state oft fusion inconsistent with that state of peace
and social security which marked the reign of Sol
i 1 Kings iv. 25). To this it is replied that a condition
of greal private wealth, such as was the c lition of
Solomon's times, always tempts needy and unprincipled men in acts of unlawful violence; and that nothing be- yond crimes which now are committed in the mosl civ- ilized and best-regulated countries are referred to in the passages in question. Besides, Jwkea always afforded in its caverns and wildernesses peculiar facilities for robbers (Judg. vi, 2; 1 Sam. xxiv, 1). From a sup- posed degeneracy of style, Ewald attributes this section to the earlier part of the 7th century B.C. But other critics do nol see this. Davidson thinks it indicates a flourishing state of Hebrew literature, and refers it prob- ably to the 9th century !!.('.. an opinion in which he coincides with Hitzig. The grounds on which Ewald relio for his alleged degeneracy of style seem weak. Thus, he asserts thai the plural ishim (Prov. viii, \< is so unusual as to indicate a very late date. It is cer- tainly very unusual, for it occurs only three times (Filrst ). Prom these, however, we cannot argue as to the date. as one of them is in Isaiah, another in Psa. cxli, 3, at- tributed to David, and the third in the passage above referred to.
Similar and equally futile objections have been based, l>y Bertholdt and others, on the familiarity display ed in the proverbs with circumstances and conditions in life With which it is supposed thai Solomon as a king could
have had no experimental acquaintance. For exam- ple it is maintained that x. o; xii, 10,11; ,xiv. 1; xx. 1. must have been written by a landowner or husband- man: x, 15, by a poor man: xi, II; xiv. 19, by a citi- zen of a well-ordered state: xi. -Ji\. by a tradesman: xii. I. by one who was not a polygamist : xiv, 1 ; xv. 25; xvi, 1 1 : xvii. 2; xix, 13, II : xx. 10, 1 1. 23, by an ordi- nary citizen : xxv. 2 7, not by a king, but by one who had lived some time at a court : xxvii. 1 1, by a teacher of youth: xvii. •_':'. 27, by a 9age who lived a nomadic
life: xxviii. 16, by ■ free from those errors which
weakened Solomon's throne, and robbed bis son of hi
kingd It is needless to point out the weakness of
these fancied arguments which would affeel no one who
had nol a lie nry 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 thej displaj the most marvellous ig- norance of that many-sidedness and keenness of percep-
tion 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 w ords, recurring not only In the two collections (e. g. xxi, 9, xxv. -Jl: xviii, 8, xxvi. 22; xxii. .'!. xxvii, 12; xxii. i:S. xxvi, 13 ; xix, 24, .xxvi, 15; xix, 1, xxviii, 6), but in the same collec- tion (e. g. xiv. 12, xvi, 25; x. 1. xv. 20; xvi. •_'. xxi. •_'; x. 2, xi. I: xiii. II. xiv, 27; xx\i. 1 •_'. xxix. 20 . This Inter is, however, no more, as Umbreil remarks, than is natural in such a compilation, in the formation of
which i> very apt to forget what had already been
set down; while the former class of repetitions is easily to be accounted for by the anxiety of the collt ctors to lose nothing which had the stamp of Solomon's author- ship, even though the same idea had already ! pressed in the earlh r collection : and it goes far to con- firm the view that Solomon was the composer of the whole.
The internal evidence derived from language, con- struction, ideas, historic back-round, and the like varies with every successive critic, ami is entirely in- adequate to warrant .any decisive verdict. Ii- preca- riousness i~ proved by the opposite results to which the
-line Jala lead various , imentators. Kail maintains
that every part of the 1 k. with the exception of the
last two chapter-, corresponds to the epoch of Solomon, anil that only. Eichhorn agrees with this to a certain exit nt. but limits the correspondence to eh. i-xxiv; while Ewald, Hitzig, aud Beit beau, and other minor critics, arrive at conclusions expressed with equal con- fidence and at variance with these ail with one an- other. There is. however, one evidence which speaks strongly in favor of an early dat< the entire absence of all nfi rence to idolatry. The form of religion ap- pearing throughout is purely Jehovistic ias 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 Ib/ekiah made a collection of unwritten proverbs current among the people, and by them supposed, truly or not. i,, have come down from Solomon : but the men of Hezekiah, or whoever wrote the superscription of xxv. I. declare those i h,-y put forth to have 1" en copied from written records. Assuming this to bctle correct view, the difference between these proverbs and those which went before is, that whereas in Solomon's time i he latter were arranged as we have them, the former were in lle/.ekiah's time selected from more ancient written records and added to the existing collection. It gives us the idea, which is itself an extremelj probable one. that voluminous records were made in Solomon's lime of the wise king's sayings, either by himself or by scribes. This idea derives considerable confirmation from the notice in l Kings iv, 30 3 l. where we are told of the accurate account taken of his compositions and sayings, and even of the precise number of his proverbs ami songs. We arc led to suppose, then, that in Solo- mon's time a selection ,x xxii. 16) i.:e made by him- self, or under his immediate Bupen ision, while in Ilez- ekiah's time a further Belection was made, and an exact transcript taken. A comparison of the proverbs in these