PROVERBS, BOOK OF
PROVERBS, BOOK OF
141
of 1 K 4" laninit liave meant his remarks to apply tu our buuk, altliuii;:li it is quite conceivable luat tlie trajition that Solomon was the author of the Book of I'roverbs, or of particular portions of it, goes back for its basis to this passage.
Against the Solomonic authorship of the portions desif;iialed above (2) and (ii), the contents of the proverbs contained iu them are ri^'htly urj;ed : in J4-JS. 33 i(ji«. i4f. 20-- ^- *'■ '^ 21- 22^' 25-'' "• 29'*- ^* it is not a kin<' that speaks of himself, but another that speaks of the king, and the experiences under- lying these proverbs are scarcely conceivable in tlie days of Solomon, rather do they point to later times ; in 14' 18** 19"'- 21'- " — proverbs dealing with married and domestic life — monogamy is uniformly presupjio^ed, and unquestionably the thought of a harem is far from the mind of the author ; proverbs like those contained in 11^ J516. 25 ^Qa a^re unlikely in the mouth of the Bplendour-Ioving Solomon, etc.
Under these circumstances we must disregard the titles, and seek from internal evidence alone to date the composition of our book and of its parts.
iii. Dates of the vauious Componknts of THii Book. — Which of the above divisions of the Book of I'roverbs are we to make our starting- point! Ilitzig and Ilooykaa-s have taken l'-9 to be the oldest portion, holding that when 10'-22"' were collected, l'-9 already existed. But simple comparison of the parallel passages in the two divisions does not justify such a conclusion ; see Comm. on 18=* and 8"; 14' and 9'; 19'-'' and 3'=; 9 ami 10' ; 12- and 3" 5- 8'= ; 12* 16-- 19" and 3* 13" ; and cf. Kuenen, I.e. § 96, note 10. On the other hand, a comparison of the form of the proverbs and the conception of wisdom in these two divisionH leads to the conclusion that the first division nmst be the more recent. The strict form of the musluil, with its didactic tendency, as this appears throughout the second division, is sup- pressed in the lirst, and in its place a fuller pre- sentation of the parcnesis prevails. To regard a periodic structure such as we lind here as older tlian the simple form of the distich in the second division is all the less possible, seeing that this first division also lets it be clearly seen that mean- while wisdom has become a subject in the schools, where ' the wise ' gathered their pujnls around them as their ' eons,' a feature which is wanting in tlie second division. If one takes into account, finally, that in chs. 1-9 wisdom is thought of as an independent personality, who was with God even prior to the creation of the world, as the lirst of His works, who stood by His side as superin- tendent at the creation, and who now plays her r6le on earth among the children of men, whereas in the second division wi.sdom is partly prudent conduct and partly the fear of God by which one ensures for himself the blcr-siiig of God, namely long life, pro.-.purity, etc., there can be no doubt that the second division (10'-22"') and llic lifth (chs. 25-29), which are both attributed to Solomon, are older than the lirst (chs. 1-9).
The relation of the second and the fifth part to one iiniitlier is not easy to determine. In chs. 25 11". we lind not only dislichs, but also brief oracular di.sc<iurse8 in which several verses are combined to express an idea (cf. 2o-^^ and 27*"), while, further, in these chapters the rhythm is several times wanting or at least imperfect (cf. 25' 26'"'-). On these grounds it has generally been held that the lifth part is more recent th.in the second, in which we encounter nothing but distichs of uniformly pure rhythm. Hooykaa-t believes it po.ssilile to reach the same result by a comparison between the verses common to the two divisions, but an unprejudiced examination by no means
establishes this conclusion, nay, Keuss {La Bible, vi. 149) actuallj' calls ' the collection of the men of Hezekiih the best part of the book.' Viewed more exactly, the case stands thus : sometimes it is the second, sometimes the lifth, division that ha.s pre- served the original form of a pro\erb (cf. Kuenen, I.e. § 96, note 5). Very significant is the circum- stance that in chs. 25-27 wisdom appears through- out as practical prudence of conduct, without any sjiecial religious tinge. This suggests that the tilth division, although as a collection more recent than the second, yet contains in part older proverbs than the latter (cf. Frankenberg, Sprilcke, p. 8).
The third and fourth divisions are by general consent regarded as more recent than the second and lifth : instances of oracular discourses extend- ing to live (24™""), nay, even to seven (23-^-"), verses, are found here again, while the rhythm is un- mistakably less pure and complete than in these other divisions. As in the first division, so also here we find the form of address 'my son' (cf. 0315. 18. 26 anj oft.); here as well as there the parenetie tone prevails, and, whereas in the second and fifth divisions wisdom is a human quality, it appears here t.s the sum of God's requirements from men, it is even personified as in the lirst division, and hence can say, ' My son, give me thine heart, and lei thine eyes delight in my ways' (2.3-»). Finally, in verses like 23'« 24"- =° the thought of a retribution in the world beyond apjiears to emerge: 'The wicked hath no future, and the candle of the transgressor is put out,' a conception which is still strange to lO'"^- and 25"-.