at its best. It is deemed "an abomination to kings to commit wickedness" ( eh. xvi. 12) ; their "throne is established by righteousness," they "delight in righteous lips, and love him that speaketh right; " there is "life in the king's countenance, and his favour is like the latter rain " ( eh. xvi. 13, etc.); mercy and truth are his safeguard, and uphold his throne (eh. xx. 28). A changed picture is presented in the Hezekiah collection. Here we have e. people ·oppressed by a prince wanting in understanding ( eh. xxviii. 19), mourning under the rule of a wicked king (eh. xxix. 2), who is likened to a roaring lion and a ranging bear (eh. xxviii. 15). There is reference to bribery and extortion in high places (eh. xxix. 4), change of dynasties (eh. :xxviii. 2), unworthy favourites (eh. xxv. 5; xxix. 12)-all of which circum- stances point to a political situation other than that in the former part; a period, in fact, when experience had brought knowledge of evil, and rulers had been found to be antagonistic to the interests of their subjects, liable to the worst vices, open to corrupting influences. It is impossible to suppose that many of the maxims, even in the former collection, were spoken by Solomon. What experience would make him say that the king's honour lay in the multitude of his people, and his destruction in their paucity (eh. xiv. 28)? Or, again, that a pious wife is the best of blessings (eh. xii. 4; xviii. 22), while a contentioUB one is a torment ( eh. xix. 13, 14; xxi. 9, 19)? Such statements as these last presuppose a monogamous man, not one notorioUB for:polygamy. Then, would Solomon have discoursed thus about himself, asserting that a Divine sentence is his word, and that his judgments are irrefragable (eh.xvi. 10), that his wrath is as messengers of death, that his fa.vour is light and life (eh. xvi.14, 15), that his anger is like the roaring of a lion, and he puts to the torture those who offend him, while his only claim to support at God's hands is the mercy and truth which his life exhibits (eh. xx. 2, 26, 28)? However '.cast in Solomonic mould, these sentences cannot have had Solomon for their author; so we must conclude that, together with his genuine sayings, a multitude of gnomes were extant, of various ages and origins, which were attributed popularly to the great king, as the founder of that kind of gnomic poetry, the great master of proverbial philosophy. That both sections contain very many sayings which had him for their author, it is reasonable to suppose, and there is nothing to discredit this notion. From what is said of his remarkable wisdom, and regarding the form which philosophy assumes in the East, we might expect such productions from his mind. If he had for his object the instruction of his people, the training of them in sound views of life and in the practice of virtue and religion, he would embody his views in terse and pithy sentences, charming the imagination and easy to be remem- bered; he would thus apply Divine truths to the conduct and regulation of daily life. This precedent was doubtless followed by other sages, and thus in addition to and in connection with the proverbial lore which is accu- mulated in every nation by the experience of ages, there grew up a gradually increasing store of maxims a~d apothegms, of a, highi:r order than th(l PltOVERllll, C xvi ii INTRODUCTION 'l'O
vulgar sort, which was enshrined in carefully balanced sentences, and banded down as a precious heirloom to succeeding generations, These considerations, which seem well grounded, account for the compo- site character of the Book of Proverbs. Many minds and many ages have been concerned in the collection; it has suffered from interpolation, trans- position, addition; various editors have arranged and rearranged the mate- rials before them ; passages reflect the golden age of Israel's monarchy ; passages belong to such times as those of Jeroboam II. and his successors, It has become impossible to assign assured dates to the several parts, and the attempt has led critics to ludicrous conclusions, some from the same data attributing to Solomon compositions which others affix to post-exilian times. Out of the medley of varying opinions we gather the following conclusions. When the men of Hezekiah made their collection, which is beaded with the words, "These are also proverbs of Solomon," there existed already a body of maxims known as Solomon's, to which they were minded to make an addition from sources open to them. This previously existing collection we may reasonably suppose to be that which at pre~ent stands immediately before theirs, viz. eh. x. 1-xxii. 16, and;which would thus be the older portion. It is expressly called "the provei:bs of Solomon; " and there can be no reasonable doubt that the traditional account which assigned it to the son of David was in the main correct. Knowing the facts of Solomon's later career, no collector would have had the hardihood to attri- bute many of the utterances therein to him, had they not been universally 1-ecognized as his. They are doubtless the effusion of earlier days, the col- lected outpouring of the happy time when his heart was whole and his faith unimpaired; but who arranged it, or when it received its present shape, can only be conjectured. It is not to be supposed that Solomon sat down and deliberately composed a book of proverbs such as we now possess. It is said that he spake three thousand proverbs. He must have had. scribes a,nd secretaries who collected the wisdom that flowed from his lips during the various circnmstances of his life and in the various stages of his 011,reer (I Kings iv. 3). This formed the nucleus round which accretions gathered in the course of time, the acumen of Hebrew critics failing to distinguish the genuine from the spurious. From the great mass of proverbial litera- ture thus formed Hezekiah's friends made a new selection. What became of the rest of the older collection, which is not comprised in our present volume, cannot be known. It was evidently preserved among the archives of the kingdom which contained accounts, not only of the monarch's acts, but also of his wisdom (1 Kings xi. 41). As we have said above, the repeti- tions of the same proverb in different places indic~te a change of authors or editors, deriving their materials from the same source, oral or documentary, but writing independently. The two appendices to this section containing the II words of the wise" (eh. xxii. 17-xxiv.) exhibit repetitions which again would indicate a. n.riety of authors, or a, la.ck of care in selection. Somo passages found iu THE PROVERBS. xix