers.

2. Authorship or Literary Species?:

It is hazardous to argue either for or against a specific authorship; nor is it my intention to do so. The question naturally arises, however, in what sense this book, with its composite structure so outspoken, can lay claim to being the work of Solomon. Does the title refer to actual personal authorship, or does it name a species and type of literature of which Solomon was the originator and inspirer – as if it meant to say the Solomonic proverbs? We may work toward the answer of this question by noting some literary facts.

Outside of the prophets only three of the Old Testament books are provided in the original text with titles; and these three are all associated with Solomon – two of them, Proverbs and the Song of Songs, directly; the third, Ecclesiastes, by an assumed name, which, however, personates Solomon. This would seem to indicate in the composition of these books an unusual degree of literary finish and self-consciousness, a sense on the part of writers or compilers that literature as an art has its claims upon them. The subject-matter of the books, too, bears this out; they are, relatively speaking, the secular books of the Bible and do not assume divine origin, as do law and prophecy. For the original impulse to such literary culture the history directs us to the reign of King Solomon; see 1Ki 4:29-34, where is portrayed, on the part of king and court, an intense intellectual activity for its own sake, the like of which occurs nowhere else in Scripture. The forms then especially impressed upon the literature were the mashal (proverb) and the song, in both of which the versatile young king was proficient; compare 1Ki 4:32. For the cultivation of the mashal these men of letters availed themselves of a favorite native form, the popular proverb; but they gave to it a literary mold and finish which would thenceforth distinguish it as the Solomonic mashal (see PROVERB). This then was the literary form in which from the time of Solomon onward the sages of the nation put their counsels of life, character, conduct; it became as distinctively the mold for this didactic strain of literature as was the heroic couplet for a similar strain in the age of Dryden and Pope.

It is reasonable therefore to understand this title of the Book of Proverbs as designating rather a literary species than a personal authorship; it names this anthology of Wisdom in its classically determined phrasing, and for age and authorship leaves a field spacious enough to cover the centuries of its currency. Perhaps also the proverb of this type was by the term of Solomon differentiated from mashal of other types, as for instance those of Balaam and Job and Koheleth.

II. The Successive Compilations.

1. The Introductory Section:

That the Book of Proverbs is composed of several collections made at different times is a fact that lies on the surface; as many as eight of these are clearly marked, and perhaps subdivisions might be made. The book was not originally conceived as the development of a theme, or even as a unity; whatever unity it has was an afterthought. That it did come to stand, however, for one homogeneous body of truth, and to receive a name and a degree of articulation as such, will be maintained in a later section (see III, below). Meanwhile, we will take the sections in order and note some of the salient characteristics of each. The introductory section, Proverbs 1 through 9, has the marks of having been added later than most of the rest; and is introductory in the sense of concentrating the thought to the concept of Wisdom, and of recommending the spiritual attitude in which it is to be received. Its style – and in this it is distinguished from the rest of the book – is hortatory; it is addressed to my son (Pro 1:8 and often) or my sons (Pro 4:1; Pro 5:7; Pro 7:24; Pro 8:32), in the tone of a father or a sage, bringing stores of wisdom and experience to the young. The first six verses are prefatory, giving the purpose and use of the whole book. Then Pro 1:7 lays down as the initial point, or spiritual bedrock of Wisdom, the fear of Yahweh, a principle repeated toward the end of this introductory section (Pro 9:10), and evidently regarded as very vital to the whole Wisdom system; compare Job 28:28; Psa 111:10; Sirach 1:14. The effect of this prefatory and theme-propounding matter is to launch the collection of proverbs much after the manner of modern literary works, and the rest of the section bears this out fairly well. The most striking feature of the section, besides its general homiletic tone, is its personification of Wisdom. She is represented as calling to the sons of men and commending to them her ways (Pro 1:20-33; 8:1-21, Pro 8:32-36); she condescends, for right and purity’s sake, to enter into rivalry with the strange woman, the temptress, not in secret, but in open and fearless dealing (Prov 7:6 through 8:9; Pro 9:1-6, Pro 9:13-18); and, in a supremely poetic passage (Pro 8:22-31 ), she describes her relation from the beginning with God and with the sons of men. It represents the value that the Hebrew mind came to set upon the human endowment of Wisdom. The Hebrew philosopher thought not in terms of logic and dialectics, but in symbol and personality; and to this high rank, almost like that of a goddess, his imagination has exalted the intellectual and spiritual powers of man. See WISDOM.

2. The Classic Nucleus:

The section Prov 10:1 through 22:16, with the repeated heading The proverbs of Solomon, seems to have been the original nucleus of the whole collection. All the proverbs in this, the longest section of the book, are molded strictly to the couplet form (the one triplet, Pro 19:7, being only an apparent exception, due probably to the loss of a line), each proverb a parallelism in condensed phrasing, in which the second line gives either some contrast to or some amplification of the first. This was doubtless the classic art norm of the Solomonic mashal.

The section seems to contain the product of that period of proverb-culture during which the sense of the model was a little rigid and severe, not venturing yet to limber up the form. Signs of a greater freedom, however, begin to appear, and possibly two strata of compilation are represented. In Proverbs 10 through 15 the prevailing couplet is antithetic, which embodies the most self-closed circuit of the thought. Out of 184 proverbs only 19 do not contain some form of contrast, and 10 of these are in Proverbs 15. In Prov 16 through 22:16, on the other hand, the prevailing form is the so-called synonymous or amplified couplet, which leaves the thought-circuit more open to illustrative additions. Out of 191 proverbs only 18 are antithetic, and these contain contrasts of a more subtle and hidden suggestion. As to subject-matter, the whole section is miscellaneous; in the first half, however, where the antithesis prevails, are the great elemental distinctions of life, wisdom and folly, righteousness and wickedness, industry and laziness, wise speech and reticence, and the like; while in the second half there is a decided tendency to go farther afield for subtler and less obvious distinctions. In this way they seem to reflect a growing and refining literary development, the gradual shaping and accumulation of materials for a philosophy of life; as yet, however, not articulated or reduced to unity of principle.

3. A Body of Solicited Counsel:

In the short section Prov 22:17 through 24:22, the proverb literature seems for the first time to have become as it were self-conscious – to regard itself as a strain of wise counsel to be reckoned with for its educative value. The section is introduced by a preface (Pro 22:17-21), in which these words of the wise are recommended to some person or delegation, that thou mayest carry back words of truth to them that send thee (Pro 22:21). The counsels seem intended for persons in responsible position, perhaps attached to the court (compare Pro 23:1-3), who, as they are to deal officially with men and affairs, need the prudence, purity, and temperance which will fit them for their duties. As to form, the detached couplet appears only occasionally; the favorite form is the quatrain; but proverbs of a greater number of lines are freely used, and one, the counsel on wine drinking (Pro 23:29-35), runs to 17 lines. In tone and specific counsel the section has many resemblances to the introductory section (Proverbs 1 through 9), and provokes the conjecture that this latter section, as the introduction to a compiled body of Wisdom, was composed not long after it.

4. Some Left-Over Precepts:

The little appendix (Pro 24:23-34) is headed, These also are sayings of the wise. They refer to wise intercourse and ordered industry. The little poem on the sluggard (Pro 24:30-34), with its refrain (Pro 24:33, Pro 24:14), is noteworthy as being apparently one stanza of a poem which is completed with the same refrain in the introductory section (Pro 6:6-11). The stanzas are of the same length and structure; and it would seem the latter named was either discovered later or composed as a supplement to the one in this section.

5. The Hezekian Collection:

The long section (Proverbs 25 through 29) is headed, These also are proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied out. The collection claims to be only a compilation; but if, as already suggested, we understand the term proverbs of Solomon as equivalent to Solomonic proverbs, referring rather to species than personal authorship, the compilation may have been made not merely from antiquity, but from the archives of the Wisdom guilds. If so, we have a clue to the state of the Wisdom literature in Hezekiah’s time. The collection as a whole, unlike secs. 3 and 4, returns predominantly to the classic form of the couplet, but with a less degree of compression and epigram. There is a tendency to group numbers of proverbs on like subjects; note for instance the group on the king (Pro 25:2-7). The most striking-feature of the collection is the prevalence of simile and analogy, and in general the strong figurative coloring, especially in Proverbs 25 through 27; it reads like a new species of proverb when we note that in all the earlier Solomonic sections there are only two clearly defined similes (Pro 10:26; Pro 11:22). In Proverbs 25 through 27 are several proverbs of three, four, or five lines, and at the end (Pro 27:23-27) a charming little poem of ten lines on husbandry. Proverbs 28; 29 are entirely of couplets, and the antithetic proverb reappears in a considerable number. As to subject-matter, the thought of this section makes a rather greater demand on the reader’s culture and thinking powers, the analogies being less obvious, more subtle. It is decidedly the reflection of a more literary age than that of section 2.

6. Words of Agur:

Proverbs 30 is taken up with the words of Agur the son of Jakeh, a person otherwise unknown, who disclaims expert knowledge of Wisdom lore (Pro 30:3), and avows an agnostic attitude toward theological speculations, yet shows a tender reverence before the name and unplumbed mystery of Yahweh (Pro 30:6, Pro 30:9, Pro 30:32). His words amount to a plea against a too adventurous, not to say presumptuous, spirit in the supposed findings of human Wisdom, and as such supply a useful makeweight to the mounting pride of the scholar. Yet over this peculiar plea is placed the word Massa (, ha-massa’); burden or oracle, the term used for prophetic disclosures; and the word for said (the man said, , ne’um ha-gebher) is the word elsewhere used for mystic or divine utterance. This seems to mark a stage in the self-consciousness of Wisdom when it was felt that its utterances could be ranked by the side of prophecy as a revelation of truth (compare what Wisdom says of herself, Pro 8:14), and could claim the authoritative term oracle. For the rest, apart from the humble reverence with which they are imbued, these words of Agur do not rise to a high level of spiritual thinking; they tend rather to the riddling element, or dark sayings (compare Pro 1:6). The form of his proverbs is peculiar, verging indeed on the artificial; he deals mostly in the so-called numerical proverb (three things … yea, four), a style of utterance paralleled elsewhere only in Pro 6:16-19, but something of a favorite in the later cryptic sayings of the scribes, as may be seen in Pirke ‘Abhoth.

7. Words of King Lemuel:

Pro 31:1-9 (possibly the whole chapter should be included) is headed, The words of king Lemuel; the oracle which his mother taught him. Here occurs again the mysterious Word oracle, which would seem to be open to the same interpretation as the one given in the previous paragraph, though some would make this otherwise unknown monarch a king of Massa, and refer to the name of one of the descendants of Ishmael (Gen 25:14), presumably a tribal designation. The Hebrew sages from the beginning were in rivalry and fellowship with the sages of other nations (compare 1Ki 4:30, 1Ki 4:31); and in the Book of Job, the supreme reach of Wisdom utterance, all of the sages, Job included, are from countries outside of Palestine. King Lemuel, if an actual personage, was not a Jew; and probably Agur was not. The words of Lemuel are a mother’s plea to her royal son for chastity, temperance and justice, the kingly virtues. The form is the simple Hebrew parallelism, not detached couplets, but continuous.

8. An Acrostic Eulogy of Woman:

The Book of Proverbs ends in a manner eminently worthy of its high standard of sanity and wisdom. Without any heading (it may possibly belong to the oracle that the mother of Lemuel taught her son) the last 22 verses (31:10-31) constitute a single poem in praise of a worthy woman, extolling especially her household virtues. In form these verses begin in the original with the successive 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet; a favorite form of Hebrew verse, as may be seen (in the original) in several of the psalms, notably Ps 119, and in Lamentations 1 through 4.

III. Movement Toward a Philosophy.

It has been much the fashion with modern critics to deny to the Hebrews a truly philosophic mind; this they say was rather the distinctive gift of the Greeks; while for their solution of the problem of life the Hebrews depended on direct revelation from above, which precluded that quasi-abeyance of concepts, that weighing of cosmic and human elements, involved in the commonly received notion of philosophy. This criticism takes account of only one side of the Hebrew mind. It is true they believed their life to be in direct contact with the will and word of Yahweh, revealed to them in terms which could not be questioned; but in the findings and deliverance of their own intellectual powers, too, they had a reliance and confidence which merits the name of an authentic philosophy. But theirs was a philosophy not of speculative world-making, but of conduct and the practical management of life; and it was intuitive and analogical, not the result of dialectical reasoning. Hence, its name wisdom, the solution itself, rather than philosophy, the love of wisdom, the search for solution. This Book of Proverbs, beginning with detached maxims on the elements of conduct, reveals in many suggestive ways the gradual emergence of a philosophy, a comprehensive wisdom, as it were, in the making; it is thus the pioneer book of that Hebrew Wisdom which we see developed to maturer things in the books of Job and Ecclesiastes. Some of its salient stages may here be traced.

1. Liberation of the Mashal:

We may first note it, or the literary preparation for it, in the opening up of the mashal, or proverb unit, toward added elements of illustration, explanation, amplitude, a development that begins to appear, in the oldest section (the classic nucleus, section 2) at about Proverbs 16. The primitive antithetic mashal contrasted two aspects of truth in such a way as to leave the case closed; there was nothing for it but to go on to a new subject. This had the good effect of setting over against each other the great elemental antagonisms of life: righteousness and wickedness, obedience and lawlessness, teachableness and perversity, industry and laziness, prudence and presumption, reticence and prating, etc., and so far forth it was a masterly analysis of the essentials of individual and social conduct. As soon, however, as the synonymous and illustrative mashal prevails, we are conscious of a limbering up and greater penetrativeness of the range of thought; it is open to subtler distinctions and remoter discoveries, and the analogies tend to employ the less direct relationships of cause and effect. This is increased as we go on, especially by the greater call upon the imagination in the figurative tissue of the Hezekian section, and by the decidedly greater tendency to the riddling and paradox element. The mashal increases in length and amplitude, both by the grouping of similar subjects and by the enlargement from the couplet to the quatrain and the developed poem. All this, while not yet a self-conscious philosophy, is a step on the way thereto.

2. Emergence of Basal Principles:

One solid presupposition of the sages, like an axiom, was never called in question: namely, that righteousness and wisdom are identical, that wickedness of any sort is folly. This imparts at once a kind of prophetic coloring to the Wisdom precepts, well represented by the opening proverb in the original section (after the prefatory one about the wise son), Treasures of wickedness profit nothing; but righteousness delivereth from death (Pro 10:2). Thus from the outset is furnished an uncompromising background on which the fascinating allurements of vice, the crooked ways of injustice and dishonesty, the sober habits of goodness and right dealing, show for what they are and what they tend to. The sages thus put themselves, too, in entire harmony with what is taught by priests and prophets; there is no quarrel with the law or the word; they simply supply the third strand in the threefold cord of instruction (compare Jer 18:18). From this basal presumption other principles, scarcely less axiomatic, come in view: that the fount and spring of wise living is reverence, the fear of Yahweh; that the ensuring frame of mind is teachableness, the precluding attitude perverseness; that it is the mark of wisdom, or righteousness, to be fearless and above board, of wickedness, which is folly, to be crooked and secretive. These principles recur constantly, not, as a system, but in numerous aspects and applications in the practical business of life. For their sanctions they refer naively to the Hebrew ideal of rewards on the one hand – wealth, honor, long life, family (compare Pro 11:31) – and of shame and loss and destruction on the other; but these are emphasized not as direct bestowments or inflictions from a personal Deity, rather as in the law of human nature. The law that evil works its own destruction, good brings its own reward, is forming itself in men’s reason as one of the fundamental concepts out of which grew the Wisdom philosophy.

3. The Conception of Wisdom:

From times long before Solomon sagacity in counsel, and. skill to put such counsel into maxim or parable, gave their possessor, whether man or woman, a natural leadership and repute in the local communities (compare 2Sa 14:2; 2Sa 20:16); and Solomon’s exceptional endowment showed itself not merely in his literary tastes, but in his ability, much esteemed among Orientals, to determine the merits of cases brought before him for judgment (1Ki 3:16-28), and to answer puzzling questions (1Ki 10:1, 1Ki 10:6, 1Ki 10:7). It was from such estimate of men’s intellectual powers, from the recognition of mental alertness, sagacity, grasp, in their application to the practical issues of life (compare Pro 1:1-5), that the conception of Wisdom in its larger sense arose. As, however, the cultivation of such sagacity of utterance passed beyond the pastime of a royal court (compare 1Ki 4:29-34) into the hands of city elders and sages it attained to greatly enhanced value; note how the influence of such sage is idealized (Job 29:7-25). The sages had definite calling and mission of their own, more potent perhaps than belonged to priests and prophets; the frequent reference to the young and the simple or immature in the Book of Prov would indicate that they were virtually the schoolmasters and educators of the nation. As such, working as they did in a fellowship and collaboration with each other, the subject-matter with which they dealt would not remain as casual and miscellaneous maxims, but work toward a center and system of doctrine which could claim the distinction of an articulated philosophy of life, and all the more since it was so identified with the great Hebrew ideal of righteousness and truth. We have already noted how this sense of the dignity and value of their calling manifested itself in the body of precepts sent in response to solicitation (3 above), with its appendix (4 above) (Prov 22:17 through 24:34). It was not long after this stage of Wisdom-culture, I think, that a very significant new word came into their vocabulary, the word (, tushyah, a puzzle to the translators, variously rendered sound wisdom, effectual working, and called by the lexicographers a technical term of the Wisdom literature, BDB, under the word). Its earliest appearance, and the only one except in the introductory section (Pro 18:1), is where the man who separates himself from others’ opinions and seeks his own desire is said to quarrel with all tushyah. The word seems to designate Wisdom in its subjective aspect, as an authentic insight or intuition of truth, the human power to rise into the region of true revelation from below, as distinguished from the prophetic or legal word spoken directly from above. Outside of Proverbs and Job the word occurs only twice: once in Mic 6:9, and once in Isa 28:29, in which latter case the prophet has deliberately composed a passage (Isa 28:23-29) in the characteristic mashal idiom, and attributed that strain of insight to Yahweh. Evidently there came a time in the culture of Wisdom when its utterances attained in men’s estimate to a parity with utterances direct from the unseen; perhaps this explains why Agur’s and Lemuel’s words could be boldly ranked as oracles (see above, 6 and 7). At any rate, such a high distinction, an authority derived from intimacy with the creative work of Yahweh (Pro 8:30, Pro 8:31), is ascribed to Wisdom (, hokhmah, in the introductory section; counsel is mine, Wisdom is made to say, and tushyah (Pro 8:14). Thus the Book of Proverbs reveals to us a philosophy, as it were, in the making and from scattered counsels attaining gradually to the summit where the human intellect could place its findings by the side of divine oracles.

IV. Considerations of Age and Literary Kinship.

To get at the history of the Book of Proverbs, several inquiries must be raised. When were the proverbs composed? The book, like the Book of Psalms, is confessedly an anthology, containing various accumulations, and both by style and maturing thought bearing the marks of different ages. When were the successive compilations made? And, finally, when did the strain of literature here represented reach that point of self-conscious unity and coordination which justified its being reckoned with as a strain by itself and choosing the comprehensive name Wisdom? What makes these inquiries hard to answer is the fact that these proverbs are precepts for the common people, relating to ordinary affairs of the village, the market, and the field, and move in lines remote from politics and dynastic vicissitudes and wars. They are, to an extent far more penetrative and pervasive than law or prophecy, the educative literature on which the sturdy rank and file of the nation was nourished. ‘Where there is no vision, the people let loose,’ says a Hezekian proverb (Pro 29:18); but so they are also when there is no abiding tonic of social convention and principle. Precisely this latter it is which this Book of Prey in a large degree reveals; and in course of time its value was so felt that, as we have seen, it could rank itself as an asset of life by the side of vision. It represents, in a word, the human movement toward self-directiveness and self-reliance, without supine dependence on ruler or public sentiment (compare Pro 29:25, Pro 29:26). When and how was this sane and wholesome communal fiber developed?

1. Under the Kings:

When Solomon and his court made the mashal an elegant fad, they builded better than they knew. They gave to the old native form of the proverb and parable, as reduced to epigrammatic mold and polish, the eclat of a popular literature. This was done orally at first (Solomon spoke his proverbs, 1Ki 4:32, 1Ki 4:33); but the recording of such carefully expressed utterances could not be long delayed; perhaps this brief style coupe was the most natural early exercise in the new transition from the unwieldly cuneiform to the use of papyrus and a more flexible alphabet, which probably came in with the monarchy. At any rate, here was the medium for a practical didactic literature, applied to the matters of daily life and intercourse to which in Solomon’s time the nation was enthusiastically awake. There is no valid reason for denying to Solomon, or at least to his time, the initiation of the Solomonic mashal; and if, as has been suggested, the name proverbs of Solomon designates rather literary species than personal authorship, the title of the whole book (Pro 1:1), as well as the headings of sections (Pro 10:1; Pro 25:1), may be given in entire good faith, whatever the specific time or personal authorship of the utterances. Nor is there anything either in recorded history or the likelihood of the case to make improbable that the activity of the men of Hezekiah means just what is said; these men of letters were adding this supplementary collection (Prov 25 through 29) to a body of proverbs that already existed and were recognized as Solomon’s. This would put the composition of the main body of the Proverbs (chapters 10 through 29) prior to the reign of Hezekiah. They represent therefore the chief literary instruction available to the people in the long period of the Kings from Solomon onward, a period which otherwise was very meagerly supplied. The Mosaic Law, as we gather from the finding of the Law in the time of Josiah (2 Ki 22), was at best a sequestered thing in the keeping – or neglect – of priests and judges; the prophetic word was a specific message for great national emergencies; the accumulations of sacred song were the property of the temple and the cult; what then was there for the education of the people? There were indeed the folk-tales and catechetical legends of their heroic history; but there were also, most influential of all, these wise sayings of the sages, growing bodies of precept and parable, preserved in village centers, published in the open places by the gate (compare Job 29:7), embodying the elements of a common-sense religion and citizenship, and representing views of life which were not only Hebrew, but to a great extent international among the neighbor kingdoms. Understood so, these Solomonic proverbs furnish incomparably the best reflection we have of the religious and social standards of the common people, during a period otherwise meagerly portrayed. And from it we can understand what a sterling fiber of character existed after all, and how well worth preserving for a unique mission in the world, in spite of the idolatrous corruptions that invaded the sanctuaries, the self-pleasing unconcern of the rulers and the pessimistic denunciations of the prophets.

2. The Concentrative Point:

For the point in the Hebrew literary history when these scattered Solomonic proverbs were recognized as a homogeneous strain of thought and the compilations were made and recommended as Wisdom, we can do no better, I think, than to name the age of Israel’s literary prime, the age of Hezekiah. The men of Hezekiah did more than append their supplementary section (Proverbs 25 through 29); the words these also (, gam’elleh) in their heading imply it. See HEZEKIAH, THE MEN OF.

I apprehend the order and nature of their work somehow thus: Beginning with the classic nucleus (Prov 10 through 22:16) (see above, II., 2.), which may have come to them in two subsections (Proverbs 10 through 15; 16 through 22:16), they put these together as the proverbs most closely associated with Solomon, without much attempt at systematizing, substantially as these had accumulated through the ages in the rough order of their developing form and thought; compiling thus, in their zeal for the literary treasures of the past, the body of educational literature which lay nearest at hand, a body adapted especially, though not exclusively, to the instruction of the young and immature. This done, there next came to their knowledge a remarkable body of words of the wise (Prov 22:17 through 24:22), which had evidently been put together by request as a vade mecum for some persons in responsible position, and which were prefaced by a recommendation of them as words of truth designed to promote trust in Yahweh (Pro 22:19-21) – which latter, as we know from Isaiah, was the great civic issue of Hezekiah’s time. With this section naturally goes the little appendix of sayings of the wise (Pro 24:23-34), added probably at about the same time. These two sections, which seem to open the collection to matter beyond the distinctive Solomonic mashal, are, beyond the rest of the book, in the tone of the introductory section (Proverbs 1 through 9), which latter, along with the Hezekian appendix (Proverbs 25 through 29), was added, partly as a new composition, partly as incorporating some additional findings (compare for instance the completion of the poem on the sluggard, Pro 6:6-11). Thus, by the addition of this introductory section, the Book of Proverbs was recognized as a unity, provided with a preface and initial proposition (Pro 1:1-6, Pro 1:7), and launched with such hortatory material as had already, on a smaller scale, introduced the third section. This part not only contains the praise of Wisdom as a human endowment, sharing in the mind and purpose of the divine (Pro 8:22-31), but it has become aware also of the revelatory value of tushyah (Pro 2:7; Pro 3:21; Pro 8:14), or chastened intuition (see above, III, 3), and dares to aspire, in its righteous teachableness, to the intimacy or secret friendship of Yahweh (, sodho, Pro 3:32). All this indicates the holy self-consciousness to which Wisdom has attained.

I see no cogent reason for postponing the substantial completion of the Book of Proverbs beyond the time of Hezekiah. The words of Agur and of King Lemuel, with the final acrostic poem, may be later additions; but their difference in tone and workmanship is just as likely to be due to the fact that they are admitted, in the liberal spirit of the compilers, from foreign stores of wisdom. For spiritual clarity and intensity they do not rise to the height of the native Hebrew consciousness; and they incline to an artificial structure which suggests that the writer’s interest is divided between sincere tushyah and literary skill. For the sake of like-minded neighbors, however, something may be forgiven.

3. Its Stage in Progressive Wisdom:

It is too early in the history of Wisdom to regard this Book of Proverbs as an articulated and coordinated system. It is merely what it purports to be, a collected body of literature having a common bearing and purpose; a literature of reverent and intelligent self-culture, moving among the ordinary relations of life, and not assuming to embody any mystic disclosures of truth beyond the reach of human reason. As such, it has a vocabulary and range of ideas of its own, which distinguishes it from other strains of literature. This is seen in those passages outside of the Book of Proverbs which deliberately assume, for some specific purpose, the Wisdom dialect. In Isa 28:23-29, the prophet, whom the perverse rulers have taunted with baby-talk (Isa 28:9, Isa 28:10), appeals to them with the characteristic Wisdom call to attention (Isa 28:23), and in illustrations drawn from husbandry proves to them that this also is from Yahweh of hosts, ‘who is transcendent in counsel, preeminent in tushyah’ (Isa 28:29) – teaching them thus in their own vaunted idiom. In Mic 6:9-15, similarly, calling in tushyah to corroborate prophecy (the voice of Yahweh, , kol Yahweh, , wethushyah, Mic 6:9), the prophet speaks of the natural disasters that men ought to deduce from their abuse of trade relations, evidently appealing to them in their own favorite strain of thinking. Both these passages seem to reflect a time when the Wisdom dialect was prevalent and popular, and both are concerned to call in sound human intuition as an ally of prophecy. At the same time, as prophets have the right to do, they labor to give revelation the casting vote; the authentic disclosure of truth from Yahweh is their objective, not the mere luxury of making clever observations on practical life. All this coincides, in the Wisdom sphere, with what in Isaiah’s and Micah’s time was the supreme issue of state, namely trust in Yahweh, rather than in crooked human devices (compare Isa 28:16; Isa 29:15); and it is noteworthy that this is the venture of Wisdom urged by the editors of Proverbs in their introductory exhortations (compare Pro 22:19; Pro 3:5-8). In other words, these editors are concerned with inducing a spiritual attitude; and so in their literary strain they make their book an adjunct in the movement toward spirituality which Isaiah is laboring to promote. As yet, however, its findings are still in the peremptory stage, stated as absolute and unqualified truths; it has not reached the sober testing of fact and interrogation of motive which it must encounter in order to become a seasoned philosophy of life. Its main pervading thesis – that righteousness in the fear of God is wisdom and bound for success, that wickedness is fatuity and bound for destruction – is eternally sound; but it must make itself good in a world where so many of the enterprises of life seem to come out the other way, and where there is so little appreciation of spiritual values. Nor is the time of skepticism and rigid test long in coming. Two psalms of this period (as I apprehend) (Psalms 73 and 49) concern themselves with the anomaly of the success of the wicked and the trials of the righteous; the latter pointedly adopting the Wisdom or mashal style of utterance (Psa 49:3, Psa 49:4), both laboring to induce a more inward and spiritual attitude toward the problem. It remains, however, for the Book of Job to take the momentous forward step of setting wisdom on the unshakable foundation of spiritual integrity, which it does by subjecting its findings to the rigid test of fact and its motives to a drastic Satanic sifting. It is thus in the Book of Job, followed later by the Book of Ecclesiastes, that the Wisdom strain of literature, initiated by the Proverbs of Solomon, finds its Old Testament culmination.

Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

Proverbs, Book of

In this book God has furnished, through the wisest of men, principles and precepts for the guidance and security of the believer in passing through the temptations to which he is exposed in an evil world. The admonitions speak in terms of affectionate warning ‘as to sons:’ Heb 12:5. Under symbolic terms, such as ‘the evil man’ and ‘the strange woman,’ the great forms of evil in the world, violent self-will, and corrupting folly, are laid bare in their course and end. Wisdom is shown as the alone guard against one or the other. Wisdom is presented, not as a faculty residing in man, but as an object to be diligently sought after and acquired. It is often personified, and is spoken of as lifting up her voice. In Pro 8, under the idea of wisdom, we have doubtless Christ presented as the resource that was with God from ‘the beginning of His way,’ so that God could independently of man establish and bring into effect His thoughts of grace for men.

In detail the book refers to the world, showing what things are to be sought and what to be avoided, and evinces that in the government of God a man reaps according to what he sows, irrespective of the spiritual blessings of God in grace beyond and above this world. It maintains integrity in the earthly relationships of this life, which cannot be violated with impunity. The instruction rises altogether above mere human prudence and sagacity, for “the fear of the Lord is the beginning [or ‘principal part,’ margin ] of knowledge.” We have in it the wisdom of God for the daily path of human life.

The book divides itself into two parts: the first nine chapters give general principles, and Pro 10 onwards are the proverbs themselves. This latter portion divides itself into three parts: Pro 10: to Pro 24, the proverbs of Solomon; Pro 25 to Pro 29, also the proverbs of Solomon, which were gathered by “the men of Hezekiah king of Judah.” Pro 30 gives the words of Agur; and Pro 31 the words of king Lemuel.

The Proverbs is a book of poetry. The proverbs vary in style: some are antithetical couplets, one being the opposite of the other, as “a wise son maketh a glad father; but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.” Others are synthetical, the second sentence enforcing the first, as “The Lord hath made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.” See POETRY.

In Pro 1 the purport of the proverbs is pointed out: it is that instruction in wisdom, justice, judgement, and equity might be received: the fear of the Lord is the starting point. Satan would of course oppose this, so warnings are at once given to avoid the enticings of sinners. Wisdom cries aloud and in the streets: her instructions are for all. Retribution is for such as refuse her call.

Pro 2 gives the results of following in the path of wisdom, whereas the wicked will be rooted out.

Pro 3 shows that it is the fear of God, and subjection to His word, that is the only true path in an evil world.

Pro 4 enforces the study of wisdom: it will surely bring into blessing. Evil must be avoided and be kept at a distance. The heart, the eye, and the feet must be watched.

Pro 5 warns a man against leaving the wife of his youth (the lawful connection) for the strange woman, which leads to utter demoralisation.

Pro 6 enjoins one not to be surety for another. Wisdom is not slothful, violent, nor deceitful. There are seven things which are an abomination to the Lord. The strange woman is again pointed out to be avoided as fire : there is no ransom for adultery.

Pro 7 again shows the traps laid by the strange woman, which alas, are often too successful. Her house is the way to hell (Sheol).

Pro 8 proclaims that wisdom calls, and invites all to listen: it is valuable for all – kings, princes, rulers, judges. With wisdom are linked durable riches and righteousness: her fruit is better than gold. All God’s works in creation were carried out in wisdom. This introduces Christ as the wisdom of God , from Pro 8:22. He was there before the work of creation was begun. His delights were with the sons of men (Pro 8:31), with which agrees the song of the heavenly host at the birth of the Lord Jesus: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward man.” Luk 2:14. Wisdom says, “Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoso findeth me findeth life.”

Pro 9. Wisdom is established: she has her house, her food, her bread, and her wine. Her maidens are sent forth with loving invitations to enter. Again the world has its counter attractions by the strange woman; but the dead are there, and her guests in the depths of Sheol.

Thus far are the general principles on which wisdom acts: in Pro 10 to the end are the proverbs themselves. They enter into details of dangers and how they are to be avoided, and show the path that wisdom leads into, and in which there is safety.

Pro 30 has a heading, “The words of Agur, the son of Jakeh, even the prophecy: the man spake unto Ithiel, even unto Ithiel and Ucal.” As these names are not known, it has been supposed that they are symbolical, and that Agur refers to Solomon. Whether this is so or not does not in any way affect the value of the proverbs in the chapter. There are six sets of four things:

Four generations that are evil. (Pro 30:11-14.)

Four things that are insatiable. (Pro 30:15-16)

Four things that are inscrutable. (Pro 30:18-19)

Four things that are intolerable. (Pro 30:21-23.)

Four things that are weak, yet wise. (Pro 30:24-28.)

Four things that are very stately. (Pro 30:29-31.)

Pro 32. Here are “the words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him.” Who king Lemuel was is not known: this has caused some to suppose that Solomon is again alluded to. The first nine verses speak of the character of a king according to wisdom. The principal things are that his strength should not be given unto women, nor to strong drink, and that his mouth should be opened for those ready to perish, the poor, and the needy. The rest of the chapter is devoted to the description of a virtuous woman. She fills her house with good things, and brings prosperity to the household and honour to her husband. The king and the virtuous woman may in some respects be typical of Christ and the church.

Christians should study the Book of Proverbs, for (even when properly occupied with heavenly things, and the interests of Christ on earth) they are apt to overlook the need of wisdom from heaven to pass through this evil world, and to manage their affairs on earth in the fear of God.

Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary

Proverbs, Book of

Proverbs, Book of. This is a collection of wise maxims woven into a didactic poem, and making up a popular system of ethics. They are a guide of practical wisdom, the moral philosophy of the Hebrews. We may divide the book of Proverbs into four parts. 1. Pro 1:1-33; Pro 2:1-22; Pro 3:1-35; Pro 4:1-27; Pro 5:1-23; Pro 6:1-35; Pro 7:1-27; Pro 8:1-36; Pro 9:1-18, a discourse extolling true wisdom, and specially urging the young to secure so excellent a possession. To this we find prefixed a title and introduction, 1:1-6, intended possibly to apply to the whole book. 2. A collection of maxims generally unconnected, inculcating moral precepts which respect both man’s duty towards God and his behavior to his fellow-creatures. 10:1-22:16. 3. A more connected address, with various admonitions, and a charge to listen to the words of the wise. 22:17-24:34. 4. An appendix, chaps. 25-31, comprising (1) a collection of Solomon’s proverbs which Hezekiah’s servants copied out, chaps. 25-29; many of those which are comprised in the second part are here repeated; and (2) chaps. 30, 31, the words of Agur, etc. The book of Proverbs is frequently cited or alluded to in the New Testament. It is, indeed, a treasure-house of ethical wisdom, filled with choice sententious aphorisms, far excelling those of all secular and uninspired sages, and inculcating all moral duties.

Fuente: People’s Dictionary of the Bible

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