Proverbs

• Authorship
• • Case for Solomon
  • • Reasons for:
    • • Superscription (1:1) credits the book to Solomon
      • 10:1, 25:1 support Solomon as author
      • Tradition
    • Reasons against:
    • • Text clearly indicates that others contributed to collection (30:1, 31:1)
      • According to 25:1, part of the collection was gathered by the men of Hezekiah - Hezekiah ruled in Judah long after Solomon died
      • 22:17-24:22 bears a striking resemblance to the Egyptian work "The Teaching of Amen-em-opet" - the wise men of Israel were undoubtedly aware of the sayings of the wise men of other nations and incorporated some of their sayings into the Israelite wisdom tradition
      • Some sayings occur more than once (e.g., 14:12=16:25, 21:9=25:24) - seems to reflect that several people worked on the book and that our ideas of editing were not applied
  • Evidence suggests that although Solomon might have been responsibile for part of the book as author or sponsor, a variety of authors and editors over a long period of time were responsible for the final form of the book
• Nature of the Book
• • Basically a collection of proverbs
  • • Proverb
    • • Registers a conclusion which has arisen through observation of nature, animal behavior, or human conduct
      • Aimed at embodying a truth with brevity so it could easily be remembered
    • Summarized many of the important observations and teachings of Israelite wisdom for use in teaching others
  • Literary structure
  • • No clearly discernible order
    • 1-9 seems to be an introduction to the book and to the wisdom tradition but even the material within that section shows no particular order
  • Types of parallelism employed in proverbs
  • • Antithetic - the second line of the proverb is the opposite of the first line (11:1) often creating a "this is better than this" structure (15:17)
    • Synonymous - the second line repeats the basic point of the first line in different words thus reinforcing the truth contained in the proverb (4:7)
    • Progressive - the second line completes the truth of the first line - the proverb can only be understood with both lines (14:7, 22:6) - a special form is the numerical proverb in which several items are listed, another is added for completion, and the commonality of the items is then provided (30:24-28,29-31)
  • Other literary forms employed other than proverbs
  • • Allegory - an image is used which makes sense on a surface level but also on a deeper level (e.g., 5:15-23)
    • Didactic narrative - a story whose purpose is to instruct (e.g., 7:6-23)
• Some Theological Points
• • Beginning point of wisdom
  • • Fearing God (i.e., being committed to God in all areas of life) - see 1:7,2:5-6,9:10
    • A good life (i.e, a life lived in harmony with God and the world) was impossible apart from being committed to God
  • Categorizing people
  • • Two classes
    • • Wise - also righteous
      • Fools - also wicked
    • Not much middle ground existed - some fools could still be educated but most were beyond help
  • Adultery and folly
  • • Adultery
    • • Acknowledged to be an enticing temptation - author of 7:6-23 seems to have been quite familiar with the temptation
      • Leads to death rather than life
      • • Adulteress treats sex as casually as a daily meal (30:20) - she feels no guilt and keeps no promises - a future cannot be built upon her
        • Adulteress is interested in destruction rather than in love and life (6:25-35, 7:24-27) - she takes pleasure in the downfall of her victims
    • Folly
    • • Although folly (i.e., living committed to self without knowledge of God or the world) seems to offer a variety of self-indulgent pleasures, it also leads to death - no ultimate satisfaction can be derived from commitment to self
      • Metaphor of adultery dramatically expressed the temptation to pursue folly instead of wisdom (9:1-18) - to compete with the enticing adulteress of folly, wisdom also was portrayed as an alluring woman who required, however, strict discipline and commitment (8:1-36)
  • Wealth and poverty
  • • Wealth
    • • Associated with wisdom (18:11) - a wise man usually possessed wealth
      • Assumed to indicate God's reward for a faithful life (22:4)
      • Did not always or automaotically lead to happiness (15:16) nor did it endure (23:4-5)
    • Poverty
    • • Typically thought to be punishment for wickedness according to Israel's theology (cf. Deut. 28:15-68)
      • Wise men realized poverty was not always a punishment
      • • Poverty often was due to injustice rather than to God's disfavor (13:23, 14:31, 17:5)
        • God had created the rich and the poor (22:2) - neither one was intrinsically better than the other
      • Proper response to the poor was kindness and help (19:17, 22:22-23) not disdain and condemnation
  • How to get the good life
  • • Obey parents - parental advice was to be followed - parents employed both words and blows to teach their children (13:24, 20:30)
    • Self-control both in words (15:1, 17:28) and in actions (11:1,25)
    • Subordination of passions both sexual (5:15-23) and material (16:32, 28:6)
    • Diligence in work and life (30:24-28)
    • Finding a good wife who can be a helpmate and partner (12:4, 18:22) - because women could also be wise (31:10-31), a wise woman would seek a good husband
  • Behavior that leads to destruction
  • • Falling prey to the adulteress (7:6-23)
    • Drunkenness (20:1)
    • Laziness (26:13-16)
    • Gossip (6:16-19, 18:8)
    • Not finding a good wife who can be a helpmate and partner (21:9, 25:24, 27:15-16) - women who were married to bad husbands would also find themselves in trouble
  • Ambivalence of life
  • • One rule or proverb would not work in every situation (26:4-5) - life required perception, flexibility, and knowledge of the proper event or decision for the proper time
    • At times what was observed as effective behavior was not condoned as proper behavior (17:8) - wise men did not engage in such unethical behavior but they realized it existed and worked and was thus an enticing temptation to folly
    • Even more perplexing was the observation that sometimes what seemed to be the right thing to do was the wrong thing to do (14:12, 16:25) - everyone, even the wise, would make mistakes, sometimes crucial mistakes
  • Women
  • • A variety of proverbs paint a disparaging portrait of women (e.g., 21:9,19; 25:24) - the women in such passages appear quite nasty, but the men are foolish and weak - neither are models to follow
    • The Book of Proverbs ends with a description of a model person who is portrayed as a woman (31:10-31)
    • • The model woman can do everything well - she is a good business person, investor, manager; is generous to the poor; and is even a teacher of wisdom
      • Many people have argued that such a perfect woman has never existed - no perfect man has existed either (with the exception to Christians of Jesus)
      • The wisdom teachers encouraged everyone to be wise (male or female, rich or poor) - wisdom was not to be confined to one special group

Much of the material for these notes came from James Crenshaw, Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1981), pp. 66-99.

Artwork from a 14th century illuminated Bible. From the Bible Picture Library Photo Art (c) Christian Computer Art, 1994-97