PROVERBS
roo
PROVERBS
xxxii. 31 ; Job xxxiii, 23; l-a. sliii, 27) ; ot again, as by Delitzsch (Der Prophet flubukuk, p. 59), a brilliant or splendid saying " Glatiz- oder Wohlrede, oratio splen- itis, luminibus ornate? I. This last interpreta- tion is based upon the usage of the word in modern He- brew, but il 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 under- stand ii as a «l.-irli. enigmatical saying, which, like the vxialu':!. might assume the character of sarcasm and i rm iy. though ii"i essential to it See Parable.
V might be expected from the nature of the work contemplated, the proverbs before us almost exclusively bear reference to the affairs uf this life ; but " hile a fut- ure 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. Fur example, ch. xi, 7 has no meaning except on t lie sup- position that the writer believed in a future life, where, if mil here, the hope and expectation of ^r< «< >« I men should in' realized. If death were, in bis judgment, annihilation, it would ho equally the overthrow of the expectation of the righteous as of the wicked. Sec also, a- affording similar indication, eh. xiv, :!•_'; xxiii, 17. 18. See Immortality.
II.' '■'/ icity. I Ii-' canonical authority of the book
Hi' Proverbs lias never been called in question, excepl among the Jews themselves. We learn from the Tal- mud (Shabbath, fol. 30 b) that the school «( Shammai, thus early adopting the principle of the free handling of Scripture, was led by some apparent contradictions in tlir book (e.g. Prow xxvi, 1. 'n in question its in- spiration, .-iinl in propose tn cast ii nut of the canon. Ii is indeed certain, if we credit the Jewish tradition, that
it diil imt al once take ii- plac i a level with the
other canonical Scriptures, Imt. like the Antilegomena of the N. v. Test., remained fur a time in suspense. Ac- cording to Wolf (Bibl. Hebr. ii. llli) and Zunz (Gott. Vortrag. p. 1 1 >. it was imt till the period of the Persian riilr that "the nun of the great synagogue" admitted it tn an equal rank with the other Hagiographa. In the remarkable passage of the Talmud, however, which
contains the most ancient opinii f the Jews mi the
formation of the < >ld-Test. canon i /.'-/'»/ Bathra, p. 1 I. apud Westcott, Bibb in tin Church, p. 36), its recogni- tion i- fixed earlier: the Proverbs (" Meshalim") being included with Isaiah, Canticles i " Shir Hashirim" i. ami Ecclesiastes ("Koheleth") in the memorial word Jam- shak, specifying the books "written" i.e. reduced i" writing by Hezekiah and his learned men. With the trifling exception mentioned above, it- right to a place in tin- canon has never been quest ioned since iis admis- sion into it. and there is no 1 k of Holy Scripture
whose authority i- more unshaken. The amount of in- spiration in the hunk has been a matter of speculation since the days of Theodore of Mopsuestia, « ho believed that the wisdom contained in it was that of Solomon only, not of the Spirit of God; even as 8 e of the rab- bins found in Ecclesiastes ho divine w isdom, but merely
that ni Sol hi. Leaving such vain and impracticable
distinctions, the canonical authority of the I i. is at- tested to ii- by ilu- frequent use of ii in the X. w I. st. The following i- a list of the principal passages:
Piov. i, 1G Hum. iii. 10, 15.
iii, 7 Rom. xii, If..
"iii, 11,1-.' I lei), xii. .'.. 0; Rev. iii, 10.
i fames lv, 0.
x, 12 1 Pet. iv, s.
•xl,31 i Pet. iv, 13.
xvii, 13 Rom. xii, 17; I These, v. 15;
1 Pet. iii, '.'.
xvii, 'J7 James i, 19.
XX, 9 1 J, ,1m i, s.
xx, -Jn Mntr. xv. 4: Mark vil, 10.
xxii, s (Sept.) 2 Cor. ix, T.
•xxv, 21,22 Rom. xii. 20.
"XXvi, U 2 Pet. ii. 22.
xxvii, 1 Jnnies iv. |3, II. 1(5.
Of these . nily those marked with an asterisk are actual
quotations; in the others there is a more or less direct allusion.
III. Divisions. — The thirty-one chapters of the book of Proverbs may ho roughly divided into four sections: I. I'll.- hortatory introduction (i ix); 2. Tin- first < "1- lection of" the Proverbs ofSolomon," properh -
with its appendices (x \\i\ ; 3. The second collection, compiled by Hezekiah's scribt - I xxv-xxix) •. 4. An ap- pendix by different writers.
1. The lir>t uf these sections lias no continuous con- ned inn. and is hardly capable uf any very accurate sub- division. The separate chapters form in .-nine instances a connected whole (e. g. ii. v. vii. viii, ix); sometimes the connection due- imt extend beyond a few verses (e.g.iii, 1 in. 13 26; iv, II 1'.': vi.'l 5,6-11). There i- little coherence between the separate chapter-, ami little unity beyond that of the general subjeel or the mode of treating il ; so that if nne chapter were to be removed, the organization of the whole would imt be affected, and it would hardly he missed. Ewald, how- ever, who. somewhat in defiance of the internal evi- dence, looks nil this portion a- -an original whole, thor- oughly connected, and cast, a- it were, at one gush," after the general introduction (i, 1-7) discovers three subdivisions, marked a- w.ll by tin- contents as by the position of the imperative verb at the beginning "t the sections (e.g. i. 8; iv. 1: vi. 20); while in the smaller divisions " my son" stands before the verb (e. g:i, 10, 15; ii. 1: iii. 1. 11,20; iv,21,etc). Ewald's subdivis- ions arc— (1) a general ad nit ion tn the pursuit of