THE BOOK OF PROVERBS

Introduction

The Book of Proverbs bears the external title , which it derives from the words with which it commences. It is one of the three books which are distinguished from the other twenty-one by a peculiar system of accentuation, the best exposition of which that has yet been given is that by S. Baer,[footnoteRef:1] as set forth in my larger Psalmen-commentar.[footnoteRef:2] [1: Cf. Outlines of Hebrew Accentuation , Prose and Poetical, by Rev. A. B. Davidson, D.D., Professor of Hebrew, Free Church College, Edinburgh, 1861, based on Baers Torath Emeth, Rdelheim 1872.] [2: Vol. ii., ed. of 1860, pp. 477-511.]

The memorial word for these three books, viz., Job, Mishle (Proverbs), and Tehillim (Psalms), is , formed from the first letter of the first word of each book, or, following the Talmudic and Masoretic arrangement of the books, .

Having in view the superscription , with which the book commences, the ancients regarded it as wholly the composition of Solomon. The circumstance that it contains only 800 verses, while according to 1Ki. 5:12 (1Ki. 4:32) Solomon spake 3000 proverbs, R. Samuel bar-Nachmani explains by remarking that each separate verse may be divided into two or three allegories or apothegms (e.g., 25:12), not to mention other more arbitrary modes of reconciling the discrepancy.[footnoteRef:3] [3: Pesikta, ed. Buber (1868), 34b, 35a. Instead of 800, the Masora reckons 915 verses in the Book of Proverbs.]

The opinion also of R. Jonathan, that Solomon first composed the Canticles, then the Proverbs, and last of all Ecclesiastes, inasmuch as the first corresponds[footnoteRef:4] with the spring-time of youth, the second with the wisdom of manhood, and the third with the disappointment of old age, is founded on the supposition of the unity of the book and of its Solomonic authorship. At the present day also there are some, such as Stier, who regard the Book of Proverbs from first to last as the work of Solomon, just as Klauss (1832) and Randegger (1841) have ventured to affirm that all the Psalms without exception were composed by David. But since historical criticism has been applied to Biblical subjects, that blind submission to mistaken tradition appears as scarcely worthy of being mentioned. The Book of Proverbs presents itself as composed of various parts, different from each other in character and in the period to which they belong. Under the hands of the critical analysis it resolves itself into a mixed market of the most manifold intellectual productions of proverbial poetry, belonging to at least three different epochs. [4: Schir-ha-Schirim Rabba, c. i.f. 4a.]

1. The external plan of the Book of Proverbs

and its own testimony as to its origin. The internal superscription of the book, which recommends it, after the manner of later Oriental books, on account of its importance and the general utility of its contents, extends from v. 1 to v. 6. Among the moderns this has been acknowledged by Lwenstein and Maurer; for v. 7, which Ewald, Bertheau, and Keil have added to it, forms a new commencement to the beginning of the book itself. The book is described as The Proverbs of Solomon, and then there is annexed the statement of its object. That object, as summarily set forth in v. 2, is practical, and that in a twofold way: partly moral, and partly intellectual. The former is described in vv. 3-5. It present moral edification, moral sentiments for acceptance, not merely to help the unwise to attain to wisdom, but also to assist the wise. The latter object is set forth in v. 6. It seeks by its contents to strengthen and discipline the mind to the understanding of thoughtful discourses generally. In other words, it seeks to gain the moral ends which proverbial poetry aims at, and at the same time to make familiar with it, so that the reader, in these proverbs of Solomon, or by means of them as of a key, learns to understand such like apothegms in general. Thus interpreted, the title of the book does not say that the book contains proverbs of other wise men besides those of Solomon; if it did so, it would contradict itself, It is possible that the book contains proverbs other than those of Solomon, possible that the author of the title of the book added such to it himself, but the title presents to view only the Proverbs of Solomon. If 1:7 begins the book, then after reading the title we cannot think otherwise than that here begin the Solomonic proverbs. If we read farther, the contents and the form of the discourses which follow do not contradict this opinion; for both are worthy of Solomon. So much the more astonished are we, therefore, when at 10:1 we meet with a new superscription. , from which point on to 22:16 there is a long succession of proverbs of quite a different tone and form short maxims, Mashals proper while in the preceding section of the book we find fewer proverbs than monitory discourses. What now must be our opinion when we look back from this second superscription to the part 1:7-9, which immediately follows the title of the book? Are 1:7-9, in the sense of the book, not the Proverbs of Solomon? From the title of the book, which declares them to be so, we must judge that they are. Or are they Proverbs of Solomon? In this case the new superscription (Pro. 10:1), The Proverbs of Solomon, appears altogether incomprehensible. And yet only one of these two things is possible: on the one side, therefore, there must be a false appearance of contradiction, which on a closer investigation disappears. But on which side is it? If it is supposed that the tenor of the title, 1:1-6, does not accord with that of the section 10:1-22:6, but that it accords well with that of 1:7-9 (with the breadth of expression in 1:7-9, it has also several favourite words not elsewhere occurring in the Book of Proverbs; among these, , subtilty, and , discretion, 1:4), then Ewalds view is probable, that 1-9 is an original whole written at once, and that the author had no other intention than to give it as an introduction to the larger Solomonic Book of Proverbs beginning at 10:1. But it is also possible that the author of the title has adopted the style of the section 1:7-9. Bertheau, who has propounded this view, and at the same time has rejected, in opposition to Ewald, the idea of the unity of the section, adopts this conclusion, that in 1:8-9 there lies before us a collection of the admonitions of different authors of proverbial poetry, partly original introductions to larger collections of proverbs, which the author of the title gathers together in order that he may give a comprehensive introduction to the larger collection contained in 10:1-22:16. But such an origin of the section as Bertheau thus imagines is by no means natural; it is more probable that the author, whose object is, according to the title of the book, to give the proverbs of Solomon, introduces these by a long introduction of his own, than that, instead of beginning with Solomons proverbs, he first presents long extracts of a different kind from collections of proverbs. If the author, as Bertheau thinks, expresses indeed, in the words of the title, the intention of presenting, along with the Proverbs of Solomon, also the words of the wise, then he could not have set about his work more incorrectly and self-contradictorily than if he had begun the whole, which bears the superscription Proverbs of Solomon (which must be regarded as presenting the proverbs of Solomon as a key to the words of the wise generally), with the words of the wise. But besides the opinion of Ewald, which in itself, apart from internal grounds, is more natural and probable than that of Bertheau, there is yet the possibility of another. Keil, following H. A. Hahn, is of opinion, that in the sense of the author of the title, the section 1-9 is Solomonic as well as 10-22, but that he has repeated the superscription Proverbs of Solomon before the latter section, because from that point onward proverbs follow which bear in a special measure the characters of the Mashal (Hvernicks Einl. iii. 428). The same phenomenon appears in the book of Isaiah, where, after the general title, there follows an introductory address, and then in 2:1 the general title is repeated in a shorter form. That this analogy, however, is here inapplicable, the further discussion of the subject will show.

The introductory section 1:7-9, and the larger section 10-22:16, which contains uniform brief Solomonic apothegms, are followed by a third section, 22:17-24:22. Hitzig, indeed, reckons 10-24:22 as the second section, but with 22:17 there commences an altogether different style, and a much freer manner in the form of the proverb; and the introduction to this new collection of proverbs, which reminds us of the general title, places it beyond a doubt that the collector does not at all intend to set forth these proverbs as Solomonic. It may indeed be possible that, as Keil (iii. 410) maintains, the collector, inasmuch as he begins with the words, Incline thine ear and hear words of the wise, names his own proverbs generally as words of the wise, especially since he adds, and apply thine heart to my knowledge; but this supposition is contradicted by the superscription of a fourth section, 24:23ff., which follows. This short section, an appendix to the third, bears the superscription, These things also are . If Keil thinks here also to set aside the idea that the following proverbs, in the sense of this superscription, have as their authors the wise, he does unnecessary violence to himself. The is here that of authorship and if the following proverbs are composed by the , the wise, then they are not the production of the one , wise man, Solomon, but they are the words of the wise in contradistinction to the Proverbs of Solomon.

The Proverbs of Solomon begin again at 25:1; and this second large se