The similarity in style between i-ix and the appen- dix to the first collection of proverbs (xxii, 17-xxiv) appears to favor the view that this supplement is due to the same person by whom the proem was prefixed to the book. Ewald enumerates several reasons for as- cribing the two to the same writer (p. 42), but finally decides against the unity of authorship. The proverbs themselves, designated as "words of the wise," are evi- dently distinguished from those of Solomon, and are probably to be regarded as the adages of other sages, which the compiler of the work thought too valuable to be lost, and therefore appended to his larger collection. The short supplement (xxiv, 23-34) is accounted for by Umbreit on the supposition that the compiler had laid aside his work for a time, and took it up again on the discovery of fresh sayings worthy of preservation. He renders D'^rf?, "/or," not " of the wise," and regards them as directed to the compiler's scholars. Ewald, Bertheau, Delitzsch, etc., defend the received transla- tion.
It only remains for us to speak of the threefold sup- plement (xxx, xxxi), with regard to the authorship and date of which again nothing can be determined. It would be hardly profitable to discus the marvellous fab- ric of fanciful history and biography which has been evolved from the scantiest materials by Hitzig, Bunsen, and Bertheau. Those who desire it may refer to their works to see the grounds on which "Massa" (A. V. "the prophecy") is identified with a district in Arabia (Gen. x, 30; xxv, 14; 1 Chron. i, 30) of which Lemuel was king, and Agur with a descendant of the Simeon- ites, who in the reign of Ilezekiah drove out the Amal- ekites from Mount Seir (1 Chron. iv, 42); or, again, on which it is sought to prove that Agur and Lemuel were brothers, sons of the reigning queen of Massa. We would rather commend to our reader Eichhorn's sensi- ble words that "Agur should remain Agur, and belong to the wise men of the old world of whom history gives us no further information," and with him deprecate "spinning a long thread of tedious conjectures about a name, which do not advance us an inch in our insight into the literature of the old world, or any profitable learning." As little to the purpose is the fancy of Do- derlein that the opening part of ch. xxx is a dialogue: that Ithiel is a heathen; Agur a much valued servant of Ithiel, to whom, as his master, his prayer (v, 7-9) is addressed. Many are content with saying that Agur was an unknown Hebrew sage, the teacher of Ithiel and Ucal— names from which, also, many unprofitable specu- lations have been built— and that he lived subsequently to the reign of Hezekiah. Still more probable do we re- gard the view which identifies him with Solomon him- self under a fanciful name. SeeAciiK; Massa.
Lemuel—" to God," " devoted to God," after the anal- ogy of bxb, Numb. iii. 24 (Pusey)— may certainly be regarded as a figurative name descriptive of an ideal king, "a monarch as he should be" (Ewald; Eichhorn; comp. Pusey, Lect. on Daniel, p. xiii, note 1, p. 323, note 5). See Lkmuku
The alphabetical lay which concludes the whole has usually been thought to belong to the latest period of Hebrew poetry, and hardly to be placed higher than the 7th century. Its style and language seem to dis- tinguish it from the words of Lemuel, with which it has sometimes been confounded; but we are again warned against the precariousness of such grounds of argument as to authorship.
PROVERBS 1i
The results of out inquiry may be thus summed up. The nucleus of the book is the larger collection ofprov- sxii, 16). These may safely be regarded as really whal they profess to be, "the proverbs of Solo- mon." Whether they were arranged as we now have them and published by him, there is no) sufficient evi- dence to determine. It is probable, however, that the collection was either contemporaneous with or not long .1 to him. The greater cart of the hortatory introduction (i-ix) may also be, with great probability . ascribed originally to Solomon, though \\ e incline to the belief that its present form is due to a later who collected the admonitions of the wise king, and pre- tixed them to his book of proverbs. I he rame author also appears to have added the appendix (xxii,17; xxiv, 22), containing proverbs of which Solomon was not the proper author, but perhaps only the earliest col- lector, and after this from similar sources were supplied the few supplementary sayings (xxiv, 23 34;. The time w hen this was done raiiu.it be fixed, but there are cogent arguments in favor of a late date. The second collection, as its name declares, w as formed by the scribes of Hezekiah, eir. B.C. 725. The last two chapters con- tain compositions of the dates and authors of which nothing certain can now be known. They, too, may have been in some important sense due to Solomon, but were probably inserted l>y a later editor.
It will not be worth while to enumerate the many and widely varying theories of recent critics as to the dates of the composition of the different parts of this hook, and the time when it assumed its present form. One or two of the most characteristic may !»■ specified. Suffice it to say that Ewald would place the publication of x-xxii, Hi about two centuries after Solomon, and i ix in the first half of the 7th century. Not much later the second collection of proverbs (xxv-xxix) was added, the sections xxii. 17 xxi\ being due to the same compiler. Hitzig, on the contrary, views i-ix as the earliest part of the hook; x-xxii, 16 and xxviii, 17- xxix being added about !!.< '. 750. Twenty-five years later Ile/ekiah's collection followed; the gaps being filled up and the volume completed by some unknown compiler at a later period. The theory of Delitzsch (Herzog, Encyklop., s. \. Spruche) is marked by more calm sense, but even this is in parts not a little fanciful tural. Rightly regarding x-xxii. 16 as the kernel of the book, and mainly composed by Solomon. lie divides the w hole into two portions- (1) i Xxiv, 22 put forth iii the time of Jehoshaphaf : the introduction ti ix) and appendix (xxii, 16 xxiv, 22) being written by the compiler, whom he regards as -a highly gifted didactic poet, .and an instrument of the spirit of revela- tion ." and (2 i xxiv, 23 xxxi, published in the r< ign of Hezekiah . the introductory and closing portions < xxiv. •_'o 34, and xxx. XXxi) being set on either side of the collection of Solomon's proverbs to serve as a kind of