Proverbs 1 commentary

The lessons here given are plain, and likely to benefit those who feel their own ignorance, and their need to be taught. If young people take heed to their ways, according to Solomon's Proverbs, they will gain knowledge and discretion. Solomon speaks of the most important points of truth, and a greater than Solomon is here. Christ speaks by his word and by his Spirit. Christ is the Word and the Wisdom of God, and he is made to us wisdom.

Fools are persons who have no true wisdom, who follow their own devices, without regard to reason, or reverence for God. Children are reasonable creatures, and when we tell them what they must do, we must tell them why. But they are corrupt and wilful, therefore with the instruction there is need of a law. Let Divine truths and commands be to us most honourable; let us value them, and then they shall be so to us.

Wicked people are zealous in seducing others into the paths of the destroyer: sinners love company in sin. But they have so much the more to answer for. How cautious young people should be! “Consent thou not.” Do not say as they say, nor do as they do, or would have thee to do; have no fellowship with them. Who could think that it should be a pleasure to one man to destroy another! See their idea of worldly wealth; but it is neither substance, nor precious. It is the ruinous mistake of thousands, that they overvalue the wealth of this world. Men promise themselves in vain that sin will turn to their advantage. The way of sin is down-hill; men cannot stop themselves. Would young people shun temporal and eternal ruin, let them refuse to take one step in these destructive paths. Men's greediness of gain hurries them upon practices which will not suffer them or others to live out half their days. What is a man profited, though he gain the world, if he lose his life? much less if he lose his soul?

Solomon, having showed how dangerous it is to hearken to the temptations of Satan, here declares how dangerous it is not to hearken to the calls of God. Christ himself is Wisdom, is Wisdoms. Three sorts of persons are here called by Him: 1. Simple ones. Sinners are fond of their simple notions of good and evil, their simple prejudices against the ways of God, and flatter themselves in their wickedness. 2. Scorners. Proud, jovial people, that make a jest of every thing. Scoffers at religion, that run down every thing sacred and serious. 3. Fools. Those are the worst of fools that hate to be taught, and have a rooted dislike to serious godliness. The precept is plain; Turn you at my reproof. We do not make a right use of reproofs, if we do not turn from evil to that which is good. The promises are very encouraging. Men cannot turn by any power of their own; but God answers, Behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you. Special grace is needful to sincere conversion. But that grace shall never be denied to any who seek it. The love of Christ, and the promises mingled with his reproofs, surely should have the attention of every one. It may well be asked, how long men mean to proceed in such a perilous path, when the uncertainty of life and the consequences of dying without Christ are considered? Now sinners live at ease, and set sorrow at defiance; but their calamity will come. Now God is ready to hear their prayers; but then they shall cry in vain. Are we yet despisers of wisdom? Let us hearken diligently, and obey the Lord Jesus, that we may enjoy peace of conscience and confidence in God; be free from evil, in life, in death, and for ever.

INTRODUCTION

I. The Nature and Use of Proverbs.--A proverb is a pithy sentence, concisely expressing some well-established truth susceptible of various illustrations and applications. The word is of Latin derivation, literally meaning for a word, speech, or discourse; that is, one expression for many. The Hebrew word for "proverb" (mashal) means a "comparison." Many suppose it was used, because the form or matter of the proverb, or both, involved the idea of comparison. Most of the proverbs are in couplets or triplets, or some modifications of them, the members of which correspond in structure and length, as if arranged to be compared one with another. They illustrate the varieties of parallelism, a distinguishing feature of Hebrew poetry. Compare Introduction to Poetical Books. Many also clearly involve the idea of comparison in the sentiments expressed (compare Pr 12:1-10; 25:10-15; 26:1-9). Sometimes, however, the designed omission of one member of the comparison, exercising the reader's sagacity or study for its supply, presents the proverb as a "riddle" or "dark saying" (compare Pr 30:15-33; 1:6; Psa 49:4). The sententious form of expression, which thus became a marked feature of the proverbial style, was also adopted for continuous discourse, even when not always preserving traces of comparison, either in form or matter (compare Pr 1:1-9:18). In Eze 17:1; 24:3, we find the same word properly translated "parable," to designate an illustrative discourse. Then the Greek translators have used a word, parabola ("parable"), which the gospel writers (except John) employ for our Lord's discourses of the same character, and which also seems to involve the idea of comparison, though that may not be its primary meaning. It might seem, therefore, that the proverbial and parabolic styles of writing were originally and essentially the same. The proverb is a "concentrated parable, and the parable an extension of the proverb by a full illustration." The proverb is thus the moral or theme of a parable, which sometimes precedes it, as in Mt 19:30 (compare Pr 20:1); or succeeds it, as in Mt 22:1-16; Lu 15:1-10. The style being poetical, and adapted to the expression of a high order of poetical sentiment, such as prophecy, we find the same term used to designate such compositions (compare Nu 23:7; Mi 2:4; Ha 2:6).

Though the Hebrews used the same term for proverb and parable, the Greek employs two, though the sacred writers have not always appeared to recognize a distinction. The term for proverb is, paroimia, which the Greek translators employ for the title of this book, evidently with special reference to the later definition of a proverb, as a trite, sententious form of speech, which appears to be the best meaning of the term. John uses the same term to designate our Saviour's instructions, in view of their characteristic obscurity (compare Pr 16:25-29, Greek), and even for his illustrative discourses (Pr 10:6), whose sense was not at once obvious to all his hearers. This form of instruction was well adapted to aid the learner. The parallel structure of sentences, the repetition, contrast, or comparison of thought, were all calculated to facilitate the efforts of memory; and precepts of practical wisdom which, extended into logical discourses, might have failed to make abiding impressions by reason of their length or complicated character, were thus compressed into pithy, and, for the most part, very plain statements. Such a mode of instruction has distinguished the written or traditional literature of all nations, and was, and still is, peculiarly current in the East.

In this book, however, we are supplied with a proverbial wisdom commended by the seal of divine inspiration. God has condescended to become our teacher on the practical affairs belonging to all the relations of life. He has adapted His instruction to the plain and unlettered, and presented, in this striking and impressive method, the great principles of duty to Him and to our fellow men. To the prime motive of all right conduct, the fear of God, are added all lawful and subordinate incentives, such as honor, interest, love, fear, and natural affection. Besides the terror excited by an apprehension of God's justly provoked judgments, we are warned against evil-doing by the exhibition of the inevitable temporal results of impiety, injustice, profligacy, idleness, laziness, indolence, drunkenness, and debauchery. To the rewards of true piety which follow in eternity, are promised the peace, security, love, and approbation of the good, and the comforts of a clear conscience, which render this life truly happy.

II. Inspiration and Authorship.--With no important exception, Jewish and Christian writers have received this book as the inspired production of Solomon. It is the first book of the Bible prefaced by the name of the author. The New Testament abounds with citations from the Proverbs. Its intrinsic excellence commends it to us as the production of a higher authority than the apocryphal writings, such as Wisdom or Ecclesiasticus. Solomon lived five hundred years before the "seven wise men" of Greece, and seven hundred before the age of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. It is thus very evident, whatever theory of his sources of knowledge be adopted, that he did not draw upon any heathen repositories with which we are acquainted. It is far more probable, that by the various migrations, captivities, and dispersions of the Jews, heathen philosophers drew from this inspired fountain many of those streams which continue to refresh mankind amid the otherwise barren and parched deserts of profane literature.

As, however, the Psalms are ascribed to David, because he was the leading author, so the ascription of this book to Solomon is entirely consistent with the titles of the thirtieth and thirty-first chapters, which assign those chapters to Agur and Lemuel respectively. Of these persons we know nothing. This is not the place for discussing the various speculations respecting them. By a slight change of reading some propose to translate Pr 30:1: "The words of Agur, the son of her who was obeyed Massa," that is, "the queen of Massa"; and Pr 31:1: "The words of Lemuel, king of Massa"; but to this the earliest versions are contradictory, and nothing other than the strongest exegetical necessity ought to be allowed to justify a departure from a well-established reading and version when nothing useful to our knowledge is gained. It is better to confess ignorance than indulge in useless conjectures.

It is probable that out of the "three thousand proverbs" (1Ki 4:32) which Solomon spoke, he selected and edited Pr 1:1-24:34 during his life. Pr 25:1-29:27 were also of his production, and copied out in the days of Hezekiah, by his "men," perhaps the prophets Isaiah, Hosea, and Micah. Such a work was evidently in the spirit of this pious monarch, who set his heart so fully on a reformation of God's worship. Learned men have endeavored to establish the theory that Solomon himself was only a collector; or that the other parts of the book, as these chapters, were also selections by later hands; but the reasons adduced to maintain these views have never appeared so satisfactory as to change the usual opinions on the subject, which have the sanction of the most ancient and reliable authorities.

III. Divisions of the Book.--Such a work is, of course, not susceptible of any logical analysis. There are, however, some well-defined marks of division, so that very generally the book is divided into five or six parts.

1. The first contains nine chapters, in which are discussed and enforced by illustration, admonition, and encouragement the principles and blessings of wisdom, and the pernicious schemes and practices of sinful persons. These chapters are introductory. With few specimens of the proper proverb, they are distinguished by its conciseness and terseness. The sentences follow very strictly the form of parallelism, and generally of the synonymous species, only forty of the synthetic and four (Pr 3:32-35) of the antithetic appearing. The style is ornate, the figures bolder and fuller, and the illustrations more striking and extended.

2. The antithetic and synthetic parallelism to the exclusion of the synonymous distinguish Pr 10:1-22:16, and the verses are entirely unconnected, each containing a complete sense in itself.

3. Pr 22:16-24:34 present a series of admonitions as if addressed to a pupil, and generally each topic occupies two or more verses.

4. Pr 25:1-29:27 are entitled to be regarded as a distinct portion, for the reason given above as to its origin. The style is very much mixed; of the peculiarities, compare parts two and three.

5. Pr 30:1-33 is peculiar not only for its authorship, but as a specimen of the kind of proverb which has been described as "dark sayings" or "riddles."

6. To a few pregnant but concise admonitions, suitable for a king, is added a most inimitable portraiture of female character. In both parts five and six the distinctive peculiarity of the original proverbial style gives place to the modifications already mentioned as marking a later composition, though both retain the concise and nervous method of stating truth, equally valuable for its deep impression and permanent retention by the memory.

CHAPTER 1

Pr 1:1-33. After the title the writer defines the design and nature of the instructions of the book. He paternally invites attention to those instructions and warns his readers against the enticements of the wicked. In a beautiful personification, wisdom is then introduced in a most solemn and impressive manner, publicly inviting men to receive its teachings, warning those who reject, and encouraging those who accept, the proffered instructions.

1-4. (See Introduction, Part I).

5-6. Such writings the wise, who pursue right ends by right means, will value.

learning--not the act, but matter of it.

wise counsels--or the art and principles of governing.

7. The fear of the Lord--the principle of true piety (compare Pr 2:5; 14:26, 27; Job 28:28; Psa 34:11; 111:10; Ac 9:31).

beginning--first part, foundation.

fools--the stupid and indifferent to God's character and government; hence the wicked.

8. My son--This paternal form denotes a tender regard for the reader. Filial sentiments rank next to piety towards God, and ensure most distinguished rewards (compare Pr 6:20; Ep 6:2, 3).

9. On the figures of Pr 1:9, compare Ge 41:42; So 1:10; 4:9.

10-19. A solemn warning against temptation.

entice--literally, "open the way."

consent ... not--Sin is in consenting or yielding to temptation, not in being tempted.

20-33. Some interpreters regard this address as the language of the Son of God under the name of Wisdom (compare Lu 11:49). Others think that wisdom, as the divine attribute specially employed in acts of counsel and admonition, is here personified, and represents God. In either case the address is a most solemn and divine admonition, whose matter and spirit are eminently evangelical and impressive (see on Pr 8:1).

Wisdom--literally, "Wisdoms," the plural used either because of the unusual sense, or as indicative of the great excellency of wisdom (compare Pr 9:1).

streets--or most public places, not secretly.

The proverbs of Solomon - For the meaning of the word proverb, see the introduction; and the dissertation upon parabolical writing at the end of the notes on Matthew 13: Solomon is the first of the sacred writers whose name stands at the head of his works.

To know wisdom - That is, this is the design of parabolical writing in general; and the particular aim of the present work.

This and the two following verses contain the interpretation of the term parable, and the author's design in the whole book. The first verse is the title, and the next three verses are an explanation of the nature and design of this very important tract.

Wisdom - חכמה chochmah may mean here, and in every other part of this book, not only that Divine science by which we are enabled to discover the best end, and pursue it by the most proper means; but also the whole of that heavenly teaching that shows us both ourselves and God, directs us into all truth, and forms the whole of true religion.

And instruction - מוסר musar, the teaching that discovers all its parts, to understand, to comprehend the words or doctrines which should be comprehended, in order that we may become wise to salvation.

To receive the instruction - השכל haskel, the deliberately weighing of the points contained in the teaching, so as to find out their importance.

Equity - משרים mesharim, rectitude. The pupil is to receive wisdom and instruction, the words of wisdom and understanding, justice and judgment, so perfectly as to excel in all. Wisdom itself, personified, is his teacher; and when God's wisdom teaches, there is no delay in learning.

To give subtilty to the simple - The word simple, from simplex, compounded of sine, without, and plica, a fold, properly signifies plain and honest, one that has no by-ends in view, who is what he appears to be; and is opposed to complex, from complico, to fold together, to make one rope or cord out of many strands; but because honesty and plaindealing are so rare in the world, and none but the truly religious man will practice them, farther than the fear of the law obliges him, hence simple has sunk into a state of progressive deterioration. At first, it signified, as above, without fold, unmixed, uncompounded: this was its radical meaning. Then, as applied to men, it signified innocent, harmless, without disguise; but, as such persons were rather an unfashionable sort of people, it sunk in its meaning to homely, homespun, mean, ordinary. And, as worldly men, who were seeking their portion in this life, and had little to do with religion, supposed that wisdom, wit, and understanding, were given to men that they might make the best of them in reference to the things of this life, the word sunk still lower in its meaning, and signified silly, foolish; and there, to the dishonor of our language and morals, it stands! I have taken those acceptations which I have marked in Italics out of the first dictionary that came to hand - Martin's; but if I had gone to Johnson, I might have added to Silly, not wise, not cunning. Simplicity, that meant at first, as Martin defines it, openness, plaindealing, downright honesty, is now degraded to weakness, silliness, foolishness. And these terms will continue thus degraded, till downright honesty and plaindealing get again into vogue. There are two Hebrew words generally supposed to come from the same root, which in our common version are rendered the simple, פתאים pethaim, and פתים or פתיים pethayim; the former comes from פתא patha, to be rash, hasty; the latter, from פתה pathah, to draw aside, seduce, entice. It is the first of these words which is used here, and may be applied to youth; the inconsiderate, the unwary, who, for want of knowledge and experience, act precipitately. Hence the Vulgate renders it parvulis, little ones, young children, or little children, as my old MS.; or very babes, as Coverdale. The Septuagint renders it ακακοις, those that are without evil; and the versions in general understand it of those who are young, giddy, and inexperienced.

To the young man - נער naar is frequently used to signify such as are in the state of adolescence, grown up boys, very well translated in my old MS. yunge fulwaxen; what we would now call the grown up lads. These, as being giddy and inexperienced, stand in especial need of lessons of wisdom and discretion. The Hebrew for discretion, מזמה mezimmah, is taken both in a good and bad sense, as זם zam, its root, signifies to devise or imagine; for the device may be either mischief, or the contrivance of some good purpose.

A wise man wilt hear - I shall not only give such instructions as may be suitable to the youthful and inexperienced, but also to those who have much knowledge and understanding. So said St. Paul: We speak wisdom among them that are perfect. This and the following verse are connected in the old MS. and in Coverdale: "By hearyinge the wyse man shall come by more wysdome; and by experience he shall be more apte to understonde a parable and the interpretation thereof; the wordes of the wyse and the darke speaches of the same."

Dark sayings - חידת chidoth, enigmas or riddles, in which the Asiatics abounded. I believe parables, such as those delivered by our Lord, nearly express the meaning of the original.

The fear of the Lord - In the preceding verses Solomon shows the advantage of acting according to the dictates of wisdom; in the following verses he shows the danger of acting contrary to them. The fear of the Lord signifies that religious reverence which every intelligent being owes to his Creator; and is often used to express the whole of religion, as we have frequently had occasion to remark in different places. But what is religion? The love of God, and the love of man; the former producing all obedience to the Divine will; the latter, every act of benevolence to one's fellows. The love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit produces the deepest religious reverence, genuine piety, and cheerful obedience. To love one's neighbor as himself is the second great commandment; and as love worketh no ill to one's neighbor, therefore it is said to be the fulfilling of the law. Without love, there is no obedience; without reverence, there is neither caution, consistent conduct, nor perseverance in righteousness.

This fear or religious reverence is said to be the beginning of knowledge; ראשית reshith, the principle, the first moving influence, begotten in a tender conscience by the Spirit of God. No man can ever become truly wise, who does not begin with God, the fountain of knowledge; and he whose mind is influenced by the fear and love of God will learn more in a month than others will in a year.

Fools despise - אוילים evilim, evil men. Men of bad hearts, bad heads, and bad ways.

My son, hear - Father was the title of preceptor, and son, that of disciple or scholar, among the Jews. But here the reference appears to be to the children of a family; the father and the mother have the principal charge, in the first instance, of their children's instruction. It is supposed that these parents have, themselves, the fear of the Lord, and that they are capable of giving the best counsel to their children, and that they set before them a strict example of all godly living. In vain do parents give good advice if their own conduct be not consistent. The father occasionally gives instruction; but he is not always in the family, many of those occupations which are necessary for the family support being carried on abroad. The mother - she is constantly within doors, and to her the regulation of the family belongs; therefore she has and gives laws. The wise man says in effect to every child, "Be obedient to thy mother within, and carefully attend to the instructions of thy father, that thou mayest the better see the reasons of obedience; and learn from him how thou art to get thy bread honestly in the world."

An ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains - That is, filial respect and obedience will be as ornamental to thee as crowns, diadems, and golden chains and pearls are to others.

Political dignity has been distinguished in many nations by a chain of gold about the neck. Solomon seems here to intimate, if we follow the metaphor, that the surest way of coming to distinguished eminence, in civil matters, is to act according to the principles of true wislom, proceeding from the fear of God.

If sinners entice thee, consent thou not - אל תבא al tobe, Will-not. They can do thee no harm unless thy will join in with them. God's eternal purpose with respect to man is that his will shall be free; or, rather, that the will, which is essentially Free, shall never be forced nor be forceable by any power. Not even the devil himself can lead a man into sin till he consents. Were it not so, how could God judge the world?

If they say, Come with us - From all accounts, this is precisely the way in which the workers of iniquity form their partisans, and constitute their marauding societies to the present day.

Let us lay wait for blood - Let us rob and murder.

Let us lurk privily - Let us lie in ambush for our prey.

Let us swallow them up alive - Give them as hasty a death as if the earth were suddenly to swallow them up. This seems to refer to the destruction of a whole village. Let us destroy man, woman, and child; and then we may seize on and carry away the whole of their property, and the booty will be great.

Cast in thy lot - Be a frater conjuratus, a sworn brother, and thou shalt have an equal share of all the spoil.

Common sense must teach us that the words here used are such as must be spoken when a gang of cutthroats, pickpockets, etc., are associated together.

For their feet run to evil - The whole of this verse is wanting in the Septuagint, and in the Arabic.

Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird - This is a proverb of which the wise man here makes a particular use; and the meaning does not seem as difficult as some imagine. The wicked are represented as lurking privily for the innocent. It is in this way alone that they can hope to destroy them and take their substance; for if their designs were known, proper precautions would be taken against them; for it would be vain to spread the net in the sight of those birds which men wish to ensnare. Attend therefore to my counsels, and they shall never be able to ensnare thee.

They lay wait for their own blood - I believe it is the innocent who are spoken of here, for whose blood and lives these lay wait and lurk privily; certainly not their own, by any mode of construction.

Which taketh away the life - A covetous man is in effect, and in the sight of God, a murderer; he wishes to get all the gain that can accrue to any or all who are in the same business that he follows - no matter to him how many families starve in consequence. This is the very case with him who sets up shop after shop in different parts of the same town or neighborhood, in which he carries on the same business, and endeavors to undersell others in the same trade, that he may get all into his own hand.

Wisdom crieth - Here wisdom is again personified, as it is frequently, throughout this book; where nothing is meant but the teachings given to man, either by Divine revelation or the voice of the Holy Spirit in the heart. And this voice of wisdom is opposed to the seducing language of the wicked mentioned above. This voice is everywhere heard, in public, in private, in the streets, and in the house. Common sense, universal experience, and the law of justice written on the heart, as well as the law of God, testify against rapine and wrong of every kind.

Ye simple ones - פתים pethayim, ye who have been seduced and deceived. See on Pro 1:4 (note).

Turn you at my reproof - לתוכחתי lethochachti, at my convincing mode of arguing; attend to my demonstrations. This is properly the meaning of the original word.

I will pour out my spirit unto you - "I wil expresse my mynde unto you;" Coverdale. Loo I shall bryngen to you my Spirit; Old MS. Bible. If you will hear, ye shall have ample instruction.

Because I have called - These and the following words appear to be spoken of the persons who are described, Pro 1:11-19, who have refused to return from their evil ways till arrested by the hand of justice; and here the wise man points out their deplorable state.

They are now about to suffer according to the demands of the law, for their depredations. They now wish they had been guided by wisdom, and had chosen the fear of the Lord; but it is too late: die they must, for their crimes are proved against them, and justice knows nothing of mercy.

This, or something like this, must be the wise man's meaning; nor can any thing spoken here be considered as applying or applicable to the eternal state of the persons in question, much less to the case of any man convinced of sin, who is crying to God for mercy. Such persons as the above, condemned to die, may call upon justice for pardon, and they may do this early, earnestly; but they will call in vain. But no poor penitent sinner on this side of eternity can call upon God early, or seek him through Christ Jesus earnestly for the pardon of his sins, without being heard. Life is the time of probation, and while it lasts the vilest of the vile is within the reach of mercy. It is only in eternity that the state is irreversibly fixed, and where that which was guilty must be guilty still. But let none harden his heart because of this longsuffering of God, for if he die in his sin, where God is he shall never come. And when once shut up in the unquenchable fire, he will not pray for mercy, as he shall clearly see and feel that the hope of his redemption is entirely cut off.

Your destruction cometh as a whirlwind - כסופה kesuphah, as the all-prostrating blast. Sense and sound are here well expressed. Suphah here is the gust of wind.

They hated knowledge - This argues the deepest degree of intellectual and moral depravity.

For the turning away of the simple - This difficult place seems to refer to such a case as we term turning king's evidence; where an accomplice saves his own life by impeaching the rest of his gang. This is called his turning or repentance, משובה meshubah; and he was the most likely to turn, because he was of the פתים pethayim, seduced or deceived persons. And this evidence was given against them when they were in their prosperity, שלוה shalvah, their security, enjoying the fruits of their depredations; and being thus in a state of fancied security, they were the more easily taken and brought to justice.

But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely - The man who hears the voice of wisdom in preference to the enticements of the wicked. He shall dwell in safety, ישכן בטח yishcan betach, he shall inhabit safety itself; he shall be completely safe and secure; and shall be quiet from the fear of evil, having a full consciousness of his own innocence and God's protection. Coverdale translates, "And have ynough without eney feare of evell." What the just man has he got honestly; and he has the blessing of God upon it. It is the reverse with the thief, the knave, the cheat, and the extortioner: Male parta pejus dilabuntur; "Ill gotten, worse spent."

Written - Appointed and declared in the holy scripture. Chapter CL An exhortation to praise God with all sorts of musical instruments, ver. 1 - 6.

To know - Written to help men to know throughly and practically. Both human wisdom to conduct our affairs in this life, and Divine wisdom. Instruction - The instructions delivered either by God, or men, in order to the attainment of wisdom. To perceive - Which teach a man true understanding.

To receive - Willing to receive the counsels of others. Such as makes men wise and prudent, and to teach just judgments or equity.

Simple - Such as want wisdom. Young man - Who wants both experience and self - government.

Will hear - Is willing to learn. Attain to - The art of governing himself or others.

The fear - Reverence and obedience to God. Beginning - The foundation without which all other knowledge is vain. Fools - That is, wicked men, are so far from attaining true wisdom, that they despise it, and all the means of getting it.

My son - He speaks to his scholars with paternal authority and affection. Of thy mother - Those pious instructions, which thy mother instilled into thee in thy tender years.

In vain - The fowler who spreads, his net in the sight of the bird looseth his labour. But these, are more foolish than the silly birds, and though they are not ignorant of the mischief which these evil courses will bring upon themselves, yet they will not take warning.

Their own blood - The destruction which they design to others, fall upon themselves.

Greedy - That seeks gain by wicked practices.

Wisdom - Having expressed the counsels of wicked men, he now declares the voice of wisdom. By wisdom he understands the wisdom of God revealed to men in his word. And this is said to cry with a loud voice, to intimate God's earnestness in inviting sinners to repentance. Abroad - Or, in the streets or open places. Not in corners, but openly before all the world.

Gates - Where magistrates sit in judgment, and people are assembled. The city - Not only in the gate, but in every part of the city.

Scoffers - That scoff at religion and contemn the word and faithful ministers of God.

My words - By my spirit I will cause you to understand my word.

Called - By my ministers, by my judgments, and by the motions of my spirit and your own conscience.

Your fear - The misery you do or should fear.

Early - With diligence and fervency.

Knowledge - The practical knowledge of God and of their duty.

Eat - They should receive punishment answerable to their sins. Filled - With the fruits of them.

Turning - From God. Destroy - Shall prove the occasion of their ruin, by making them presumptuous, and secure.

1. THe proverbs of Solomon , the son of David, king of Israel.

Proverbs are ancient, and wise, and short Sayings in common use: whereof some are plain and easie, others are intricate and obscure.

Proceeding from Solomon, and most of them digested by him into this Book. See the Preface.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1+ letters]in 4. 32. Chap. 10. 1. [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word]. 1.

2. To know wisdom and instruction , to perceive the words of understanding .

Written to help men to know throughly and practically.

Both humane Wisdom to conduct our Affairs in this Life, which divers of the following Proverbs do, and especially divine Wisdom which Solomon chiefly designed, or to make men wise to know their duty, and to save their Souls.

The Counsels and Instructions delivered either by God, or by Men, in order to the attainment of Wisdom.

Either 1. Which are the effects of a good understanding: Or 2. Which teach a man true Understanding, whereby to discern between Truth and Error, between Good and Evil, to chuse the former, and to refuse the latter.

3. To receive the instruction of wisdom , justice, and judgment, and equity .

Willingly to receive the Counsels of others, which is a good step to Wisdom, and a part of it.

Such as is wise, and tends to make men wise and prudent. This is opposed to the Instruction of Fools and folly, of which Prov. 16. 22 & 19. 27. For folly or wickedness hath its School, and multitudes of Scholars, that are very apt to learn its Lessons.

Which teach men just judgment or equity, to wit, their whole Duty, both to God and to others, and to themselves. These three words seem to signifie the same thing, and are heaped together to note either the necessity of the Precept, or the exactness and diligence which is required in the practice of it.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word].; [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word].

4. To give subtilty to the simple , to the young man knowledge and discretion.

Or rather, Prudence, as this word is used, Prov. 3. 21. & 5. 2. & 8. 5, 12. which elsewhere is taken in an evil sense for craft or subtilty.

Such as want wisdom, and are easily deceived by others, and therefore most need this blessing.

Which wants both Experience and Self-government.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word], advise [illegible: 1+ letters].

5. A wise man will hear , and will encrease learning : and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels .

Is not self-conceited, as Fools are, but willing to learn from others; and therefore will attend to the following Instructions.

And thereby will gain this great benefit to grow in knowledge and wisdom. This he adds to shew that this Book is useful and necessary, not only to the simple, but also to the most wise and knowing Persons.

Not to deep speculations, but practical consideration, to the art of governing himself or others well and prudently.

Marginal references: Chap. 9. 9.

6. To understand a proverb and the interpretation ; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings .

i. e. The Interpretation of a Proverb, by a Figure called Hendiaduo, or the meaning and use of the wise sayings of God, or of men; to know this practically, and for his direction and benefit; for practice is the great design of this Book.

Such as are hard to be understood by inconsiderate and ungodly men, but to be found out by diligent and humble enquiry.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word], an elo [illegible: 1+ letters] speech.

7. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction .

Reverence and obedience to God, or his Worship and Service, as this word is commonly used.

Either the Foundation, or the Top, and Perfection, or chief Point, without which all other knowledge is vain and useless.

Wicked men, called Fools through this whole Book, such as do not fear God.

Are so far from attaining true Wisdom, that they despise it, and all the means of getting it. Which fully proves what he now said, that the Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.

Marginal references: Job 28. 28. Psal. 111. 10. Chap. 9. 10. Eccl. 12. 13.; Or, the principal part.

8. My son , hear the instruction of thy father , and forsake not the law of thy mother .

He speaks to his Scholars with paternal Authority and Affection to make them more attentive and obedient. Teachers among the Hebrews and others, were commonly called Fathers, and their Scholars their Sons.

His good and wholsome Counsels, but not such as are contrary to Gods Law, Prov. 19. 27.

Those pious instructions which thy Mother instilled into thee in thy tender years. See Prov. 31. 1. 2 T[illegible: 1+ letters]m. 1. 5. & 3. 14, 15. This he adds, because Children when grown up, are very prone to sleight their Mothers advice, because of the infirmity of their Sex, and because they have not that dependence upon, and Expectation from their Mothers which they have from their Fathers.

Marginal references: Chap. 6. 20.

9. For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck .

This will make thee amiable and honourable in the fight of God and of men, whereas the forsaking of those good Counsels will make thee contemptible.

Marginal references: Heb. an adding.

10. My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.

Eminently so called, as Gen. 13. 13, Psal. 1. 1. & 26. 9. such as sell themselves to work all manner of Wickedness, particularly Thieves, and Robbers, and Murtherers, as appears from the next verses, as also Oppressors and Cheaters, by comparing this with v. 19.

11. If they say, come with us , let us lay wait for blood , let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause :

We are numerous, and strong, and sociable.

To shed Blood. He expresseth not their words, which would rather affright than inveigle a young novice, but the true nature and consequence of the Action, and what lies at the bottom of their specious pretences.

So we shall neither be prevented before, nor discovered and punished afterward.

Harmless Travellers, who are more careless and secure, and unprovided for opposition, than such Villains as themselves.

Though they have not provoked us, nor deserved this usage from us.

h This Solomon adds to discover their malignity and baseness, and so deter the young Man from association with them.

12. Let us swallow them up alive as the grave , and whole, as those that go down into the pit .

Which speedily covers and consumes dead Bodies. See Psalm 55. 15. & 124. 3. We shall do our work quickly, easily, and without fear of discovery.

into some deep Pit, into which a Traveller falls unawares, and is utterly lost and never discovered.

Marginal references: Heb. hell. Num. 16. 33.

13. We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil .

As our danger is little, so our profit will be great.

14 Cast in thy lot among us , let us all have one purse :

i. e. Put in thy Money into our Stock. Or rather, thou shalt cast thy lot amongst us, i. e. thou shalt have a share with us, and that equally and by lot, although thou art but a Novice and we Veteranes. This agrees best with their design, which was to allure him by the promise of advantage.

Or. we will have, &c. One Purse shall receive all our profits and furnish us with all expences. So we shall live with great facility and true friendship.

15. My Son , walk not thou in the way with them ; refrain thy foot from their path .

Avoid their courses, and their conversation, and company.

When thou hast any thought, or inclination, or temptation to follow their counsels or examples, suppress it, and restrain thy self as it were by force and violence, as the word implies.

Marginal references: Ch. 4. 14.

16. For their feet run to evil , and make hast to shed blood .

They make hast, as it follows without considering what they are doing.

To do evil to others, as was expressed, v. 11, 12. which also will bring evil upon themselves.

To shed innocent blood: which is an inhumane and dangerous practice.

Marginal references: Isa. 59. 7. Rom. 3. 15.

17. Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird .

The design of these words is to set forth the folly of these men by the similitude of a Bird, which yet is very variously applied and understood by divers Interpreters. But I shall not confound the Reader with the rehearsal of them. This Clause, in vain, upon the understanding whereof the whole depends, may be understood, either, 1. in respect of the Fowler. So the sense is, The Fowler who spreads his Net in the sight of the Bird loseth his labour, because the Bird perceiving the danger, will not be tempted to come to the Bait, but flees away from it. But, or yet, these (as the first words of the next Verse may well be, and by the Chaldee Translator are rendred) are more foolish than the silly Birds, and though they are not Ignorant of the danger and mischief which these evil courses will bring upon themselves, which I have here represented, yet they will not take warning, but madly rush upon their own ruine. Or, 2. in respect of the Bird. So the sense is, The silly Bird, although it see the spreading of the Net, yet is not at all instructed and cautioned by it, but through the greediness of the Bait rusheth upon it, and is taken by it. And these men are not one jot wiser, but albeit they know and find that by these practises they expose themselves to the justice of the Magistrate, and to the vengeance of God, the sad effects whereof they daily see in the destruction of their Brethren in iniquity, yet they will boldly and madly run themselves into the same miseries. Both ways the sense comes to the same.

Marginal references: Heb. in the eyes of every thing that hath a wing.

18. And they lay wait for their own blood x; they lurk privily for their lives.

Or, But, or Yet, or So, for all these ways this Particle is used. Which is more fully expressed in the next Verse. The destruction which they design to others falls upon themselves. Their blood answers to their feet, v. 16. & belongs to the san[illegible: 1+ letters]e Persons.

19. So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain : which taketh away the lives of the owners thereof .

As is expressed both in the foregoing and following words.

The actions and courses, which are so in the tendency and event of them.

That seeks gain by unrighteous and wicked practices.

Either which greediness: or rather, which gain, by comparing the last words.

Brings sudden and violent death upon those who had made themselves Masters and Possessors of such gain.

20. Wisdom crieth without she uttereth her voice in the streets;

Having expressed the counsels and invitations of folly and of wicked men, he now declareth the voice of Wisdom. By the name of Wisdom or Wisdoms he seems to understand the wisdom for counsel of God revealed to the Sons of men by his Word. Which he calls Wisdoms here, as also Prov. 9. 1. either to note the excellency of this Wisdom beyond all other, as the greatest and chief of Beasts is called Bebemoth or Beasts, Job 40. 15. or because it consisteth of a multitude of wise Precepts, or because it hath been delivered to Mankind at sundry times, and in divers manners, and by many Persons, Prophets and Apostles, and especially by the Son of God, who is called the Wisdom of God, Luke 11. 49. And this wisdom is said to cry with a loud voice, to intimate both God's earnestness in inviting sinners to repentance, and their inexcusableness if they do not hear such loud cries.

Or, abroad, or in the streets or open places, as many others render it, and as it is in the next Clause. Not in corners and privily, as Seducers perswade men to error or wickedness, being afraid of the light, but openly and publickly before all the World.

Marginal references: Heb▪ Wisdom, that is, excellent Wisdom.; Ch. 8. 1.

21. She crieth in the chief place of concourse , in the opening of the gates : in the city she uttereth her words, saying,

Where there is probability of most success.

Where Magistrates sit in Judgment, and People are assembled. So it crieth both to the wise and to the unwise, as Paul preached, Rom. 1. 14.

Not onely in the gate, but in every part of the City. Or, in the Cities, the Singular number being put for the Plural.

22. How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity ? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledg?

Ye ignorant, and easie, and credulous Persons, who are so soon cheated by the World and the Devil, and do not understand your own Interest.

Being unwilling to part with it or to be made wiser.

That scoff at all Religion, and contemn the Word and faithful Ministers of God.

Willful and wicked fools, as Prov. 17. 10. & 26. 4.

23. Turn ye at my reproof : behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you .

From your evil courses unto me.

Upon this admonition here given to you.

If you will do so, I will freely and abundantly impart unto you.

Either my mind, as Spirit is taken, Psal. 77. 6. Prov. 29. 11. or the gifts and graces of my Spirit, which he hath promised to such Persons, Luke 11. 13. Iohn 4. 14. & 7. 39.

By my Spirit I will cause you truly and savingly to understand my word which is hid from others, 2 Cor. 4. 3.

Marginal references: Isa. 44. 3.

24. Because I have called , and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand , and no man regarded ;

By my Ministers, and by my Judgments upon you or others, and by the motions of my Spirit and your own Consciences.

Offering Grace and Mercy to you, and earnestly inviting you to accept of it. Lest through your deafness or distance from me you should not hear, I have beckned to you with my hand, which this Phrase signifies, Isa. 13. 2. & 65. 2.

Few or none complied with it.

Marginal references: Isa. 65. 2. 66. 4. Jer. 7. 13. Ezek. 8. 18.

25. But ye have set at naught all my counsel , and would none of my reproof:

Or despised, or made void, resisted its power and authority.

Either, 1. my design of doing sinners good, which you have made of none effect to your selves. Or, 2. my commands and counsels, which suits better with the next Clause.

Marginal references: Psa. 107. 11. Luk. 7. 30.

26. I also will laugh at your calamity : I will mock when your fear cometh;

As you have scoffed at me and my ways.

i. e. destroy you without pity and take pleasure therein. Comp. Revel. 18. 20.

The misery which you do or should fear. The act for the object, as Isa. 8. 12. and elsewhere.

27. When your fear cometh as desolation , and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind ; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.

As some desolating Sword or Judgment, which quickly over-runs a whole Countrey.

Which instantly spreadeth it self from place to place with great and irresistible violence and doing much mischief.

28. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early , but they shall not find me .

Or, in the Morning, as the word properly signifies, and is here rendred by others, as soon as their calamity comes; or rather, with great diligence and servency, as this Phrase commonly signifies.

Because they do not seek me by choice and with sincerity, but onely by constraint and that they may be freed from their miseries.

Marginal references: Job 27. 9. Isa. 1. 15. Jer. 11. 11. & 14. 12. Mic. 3. 4. Zech. 7. 13.

29. For that they hated knowledg , and did not chuse the fear of the LORD.

To wit, the practical knowledge of God and of their duty to him, as it is explained in the following Clause.

Not heartily approve of it and love it, but onely made some shew of it.

30. They would none of my counsel : they despised all my reproof.

They refused to be guided by my Counsels or Precepts.

31. Therefore * shall they eat of the fruit of their own way c, and be filled with their own devices .

With the fruits or effects of their wicked devices. What was sweet in their Mouths shall be bitter in their Bellies, and that destruction which they have plotted against others shall fall upon themselves.

i They shall receive punishments answerable to their sins.

32. For the ‖ turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them .

To wit, from God and from his counsels and reproofs; so this is opposed to hearkning unto God, v. 33. Or, as it is rendred in the Margent, and by divers others, the ease or rest, the peace or tranquillity, as it seems to be explained in the next Clause.

It commonly proves the occasion of their ruine, by making them presumptuous, and secure, and worldly, and proud, and forgetful of God and of their own Eternal happiness, whereby they provoke God's Wrath and bring upon themselves swift and certain destruction. Thus he meets with the common objection against the fear of God, taken from the present impunity and prosperity of ungodly men.

33. But whoso hearkneth unto me, shall dwell safely , and shall be quiet from fear of evil .

Or, securely or confidently, resting himself upon the conscience of his own integrity, and upon the promises and favour of God.

From sinful and tormenting cares and fears. And as a wicked Man's mind is oft full of anxiety in the midst of all his outward prosperity and glory, so the mind of a good man is filled with peace and joy even when his outward man is exposed to many troubles.

The Book of Proverbs

Introduction

The Book of Proverbs bears the external title ספר משׁלי, which it derives from the words with which it commences. It is one of the three books which are distinguished from the other twenty-one by a peculiar system of accentuation, the best exposition of which that has yet been given is that by S. Baer,Cf. Outlines of Hebrew Accentuation, Prose and Poetical, by Rev. A. B. Davidson, D.D., Professor of Hebrew, Free Church College, Edinburgh, 1861, based on Baer’s Torath Emeth, Rödelheim 1872. as set forth in my larger Psalmen-commentarVol. ii., ed. of 1860, pp. 477-511.

The memorial word for these three books, viz., Job, Mishle (Proverbs), and Tehillim (Psalms), is אמת, formed from the first letter of the first word of each book, or, following the Talmudic and Masoretic arrangement of the books, תאם.

Having in view the superscription משׁלי שׁלמת, with which the book commences, the ancients regarded it as wholly the composition of Solomon. The circumstance that it contains only 800 verses, while according to 1Ki 5:12 (1Ki 4:32) Solomon spake 3000 proverbs, R. Samuel bar-Nachmani explains by remarking that each separate verse may be divided into two or three allegories or apothegms (e.g., Pro 25:12), not to mention other more arbitrary modes of reconciling the discrepancy.Pesikta, ed. Buber (1868), 34 b, 35 a. Instead of 800, the Masora reckons 915 verses in the Book of Proverbs.

The opinion also of R. Jonathan, that Solomon first composed the Canticles, then the Proverbs, and last of all Ecclesiastes, inasmuch as the first correspondsSchir-ha-Schirim Rabba, c. i.f. 4a. with the spring-time of youth, the second with the wisdom of manhood, and the third with the disappointment of old age, is founded on the supposition of the unity of the book and of its Solomonic authorship.

At the present day also there are some, such as Stier, who regard the Book of Proverbs from first to last as the work of Solomon, just as Klauss (1832) and Randegger (1841) have ventured to affirm that all the Psalms without exception were composed by David. But since historical criticism has been applied to Biblical subjects, that blind submission to mistaken tradition appears as scarcely worthy of being mentioned. The Book of Proverbs presents itself as composed of various parts, different from each other in character and in the period to which they belong. Under the hands of the critical analysis it resolves itself into a mixed market of the most manifold intellectual productions of proverbial poetry, belonging to at least three different epochs.

1. The External Plan of the Book of Proverbs, and Its Own Testimony as to Its Origin

The internal superscription of the book, which recommends it, after the manner of later Oriental books, on account of its importance and the general utility of its contents, extends from Pro 1:1 to Pro 1:6. Among the moderns this has been acknowledged by Löwenstein and Maurer; for Pro 1:7, which Ewald, Bertheau, and Keil have added to it, forms a new commencement to the beginning of the book itself. The book is described as “The Proverbs of Solomon,” and then there is annexed the statement of its object. That object, as summarily set forth in Pro 1:2, is practical, and that in a twofold way: partly moral, and partly intellectual. The former is described in Pro 1:3-5. It presents moral edification, moral sentiments for acceptance, not merely to help the unwise to attain to wisdom, but also to assist the wise. The latter object is set forth in Pro 1:6. It seeks by its contents to strengthen and discipline the mind to the understanding of thoughtful discourses generally. In other words, it seeks to gain the moral ends which proverbial poetry aims at, and at the same time to make familiar with it, so that the reader, in these proverbs of Solomon, or by means of them as of a key, learns to understand such like apothegms in general. Thus interpreted, the title of the book does not say that the book contains proverbs of other wise men besides those of Solomon; if it did so, it would contradict itself. It is possible that the book contains proverbs other than those of Solomon, possible that the author of the title of the book added such to it himself, but the title presents to view only the Proverbs of Solomon. If Pro 1:7 begins the book, then after reading the title we cannot think otherwise than that here begin the Solomonic proverbs. If we read farther, the contents and the form of the discourses which follow do not contradict this opinion; for both are worthy of Solomon. So much the more astonished are we, therefore, when at Pro 10:1 we meet with a new superscription, משׁלי שׁלמה, from which point on to Pro 22:16 there is a long succession of proverbs of quite a different tone and form - short maxims, Mashals proper - while in the preceding section of the book we find fewer proverbs than monitory discourses. What now must be our opinion when we look back from this second superscription to the part 1:7-9:18, which immediately follows the title of the book? Are 1:7-9:18, in the sense of the book, not the “Proverbs of Solomon”? From the title of the book, which declares them to be so, we must judge that they are. Or are they “Proverbs of Solomon”? In this case the new superscription (Pro 10:1), “The Proverbs of Solomon,” appears altogether incomprehensible. And yet only one of these two things is possible: on the one side, therefore, there must be a false appearance of contradiction, which on a closer investigation disappears. But on which side is it? If it is supposed that the tenor of the title, Pro 1:1-6, does not accord with that of the section 10:1-22:6, but that it accords well with that of 1:7-9:18 (with the breadth of expression in 1:7-9:18, it has also several favourite words not elsewhere occurring in the Book of Proverbs; among these, ערמה, subtilty, and מזמּה, discretion, Pro 1:4), then Ewald’s view is probable, that chap. 1-9 is an original whole written at once, and that the author had no other intention than to give it as an introduction to the larger Solomonic Book of Proverbs beginning at Pro 10:1. But it is also possible that the author of the title has adopted the style of the section Prov 1:7-9:18. Bertheau, who has propounded this view, and at the same time has rejected, in opposition to Ewald, the idea of the unity of the section, adopts this conclusion, that in 1:8-9:18 there lies before us a collection of the admonitions of different authors of proverbial poetry, partly original introductions to larger collections of proverbs, which the author of the title gathers together in order that he may give a comprehensive introduction to the larger collection contained in 10:1-22:16. But such an origin of the section as Bertheau thus imagines is by no means natural; it is more probable that the author, whose object is, according to the title of the book, to give the proverbs of Solomon, introduces these by a long introduction of his own, than that, instead of beginning with Solomon’s proverbs, he first presents long extracts of a different kind from collections of proverbs. If the author, as Bertheau thinks, expresses indeed, in the words of the title, the intention of presenting, along with the “Proverbs of Solomon,” also the “words of the wise,” then he could not have set about his work more incorrectly and self-contradictorily than if he had begun the whole, which bears the superscription “Proverbs of Solomon” (which must be regarded as presenting the proverbs of Solomon as a key to the words of the wise generally), with the “words of the wise.” But besides the opinion of Ewald, which in itself, apart from internal grounds, is more natural and probable than that of Bertheau, there is yet the possibility of another. Keil, following H. A. Hahn, is of opinion, that in the sense of the author of the title, the section 1-9 is Solomonic as well as 10-22, but that he has repeated the superscription “Proverbs of Solomon” before the latter section, because from that point onward proverbs follow which bear in a special measure the characters of the Mashal (Hävernick’s Einl. iii. 428). The same phenomenon appears in the book of Isaiah, where, after the general title, there follows an introductory address, and then in Isa 2:1 the general title is repeated in a shorter form. That this analogy, however, is here inapplicable, the further discussion of the subject will show.

The introductory section Prov 1:7-9:18, and the larger section 10:1-22:16, which contains uniform brief Solomonic apothegms, are followed by a third section, 22:17-24:22. Hitzig, indeed, reckons 10:1-24:22 as the second section, but with Pro 22:17 there commences an altogether different style, and a much freer manner in the form of the proverb; and the introduction to this new collection of proverbs, which reminds us of the general title, places it beyond a doubt that the collector does not at all intend to set forth these proverbs as Solomonic. It may indeed be possible that, as Keil (iii. 410) maintains, the collector, inasmuch as he begins with the words, “Incline thine ear and hear words of the wise,” names his own proverbs generally as “words of the wise,” especially since he adds, “and apply thine heart to my knowledge;” but this supposition is contradicted by the superscription of a fourth section, Pro 24:23., which follows. This short section, an appendix to the third, bears the superscription, “These things also are לחכמים.” If Keil thinks here also to set aside the idea that the following proverbs, in the sense of this superscription, have as their authors “the wise,” he does unnecessary violence to himself. The ל is here that of authorship and if the following proverbs are composed by the חכמים, “the wise,” then they are not the production of the one חכם, “wise man,” Solomon, but they are “the words of the wise” in contradistinction to “the Proverbs of Solomon.”

The Proverbs of Solomon begin again at Pro 25:1; and this second large section (corresponding to the first, 10:1-22:16) extends to chap. 29. This fifth portion of the book has a superscription, which, like that of the preceding appendix, commences thus: “Also (גּם) these are proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah collected.” The meaning of the word העתּיקוּ is not doubtful. It signifies, like the Arameo-Arabic נסח, to remove from their place, and denote that the men of Hezekiah removed from the place where they found them the following proverbs, and placed them together in a separate collection. The words have thus been understood by the Greek translator. From the supplementary words αἱ ἀδιάκριτοι (such as exclude all διάκρισις) it is seen that the translator had a feeling of the important literary historical significance of that superscription, which reminds us of the labours of the poetical grammarians appointed by Pisitratus to edit older works, such as those of Hesiod. The Jewish interpreters, simply following the Talmud, suppose that the “also” (גּם) belongs to the whole superscription, inclusive of the relative sentence, and that it thus bears witness to the editing of the foregoing proverbs also by Hezekiah and his companions;Vid., B. Bathra, 15 a. From the fact that Isaiah outlived Hezekiah it is there concluded that the Hezekiah-collegium also continued after Hezekiah’s death. Cf. Fürst on the Canon of the O.T. 1868, p. 78f. which is altogether improbable, for then, if such were the meaning of the words, “which the men of Hezekiah,” etc., they ought to have stood after Pro 1:1. The superscription Pro 25:1 thus much rather distinguishes the following collection from that going before, as having been made under Hezekiah. As two appendices followed the “Proverbs of Solomon,” 10:1-22:16, so also two appendices the Hezekiah-gleanings of Solomonic proverbs. The former two appendices, however, originate in general from the “wise,” the latter more definitely name the authors: the first, chap. 30, is by “Agur the son of Jakeh;” the second, Pro 31:1-9, by a “King Lemuel.” In so far the superscriptions are clear. The name of the authors, elsewhere unknown, point to a foreign country; and to this corresponds the peculiar complexion of these two series of proverbs. As a third appendix to the Hezekiah-collection, Pro 31:10. follows, a complete alphabetical proverbial poem which describes the praiseworthy qualities of a virtuous woman.

We are thus led to the conclusion that the Book of Proverbs divides itself into the following parts: - (1) The title of the book, Pro 1:1-6, by which the question is raised, how far the book extends to which it originally belongs; (2) the hortatory discourses, 1:7-9:18, in which it is a question whether the Solomonic proverbs must be regarded as beginning with these, or whether they are only the introduction thereto, composed by a different author, perhaps the author of the title of the book; (3) the first great collection of Solomonic proverbs, 10:1-22:16; (4) the first appendix to this first collection, “The words of the wise,” 22:17-24:22; (5) the second appendix, supplement of the words of some wise men, Pro 24:23.; (6) the second great collection of Solomonic proverbs, which the “men of Hezekiah” collected, chap. 25-29; (7) the first appendix to this second collection, the words of Agur the son of Makeh, chap. 30; (8) the second appendix, the words of King Lemuel, Pro 31:1-9; (9) third appendix, the acrostic ode, Pro 31:10. These nine parts are comprehended under three groups: the introductory hortatory discourses with the general title at their head, and the two great collections of Solomonic proverbs with their two appendices. In prosecuting our further investigations, we shall consider the several parts of the book first from the point of view of the manifold forms of their proverbs, then of their style, and thirdly of their type of doctrine. From each of these three subjects of investigation we may expect elucidations regarding the origin of these proverbs and of their collections.

2. The Several Parts of the Book of Proverbs with Respect to the Manifold Forms of the Proverbs

If the Book of Proverbs were a collection of popular sayings, we should find in it a multitude of proverbs of one line each, as e.g., “Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked” (1Sa 24:13); but we seek for such in vain. At the first glance, Pro 24:23 appears to be a proverb of one line; but the line “To have respect of persons in judgment is not good,” is only the introductory line of a proverb which consists of several lines, Pro 24:24. Ewald is right in regarding as inadmissible a comparison of the collections of Arabic proverbs by Abu-Obeida, Meidani, and others, who gathered together and expounded the current popular proverbs, with the Book of Proverbs. Ali’s Hundred Proverbs are, however, more worthy of being compared with it. Like these, Solomon’s proverbs are, as a whole, the production of his own spirit, and only mediately of the popular spirit. To make the largeness of the number of these proverbs a matter of doubt were inconsiderate. Eichhorn maintained that even a godlike genius scarcely attains to so great a number of pointed proverbs and ingenious thoughts. But if we distribute Solomon’s proverbs over his forty years’ reign, then we have scarcely twenty for each year; and one must agree with the conclusion, that the composition of so many proverbs even of the highest ingenuity is no impossible problem for a “godlike genius.” When, accordingly, it is related that Solomon wrote 3000 proverbs, Ewald, in his History of Israel, does not find the number too great, and Bertheau does not regard it as impossible that the collection of the “Proverbs of Solomon” has the one man Solomon as their author. The number of the proverbs thus cannot determine us to regard them as having for the most part originated among the people, and the form in which they appear leads to an opposite conclusion. It is, indeed, probable that popular proverbs are partly wrought into these proverbs,Isaac Euchel (1804), in his Commentary on the Proverbs, regards Pro 14:4 and Pro 17:19 as such popular proverbs. and many of their forms of expression are moulded after the popular proverbs; but as they thus lie before us, they are, as a whole, the production of the technical Mashal poetry.

The simplest form is, according to the fundamental peculiarity of the Hebrew verse, the distich. The relation of the two lines to each other is very manifold. The second line may repeat the thought of the first, only in a somewhat altered form, in order to express this thought as clearly and exhaustively as possible. We call such proverbs synonymous distichs; as e.g., Pro 11:25 :

A soul of blessing is made fat,

And he that watereth others is himself watered.

Or the second line contains the other side of the contrast to the statement of the first; the truth spoken in the first is explained in the second by means of the presentation of its contrary. We call such proverbs antithetic distichs; as e.g., Pro 10:1 :

A wise son maketh his father glad,

And a foolish son is his mother’s grief.

Similar forms, Pro 10:16; Pro 12:5. Elsewhere, as Pro 18:14; Pro 20:24, the antithesis clothes itself in the form of a question. sometimes it is two different truths that are expressed in the two lines; and the authorization of their union lies only in a certain relationship, and the ground of this union in the circumstance that two lines are the minimum of the technical proverb - synthetic distichs; e.g., Pro 10:18 :

A cloak of hatred are lying lips,

And he that spreadeth slander is a fool.

Not at all infrequently one line does not suffice to bring out the thought intended, the begun expression of which is only completed in the second. These we call integral (eingedankige) distichs; as e.g., Pro 11:31 (cf. 1Pe 4:18):

The righteous shall be recompensed on the earth -

How much more the ungodly and the sinner!

To these distichs also belong all those in which the thought stated in the first receives in the second, by a sentence presenting a reason, or proof, or purpose, or consequence, a definition completing or perfecting it; e.g., Pro 13:14; Pro 16:10; Pro 19:20; Pro 22:28.Such integral distichs are also Pro 15:3; Pro 16:7, Pro 16:10; Pro 17:13, Pro 17:15; Pro 18:9, Pro 18:13; Pro 19:26-27; Pro 20:7-8, Pro 20:10-11, Pro 20:20-21; Pro 21:4, Pro 21:13, Pro 21:16, Pro 21:21, Pro 21:23-24, Pro 21:30; Pro 22:4, Pro 22:11; Pro 24:8, Pro 24:26; Pro 26:16; Pro 27:14; Pro 28:8-9, Pro 28:17, Pro 28:24; Pro 29:1, Pro 29:5, Pro 29:12, Pro 29:14. In Pro 14:27; Pro 15:24; Pro 17:23; Pro 19:27, the second line consists of one sentence with ל and the infin.; in Pro 16:12, Pro 16:26; Pro 21:25; Pro 22:9; Pro 27:1; Pro 29:19, of one sentence with כּי; with כּי אם,  Pro 18:2; Pro 23:17. The two lines, as Pro 11:31; Pro 15:11; Pro 17:7; Pro 19:7, Pro 19:10, Pro 20:27, form a conclusion a minori ad majus, or the reverse. The former or the latter clauses stand in grammatical relation in Pro 23:1-2, Pro 23:15., Pro 27:22; Pro 29:21 (cf. Pro 22:29; Pro 24:10; Pro 26:12; Pro 29:20, with hypoth. perf., and Pro 26:26 with hypoth. fut.); in the logical relation of reason and consequence, Pro 17:14; Pro 20:2, Pro 20:4; in comparative relation, Pro 12:9, etc. These examples show that the two lines, not merely in the more recent, but also in the old Solomonic Mashal, do not always consist of two parallel members.

But there is also a fifth form, which corresponds most to the original character of the Mashal: the proverb explaining its ethical object by a resemblance from the region of the natural and every-day life, the παραβολή proper. The form of this parabolic proverb is very manifold, according as the poet himself expressly compares the two subjects, or only places them near each other in order that the hearer or reader may complete the comparison. The proverb is least poetic when the likeness between the two subjects is expressed by a verb; as Pro 27:15 (to which, however, Pro 27:16 belongs):

A continual dropping in a rainy day

And a contentious woman are alike.

The usual form of expression, neither unpoetic nor properly poetic, is the introduction of the comparison by כּ [as], and of the similitude in the second clause by כּן [so]; as Pro 10:26 :

As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes,

So is the sluggard to them who give him a commission.

This complete verbal statement of the relation of likeness may also be abbreviated by the omission of the כּן; as Pro 25:13; Pro 26:11 :

As a dog returning to his vomit -

A fool returning to his folly.

We call the parabolic proverbs of these three forms comparisons. The last, the abbreviated form of the comparative proverb, which we will call, in contradistinction to the comparative, the emblematic, in which the contrast and its emblem are loosely placed together without any nearer expression of the similitude; as e.g., Pro 26:20; Pro 27:17-18, Pro 27:20. This takes place either by means of the couplative Vav, ו, as Pro 25:25 -

Cold water to a thirsty soul,

And good news from a far country.This so-called Vav adaequationis, which appears here for the first time in the Proverbs as the connection between the figure and the thing itself without a verbal predicate (cf. on the other hand, Job 5:7; Job 12:11; Job 14:11.), is, like the Vav, ו, of comparison, only a species of that Vav of association which is called in Arab. Waw alajam'a, or Waw alam'ayat, or Waw al'asatsahab (vid., at Isa 42:5); and since usage attributes to it the verbal power of secum habere, it is construed with the accus. Vid., examples in Freytag’s Arabum Proverbia, among the recent proverbs beginning with the Arabic letter k.

Or without the Vav; in which case the second line is as the subscription under the figure or double figure painted in the first; e.g., Pro 25:11., Pro 11:22 :

A gold ring in a swine’s snout -

A fair woman without understanding.

These ground-forms of two lines, can, however, expand into forms of several lines. Since the distich is the peculiar and most appropriate form of the technical proverb, so, when two lines are not sufficient for expressing the thought intended, the multiplication to four, six, or eight lines is most natural. In the tetrastich the relation of the last two to the first two is as manifold as is the relation of the second line to the first in the distich. There is, however, no suitable example of four-lined stanzas in antithetic relation. But we meet with synonymous tetrastichs, e.g., Pro 23:15., Pro 24:3., 28f.; synthetic, Pro 30:5.; integral, Pro 30:17., especially of the form in which the last two lines constitute a proof passage beginning with כּי,  Pro 22:22., or פּן,  Pro 22:24., or without exponents, Pro 22:26.; comparative without expressing the comparison, Pro 25:16. (cf. on the other hand, Pro 26:18., where the number of lines is questionable), and also the emblematical, Pro 25:4.:

Take away the dross from the silver,

And there shall come forth a vessel for the goldsmith;

Take away the wicked from before the king,

And this throne shall be established in righteousness.

Proportionally the most frequently occurring are tetrastichs, the second half of which forms a proof clause commencing with כּי or פּן. Among the less frequent are the six-lined, presenting (Pro 23:1-3; Pro 24:11.) one and the same thought in manifold aspects, with proofs interspersed. Among all the rest which are found in the collection, Pro 23:12-14, Pro 23:19-21, Pro 23:26-28; Pro 30:15., Pro 30:29-31, the first two lines form a prologue introductory to the substance of the proverb; as e.g., Pro 23:12-14 :

O let instruction enter into thine heart,

And apply thine ears to the words of knowledge.

Withhold not correction from the child;

For if thou beatest him with the rod - he dies not.

Thou shalt beat him with the rod,

And deliver his soul from hell.

Similarly formed, yet more expanded, is the eight-lined stanza, Pro 23:22-28 :

Hearken unto thy father that begat thee,

And despise not thy mother when she is old.

Buy the truth and sell it not:

Wisdom, and virtue, and understanding.

The father of a righteous man greatly rejoices,

And he that begetteth a wise child hath joy of him.

Thy father and thy mother shall be glad,

And she that bare thee shall rejoice.

The Mashal proverb here inclines to the Mashal ode; for this octastich may be regarded as a short Mashal song, - like the alphabetical Mashal Psalm 37, which consists of almost pure tetrastichs.

We have now seen how the distich form multiplies itself into forms consisting of four, six, and eight lines; but it also unfolds itself, as if in one-sided multiplication, into forms of three, five, and seven lines. Tristichs arise when the thought of the first line is repeated (Pro 27:22) in the second according to the synonymous scheme, or when the thought of the second line is expressed by contrast in the third (Pro 22:29; Pro 28:10) according to the antithetic scheme, or when to the thought expressed in one or two lines (Pro 25:8; Pro 27:10) there is added its proof. The parabolic scheme is here represented when the object described is unfolded in two lines, as in the comparison Pro 25:13, or when its nature is portrayed by two figures in two lines, as in the emblematic proverb Pro 25:20 :

To take off clothing in cold weather,

Vinegar upon nitre,

And he that singeth songs to a heavy heart.

In the few instances of pentastichs which are found, the last three lines usually unfold the reason of the thought of the first two: Pro 23:4., Pro 25:6., Pro 30:32.; to this Pro 24:13 forms an exception, where the כּן before the last three lines introduces the expansion of the figure in the first two. As an instance we quote Pro 25:6.:

Seek not to display thyself in the presence of the king,

And stand not in the place of the great.

For better that it be said unto thee, “Come up hither,”

Than that they humble thee in the presence of the prince,

While thine eyes have raised themselves.

Of heptastichs I know of only one example in the collection, viz., Pro 23:6-8 :

Eat not the bread of the jealous,

And lust not after his dainties;

For he is like one who calculates with himself: - “Eat and drink,” saith he to thee,

And his heart is not with thee.

Thy morsel which thou hast eaten must thou vomit up,

And thou hast wasted thy pleasant words.

From this heptastich, which one will scarcely take for a brief Mashal ode according to the compound strophe-scheme, we see that the proverb of two lines can expand itself to the dimensions of seven and eight lines. Beyond these limits the whole proverb ceases to be משׁל in the proper sense; and after the manner of Ps 25; 34, and especially chap. 37, it becomes a Mashal ode. Of this class of Mashal odes are, besides the prologue, Pro 22:17-21, that of the drunkard, Pro 23:29-35; that of the slothful man, Pro 24:30-34; the exhortation to industry, Pro 27:23-27; the prayer for a moderate portion between poverty and riches, Pro 30:7-9; the mirror for princes, Pro 31:2-9; and the praise of the excellent wife, Pro 31:10. It is singular that this ode furnishes the only example of the alphabetical acrostic in the whole collection. Even a single trace of original alphabetical sequence afterwards broken up cannot be found. There cannot also be discovered, in the Mashal songs referred to, anything like a completed strophe-scheme; even in Pro 31:10. the distichs are broken by tristichs intermingled with them.

In the whole of the first part, Prov 1:7-9:18, the prevailing form is that of the extended flow of the Mashal song; but one in vain seeks for strophes. There is not here so firm a grouping of the lines; on the supposition of its belonging to the Solomonic era, this is indeed to be expected. The rhetorical form here outweighs the purely poetical. This first part of the Proverbs consists of the following fifteen Mashal strains: (1) Pro 1:7-19, (2) Pro 1:20., (3) chap. 2, (4) 3:1-18, (5) Pro 3:19-26, (6) Pro 3:27., (7) 4:1-5:6, (8) Pro 4:7., (9) Pro 6:1-5, (10) Pro 6:6-11, (11) Pro 6:12-19, (12) Pro 6:20., (13) chap. 7, (14) chap. 8, (15) chap. 9. In chap. 3 and chap. 9 there are found a few Mashal odes of two lines and of four lines which may be regarded as independent Mashals, and may adapt themselves to the schemes employed; other brief complete parts are only waves in the flow of the larger discourses, or are altogether formless, or more than octastichs. The octastich Pro 6:16-19 makes the proportionally greatest impression of an independent inwoven Mashal. It is the only proverb in which symbolical numbers are used which occurs in the collection from 1 to 29:

There are six things which Jahve hateth,

And seven are an abhorrence to His soul:

Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,

And hands that shed innocent blood;

An heart that deviseth the thoughts of evil,

Feet that hastily run to wickedness,

One that uttereth lies as a false witness,

And he who soweth strife between brethren.

Such numerical proverbs to which the name מדּה has been given by later Jewish writers (see my Gesch. der Jüd. Poesie, pp. 199, 202) are found in chap. 30. With the exception of Pro 30:7-9, Pro 30:24-28 (cf. Sir. 25:1, 2), the numerical proverb has this peculiarity, found also in most of the numerical proverbs of Sirach (Sir. 23:16; 25:7; 26:5, 28), that the number named in the first parallel line is in the second (cf. Job 5:9) increased by one. On the other hand, the form of the PriamelFrom praeambulum, designating a peculiar kind of epigram found in the German poetry of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. is used neither in the Book of Proverbs nor in that of Sirach. Proverbs such as Pro 20:10 (“Diverse weights, diverse measures - an abomination to Jahve are they both”) and Pro 20:12 (“The hearing ear, the seeing eye - Jahve hath created them both”), to be distinguished from Pro 17:3; Pro 27:21, and the like, where the necessary unity, and from Pro 27:3, where the necessary resemblance, of the predicate is wanting, are only a weak approach to the Priamel - a stronger, Pro 25:3, where the three subjects form the preamble (“The heaven for height, and the earth for depth, and the heart of kings - are unsearchable”). Perhaps Pro 30:11-14 is a greater mutilated Priamel. Here four subjects form the preamble, but there is wanting the conclusion containing the common predicate. This, we believe, exhausts the forms of the Mashal in the collection. It now only remains to make mention of the Mashal chain, i.e., the ranging together in a series of proverbs of a similar character, such as the chain of proverbs regarding the fool, Pro 26:1-12, the sluggard, Pro 26:13-16, the tale-bearer, Pro 26:20-22, the malicious, Pro 26:23-28 - but this form belongs more to the technics of the Mashal collection than to that of the Mashal poetry.

We now turn to the separate parts of the book, to examine more closely the forms of their proverbs, and gather materials for a critical judgment regarding the origin of the proverbs which they contain. Not to anticipate, we take up in order the separate parts of the arrangement of the collection. Since, then, it cannot be denied that in the introductory paedagogic part, Pro 1:7-9, notwithstanding its rich and deep contents, there is exceedingly little of the technical form of the Mashal, as well as generally of technical form at all. This part, as already shown, consist not of proper Mashals, but of fifteen Mashal odes, or rather, perhaps, Mashal discourses, didactic poems of the Mashal kind. In the flow of these discourses separate Mashals intermingle, which may either be regarded as independent, or, as Pro 1:32; Pro 4:18., can easily be so understood. In the Mashal chains of chap. 4 and chap. 9 we meet with proverbs that are synonymous (Pro 9:7, Pro 9:10), antithetic (Pro 3:35; Pro 9:8), integral, or of one thought (Pro 3:29-30), and synthetic (Pro 1:7; Pro 3:5, Pro 3:7), of two lines and of four lines variously disposed (Pro 3:9., 11f., 31f., 33f.); but the parabolic scheme is not at all met with, separate proverbs such as Pro 3:27. are altogether without form, and keeping out of view the octastich numerical proverb, Pro 6:16-19, the thoughts which form the unity of separate groups are so widely expanded that the measure of the Mashal proper is far exceeded. The character of this whole part is not concentrating, but unfolding. Even the intermingling proverbs of two lines possess the same character. They are for the most part more like dissolved drops than gold coins with sharp outline and firm impress; as e.g., Pro 9:7 :

He that correcteth the mocker getteth to himself shame;

And he that rebuketh the sinner his dishonour.

The few that consist of four lines are closer, more compact, more finished, because they allow greater space for the expression; e.g., Pro 3:9.:

Honour Jahve with thy wealth,

And with the first-fruits of all thine income:

And thy barns shall be filled with plenty,

And thy vats shall overflow with must.

But beyond the four lines the author knows no limits of artistic harmony; the discourse flows on till it has wholly or provisionally exhausted the subject; it pauses not till it reaches the end of its course, and then, taking breath, it starts anew. We cannot, moreover, deny that there is beauty in this new springing forth of the stream of the discourse with its fresh transparent waves; but it is a peculiar beauty of the rhetorically decomposed, dissolved Mashal, going forth, as it were, from its confinement, and breathing its fragrance far and wide.

The fifteen discourses, in which the Teacher appears twelve times and Wisdom three times, are neither of a symmetrically chiselled form nor of internally fashioned coherence, but yet are a garland of songs having internal unity, with a well-arranged manifoldness of contents. It is true that Bertheau recognises here neither unity of the contents nor unity of the formal character; but there is no Old Testament portion of like extent, and at the same time of more systematic internal unity, and which bears throughout a like formal impress, than this. Bertheau thinks that he has discovered in certain passages a greater art in the form; and certainly there are several sections which consist of just ten verses. But this is a mere accident; for the first Mashal ode consists of groups of 1, 2, and 10 verses, the second of 8 and 6 verses, the third of 10 and 12, the fourth of 10 and 8, the fifth of 2 and 6, etc. - each group forming a complete sense. The 10 verses are met with six times, and if Pro 4:1-9 from the Peshito, and Pro 4:20-27 from the lxx, are included, eight times, without our regarding these decades as strophes, and without our being able to draw any conclusion regarding a particular author of these decade portions. In Pro 1:20-33, Bertheau finds indeed, along with the regular structure of verses, an exact artistic formation of strophes (3 times 4 verses with an echo of 2). But he counts instead of the stichs the Masoretic verses, and these are not the true formal parts of the strophe.

We now come to the second part of the collection, whose superscription משׁלי שׁלמה can in no respect be strange to us, since the collection of proverbs here commencing, compared with Pro 1:7-9, may with special right bear the name Mishle. The 375 proverbs which are classed together in this part, chap. 10-22:16, without any comprehensive plan, but only according to their more or fewer conspicuous common characteristics (Bertheau, p. xii), consist all and every one of distichs; for each Masoretic verse falls naturally into two stichs, and nowhere (not even Pro 19:19) does such a distich proverb stand in necessary connection with one that precedes or that follows; each is in itself a small perfected and finished whole. The tristich Pro 19:7 is only an apparent exception. In reality it is a distich with the disfigured remains of a distich that has been lost. The lxx has here two distichs which are wanting in our text. The second is that which is found in our text, but only in a mutilated form: ὁ πολλὰ κακοποιῶν τελεσιουργεὶ κακίαν, [He that does much harm perfects mischief,] ὅς δέ ἐρεθίζει λόγους οὐ σωθήσεται. [And he that uses provoking words shall not escape.]

Perhaps the false rendering of מרע רבים ישׁלם־רע מרדף אמרים לא ימלט׃

The friend of every one is rewarded with evil,

He who pursues after rumours does not escape.

But not only are all these proverbs distichs, they have also, not indeed without exception, but in by far the greatest number, a common character in that they are antithetic. Distichs of predominating antithetic character stand here together. Along with these all other schemes are, it is true, represented: the synonymous, Pro 11:7, Pro 11:25, Pro 11:30; Pro 12:14, Pro 12:28; Pro 14:19, etc.; the integral, or of one thought, Pro 14:7; Pro 15:3, etc., particularly in proverbs with the comparative מן,  Pro 12:9; Pro 15:16-17; Pro 16:8, Pro 16:19; Pro 17:10; Pro 21:19; Pro 22:1, and with the ascending עף כּי־  much more, Pro 11:31; Pro 15:11; Pro 17:7; Pro 19:7, Pro 19:10; Pro 21:27; the synthetic, Pro 10:18; Pro 11:29; Pro 14:17; Pro 19:13; the parabolic, the most feebly represented, for the only specimens of it are Pro 10:26; Pro 11:22; besides which I know not what other Bertheau could quote. We shall further see that in another portion of the book the parabolic proverbs are just as closely placed together as are the antithetic. Here almost universally the two members of the proverbs stand together in technical parallelism as thesis and antithesis; also in the synonymous proverbs the two members are the parallel rays of one thought; in the synthetic two monostichs occur in loose external connection to suffice for the parallelism as a fundamental law of the technical proverb. But also in these proverbs in which a proper parallelism is not found, both members being needed to form a complete sentence, verse and members are so built up, according to Bertheau’s self-confirmatory opinion, that in regard to extent and the number of words they are like verses with parallel members.

To this long course of distichs which profess to be the Mishle of Solomon, there follows a course, Prov 22:17-24:22, of “words of the wise,” prefaced by the introduction Pro 22:17-21, which undeniably is of the same nature as the greater introduction, Pro 1:7-9, and of which we are reminded by the form of address preserved throughout in these “words of the wise.” These “words of the wise” comprehend all the forms of the Mashal, from those of two lines in Pro 22:28; Pro 23:9; Pro 24:7-10, to the Mashal song Pro 23:29-35. Between these limits are the tetrastichs, which are the most popular form, Pro 22:22., Pro 22:24., Pro 22:26., Pro 23:10., Pro 23:15., Pro 23:17., Pro 24:1., Pro 24:3., Pro 24:5., Pro 24:15., Pro 24:17., Pro 24:19., Pro 24:21. - pentastichs, Pro 23:4., Pro 24:13., and hexastichs, Pro 23:1-3, Pro 23:12-14, Pro 23:19-21, Pro 23:26-28; Pro 24:11.; - of tristichs, heptastichs, and octastichs are at least found one specimen of each, Pro 22:29; Pro 23:6-8, Pro 23:22-25. Bertheau maintains that there is a difference between the structure of these proverbs and that of the preceding, for he counts the number of the words which constitute a verse in the case of the latter and of the former; but such a proceeding is unwarrantable, for the remarkably long Masoretic verse Pro 24:12 contains eighteen words; and the poet is not to be made accountable for such an arrangement, for in his mind Pro 24:11. forms a hexastich, and indeed a very elegant one. Not the words of the Masoretic verse, but the stichs are to be counted. Reckoning according to the stichs, I can discover no difference between these proverbs and the preceding. In the preceding ones also the number of the words in the stichs extends from two to five, the number two being here, however, proportionally more frequently found (e.g., Pro 24:4, Pro 24:8, Pro 24:10); a circumstance which has its reason in this, that the symmetry of the members is often very much disturbed, there being frequently no trace whatever of parallelism. To the first appendix to the “Proverbs of Solomon” there follows a second, Pro 24:23., with the superscription, “These things also to the wise,” which contains a hexastich, Pro 24:23-25, a distich, Pro 24:26, a tristich, Pro 24:27, a tetrastich, Pro 24:28., and a Mashal ode, Pro 24:30., on the sluggard - the last in the form of an experience, of the poet like Psa 37:35. The moral which he has drawn from this recorded observation is expressed in two verses such as we have already found at Pro 6:10. These two appendices are, as is evident from their commencement as well as from their conclusion, in closest relation to the introduction, Pro 1:7-9.

There now follows in chap. 25-29 the second great collection of “Proverbs of Solomon,” “copied out,” as the superscription mentions, by the direction of King Hezekiah. It falls, apparently, into two parts; for as Pro 24:30., a Mashal hymn stands at the end of the two appendices, so that the Mashal hymn Pro 27:23. must be regarded as forming the division between the two halves of this collection. It is very sharply distinguished from the collection beginning with chap. 10. The extent of the stichs and the greater or less observance of the parallelism furnish no distinguishing mark, but there are others worthy of notice. In the first collection the proverbs are exclusively in the form of distichs; here we have also some tristichs, Pro 25:8, Pro 25:13, Pro 25:20; Pro 27:10, Pro 27:22; Pro 28:10, tetrastichs, Pro 25:4., Pro 25:9., Pro 25:21., Pro 26:18., Pro 26:24., Pro 27:15., and pentastichs, Pro 25:6., besides the Mashal hymn already referred to. The kind of arrangement is not essentially different from that in the first collection; it is equally devoid of plan, yet there are here some chains or strings of related proverbs, Pro 26:1-13 -16, 20-22. A second essential distinction between the two collections is this, that while in the first the antithetic proverb forms the prevailing element, here is it the parabolic, and especially the emblematic; in chap. 25-27 are sentences almost wholly of this character. We say almost, for to place together proverbs of this kind exclusively is not the plan of the collector. There are also proverbs of the other schemes, fewer synonymous, etc., than antithetic, and the collection begins in very varied quodlibet: Pro 25:2, an antithetic proverb; Pro 25:3, a priamel with three subjects; Pro 25:4., an emblematic tetrastich; Pro 25:6., a pentastich; Pro 25:8, a tristich; Pro 25:9., a tetrastich, with the negative פן;  Pro 25:11, an emblematic distich (“Golden apples in silver caskets - a word spoken in a fitting way”). The antithetic proverbs are found especially in chap. 28 and 29: the first and the last proverb of the whole collection, Pro 25:2; Pro 29:27, are antithetic; but between these two the comparative and the figurative proverbs are so prevalent, that this collection appears like a variegated picture-book with explanatory notes written underneath. In extent it is much smaller than the foregoing. I reckon 126 proverbs in 137 Masoretic verses.

The second collection of Solomon’s proverbs has also several appendices, the first of which, chap. 30, according to the inscription, is by an otherwise unknown author, Agur the son of Jakeh. The first poem of this appendix present in a thoughtful way the unsearchableness of God. This is followed by certain peculiar pieces, such as a tetrastich regarding the purity of God’s word, Pro 30:5.; a prayer for a moderate position between riches and poverty, Pro 30:7-9; a distich against slander, Pro 30:10; a priamel without the conclusion, Pro 30:11-14; the insatiable four (a Midda), Pro 30:15.; a tetrastich regarding the disobedient son, Pro 30:17, the incomprehensible four, Pro 30:18-20; the intolerable four, Pro 30:21-23; the diminutive but prudent four, Pro 30:24-28; the excellent four, Pro 30:29-31; a pentastich recommending prudent silence, Pro 30:32. Two other supplements form the conclusion of the whole book: the counsel of Lemuel’s mother to her royal son, Pro 31:2-9, and the praise of the virtuous woman in the form of an alphabetical acrostic, Pro 31:10.

After we have acquainted ourselves with the manifold forms of the technical proverbs and their distribution in the several parts of the collection, the question arises, What conclusions regarding the origin of these several parts may be drawn from these forms found in them? We connect with this the conception of Ewald, who sees represented in the several parts of the collection the chief points of the history of proverbial poetry. The “Proverbs of Solomon,” Prov 10:1-22:16, appear to him to be the oldest collection, which represents the simplest and the most ancient kind of proverbial poetry. Their distinguishing characteristics are the symmetrical two-membered verse, complete in itself, containing in itself a fully intelligible meaning, and the quick contrast of thesis and antithesis. The oldest form of the technical proverb, according to Ewald, is, according to our terminology, the antithetic distich, such as predominates in 10:1-22:16. Along with these antithetic distichs we find here also others of a different kind. Ewald so considers the contrast of the two members to be the original fundamental law of the technical proverb, that to him these other kinds of distichs represent the diminution of the inner force of the two-membered verse, the already begun decay of the art in its oldest limits and laws, and the transition to a new method. In the “Proverbs of Solomon,” chap. 25-29, of the later collection, that rigorous formation of the verse appears already in full relaxation and dissolution: the contrast of the sense of the members appears here only exceptionally; the art turns from the crowded fulness and strength of the representation more to the adorning of the thought by means of strong and striking figures and forms of expression, to elegant painting of certain moral conditions and forms of life; and the more the technical proverb is deprived of the breath of a vigorous poetic spirit, so much the nearer does it approach to the vulgar proverb; the full and complete symmetry of the two members disappears, less by the abridgment of one of them, than by the too great extension and amplification of the two-membered proverb into longer admonitions to a moral life, and descriptions relating thereto. So the proverbial poetry passes essentially into a different form and manner. “While it loses in regard to internal vigorous brevity and strength, it seeks to gain again by means of connected instructive exposition, by copious description and detailed representation; breaking up its boldly delineated, strong, and yet simply beautiful form, it rises to oratorical display, to attractive eloquence, in which, indeed, though the properly poetical and the artistic gradually disappears, yet the warmth and easy comprehension are increased.” In chap. 1-9, the introduction of the older collection, and Pro 22:17-24, of the first half of the supplement to the older collection (chap. 25-29 is the second half), supplied by a later writer, the great change is completed, the growth of which the later collection of the “Proverbs of Solomon,” particularly in chap. 25-29, reveals. The symmetry of the two members of the verse is here completely destroyed; the separate proverb appears almost only as an exception; the proverbial poetry has passed into admonition and discourse, and has become in many respects lighter, and more flexible, and flowing, and comprehensible. “It is true that on the side of this later form of proverbial poetry there is not mere loss. While it always loses the excellent pointed brevity, the inner fulness and strength of the old proverbs, it gains in warmth, impressiveness, intelligibility; the wisdom which at first strives only to make its existence and its contents in endless manifoldness known, reaches this point at last, that having become clear and certain, it now also turns itself earnestly and urgently to men.” In the later additions, chap. 30-31, appended altogether externally, the proverbial poetry has already disappeared, and given place to elegant descriptions of separate moral truths. While the creative passes into the background, the whole aim is now toward surprising expansion and new artistic representation.

This view of the progressive development of the course of proverbial poetry is one of the chief grounds for the determination of Ewald’s judgment regarding the parts that are Solomonic and those that are not Solomonic in the collection. In Prov 10:1-22:16 he does not regard the whole as Solomon’s, as immediately and in their present form composed by Solomon; but the breath of the Solomonic spirit enlivens and pervades all that has been added by other and later poets. But most of the proverbs of the later collection (chap. 25-29) are not much older than the time of Hezekiah; yet there are in it some that are Solomonic, and of the period next to Solomon. The collection stretches backward with its arms, in part indeed, as the superscription, the “Proverbs of Solomon,” shows, to the time of Solomon. On the other hand, in the introduction, chap. 1-9, and in the first half of the appendix (Pro 22:17-24), there is not found a single proverb of the time of Solomon; both portions belong to two poets of the seventh century b.c., a new era, in which the didactic poets added to the older Solomonic collection longer pieces of their own composition. The four small pieces, Pro 30:1-14, 15-33; Pro 31:1-10., are of a still later date; they cannot belong to an earlier period than the end of the seventh or the beginning of the sixth century b.c.

We recognise the penetration, the sensibility, the depth of thought indicated by this opinion of Ewald’s regarding the origin of the book; yet for the most part it is not supported by satisfactory proof. If we grant that he has on the whole rightly construed the history of proverbial poetry, nevertheless the conclusion that proverbs which bear in themselves the marks of the oldest proverbial poetry belong to the Solomonic era, and that the others belong to a period more nearly or more remotely subsequent to it, is very fallacious. In this case much that is found in Sirach’s Book of Proverbs must be Solomonic; and the משׁלי אסף of Isaac Satanow,Isaac Ha-Levi was born at Satanow (whence his name), in Russian Poland, 1732, died at Berlin 1802. Besides other works, he was the author of several collections of gnomes and apothegms in imitation of the Proverbs. Vid., Delitzsch Zur Gesch. der Jüd. Poesie, p. 115. the contemporary of Moses Mendelssohn, as well as many other proverbs in the collection מלין דרבנן, and in the poetical works of other Jewish poets belonging to the middle ages or to later times, might be dated back perhaps a thousand years. Along with the general course of development the individuality of the poet is also to be taken into account; an ancient poet can, along with the formally completed, produce the imperfect, which appears to belong to a period of art that has degenerated, and a modern poet can emulate antiquity with the greatest accuracy. But Ewald’s construction of the progress of the development of proverbial poetry is also in part arbitrary. That the two-membered verse is the oldest form of the technical proverb we shall not dispute, but that it is the two-membered antithetic verse is a supposition that cannot be proved; and that Solomon wrote only antithetic distichs is an absurd assertion, to which Keil justly replies, that the adhering to only one form and structure is a sign of poverty, of mental narrowness and one-sidedness. There are also other kinds of parallelism, which are not less beautiful and vigorous than the antithetic, and also other forms of proverbs besides the distich in which the thought, which can in no way be restrained within two lines, must necessarily divide itself into the branches of a greater number of lines. Thus I must agree with Keil in the opinion, that Ewald’s assertion that in the Hezekiah-collection the strong form of the technical proverb is in full dissolution, contains an exaggeration. If the first collection, Prov 10:1-22:16, contains only two (Pro 10:26; Pro 11:22) figurative proverbs, while it would be altogether foolish to deny that these two, because they were figurative proverbs, were Solomonic, or to affirm that he was the author of only these two, so it is self-evident that the Hezekiah-collection, which is principally a collection of figurative proverbs, must contain many proverbs in which a different kind of parallelism prevails, which has the appearance of a looser connection. Is it not probable that Solomon, who had an open penetrating eye for the greatest and the smallest objects of nature, composed many such proverbs? And is e.g., the proverb Pro 26:23,

Dross of silver spread over a potsherd -

Burning lips and a wicked heart, less beautiful, and vigorous, and worthy of Solomon than any antithetic distich? If Ewald imagines that the 3000 proverbs which Solomon wrote were all constructed according to this one model, we are much rather convinced that Solomon’s proverbial poetry, which found the distich and the tetrastich as forms of proverbs already in use, would not only unfold within the limits of the distich the most varied manifoldness of thought and form, but would also within the limits of the Mashal generally, run through the whole scale from the distich up to octastichs and more extensive forms. But while we cannot accept Ewald’s criteria which he applies to the two collections, Prov 10:1-22:16 and chap 25-29, yet his delineation of the form and kind of proverbial poetry occurring in chap. 1-9, Pro 22:17., is excellent, as is also his conclusion, that these portions belong to a new and more recent period of proverbial poetry. Since in Pro 22:17-21 manifestly a new course of “Words of the Wise” by a poet later than Solomon is introduced, it is possible, yea, not improbable, that he, or, as Ewald thinks, another somewhat older poet, introduces in 1:7-9:18 the “Proverbs of Solomon” following from Pro 10:1 onward.

But if Solomon composed not only distichs, but also tristichs, etc., it is strange that in the first collection, chap. 10-22:16, there are exclusively distichs; and if he constructed not only contrasted proverbs, but equally figurative proverbs, it is as strange that in the first collection the figurative proverbs are almost entirely wanting, while in the second collection, chap. 25-29, on the contrary, they prevail. This remarkable phenomenon may be partly explained if we could suppose that not merely the second collection but both of them, were arranged by the “men of Hezekiah,” and that the whole collection of the Solomonic proverbs was divided by them into two collections according to their form. But leaving out of view other objections, one would in that case have expected in the first collection the proportionally great number of the antithetic distichs which stand in the second. If we regard both collections as originally one whole, then there can be no rational ground for its being divided in this particular way either by the original collector or by a later enlarger of the collection. We have therefore to regard the two portions as the work of two different authors. The second is by the “men of Hezekiah;” the first cannot be by Solomon himself, since the number of proverbs composed, and probably also written out by Solomon, amounted to 3000; besides, if Solomon was the author of the collection, there would be visible on it the stamp of his wisdom in its plan and order: it is thus the work of another author, who is certainly different from the author of the introductory Mashal poems, Prov 1:7-9:18. For if the author of the title of the book were not at the same time the author of the introduction, he must have taken it from some other place; thus it is inconceivable how he could give the title “Proverbs of Solomon,” etc., Pro 1:1-6, to poems which were not composed by Solomon. If 1:7-9:18 is not by Solomon, then these Mashal poems are explicable only as the work of the author of the title of the book, and as an introduction to the “Proverbs of Solomon,” beginning Pro 10:1. It must be one and the same author who edited the “Proverbs of Solomon” 10:1-22:16, prefixed 1:7-9:18 as an introduction to them, and appended to them the “Words of the Wise,” 22:17-24:22; the second collector then appended to this book a supplement of the “Words of the Wise,” Pro 24:23., and then the Hezekiah-collection of Solomonic proverbs, chap. 25-29; perhaps also, in order that the book might be brought to a close in the same form in which it was commenced, he addedZöckler takes Pro 24:23. as a second appendix to the first principal collection. This is justifiable, but the second superscription rather suggests two collectors. the non-Solomonic proverbial poem chap. 30 f. We do not, however, maintain that the book has this origin, but only this, that on the supposition of the non-Solomonic origin of 1:7-9:18 it cannot well have any other origin. But the question arises again, and more emphatically, How was it possible that the first collector left as gleanings to the second so great a number of distichs, almost all parabolical, and besides, all more than two-lined proverbs of Solomon? One can scarcely find the reason of this singular phenomenon in anything else than in the judgment of the author of the first collection as the determining motive of his selection. For when we think also on the sources and origin of the two collections, the second always presupposes the first, and that which is singular in the author’s thus restricting himself can only have its ground in the freedom which he allowed to his subjectivity.

Before we more closely examine the style and the teaching of the book, and the conclusions thence arising, another phenomenon claims our attention, which perhaps throws light on the way in which the several collections originated; but, at all events, it may not now any longer remain out of view, when we are in the act of forming a judgment on this point. 3. The Repetitions in the Book of Proverbs

We find not only in the different parts of the collection, but also within the limits of one and the same part, proverbs which wholly or in part are repeated in the same or in similar words. Before we can come to a judgment, we must take cognizance as closely as possible of this fact. We begin with “The Proverbs of Solomon,” chap. 10-22:16; for this collection is in relation to chap. 25-29 certainly the earlier, and it is especially with respect to the Solomonic proverbs that this fact demands an explanation. In this earlier collection we find, (1) whole proverbs repeated in exactly the same words: Pro 14:12 = Pro 16:25; - (2) proverbs slightly changed in their form of expression: Pro 10:1 = Pro 15:20; Pro 14:20 = Pro 19:4; Pro 16:2 = Pro 21:2; Pro 19:5 = Pro 19:9; Pro 20:10 = Pro 20:23; Pro 21:9 = Pro 21:19 - (3) proverbs almost identical in form, but somewhat different in sense: Pro 10:2 = Pro 11:4; Pro 13:14 = Pro 14:27 - (4) proverbs the first lines of which are the same: Pro 10:15 = Pro 18:11 - (5) proverbs with their second lines the same: Pro 10:6 = Pro 10:11; Pro 10:8 = Pro 10:10; Pro 15:33 = Pro 18:12 - (6) proverbs with one line almost the same: Pro 11:13 = Pro 20:19; Pro 11:21 = Pro 16:5; Pro 12:14 = Pro 13:2; Pro 14:31 = Pro 17:5; Pro 16:18 = Pro 18:12; Pro 19:12 = Pro 20:2; comp. also Pro 16:28 with Pro 17:9; Pro 19:25 with Pro 21:11. In comparing these proverbs, one will perceive that for the most part the external or internal resemblance of the surrounding has prompted the collector to place the one proverb in this place and the other in that place (not always indeed; for what reason e.g., could determine the position of Pro 16:25 and Pro 19:5, Pro 19:9, I cannot say); then that the proverb standing earlier is generally, to all appearance, also the earlier formed, for the second of the pair is mostly a synonymous distich, which generally further extends antithetically one line of the first: cf. Pro 18:11 with Pro 10:15; Pro 20:10, Pro 20:23 with Pro 11:1; Pro 20:19 with Pro 11:13; Pro 16:5 with Pro 11:21; Pro 20:2 with Pro 19:12, also Pro 17:5 with Pro 14:31, where from an antithetic proverb a synthetic one is formed; but here also there are exceptions, as Pro 13:2 compared with Pro 12:14, and Pro 15:33 with Pro 18:12, where the same line is in the first case connected with a synonymous, and in the second with an antithetic proverb; but here also the contrast is so loose, that the earlier-occurring proverb has the appearance of priority.

We now direct our attention to the second collection, chap. 25-29. When we compare the proverbs found here with one another, we see among them a disproportionately smaller number of repetitions than in the other collection; only a single entire proverb is repeated in almost similar terms, but in an altered sense, Pro 29:20 = Pro 26:12; but proverbs such as Pro 28:12, Pro 28:28; Pro 29:2, notwithstanding the partial resemblance, are equally original. On the other hand, in this second collection we find numerous repetitions of proverbs and portions of proverbs from the first: - (1) Whole proverbs perfectly identical (leaving out of view insignificant variations): Pro 25:24 = Pro 21:9; Pro 26:22 = Pro 18:8; Pro 27:12 = Pro 22:3; Pro 27:13 = Pro 20:16 - (2) proverbs identical in meaning with somewhat changed expression: Pro 26:13 = Pro 22:13; Pro 26:15 = Pro 19:24; Pro 28:6 = Pro 19:1; Pro 28:19 = Pro 12:11; Pro 29:13 = Pro 22:2 - (3) proverbs with one line the same and one line different: Pro 27:21 = Pro 17:3; Pro 29:22 = Pro 15:18; cf. also Pro 27:15 with Pro 19:13. when we compare these proverbs with one another, we are uncertain as to many of them which has the priority, as e.g., Pro 27:21 = Pro 17:3; Pro 29:22 = Pro 15:18; but in the case of others there is no doubt that the Hezekiah-collection contains the original form of the proverb which is found in the other collection, as Pro 26:13; Pro 28:6, Pro 28:19; Pro 29:13; Pro 27:15, in relation to their parallels. In the other portions of this book also we find such repetitions as are met with in these two collections of Solomonic proverbs. In Prov 1:7-9:18 we have Pro 2:16, a little changed, repeated in Pro 7:5, and Pro 3:15 in Pro 8:11; Pro 9:10 = Pro 1:7 is a case not worthy of being mentioned, and it were inappropriate here to refer to Pro 9:4, Pro 9:16. In the first appendix of “the Words of the Wise,” 22:17 - 24:22, single lines often repeat themselves in another connection; cf. Pro 23:3 and Pro 23:6, Pro 23:10 and Pro 22:28; Pro 23:17. and Pro 24:13., Pro 22:23 and Pro 23:11, Pro 23:17 and Pro 24:1. That in such cases the one proverb is often the pattern of the other, is placed beyond a doubt by the relation of Pro 24:19 to Psa 37:1; cf. also Pro 24:20 with Psa 37:38. If here there are proverbs like those of Solomon in their expression, the presumption is that the priority belongs to the latter, as Pro 23:27 cf. Pro 22:14; Pro 24:5. cf. Pro 11:14; Pro 24:19. cf. Pro 13:9, in which latter case the justice of the presumption is palpable. Within the second appendix of “the Words of the Wise,” Pro 24:23., no repetitions are to be expected on account of its shortness; yet is Pro 24:23 repeated from the Solomonic Mashal Pro 28:21, and as Pro 24:33. are literally the same as Pro 6:10., the priority is presumably on the side of the author of 1:7-9:18, at least of the Mashal in the form in which he communicates it. The supplements chap. 30 and 31 afford nothing that is worth mention as bearing on our present inquiry,Quite the same phenomenon, Fleischer remarks, presents itself in the different collections of proverbs ascribed to the Caliph Ali, where frequently one and the same thought in one collection is repeated in manifold forms in a second, here in a shorter, there in a longer form. As a general principle this is to be borne in mind, that the East transmits unchanged, with scrupulous exactness, only religious writings regarded as holy and divine, and therefore these Proverbs have been transmitted unchanged only since they became a distinct part of the canon; before that time it happened to them, as to all in the East that is exposed to the arbitrariness of the changing spirit and the intercourse of life, that one and the same original text has been modified by one speaker and writer after another. Thus of the famous poetical works of the East, such e.g., as Firdusi’s Schah-Nahem (Book of the Kings) and Sadi’s Garden of Roses, not one MS copy agrees with another. and we may therefore now turn to the question, What insight into the origin of these proverbs and their collection do the observations made afford? From the numerous repetitions of proverbs and portions of proverbs of the first collection of the “Proverbs of Solomon” in the Hezekiah-collection, as well as from another reason stated at the end of the foregoing section of our inquiry, we conclude that the two collections were by different authors; in other words, that they had not both “the men of Hezekiah” for their authors. It is true that the repetitions in themselves do not prove anything against the oneness of their authorship for there are within the several collections, and even within chap. 1-9 (cf. Pro 6:20 with Pro 1:8; Pro 8:10. with Pro 3:14.), repetitions, notwithstanding the oneness of their authorship. But if two collections of proverbs are in so many various ways different in their character, as 10:1-22:16 and chap. 25-29, then the previous probability rises almost to a certainty by such repetitions. From the form, for the most part anomalous, in which the Hezekiah-collection presents the proverbs and portions of proverbs which are found also in the first collection, and from their being otherwise independent, we further conclude that “the men of Hezekiah” did not borrow from the first collection, but formed it from other sources. But since one does not understand why “the men of Hezekiah” should have omitted so great a number of genuine Solomonic proverbs which remain, after deducting the proportionally few that have been repeated (for this omission is not to be explained by saying that they selected those that were appropriate and wholesome for their time), we are further justified in the conclusion that the other collection was known to them as one current in their time. Their object was, indeed, not to supplement this older collection; they rather regarded their undertaking as a similar people’s book, which they wished to place side by side with that collection without making it superfluous. The difference of the selection in the two collections has its whole directing occasion in the difference of the intention. The first collection begins (Pro 10:1) with the proverb -

A wise son maketh glad his father,

And a foolish son is the grief of his mother; the second (Pro 25:2) with the proverb -

It is the glory of God to conceal a thing,

And the glory of kings to search out a matter.

The one collection is a book for youth, to whom it is dedicated in the extended introduction, Prov 1:7-9:18; the second is a people’s book suited to the time of Hezekiah (“Solomon’s Wisdom in Hezekiah’s days,” as Stier has named it), and therefore it takes its start not, like the first, from the duties of the child, but from those of the king. If in the two collections everything does not stand in conscious relation to these different objects, yet the collectors at least have, from the commencement to the close (cf. Pro 22:15 with Pro 29:26), these objects before their eyes.

As to the time at which the first collection was made, the above considerations also afford us some materials for forming a judgment. Several pairs of proverbs which it contains present to us essentially the same sayings in older and more recent forms. Keil regards the proverbs also that appear less original as old-Solomonic, and remarks that one and the same poet does not always give expression to the same thoughts with the same pregnant brevity and excellence, and affirms that changes and reproductions of separate proverbs may proceed even from Solomon himself. This is possible; but if we consider that even Davidic psalms have been imitated, and that in the “Words of the Wise” Solomonic proverbs are imitated - moreover, that proverbs especially are subject to changes, and invite to imitation and transformation - we shall find it to be improbable. Rather we would suppose, that between the publication of the 3000 proverbs of Solomon and the preparation of the collection chap. 10-22:16 a considerable time elapsed, during which the old-Solomonic Mashal had in the mouths of the people and of poets acquired a multitude of accretions, and that the collector had without hesitation gathered together such indirect Solomonic proverbs with those that were directly Solomonic. But did not then the 3000 Solomonic proverbs afford to him scope enough? We must answer this question in the negative; for if that vast number of Solomonic proverbs was equal in moral-religious worth to those that have been preserved to us, then neither the many repetitions within the first collection nor the proportional poverty of the second can be explained. The “men of Hezekiah” made their collection of Solomonic proverbs nearly 300 years after Solomon’s time; but there is no reason to suppose that the old book of the Proverbs of Solomon had disappeared at that time. Much rather we may with probability conclude, from the subjects to which several proverbs of these collections extend (husbandry, war, court life, etc.), and from Solomon’s love for the manifold forms of natural and of social life, that his 3000 proverbs would not have afforded much greater treasures than these before us. But if the first collection was made at a time in which the old-Solomonic proverbs had been already considerably multiplied by new combinations, accretions, and imitations, then probably a more suitable time for their origination could not be than that of Jehoshaphat, which was more related to the time of Solomon than to that of David. The personality of Jehoshaphat, inclined toward the promotion of the public worship of God, the edification of the people, the administration of justice; the dominion of the house of David recognised and venerated far and wide among neighbouring peoples; the tendencies of that time towards intercourse with distant regions; the deep peace which followed the subjugation of the confederated nations - all these are features which stamped the time of Jehoshaphat as a copy of that of Solomon. Hence we are to expect in it the fostering care of the Chokma. If the author of the introduction and editor of the older book of Proverbs lived after Solomon and before Hezekiah, then the circumstances of the case most suitably determine his time as at the beginning of the reign of Jehoshaphat, some seventy years after Solomon’s death. If in chap. 1-9 it is frequently said that wisdom was seen openly in the streets and ways, this agrees with 2Ch 17:7-9, where it is said that princes, priests, and Levites, sent out by Jehoshaphat (compare the Carolingian missi), went forth into the towns of Judah with the book of the law in their hands as teachers of the people, and with 2Ch 19:4, where it is stated that Jehoshaphat himself “went out through the people from Beer-sheba to Mount Ephraim, and brought them back unto the Lord God of their fathers.” We have an evidence of the fondness for allegorical forms of address at that time in 2Ki 14:8-11 (2Ch 25:17-21), which is so far favourable to the idea that the allegorizing author of chap. 1-9 belonged to that epoch of history.

This also agrees with the time of Jehoshaphat, that in the first collection the kingdom appears in its bright side, adorned with righteousness (Pro 14:35; Pro 16:10, Pro 16:12-13; Pro 20:8), wisdom (Pro 20:26), grace and truth (Pro 20:28), love to the good (Pro 22:11), divine guidance (Pro 21:1), and in the height of power (Pro 16:14-15; Pro 19:12); while in the second collection, which immediately begins with a series of the king’s sayings, the kingdom is seen almost only (with exception of Pro 29:14) on its dark side, and is represented under the destructive dominion of tyranny (Pro 28:15-16; Pro 29:2), of oppressive taxation (Pro 29:4), of the Camarilla (Pro 25:5; Pro 29:12), and of multiplied authorities (Pro 28:2). Elster is right when he remarks, that in chap. 10-22:16 the kingdom in its actual state corresponds to its ideal, and the warning against the abuse of royal power lies remote. If these proverbs more distinguishably than those in chap. 25-29 bear the physiognomy of the time of David and Solomon, so, on the other hand, the time of Jehoshaphat, the son and successor of Asa, is favourable to their collection; while in the time of Hezekiah, the son and successor of Ahaz, and father and predecessor of Manasseh, in which, through the sin of Ahaz, negotiations with the world-kingdom began, that cloudy aspect of the kingdom which is borne by the second supplement, Pro 24:23-25, was brought near.

Thus between Solomon and Hezekiah, and probably under Jehoshaphat, the older Book of Proverbs contained in chap. 1-24:22 first appeared. The “Proverbs of Solomon,” Prov 10:1-22:16, which formed the principal part, the very kernel of it, were enclosed on the one side, at their commencement, by the lengthened introduction 1:7-9:18, in which the collector announces himself as a highly gifted teacher and as the instrument of the Spirit of revelation, and on the other side are shut in at their close by “the Words of the Wise,” 22:17-24:34. The author, indeed, does not announce Pro 1:6 such a supplement of “the Words of the Wise;” but after these words in the title of the book, he leads us to expect it. The introduction to the supplement Pro 22:17-21 sounds like an echo of the larger introduction, and corresponds to the smaller compass of the supplement. The work bears on the whole the stamp of a unity; for even in the last proverb with which it closes (Pro 24:21., “My son, fear thou Jahve and the king,” etc.), there still sounds the same key-note which the author had struck at the commencement. A later collector, belonging to the time subsequent to Hezekiah, enlarged the work by the addition of the Hezekiah-portion, and by a short supplement of “the Words of the Wise,” which he introduces, according to the law of analogy, after 22:17-24:22. The harmony of the superscriptions Pro 24:23; Pro 25:1, favours at least the supposition that these supplements are the work of one hand. The circumstance that “the Words of the Wise,” 22:17-24:22, in two of their maxims refer to the older collection of Solomonic proverbs, but, on the contrary, that “the Words of the Wise,” Pro 24:23., refer in Pro 24:23 to the Hezekiah-collection, and in Pro 24:33. to the introduction 1:7-9:18, strengthens the supposition that with Pro 24:23 a second half of the book, added by another hand, begins. There is no reason for not attributing the appendix chap. 30-31 to this second collector; perhaps he seeks, as already remarked above, to render by means of it the conclusion of the extended Book of Proverbs uniform with that of the older book. Like the older collection of “Proverbs of Solomon,” so also now the Hezekiah-collection has “Proverbs of the Wise” on the right and on the left, and the king of proverbial poetry stands in the midst of a worthy retinue. The second collector distinguishes himself from the first by this, that he never professes himself to be a proverbial poet. It is possible that the proverbial poem of the “virtuous woman,” Pro 31:10., may be his work, but there is nothing to substantiate this opinion.

After this digression, into which we have been led by the repetitions found in the book, we now return, conformably to our plan, to examine it from the point of view of the forms of its language and of its doctrinal contents, and to inquire whether the results hitherto attained are confirmed, and perhaps more fully determined, by this further investigation. 4. The Book of the Proverbs on the Side of Its Manifoldness of Style and Form of Instruction

We commence our inquiry with the relation in which chap. 10-22:16 and chap. 25-29 stand to each other with reference to their forms of language. If the primary stock of both of these sections belongs indeed to the old time of Solomon, then they must bear essentially the same verbal stamp upon them. Here we of course keep out of view the proverbs that are wholly or partially identical. If the expression חדרי־בטן (the chambers of the body) is in the first collection a favourite figure (Pro 18:8; Pro 20:27, Pro 20:30), coined perhaps by Solomon himself, the fact that this figure is also found in Pro 26:22 is not to be taken into account, since in Pro 26:22 the proverb Pro 18:8 is repeated. Now it cannot at all be denied, that in the first collection certain expressions are met with which one might expect to meet again in the Hezekiah-collection, and which, notwithstanding, are not to be found in it. Ewald gives a list of such expressions, in order to show that the old-Solomonic dialect occurs, with few exceptions, only in the first collection. But his catalogue, when closely inspected, is unsatisfactory. That many of these expressions occur also in the introduction Prov 1-9 proves, it is true, nothing against him. But מרפּא (health), Pro 12:18; Pro 13:17; Pro 14:30; Pro 15:4; Pro 16:24, occurs also in Pro 29:1; רדּף (he pursueth), Pro 11:19; Pro 12:11; Pro 15:9; Pro 19:7, also in Pro 28:19; נרגּן (a tattler), Pro 16:28; Pro 18:8, also in Pro 26:20, Pro 26:22; לא ינּקה (not go unpunished), Pro 11:21; Pro 16:5; Pro 17:5, also in Pro 28:20. These expressions thus supply an argument for, not against, the linguistic oneness of the two collections. The list of expressions common to the two collections might be considerably increased, e.g.: נפרע (are unruly), Pro 29:18, Kal Pro 13:18; Pro 15:32; אץ (he that hastens), Pro 19:2; Pro 21:5; Pro 28:20; Pro 29:19; מדונים (of contentions), Pro 21:9 (Pro 25:24), Pro 21:19; Pro 23:29; Pro 26:21; Pro 27:25. If it may be regarded as a striking fact that the figures of speech מקור חיּים (a fountain of life), Pro 10:11; Pro 13:14; Pro 14:27; Pro 17:22, and עץ חיּים (a tree of life), Pro 11:30; Pro 13:12; Pro 15:4, as also the expressions מחתּה (destruction), Pro 10:14-15; Pro 13:3; Pro 14:28; Pro 18:7; Pro 10:29; Pro 21:15, יפיח (he uttereth), Pro 12:17; Pro 14:5, Pro 14:25; Pro 19:5, Pro 19:9; סלּף (perverteth), Pro 13:6; Pro 19:3; Pro 21:12; Pro 22:12, and סלף (perverseness), Pro 11:3; Pro 15:4, are only to be found in the first collection, and not in that by the “men of Hezekiah,” it is not a decisive evidence against the oneness of the origin of the proverbs in both collections. The fact also, properly brought forward by Ewald, that proverbs which begin with ישׁ (there is) - e.g., Pro 11:24, “There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth still,” - are exclusively found in the first collection, need not perplex us; it is one peculiar kind of proverbs which the author of this collection has by preference gathered together, as he has also omitted all parabolic proverbs except these two, Pro 10:26; Pro 11:22. If proverbs beginning with ישׁ are found only in the first, so on the other hand the parabolic Vav and the proverbial perfect, reporting as it were an experience (cf. in the second collection, besides Pro 26:13; Pro 27:12; Pro 29:13, also Pro 28:1; Pro 29:9), for which DöderleinReden u. Aufsätze, ii. 316. has invented the expression aoristus gnomicus,A similar thing is found among German proverbs, e.g.: Wer nicht mitsass, auch nicht mitass (Whoso sat not, ate not). are common to both sentences. Another remark of Ewald’s (Jahrb. xi. 28), that extended proverbs with אישׁ are exclusively found in the Hezekiah-collection (Pro 29:9, Pro 29:3; Pro 25:18, Pro 25:28), is not fully established; in Pro 16:27-29 three proverbs with אישׁ are found together, and in Pro 20:6 as well as in Pro 29:9 אישׁ occurs twice in one proverb. Rather it strikes us that the article, not merely the punctatorially syncopated, but that expressed by ה, occurs only twice in the first collection, in Pro 20:1; Pro 21:31; oftener in the second, Pro 26:14, Pro 26:18; Pro 27:19-20, Pro 27:22. Since, however, the first does not wholly omit the article, this also cannot determine us to reject the linguistic unity of the second collection with the first, at least according to their primary stock.

But also what of the linguistic unity of Prov 1-9 with both of these, maintained by Keil? It is true, and merits all consideration, that a unity of language and of conception between chap. 1-9 and chap. 10-22:16 which far exceeds the degree of unity between chap. 10-22:16 and chap. 25-29 may be proved. The introduction is bound with the first collection in the closest manner by the same use of such expressions as אגר (gathereth), Pro 6:8; Pro 10:5; אישׁון (the middle, i.e., of the night, deep darkness), Pro 7:9; Pro 20:20; אחרית (the end), Pro 5:4; Pro 23:18; Pro 24:14; אכזרי (fierce), Pro 5:9; Pro 17:11; בּינה (understanding), Pro 1:2; Pro 16:16; תּבוּנה (understanding), Pro 2:6; Pro 3:19; Pro 21:30; זרה (an adulteress), Pro 5:3; Pro 22:14; Pro 23:33; חסר לב (lacking understanding), Pro 6:32; Pro 7:7; Pro 12:11; יוסף לקח (will increase learning), Pro 1:5; Pro 9:9; Pro 16:21, Pro 16:23; יפיח (uttereth), Pro 6:19; Pro 14:5; Pro 19:5, Pro 19:9; נלוז (perverted), Pro 3:32; Pro 14:2; מדנים (contention), Pro 6:14, Pro 6:19; Pro 10:12; מרפּא (health), Pro 4:22; Pro 12:18; Pro 13:17; Pro 16:24 (deliverance, Pro 29:1); נסּח (are plucked up), Pro 2:22; Pro 15:25; ינּקה לא (shall not be unpunished), Pro 6:29; Pro 11:21; Pro 16:5; העז (strengthened, i.e., the face), Pro 7:13; Pro 21:29; עץ חיּים (tree of life), Pro 3:18; Pro 11:30; Pro 13:12; Pro 15:4; ערב (becometh surety) and תּקע (striketh hands) occurring together, Pro 6:1; Pro 17:18; Pro 22:26; פּתים and פּתאים (simplicity, folly), Pro 1:22, Pro 1:32; Pro 8:5; Pro 9:6; Pro 23:3; קרץ (to wink with the eyes), Pro 6:13; Pro 10:10; קרת (a city), Pro 8:3; Pro 9:3, Pro 9:14; Pro 11:11; ראשׁית (the beginning), Pro 1:7; Pro 17:14; שׂכל טוב (good understanding), Pro 3:4; Pro 13:15; ישׁכּנוּ־ארץ (shall dwell in the land), Pro 2:21; Pro 10:30; שׁלּח מדון (sendeth forth strife), Pro 6:14; Pro 16:28; תּהפּכות (evil words), Pro 2:12; Pro 6:14; Pro 10:31; Pro 16:28; תּורה (instruction), Pro 1:8; Pro 3:1; Pro 4:2; Pro 7:2; Pro 13:14; תּוּשׁיּה (counsel), Pro 3:21; Pro 8:14; Pro 18:1; תּחבּוּלות (prudent measures), Pro 1:5; Pro 20:18; Pro 24:6; - and these are not the only points of contact between the two portions which an attentive reader will meet with. This relation of Prov 1-9 to chap. 10-22:16 is a strong proof of the internal unity of that portion, which Bertheau has called in question. But are we therefore to conclude, with Keil, that the introduction is not less of the old time of Solomon than chap. 10-22:16? Such a conclusion lies near, but we do not yet reach it. For with these points of contact there are not a few expressions exclusively peculiar to the introduction; - the expressions מזמּה sing. (counsel), Pro 1:4; Pro 3:21; ערמה (prudence), Pro 1:4; Pro 8:5, Pro 8:12; מליצה (an enigma, obscure maxim), Pro 1:6; מעגּל (a path of life), Pro 2:9; Pro 4:11, Pro 4:26; מעגּלה, Pro 2:15, Pro 2:18; Pro 5:6, Pro 5:21; אישׁון (the apple of the eye), Pro 7:2, Pro 7:9; גּרגּות (the throat), Pro 1:9; Pro 3:3, Pro 3:22; the verbs אתה (cometh), Pro 1:27, פּלּס (make level or plain), Pro 4:26; Pro 5:6, Pro 5:21, and שׂטה (deviate), Pro 4:15; Pro 7:25. Peculiar to this section is the heaping together of synonyms in close connection, as “congregation” and “assembly,” Pro 5:14, “lovely hind” and “pleasant roe,” Pro 5:19; cf. Pro 5:11; Pro 6:7; Pro 7:9; Pro 8:13, Pro 8:31. This usage is, however, only a feature in the characteristic style of this section altogether different from that of 10:1-22:16, as well as from that of chap. 25-29, of its disjointed diffuse form, delighting in repetitions, abounding in synonymous parallelism, even to a repetition of the same words (cf. e.g., Pro 6:2), which, since the linguistic and the poetic forms are here inseparable, we have already spoken of in the second part of our introductory dissertation. This fundamental diversity in the whole condition of the section, notwithstanding those numerous points of resemblance, demands for chap. 1-9 an altogether different author from Solomon, and one who is more recent. If we hold by this view, then these points of resemblance between the sections find the most satisfactory explanation. The gifted author of the introduction (Prov 1-9) has formed his style, without being an altogether slavish imitator, on the Solomonic proverbs. And why, then, are his parallels confined almost exclusively to the section 10:1-22:16, and do not extend to chap. 25-29? Because he edited the former and not the latter, and took pleasure particularly in the proverbs which he placed together, 10:1-22:16. Not only are expressions of this section, formed by himself, echoed in his poetry, but the latter are for the most part formed out of germs supplied by the former. One may regard Pro 19:27, cf. Pro 27:11, as the germ of the admonitory addresses to the son, and Pro 14:1 as the occasion of the allegory of the wise and the foolish woman, chap. 9. Generally, the poetry of this writer has its hidden roots in the older writings. Who does not hear, to mention only one thing, in Prov 1:7-9:18 an echo of the old שׁמע (hear), Deu 6:4-9, cf. Pro 11:18-21? The whole poetry of this writer savours of the Book of Deuteronomy. The admonitory addresses Deut 1:7-9:18 are to the Book of Proverbs what Deuteronomy is to the Pentateuch. As Deuteronomy seeks to bring home and seal upon the heart of the people the תּורה of the Mosaic law, so do they the תּורה of the Solomonic proverbs.

We now further inquire whether, in the style of the two supplements, Prov 22:27-24:22 and Pro 24:23., it is proved that the former concludes the Book of Proverbs edited by the author of the general introduction, and that the latter was added by a different author at the same time with the Hezekiah-collection. Bertheau placed both supplements together, and attributes the introduction to them, Pro 22:17-21, to the author of the general introduction, Pro 1:7-9. From the fact that in Pro 22:19 of this lesser introduction (“I have taught thee, אף־אתּה, even thee”) the pronoun is as emphatically repeated as in Pro 23:15 (לבּי גם־אני, cf. Pro 23:14, Pro 23:19), and that נעים (sweet), Pro 22:18, also occurs in the following proverbs, Pro 23:8; Pro 24:4, I see no ground for denying it to the author of the larger general introduction, since, according to Bertheau’s own just observation, the linguistic form of the whole collection of proverbs has an influence on the introduction of the collector; with more justice from שׁלישׁים, Pro 22:20 [only in Keri], as the title of honour given to the collection of proverbs, compared with נגידים, Pro 8:6, may we argue for the identity of the authorship of both introductions. As little can the contemporaneousness of the two supplements be shown from the use of the pronoun, Pro 24:32, the שׁית לב (animum advertere, Pro 24:32), and ינעם (shall be delight) Pro 24:25, for these verbal points of contact, if they proved anything, would prove too much: not only the contemporaneousness of the two supplements, but also the identity of their authorship; but in this case one does not see what the superscription גּם־אלּה לחכמים (these also of the wise men), separating them, means. Moreover, Pro 24:33. are from Pro 6:10., and nearer than the comparison of the first supplement lies the comparison of ינעם with Pro 2:10; Pro 9:17, אדם חסר לב (a man lacking understanding) with Pro 17:18, יזעמוּהוּ with Pro 22:14 - points of contact which, if an explanatory reason is needed, may be accounted for from the circumstance that to the author or authors of the proverbs Pro 24:23. the Book of Prov 1:1-24:22 may have been perfectly familiar. From imitation also the points of contact of Prov 22:17-24:22 may easily be explained; for not merely the lesser introduction, the proverbs themselves also in part strikingly agree with the prevailing language of 1-9: cf. אשּׁר בּדּרך (go straight forward in the way), Pro 23:19, with Pro 4:14; חכמות (wisdom), Pro 24:7, with Pro 1:20; Pro 9:1; and several others. But if, according to Pro 1:7, we conceive of the older Book of Proverbs as accompanied with, rather than as without דּברי חכמים (words of wise men), then from the similarity of the two superscriptions Pro 24:23; Pro 25:1, it is probable that the more recent half of the canonical book begins with Pro 24:23, and we cannot therefore determine to regard Pro 24:23. also as a component part of the older Book of Proverbs; particularly since Pro 24:23 is like Pro 28:21, and the author of the introduction can scarcely have twice taken into his book the two Pro 24:33., which moreover seem to stand in their original connection at Pro 6:10.

The supplements to the Hezekiah-collection, chap. 30f., are of so peculiar a form, that it will occur to no one (leaving out of view such expressions as דּעת קדשׁים, knowledge of the Holy, Pro 30:3, cf. Pro 9:10) to ascribe them to one of the authors of the preceding proverbs. We content ourselves here with a reference to Mühlau’s work, De Proverbiorum quae dicuntur Aguri et Lemuelis origine atque indole, 1869, where the Aramaic-Arabic colouring of this in all probability foreign section is closely investigated.

Having thus abundantly proved that the two groups of proverbs bearing the inscription משׁלי שׁלמה are, as to their primary stock, truly old-Solomonic, though not without an admixture of imitations; that, on the contrary, the introduction, Prov 1:7-9:18, as well as the דברי חכמים, Pro 22:17-24 and 30f., are not at all old-Solomonic, but belong to the editor of the older Book of Proverbs, which reaches down to Pro 24:22, so that thus the present book of the poetry of Solomon contains united with it the poems of the older editor, and besides of other poets, partly unknown Israelites, and partly two foreigners particularly named, Agur and Lemuel; we now turn our attention to the Doctrinal Contents of the work, and ask whether a manifoldness in the type of instruction is noticeable in it, and whether there is perceptible in this manifoldness a progressive development. It may be possible that the Proverbs of Solomon, the Words of the Wise, and the Proverbial poetry of the editor, as they represent three eras, so also represent three different stages in the development of proverbial poetry. However, the Words of the Wise Pro 22:17-24 are so internally related to the Proverbs of Solomon, that even the sharpest eye will discover in them not more than the evening twilight of the vanishing Solomonic Mashal. There thus remain on the one side only the Proverbs of Solomon with their echo in the Words of the Wise, on the other the Proverbial Poems of the editor; and these present themselves as monuments of two sharply defined epochs in the progressive development of the Mashal.

The common fundamental character of the book in all its parts is rightly defined when we call it a Book of Wisdom. Indeed, with the Church Fathers not only the Book of Sirach and the Solomonic Apocrypha, but also this Book of Proverbs bears this title, which seems also to have been in use among the Jews, since Melito of Sardes adds to the title “Proverbs of Solomon,” ἡ καὶ Σοφὶα; since, moreover, Eusebius (H.E. iv. 22) affirms, that not only Hegesippus and Irenaeus, but the whole of the ancients, called the Proverbs of Solomon Πανάρετος Σοφία.This name meaning “wisdom, including all virtue”, there are many things to show, was common in Palestine. The Jerusalem Talmud, in a passage quoted by Krochmal, Kerem Chemed, v. 79, divides the canon into תורה, נבואה, and חכמה. Rashi, in Baba bathra, 14b, calls Mishle (Proverbs) and Koheleth (Ecclesiastes) ספרי חכמה. The Book of Koheleth is called (b. Megilla, 7a), according to its contents, חכמתו שׁל שׁלמה. The Song bears in the Syriac version (the Peshito) the inscription chekmetho dechekmotho.

It is also worthy of observation that it is called by Dionysius of Alexandria ἡ σοφὴ βίβλος, and by Gregory of Nazianzum ἡ παιδαγωγικὴ σοφία. These names not only express praise of the book, but they also denote at the same time the circle of human intellectual activity from which it emanated. As the books of prophecy are a product of the נבוּאה, so the Book of the Proverbs is a product of the חכמה, σοφία, the human effort to apprehend the objective σοφία, and thus of φιλοσοφία, or the studium sapientiae. It has emanated from the love of wisdom, to incite to the love of wisdom, and to put into the possession of that which is the object of love - for this end it was written. We need not hesitate, in view of Col 2:8, to call the Book of Proverbs a “philosophical” treatise, since the origin of the name φιλοσοφία is altogether noble: it expresses the relativity of human knowledge as over against the absoluteness of the divine knowledge, and the possibility of an endlessly progressive advancement of the human toward the divine. The characteristic ideas of a dialectic development of thought and of the formation of a scientific system did not primarily appertain to it - the occasion for this was not present to the Israelitish people: it required fructification through the Japhetic spirit to produce philosophers such as Philo, Maimonides, and Spinoza. But philosophy is everywhere present when the natural, moral, positive, is made the object of a meditation which seeks to apprehend its last ground, its legitimate coherence, its true essence and aim. In the view C. B. Michaelis, in his Adnotationes uberiores in Hagiographa, passes from the exposition of the Psalms to that of the Proverbs with the words, “From David’s closet, consecrated to prayer, we now pass into Solomon’s school of wisdom, to admire the greatest of philosophers in the son of the greatest of theologians.”“In hoc genere,” says Lord Bacon, De Augmentis Scientiarum, viii. 2, “nihil invenitur, quod ullo modo comparandum sit cum aphorismis illis, quos edidit rex Salomon, de quo testatur Scriptura, cor illi fuisse instar arenae maris. Sicut enim arenae maris universas orbis oras circumdant, ita et sapientia ejus omnia humana non minus quam divina complexa est. In aphorismis vero illis praeter alia magis theologica reperies liquido haud pauca praecepta et monita civilia praestantissima, ex profundis quidem sapientiae penetralibus scaturientia atque in amplissimum varietatis campum excurrentia.” Accordingly, in the same work Bacon calls the Proverbs of Solomon “insignes parabolas s. aphorismos de divina atque morali philosophia.”

When we give the name φιλοσοφία to the tendency of mind to which the Book of Proverbs belongs, we do not merely use a current scientific word, but there is an actual internal relation of the Book of Proverbs to that which is the essence of philosophy, which Scripture recognises (Act 17:27, cf. Rom 1:19.) as existing within the domain of heathendom, and which stamps it as a natural produce of the human spirit, which never can be wanting where a human being or a people rises to higher self-consciousness and its operations in their changing relation to the phenomena of the external world. The mysteries of the world without him and of the world within him give man no rest, he must seek to solve them; and whenever he does that, he philosophizes, i.e., he strives after a knowledge of the nature of things, and of the laws which govern them in the world of phenomena and of events; on which account also Josephus, referring to Solomon’s knowledge of nature, says (Ant. viii. 2. 5), οὐδεμίαν τούτων φύσιν ἠγνόησεν οὐδὲ παρῆλθεν ἀνεξέταστον ἀλλ ̓ ἐν πάσαις ἐφιλοσόφησεν. Cf. Irenaeus, Cont. Her. iv. 27. 1: eam quae est in conditione (κτίσει) sapientiam Dei exponebat physiologice.

The historical books show us how much the age of Solomon favoured philosophical inquiries by its prosperity and peace, its active and manifold commercial intercourse with foreign nations, its circle of vision extending to Tarshish and Ophir, and also how Solomon himself attained to an unequalled elevation in the extent of his human and secular knowledge. We also read of some of the wise men in 1Ki 5:11, cf. Ps 88-89, who adorned the court of the wisest of kings; and the משׁל, which became, through his influence, a special branch of Jewish literature, is the peculiar poetic form of the חכמה. Therefore in the Book of Proverbs we find the name חכמים דּברי (words of the wise) used for משׁלים (proverbs); and by a careful consideration of all the proverbs in which mention is made of the חכמים, one will convince himself that this name has not merely a common ethical sense, but begins to be the name of those who made wisdom, i.e., the knowledge of things in the depths of their essence, their special lifework, and who connected themselves together in oneness of sentiment and fellowship into a particular circle within the community. To this conclusion we are conducted by such proverbs as Pro 13:20 -

He that walketh with wise men becomes wise,

And whoever has intercourse with fools is destroyed;

Pro 15:12 -

The scorner loveth not that one reprove him:

To wise men he goeth not; - and by the contrast, which prevails in the Book of Proverbs, between לץ (mocker) and חכם (wise), in which we see that, at the same time with the striving after wisdom, scepticism also, which we call free thought, obtained a great ascendency in Israel. Mockery of religion, rejection of God in principle and practice, a casting away of all fear of Jahve, and in general of all δεισιδαιμονία, were in Israel phenomena which had already marked the times of David. One may see from the Psalms that the community of the Davidic era is to be by no means regarded as furnishing a pattern of religious life: that there were in it גּוים (Gentile nations) which were in no way externally inferior to them, and that it did not want for rejecters of God. But it is natural to expect that in the Solomonic era, which was more than any other exposed to the dangers of sensuality and worldliness, and of religious indifference and free-thinking latitudinarianism, the number of the לצים increased, and that scepticism and mockery became more intensified. The Solomonic era appears to have first coined the name of לץ for those men who despised that which was holy, and in doing so laid claim to wisdom (Pro 14:6), who caused contention and bitterness when they spake, and carefully avoided the society of the חכמים, because they thought themselves above their admonitions (Pro 15:12). For in the psalms of the Davidic time the word נבל is commonly used for them (it occurs in the Proverbs only in Pro 17:21, with the general meaning of low fellow, Germ. Bube), and the name לץ is never met with except once, in Psa 1:1, which belongs to the post-Davidic era. One of the Solomonic proverbs (Pro 21:24) furnishes a definite idea of this newly formed word:

An inflated arrogant man they call a scorner (לץ),

One who acts in the superfluity of haughtiness.

By the self-sufficiency of his ungodly thoughts and actions he is distinguished from the פּתי (simple), who is only misled, and may therefore be reclaimed, Pro 19:25; Pro 21:11; by his non-recognition of the Holy in opposition to a better knowledge and better means and opportunities, he is distinguished from the כּסיל (foolish, stupid), Pro 17:16, the אויל (foolish, wicked), Pro 1:7; Pro 7:22, and the חסר לב (the void of understanding), Pro 6:32, who despise truth and instruction from want of understanding, narrowness, and forgetfulness of God, but not from perverse principle. This name specially coined, the definition of it given (cf. also the similarly defining proverb Pro 24:8), and in general the rich and fine technical proverbs in relation to the manifold kinds of wisdom (בּינה,  Pro 16:16; מוּסר,  Pro 1:8; תּבוּנות,  Pro 21:30; מזמּות,  Pro 5:2; תּחבּוּלות,  Pro 1:5; Pro 12:5; the תּוּשׁיּה first coined by the Chokma, etc.), of instruction in wisdom (לקח,  Pro 1:5; תּורה,  Pro 4:2; Pro 6:23; רעה, to tend to a flock, to instruct, Pro 10:21; חנך,  Pro 22:6; הוכח,  Pro 15:12; לקח נפשׁות, to win souls, Pro 6:25; Pro 11:30), of the wise men themselves (חכם,  Pro 12:15; נבון,  Pro 10:13; מוכיח, a reprover, preacher of repentance, Pro 25:12, etc.), and of the different classes of men (among whom also אדם אחרי, one who steps backwards [retrograder], Pro 28:23) - all this shows that חכמה was at that time not merely the designation of an ethical quality, but also the designation of a science rooted in the fear of God to which many noble men in Israel then addicted themselves. Jeremiah places (Jer 18:18) the חכם along with the כּהן (priest) and נביא (prophet); and if Eze 7:26) uses זקן (old man) instead of חכם, yet by reference to Job 12:12 this may be understood. In his “Dissertation on the popular and intellectual freedom of Israel from the time of the great prophets to the first destruction of Jerusalem” (Jahrbücher, i. 96f.), Ewald says, “One can scarcely sufficiently conceive how high the attainment was which was reached in the pursuit after wisdom (philosophy) in the first centuries after David, and one too much overlooks the mighty influence it exerted on the entire development of the national life of Israel. The more closely those centuries are inquired into, the more are we astonished at the vast power which wisdom so early exerted on all sides as the common object of pursuit of many men among the people. It first openly manifested itself in special circles of the people, while in the age after Solomon, which was peculiarly favourable to it, eagerly inquisitive scholars gathered around individual masters, until ever increasing schools were formed. But its influence gradually penetrated all the other pursuits of the people, and operated on the most diverse departments of authorship.” We are in entire sympathy with this historical view first advanced by Ewald, although we must frequently oppose the carrying of it out in details. The literature and the national history of Israel are certainly not understood if one does not take into consideration, along with the נבוּאה (prophecy), the influential development of the חכמה as a special aim and subject of intellectual activity in Israel.

And how was this Chokma conditioned - to what was it directed? To denote its condition and aim in one word, it was universalistic, or humanistic. Emanating from the fear or the religion of Jahve (דּרך ה, the way of the Lord, Pro 10:29), but seeking to comprehend the spirit in the letter, the essence in the forms of the national life, its effort was directed towards the general truth affecting mankind as such. While prophecy, which is recognised by the Chokma as a spiritual power indispensable to a healthful development of a people (בּאין חזון יפּרע עם,  Job 29:18), is of service to the historical process into which divine truth enters to work out its results in Israel, and from thence outward among mankind, the Chokma seeks to look into the very essence of this truth through the robe of its historical and national manifestation, and then to comprehend those general ideas in which could already be discovered the fitness of the religion of Jahve for becoming the world-religion. From this aim towards the ideal in the historical, towards the everlasting same amid changes, the human (I intentionally use this word) in the Israelitish, the universal religion in the Jahve-religion (Jahvetum), and the universal morality in the Law, all the peculiarities of the Book of Proverbs are explained, as well as of the long, broad stream of the literature of the Chokma, beginning with Solomon, which, when the Palestinian Judaism assumed the rugged, exclusive, proud national character of Pharisaism, developed itself in Alexandrinism. Bertheau is amazed that in the Proverbs there are no warnings given against the worship of idols, which from the time of the kings gained more and more prevalence among the Israelitish people. “How is it to be explained,” he asks (Spr. p. xlii.), “if the proverbs, in part at least, originated during the centuries of conflict between idolatry and the religion of Jahve, and if they were collected at a time in which this conflict reached its climax and stirred all ranks of the people - this conflict against the immorality of the Phoenician-Babylonian religion of nature, which must often have led into the same region of the moral contemplation of the world over which this book moves?!” The explanation lies in this, that the Chokma took its stand-point in a height and depth in which it had the mingling waves of international life and culture under it and above it, without being internally moved thereby. It naturally did not approve of heathenism, it rather looked upon the fear of Jahve as the beginning of wisdom, and the seeking after Jahve as implying the possession of all knowledge (Pro 28:5, cf. 1Jo 2:20); but it passed over the struggle of prophecy against heathendom, it confined itself to its own function, viz., to raise the treasures of general religious-moral truth in the Jahve-religion, and to use them for the ennobling of the Israelites as men. In vain do we look for the name ישׂראל in the Proverbs, even the name תּורה has a much more flexible idea attached to it than that of the law written at Sinai (cf. Pro 28:4; Pro 29:18 with Pro 28:7; Pro 13:14, and similar passages); prayer and good works are placed above sacrifice, Pro 15:8; Pro 21:3, Pro 21:27 - practical obedience to the teaching if wisdom above all, Pro 28:9. The Proverbs refer with special interest to Gen 1 and 2, the beginnings of the world and of the human race before nations took their origin. On this primitive record in the book of Genesis, to speak only of the משׁלי שׁלמה, the figure of the tree of life (perhaps also of the fountain of life), found nowhere else in the Old Testament, leans; on it leans also the contrast, deeply pervading the Proverbs, between life (immortality, Pro 12:28) and death, or between that which is above and that which is beneath (Pro 15:24); on it also many other expressions, such, e.g., as what is said in Pro 20:27 of the “spirit of man.” This also, as Stier (Der Weise ein König, 1849, p. 240) has observed, accounts for the fact that אדם occurs by far most frequently in the Book of Job and in the Solomonic writings. All these phenomena are explained from the general human universal aim of the Chokma.

When James (Jam 3:17) says that the “wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy,” his words most excellently designate the nature and the contents of the discourse of wisdom in the Solomonic proverbs, and one is almost inclined to think that the apostolic brother of the Lord, when he delineates wisdom, has before his eyes the Book of the Proverbs, which raises to purity by the most impressive admonitions. Next to its admonitions to purity are those especially to peacefulness, to gentle resignation (Pro 14:30), quietness of mind (Pro 14:33) and humility (Pro 11:2; Pro 15:33; Pro 16:5, Pro 16:18), to mercy (even toward beasts, Pro 12:10), to firmness and sincerity of conviction, to the furtherance of one’s neighbour by means of wise discourse and kind help. What is done in the Book of Deuteronomy with reference to he law is continued here. As in Deuteronomy, so here, love is at the bottom of its admonitions, the love of God to men, and the love of men to one another in their diverse relations (Deu 12:2; Deu 15:9); the conception of צדקה gives way to that of charity, of almsgiving (δικαιοσύνη = ἐλεημοσύνη). Forgiving, suffering love (Pro 10:12), love which does good even to enemies (Pro 25:21.), rejoices not over the misfortune that befalls an enemy (Pro 24:17.), retaliates not (Pro 24:28.), but commits all to God (Pro 20:22) - love in its manifold forms, as that of husband and wife, of children, of friends - is here recommended with New Testament distinctness and with deepest feeling. Living in the fear of God (Pro 28:14), the Omniscient (Pro 15:3, Pro 15:11; Pro 16:2; Pro 21:2; Pro 24:11.), to whom as the final Cause all is referred (Pro 20:12, Pro 20:24; Pro 14:31; Pro 22:2), and whose universal plan all must subserve (Pro 16:4; Pro 19:21; Pro 21:30), and on the other side active pure love to man - these are the hinges on which all the teachings of wisdom in the Proverbs turn. Frederick Schlegel, in the fourteenth of his Lectures on the History of Literature, distinguishes, not without deep truth, between the historico-prophetic books of the Old Testament, or books of the history of redemption, and the Book of Job, the Psalms, and the Solomonic writings, as books of aspiration, corresponding to the triple chord of faith, hope, charity as the three stages of the inner spiritual life. The Book of Job is designed to support faith amid trials; the Psalms breathe forth and exhibit hope amid the conflicts of earth’s longings; the Solomonic writings reveal to us the mystery of the divine love, and the Proverbs that wisdom which grows out of and is itself eternal love. When Schlegel in the same lecture says that the books of the Old Covenant, for the most part, stand under the signature of the lion as the element of the power of will and spirited conflict glowing in divine fire, but that in the inmost hidden kernel and heart of the sacred book the Christian figure of the lamb rises up out of the veil of this lion strength, this may specially be said of the Book of Proverbs, for here that same heavenly wisdom preaches, which, when manifested in person, spake in the Sermon on the Mount, New Testament love in the midst of the Old Testament.

It is said that in the times before Christ there was a tendency to apocryphize not only the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes, but also the Book of Proverbs, and that for the first time the men of the Great Synagogue established their canonicity on the ground of their spiritual import; they became perplexed about the Proverbs, according to b. Sabbath, 30b, on account of such self-contradictory proverbs as Pro 26:4-5, and according to Aboth de-Rabbi Nathan, c. 1, on account of such secular portions as that of the wanton woman, chap. 7. But there is no need to allegorize this woman, and that self-contradiction is easily explained. The theopneustic character of the book and its claim to canonicity show themselves from its integral relation to the Old Testament preparation for redemption; but keeping out of view the book as a whole, it is self-evident that the conception of a practical proverb such as Pro 14:4 and of a prophecy such as Isa 7:14 are very different phenomena of the spiritual life, and that in general the operation of the Divine Spirit in a proverb is different from that in a prophecy.

We have hitherto noted the character of the instruction set forth in the Proverbs according to the marks common to them in all their parts, but in such a way that we have taken our proofs only from the “Proverbs of Solomon” and the “Words of the Wise,” with the exclusion of the introductory proverbial poems of the older editor. If we compare the two together, it cannot be denied that in the type of the instruction contained in the latter, the Chokma, of which the book is an emanation and which it has as its aim (לדעת חכמה, Pro 1:2), stands before us in proportionally much more distinctly defined comprehension and form; we have the same relation before us whose adumbration is the relation of the instruction of wisdom in the Avesta and in the later Minochired (Spiegel, Parsi-Grammatik, p. 182ff.). The Chokma appears also in the “Proverbs of Solomon” as a being existing in and for itself, which is opposed to ambiguous subjective thought (Pro 28:26); but here there is attributed to it an objectivity even to an apparent personality: it goes forth preaching, and places before all men life and death for an eternally decisive choice, it distributes the spirit of those who do not resist (Pro 1:23), it receives and answers prayer (Pro 1:28). The speculation regarding the Chokma is here with reference to Job 28 (cf. Pro 2:4; Pro 3:14., Pro 8:11, Pro 8:19), and particularly to Job 28:27, where a demiurgic function is assigned to wisdom, carried back to its source in eternity: it is the medium by which the world was created, Pro 3:19; it was before the creation of the world with God as from everlasting, His son of royal dignity, Pro 8:22-26; it was with Him in His work of creation, Pro 8:27-30; after the creation it remained as His delight, rejoicing always before Him, and particularly on the earth among the sons of men, Pro 8:30. Staudenmaier (Lehre von der Idee, p. 37) is certainly not on the wrong course, when under this rejoicing of wisdom before God he understands the development of the ideas or life-thoughts intimately bound up in it - the world-idea. This development is the delight of God, because it represents to the divine contemplation of the contents of wisdom, or of the world-idea founded in the divine understanding, in all its activities and inner harmonies; it is a calm delight, because the divine idea unites with the fresh and every young impulse of life, the purity, goodness, innocence, and holiness of life, because its spirit is light, clear, simple, childlike, in itself peaceful, harmonious, and happy; and this delight is experienced especially on the earth among the sons of men, among whom wisdom has its delight; for, as the divine idea, it is in all in so far as it is the inmost life-thought, the soul of each being, but it is on the earth of men in whom it comes to its self-conception, and self-conscious comes forth into the light of the clear day. Staudenmaier has done the great service of having worthily estimated the rich and deep fulness of this biblical theologumenon of wisdom, and of having pointed out in it the foundation-stone of a sacred metaphysics and a means of protection against pantheism in all its forms. We see that in the time of the editor of the older Book of Proverbs the wisdom of the schools in its devotion to the chosen object of its pursuit, the divine wisdom living and moving in all nature, and forming the background of all things, rises to a height of speculation on which it has planted a banner showing the right way to latest times. Ewald rightly points to the statements in the introduction to the Proverbs regarding wisdom as a distinct mark of the once great power of wisdom in Israel; for they show us how this power learned to apprehend itself in its own purest height, after it had become as perfect, and at the same time also as self-conscious, as it could at all become in ancient Israel.

Many other appearances also mark the advanced type of instruction contained in the introduction. Hitzig’s view (Sprüche, p. xvii.f.), that Prov 1:6-9:18 are the part of the whole collection which was earliest written, confutes itself on all sides; on the contrary, the views of Bleek in his Introduction to the Old Testament, thrown out in a sketchy manner and as if by a diviner, surprisingly agree with our own results, which have been laboriously reached and are here amply established. The advanced type of instruction in the introduction, chap. 1-9, appears among other things in this, that we there find the allegory, which up to this place occurs in Old Testament literature only in scattered little pictures built up into independent poetic forms, particularly in chap. 9, where without any contradiction אושׁת כּסילוּת a simple woman, Pro 5:13 is an allegorical person. The technical language of the Chokma has extended itself on many sides and been refined (we mention these synonyms: חכמה,  דּעת,  בּינה,  ערמה,  מזמּה,  מוּסר,  תּוּשׁיּה); and the seven pillars in the house of wisdom, even though it be inadmissible to think of them as the seven liberal arts, yet point to a division into seven parts of which the poet was conscious to himself. The common address, בּני [my son], which is not the address of the father to the son, but of the teacher to the scholar, countenances the supposition that there were at that time בּני חכמים, i.e., scholars of the wise men, just as there were “sons of the prophets” (נּבאים), and probably also schools of wisdom. “And when it is described how wisdom spake aloud to the people in all the streets of Jerusalem, in the high places of the city and in every favourable place, does not one feel that such sublime descriptions could not be possible unless at that time wisdom were regarded by the people as one of the first powers, and the wise men truly displayed a great public activity?” We must answer this question of Ewald’s in the affirmative.

Bruch, in his Weisheitslehre der Hebraer, 1851, was the first to call special attention to the Chokma or humanism as a peculiar intellectual tendency in Israel; but he is mistaken in placing it in an indifferent and even hostile relation to the national law and the national cultus, which he compares to the relation of Christian philosophy to orthodox theology. Oehler, in his Grundzüge der alttestamentl. Weisheit, which treats more especially of the doctrinal teachings of the Book of Job, judges more correctly; cf. also his comprehensive article, Pädagogik des A. T. in Schmid’s Pädagogischer Encyclopädie, pp. 653-695 (partic. 677-683). 5. The Alexandrian Translation of the Book of Proverbs

Of highest interest for the history of the Book of Proverbs is the relation of the lxx to the Hebrew text. One half of the proverbs of Agur (30 of the Hebrew text) are placed in it after Pro 24:22, and the other half after Pro 24:34; and the proverbs of King Lemuel (Pro 31:1-9 of the Hebrew text) are placed after the proverbs of Agur, while the acrostic proverbial poem of the virtuous woman is in its place at the end of the book. That transposition reminds us of the transpositions in Jeremiah, and rests in the one place as well as in the other on a misunderstanding of the true contents. The translator has set aside the new superscription, Pro 10:1, as unsuitable, and has not marked the new beginning, Pro 22:17; he has expunged the new superscription, Pro 24:23, and has done the same to the superscription, “The words of Agur” (Pro 30:1), in two awkward explanations (λόγον φυλασσόμενος and τοὺς ἐμοὺς λόγους φοβήθητι), and the superscription, “The words of Lemuel” (Pro 31:1), in one similar (οἱ ἐμοὶ λόγι εἴρηνται ὑπὸ Θεοῦ), so that the proverbs of Agur and of Lemuel are without hesitation joined with those of Solomon, whereby it yet remains a mystery why the proverbs beginning with “The words of Agur” have been divided into two parts. Hitzig explains it from a confounding of the columns in which, two being on each page, the Hebrew MS which lay before the translator was written, and in which the proverbs of Agur and of Lemuel (names which tradition understood symbolically of Solomon) were already ranked in order before chap. 25. But besides these, there are also many other singular things connected with this Greek translation interesting in themselves and of great critical worth. That it omits Pro 1:16 may arise from this, that this verse was not found in the original MS, and was introduced from Isa 59:7; but there are wanting also proverbs such as Isa 21:5, for which no reason can be assigned. But the additions are disproportionately more numerous. Frequently we find a line added to the distich, such as in Pro 1:18, or an entire distich added, as Pro 3:15; or of two lines of the Hebrew verse, each is formed into a separate distich, as Pro 1:7; Pro 11:16; or we meet with longer interpolations, extending far beyond this measure, as that added to Pro 4:27. Many of these proverbs are easily re-translated into the Hebrew, as that added to Pro 4:27, consisting of four lines: כי דרכי מימינים ידע יהוה ועקשׁים דרכי משׂמאילים הוא יפלם מעגלותיך ארחותיך בשׂלום יצלית

But many of them also sound as if they had been originally Greek; e.g., the lines appended to Pro 9:10; Pro 13:15; the distich, Pro 6:11; the imperfect tristich, Pro 22:14; and the formless train, Pro 25:10. The value of these enlargements is very diverse; not a few of these proverbs are truly thoughtful, such as the addition to Pro 12:13 -

He who is of mild countenance findeth mercy;

He who is litigious crushes souls and singularly bold in imagery, as the addition to Pro 9:12 -

He who supports himself by lies hunts after (רעה) the wind,

He catches at fluttering birds;

For he forsakes the ways of his own vineyard,

And wanders away from the paths of his own field,

And roams through arid steppes and a thirsty land,

And gathers with his hand withered heath.

The Hebrew text lying before the Alexandrian translators had certainly not all these additions, yet in many passages, such as Pro 11:16, it is indeed a question whether it is not to be improved from the lxx; and in other passages, where, if one reads the Greek, the Hebrew words naturally take their place, whether these are not at least old Hebrew marginal notes and interpolations which the translation preserves. But this version itself has had its gradual historical development. The text, the κοινή (communis), proceeds from the Hexaplar text edited by Origen, which received from him many and diverse revisions; and in the times before Christ, perhaps (as Hitz. supposes), down to the second century after Christ, the translation itself, not being regarded as complete, as in the progress of growth, for not unfrequently two different translations of one and the same proverb stand together, as Pro 14:22; Pro 29:25 (where also the Peshito follows the lxx after which it translates), or also interpenetrate one another, as Pro 22:8-9. These doubled translations are of historical importance both in relation to the text and to the interpretation of it. Along with the Books of Samuel and Jeremiah, there is no book in regard to which the lxx can be of higher significance than the Book of Proverbs; we shall seek in the course of our exposition duly to estimate the textCf. also J. Gottlob Jäger’s Observationes in Proverbiorum Salomonis Versionem Alexandrinam, 1788; de Lagarde’s Anmerkungen zur griech. Ueberstezung der Proverbien, 1863; M. Heidenheim’s Zur Textkritik der Proverbien, in his Quarterly Journal for German and English Theological Criticism and Investigation, No. VIII (1865), and IX, XI (1866). The text of the lxx (cf. Angelo Mari’s Classici Auctores, t. ix.) used by Procopius in his Ἡρμηνεία εἰς τὰς παροιμίας is peculiar, and here and there comes near to the Hebrew original. The scholion of Evagrius in the Σχόλια εἰς τὰς παροιμίας of Origen, edited by Tischendorf in his Notitia, 1860, from a MS of Patmos, shows how soon even the Hexaplar text became ambiguous. as adopted by Bertheau (1847) and Hitzig (1858) in their commentaries, and by Ewald in his Jahrb. xi. (1861) and his commentary (2nd ed. 1867). The historical importance of the Egyptian text-recension is heightened by this circumstance, that the old Syrian translator of the Solomonic writings had before him not only the original text, but also the lxx; for the current opinion, that the Peshito, as distinguished from the Syro-Hexaplar version, sprang solely from the original text with the assistance of the Targum, is more and more shown to be erroneous. In the Book of Proverbs the relation of the Peshito and Targum is even the reverse; the Targum of the Proverbs, making use of the Peshito, restores the Masoretic text - the points of contact with the lxx showing themselves here and there, are brought aboutCf. Dathe, De ratione consensus Versionis Syriacae el Chaldaicae Proverbiorum Salomonis (1764), edited by Rosenmüller in his Opuscula. Maybaum, in the Treatise on the Language of the Targum to the Proverbs and its relation to the Syriac, in Merx’s Archiv, ii. 66-93, labours in vain to give the priority to that of the Targum: the Targum is written from the Peshito, and here and there approaches the Hebrew text; the language is, with few differences, the Syriac of the original. by the Peshito. But that Jerome, in his translation of the Vulgate according to the Hebraea veritas, sometimes follows the lxx in opposition to the original text, is to be explained with Hitzig from the fact that he based his work on an existing Latin translation made from the lxx. Hence it comes that the two distichs added in the lxx to Pro 4:27 remain in his work, and that instead of the one distich, Pro 15:6, we have two: - In abundanti (after the phrase בּרב instead of בּית of the Masoretic text) justitia virtus maxima est, cogitationes autem impiroum eradicabuntur. Domus (בּית) justi plurima fortitudo, et in fructibus impii conturbatio; for Jerome has adopted the two translations of the lxx, correcting the second according to the original text.The Ethiopic translation, also, is in particular points, as well as on the whole, dependent on the lxx, for it divides the Book of Proverbs into proverbs (παροιμίας), chap. 1-24, and instructions (παιδεῖαι) of Solomon, chap. 25-31. Vid., Dillmann in Ewald’s Jahrb. v. 147, 150.

The fragments of the translations of Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, etc., contained in Greek and Syrian sources, have been recently collected, more perfectly than could have been done by Montfaucon, by Fried. Field, in his work Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt, etc. (Oxonii, 1867, 4). Of special interest is the more recent translation of the original text, existing only in a MS laid up in the Library of St. Mark at Venice, executed in bold language, rich in rare and newly invented words, by an unknown author, and belonging to an age which has not yet been determined (Graecus Venetus): cf. d'Ansse de Villoison’s nova versio Graeca Proverbiorum, Ecclesiastis, Cantici Canticorum, etc., Argentorati, 1784; and also the Animadversiones thereto of Jo. Ge. Dahler, 1786.

The literature of the interpretation of the Book of Proverbs is found in Keil's Einleitung in das A. T. (1859), p. 346 f. [Manual of Historico-Critical Introduction to the Old Testament, translated by Professor Douglas, D.D., Free Church College, Glasgow. Edinburgh: T.& T. Clark. Vol. i. p. 468 f.]. The most important of the older linguistic works on this book is the commentary of Albert Schultens (Lugduni Batavorum, 1748, 4), whose service to the cause of Semitic philology and O. T. exegesis Mühlau has brought to remembrance in the Lutheran Zeitschrift, 1870, 1; Vogel’s abstract (Halœ, 1769), prefaced by Semler, does not alto-gether compensate for the original work. From the school of Schultens, and also from that of Schröder, originate the Anmerkungen by Alb. Jac. Arnoldi, maternal grandson of Schultens, a Latin edition of which was published (Lugduni Bat. 1783) by Henr. Alb. Schultens, the grandson of Schultens by his son. Among the commentaries of English interpreters, that in Latin by Thomas Cartwright (Amstelredami, 1663, 4), along with the Exposition of the Book of Proverbs by Charles Bridges (4th ed., London, 1859), hold an honourable place. The Critical Remarks on the Books of Job, Proverbs, etc., by D. Durell (Oxford, 1772, 4), also merit attention. Of more recent commentaries, since Keil gave his list of the literature of the subject, have been published those of Elster (1858) aud of Zöckler (1867), forming a part of the theologico-homiletical Bibelwerk edited by J. P. Lange. Chaps, xxv.-xxix. Rud. Stier has specially interpreted in two works entitled Der Weise ein König [“The Wise Man a King”], and Salomonis Weisheit in Hiskiastagen [“Solomon's Wisdom in the Days of Hezekiah”], 1849 ; and chapters xxx. xxxi. in a work entitled Die Politik der Weisheit [“The Politics of Wisdom”], 1850, Part hi. (1865) of the new exegetico-critical Aehrenlese [“Gleanings”] of Fried. Böttcher, edited by Mühlau, furnishes 39 pages of remarks on the Proverbs. Leop. Dukes, author of the Rabbinical Blumenlese [“Anthology”], 1844, and the Schrift zur rabbinisclien Spruchkunde, 1851, has published (1841) a commentary to the Proverbs in Cahen’s French Bibelwerk. There also is furnished a list of Jewish interpreters down to the appearance of L. H. Loewenstein’s Commentary (1838), which contains valuable contributions to the critical confirmation of the Masoretic text, in which Heidenheim’s MS. remains, and also the Codex of 1294 mentioned in my preface to Baer’s edition of the Psalter, and in the Specimen Lectionum of Baer’s edition of Genesis, are made use of. Among Malbim’s best works are, after his Commentary on Isaiah, that on the Mishle (Warsaw, 1867). [Vide Preface.]

SUPERSCRIPTION AND MOTTO, 1. 1-7.

Pro 1:1-7

The external title, i.e., the Synagogue name, of the whole collection of Proverbs is משׁלי (Mishle), the word with which it commences. Origen (Euseb. h. e. vi. 25) uses the name Μισλώθ, i.e., משׁלות, which occurs in the Talmud and Midrash as the designation of the book, from its contents. In a similar way, the names given to the Psalter, תּהלּים and תּהלּות, are interchanged.

This external title is followed by one which the Book of Proverbs, viewed as to its gradual formation, and first the older portion, gives to itself. It reaches from Pro 1:1 to Pro 1:6, and names not only the contents and the author of the book, but also commends it in regard to the service which it is capable of rendering. It contains “Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel.” The books of the נבואה and חכמה, including the Canticles, thus give their own titles; among the historical books, that of the memoirs of Nehemiah is the only one that does so. משׁלי has the accent Dechî, to separateNorzi has erroneously accented משלי with the accent Munach. The מ is besides the Masoretic majusculum, like the ב, שׁ, and א at the commencement of the Law, the Canticles, and Chronicles. it from the following complex genitive which it governs, and מלך ישׂראל is made the second hemistich, because it belongs to שׁלמה, not to דּוד.If it had belonged to דוד, then the sentence would have been accented thus: משׁלי שלמה בן־דוד מלך ישראל.

As to the fundamental idea of the word משׁל, we refer to the derivation given in the Gesch. der jud. Poesie, p. 196, from משׁל, Aram. מתל, root תל, Sanskr. tul (whence tulâ, balance, similarity), Lat. tollere; the comparison of the Arab. mathal leads to the same conclusion. “משׁל signifies, not, as Schultens and others after him affirm, effigies ad similitudinem alius rei expressa, from משׁל in the primary signification premere, premente manu tractare; for the corresponding Arab. verb mathal does not at all bear that meaning, but signifies to stand, to present oneself, hence to be like, properly to put oneself forth as something, to represent it; and in the Hebr. also to rule, properly with על to stand on or over something, with בּ to hold it erect, like Arab. kam with b, rem administravit [vid. Jesaia, p. 691]. Thus e.g., Gen 24:2, it is said of Eliezer: המּשׁל בּכל־אשׁר־לו, who ruled over all that he (Abraham) had (Luther: was a prince over all his goods). Thus משׁל, figurative discourse which represents that which is real, similitude; hence then parable or shorter apothegm, proverb, in so far as they express primarily something special, but which as a general symbol is then applied to everything else of a like kind, and in so far stands figuratively. An example is found in 1Sa 10:11. It is incorrect to conclude from this meaning of the word that such memorial sayings or proverbs usually contained comparisons, or were clothed in figurative language; for that is the case in by far the fewest number of instances: the oldest have by far the simplest and most special interpretations” (Fleischer). Hence Mashal, according to its fundamental idea, is that which stands with something = makes something stand forth = representing. This something that represents may be a thing or a person; as e.g., one may say Job is a Mashal, i.e., a representant, similitude, type of Israel (vide the work entitled עץ החיים, by Ahron b. Elia, c. 90, p. 143); and, like Arab. mathal (more commonly mithl = משׁל, cf. משׁל, Job 41:25), is used quite as generally as is its etymological cogn. instar (instare). But in Hebr. Mashal always denotes representing discourse with the additional marks of the figurative and concise, e.g., the section which presents (Hab 2:6) him to whom it refers as a warning example, but particularly, as there defined, the gnome, the apothegm or maxim, in so far as this represents general truths in sharply outlined little pictures.

Pro 1:8

After the author has indicated the object which his Book of Proverbs is designed to subserve, and the fundamental principle on which it is based, he shows for whom he has intended it; he has particularly the rising generation in his eye: 8 Hear, my son, thy father’s instruction,    And refuse not the teaching of thy mother; 9 For these are a fair crown to thy head,    And Jewels to thy neck. “My son,” says the teacher of wisdom to the scholar whom he has, or imagines that he has, before him, addressing him as a fatherly friend. The N.T. representation of birth into a new spiritual life, 1Co 4:15; Phm 1:10; Gal 4:19, lies outside the circle of the O.T. representation; the teacher feels himself as a father by virtue of his benevolent, guardian, tender love. Father and mother are the beloved parents of those who are addressed. When the Talmud understands אביך of God, אמּך of the people (אמּה), that is not the grammatico-historic meaning, but the practical interpretation and exposition, after the manner of the Midrash. The same admonition (with נצר, keep, instead of שׁמע, hear, and מצות, command, instead of מוּסר, instruction) is repeated in Pro 6:20, and what is said of the parents in one passage is in Pro 10:1 divided into two synonymous parallel passages. The stricter musar, which expresses the idea of sensible means of instruction (discipline), (Pro 13:24; Pro 22:15; Pro 23:13.), is suitably attributed to the father, and the torah to the mother, only administered by the word; Wisdom also always says תּורתי (my torah), and only once, Pro 8:10, מוּסרי (my musar).

Pro 1:9 הם, which is also used in the neut. illa, e.g., Job 22:24, refers here to the paternal discipline and the maternal teaching. These, obediently received and followed, are the fairest ornament of the child. לויה, from לוה, to wind, to roll, Arab. lawy (from לו, whence also לוּל = לולו, as דּוּד, to boil up, = דּודּו), means winding, twisted ornament, and especially wreath; a crown of gracefulness is equivalent to a graceful crown, a corolla gratiosa, as Schultens translates it; cf. Pro 4:9, according to which, Wisdom bestows such a crown.In לוית חן the חן has the conjunctive accent shalsheleth, on account of which the Pesiq accent is omitted. This small shalsheleth occurs only eight times. See Torath Emeth, p. 36. ענקים (or ענקות, Jdg 8:26) are necklaces, jewels for the neck; denom. of the Arab. 'unek, and Aram. עוּנק, the neck (perhaps from ענק = עוּק, to oppress, of heavy burdens; cf. αὐχήν, the neck). גּרגּות, is, like fauces, the throat by which one swallows (Arab. ǵarǵara, taǵarǵara), a plur. extensive (Böttcher, §695), and is better fitted than גּרון to indicate the external throat; Ezekiel, however, uses (Eze 16:11) garon, as our poet (Pro 3:3, Pro 3:22; Pro 6:21) uses garg'roth, to represent the front neck.The writing varies greatly. Here and at Pro 6:21 we have לגרגּרתך; at Pro 3:3, על־גּרגּותך, Pro 3:22, לגרגּרתיך. Thus according to the Masora and correct texts.

Pro 1:10

The general counsel of Pro 1:9 is here followed by a more special warning:

My son, if sinners entice thee

Consent thou not.

The בּניThe accent Pazer over the בּני has the force of Athnach. (my son) is emphatically repeated. The intensive from חטּאים (signifies men to whom sin has become a habit, thus vicious, wicked. פּתּה (Pi. of פּתה, to open) is not denom., to make or wish to make a פּתי; the meaning, to entice (harmonizing with πείθειν), פּתּה obtains from the root-meaning of the Kal, for it is related to it as pandere (januam) to patere: to open, to make accessible, susceptible, namely to persuasion. The warning 10b is as brief as possible a call of alarm back from the abyss. In the form תּבא (from אבה, to agree to, to be willing, see Wetstein in Job, p. 349) the preformative א is wanting, as in תּמרוּ, 2Sa 19:14, cf. Psa 139:20, Ges. §68, 2, and instead of תּבה (= תּאבה, 1Ki 20:8) is vocalized not תּבא (cf. Pro 11:25), but after the Aram. תּבא (cf. יגלי); see Gen 26:29, and Comment. on Isaiah, p. 648; Gesen. §75, 17.

Of the number of wicked men who gain associates to their palliation and strengthening, they are adduced as an example whom covetousness leads to murder. 11 If they say, “Go with us, we will lurk for blood,      Lie in wait for the innocent without cause; 12 Like the pit we will swallow them alive      And in perfect soundness like them that go down to the grave. 13 We find all manner of precious treasure,      Fill our houses with spoil. 14 Thou shalt cast thy lot amongst us,      We all have only one purse.”

Pro 1:11

The verb ארב signifies nectere, to bind fast (from רב, close, compact), (see under Isa 25:11), and particularly (but so that it bears in itself its object without ellipse) insidias nectere = insidiari. Regarding לדם Fleischer remarks: “Either elliptically for לשׁפּך־דּם (Jewish interp.), or, as the parallelism and the usage of the language of this book rather recommend, per synecd. for: for a man, with particular reference to his blood to be poured out (cf. our saying 'ein junges Blut,' a young blood = a youth, with the underlying conception of the blood giving colour to the body as shining through it, or giving to it life and strength), as Psa 94:21.” As in post-biblical Heb. בּשׂר ודם (or inverted, αἱμα καὶ σάρξ, Heb 2:14), used of men as such, is not so used in the O.T., yet דּם, like נפשׁ, is sometimes used synecdochically for the person, but never with reference to the blood as an essentially constituent part of corporealness, but always with reference to violent putting to death, which separates the blood from the body (cf. my System der bibl. Psychologie, p. 242). Here לדם is explained by לדמים, with which it is interchanged, Mic 7:2 : let us lurk for blood (to be poured out). The verb צפן is never, like טמן (to conceal), connected with חבלים, מוקשׁים ,ח, פּח, רשׁת - thus none of these words is here to be supplied; the idea of gaining over one expressed in the organic root צף (whence צפּה, diducendo obducere) has passed over into that of restraining oneself, watching, lurking, hence צפן (cog. Aram. כּמן) in the sense of speculari, insidiari, interchanges with צפה (to spy), (cf. Psa 10:8; Psa 56:7 with Psa 37:32). The adv. חנּם (an old accus. from חן) properly means in a gracious manner, as a free gift (δωρεάν, gratis = gratiis), and accordingly, without reward, also without cause, which frequently = without guilt; but it never signifies sine effectu qui noceat, i.e., with impunity (Löwenst.). We have thus either to connect together נקי חנּם “innocent in vain” (as איבי חנּם, my enemies without a cause, Lam 3:52): his innocence helps him nothing whom God protects not against us notwithstanding his innocence (Schultens, Bertheau, Elster, and others); or connect חנם with the verb (lie in wait for), for which Hitzig, after the lxx, Syr., Rashi,Rashi, i.e., Rabbi Salomo Isaaki, of Troyes, died a.d. 1105. Ralbag, i.e., Rabbi Levi ben Gershon, usually referred to by Christian writers as Master Leo de Bannolis, or Gersonides, a native of Banolas near Gerona, died about 1342.

Ralbag, Immanuel, rightly decides in view of 1Sa 19:5; 1Sa 25:31; cf. also Job 9:17, where the succession of the accents is the same (Tarcha transmuted from Mugrash). Frequently there are combined together in his חנם (cf. Isa 28:14.), that which the author thinks, and that which those whom he introduces as speaking think.

Pro 1:12

The first clause of this verse Hitzig translates: “as the pit (swallows) that which lives.” This is untenable, because כּ with the force of a substantive (as instar, likeness) is regarded as a preposition, but not a conjunction (see at Psa 38:14.). חיּים (the living) is connected with נבלעם, and is the accus. of the state (hâl, according to the terminology of the Arab. grammarians) in which they will, with impunity, swallow them up like the pit (the insatiable, Pro 27:20; Pro 30:16), namely, while these their sacrifices are in the state of life’s freshness,Only in this sense is the existing accentuation of this verse (cf. the Targ.) to be justified. “the living,” - without doubt, like Psa 55:16; Psa 63:10; Psa 124:3, in fact and in expression an allusion to the fate of the company of Korah, Num 16:30, Num 16:33. If this is the meaning of חיים, then תּמימים as the parallel word means integros not in an ethical sense, in which it would be a synonym of נקי of Pro 1:11 (cf. Pro 29:10 with Psa 19:14), but in a physical sense (Graec. Venet. καὶ τελείους; Parchon as Rashi, בריאים ושלמים, vid., Böttcher, De Inferis, §293). This physical sense is claimed for תּם, Job 21:23, for תּם probably, Psa 73:4, and why should not תמים, used in the law regarding sacrifices (e.g., Exo 12:5, “without blemish”) of the faultlessness of the victim, also signify such an one אשׁר אין־בּו מתם (Isa 1:6)? In the midst of complete external health they will devour them like those that go down to the grave (cf. Psa 28:1; Psa 88:5, with Isa 14:19), i.e., like those under whose feet the earth is suddenly opened, so that, without leaving any trace behind, they sink into the grave and into Hades. The connection of the finite with the accus. of place, Psa 55:16, lies at the foundation of the genitive connection יורדי בור (with the tone thrown back): those that go down to the grave.

Pro 1:13-14Here, in Pro 1:14, גורלך is to be written with Munach (not Metheg) in the second syllable; vid., Torath Emeth, p. 20. Accentuationssystem, vii. §2.

To their invitation, bearing in itself its own condemnation, they add as a lure the splendid self-enriching treasures which in equal and just fellowship with them they may have the prospect of sharing. הון (from הוּן, levem, then facilem esse, être aisé, à son aise) means aisance, convenience, opulence, and concretely that by which life is made agreeable, thus money and possessions (Fleischer in Levy’s Chald. Wörterbuch, i. 423f.). With this הון with remarkable frequency in the Mishle יקר (from יקר, Arab. waḳar, grave esse) is connected in direct contrast, according to its primary signification; cf. Pro 12:27; Pro 24:4 : heavy treasures which make life light. Yet it must not be maintained that, as Schultens has remarked, this oxymoron is intended, nor also that it is only consciously present in the language. מצא has here its primitive appropriate signification of attaining, as Isa 10:14 of reaching. שׁלל (from שׁלל, to draw from, draw out, from של, cf. שׁלה, שׁלף, Arab. salab, Comm. on Isa. p. 447) is that which is drawn away from the enemy, exuviae, and then the booty and spoil taken in war generally. נמלּא, to fill with anything, make full, governs a double accusative, as the Kal (to become full of anything) governs only one. In Pro 1:14, the invitation shows how the prospect is to be realized. Interpreters have difficulty in conceiving what is here meant. Do not a share by lot and a common purse exclude one another? Will they truly, in the distribution of the booty by lot, have equal portions at length, equally much in their money-bags? Or is it meant that, apart from the portion of the booty which falls to every one by lot, they have a common purse which, when their business is ebbing, must supply the wants of the company, and on which the new companion can maintain himself beforehand? Or does it mean only that they will be as mutually helpful to one another, according to the principle τὰ τῶν φίλων κοινά (amicorum omnia communia), as if they had only one purse? The meaning is perfectly simple. The oneness of the purse consists in this, that the booty which each of them gets, belongs not wholly or chiefly to him, but to the whole together, and is disposed of by lot; so that, as far as possible, he who participated not at all in the affair in obtaining it, may yet draw the greatest prize. This view harmonizes the relation between 14b and 14a. The common Semitic כּים is even used at the present day in Syria and elsewhere as the name of the Exchange (“Börse”) (plur. akjâs); here it is the purse (“Kasse”) (χρημάτων δοχεῖον, Procop.), which is made up of the profits of the business. This profit consists not merely in gold, but is here thought of in regard to its worth in gold. The apparent contradiction between distributing by lot and having a common purse disappears when the distribution by lot of the common property is so made, that the retaining of a stock-capital, or reserve fund, is not excluded.

Pro 1:15

After the men are described against whose enticements a warning is given forth, the warning is emphatically repeated, and is confirmed by a threefold reason:

My son! go not in the way with them.

Keep back thy foot from their path.

If בּדרך (in the way), taken alone, cannot be equivalent to בדרך אחד (in one way), so is אתּם (with them) to be regarded as its determination.The Arab. grammarians regard this as half determination, and call it takhsys; that אתּם has with them the force of a virtually coordinated attributive; while, according to the Arab. gram., it is also possible that בּדרך, “in one way,” is equivalent to on the common way, for in the indetermination sometimes there lies the conception not merely of âhad, but of weahad.

Foot (not feet), as eye, hand, etc., is used where the members come less under consideration than what they unitedly bring about (Pro 4:26.). נתיבה, from נתב, signifies properly that which is raised, especially the (raised) footstep.

Pro 1:16

The first argument to enforce the warning:

For their feet run to the evil,

And hasten to shed blood.

That this is their object they make no secret (Pro 1:11.); but why is it that such an object as this should furnish no ground of warning against them, especially as on this beginning the stamp of that which is morally blamable is here impressed with לרע? Besides, this circular movement of the thoughts is quite after the manner of this poet; and that Pro 1:16 is his style, Pro 6:18 shows. The want of this distich (Pro 1:16 = Rom 3:15) in lxx B. א. weighs heavier certainly than the presence of it in lxx A. (Procop., Syro-Hezap.), since the translation is not independent, but is transferred from Isa 59:7; but if for the first time, at a later period, it is supplied in the lxx, yet it has the appearance of an addition made to the Hebr. text from Isa 59:7 (Hitzig, Lagarde); cf. Comm. on Isaiah, 40-66. לשׁפּך is always pointed thus; for, as a regular rule, after ל as well as מ sa llew s the aspiration disappears; but in Eze 17:17 בּשׁפּך is also found, and in this case (cf. at Psa 40:15) the punctuation is thus inconsequent.

Pro 1:17

The second argument in support of the warning.

For in vain is the net spread out

In the eyes of all (the winged) birds.

The interpretation conspersum est rete, namely, with corn as a bait, which was put into circulation by Rashi, is inadmissible; for as little as הזּה (Hiph. of נזה) can mean to strew, can זרה mean to spread. The object is always that which is scattered (gestreut), not that which is spread (bestreut). Thus, expansum est rete, but not from מזר, extendere, from which מזורהThe MS Masora remarks לית וחסר, and hence מזרה is written defectively in the Erfurt, 1, 2, 3, Frankf. 1294, in the edition of Norzi and elsewhere. in this form cannot be derived (it would in that case be מזוּרה), but from זרה, pass. of זרה, to scatter, spread out. The alluring net, when it is shaken out and spread, is, as it were, scattered, ventilatur. But if this is done incautiously before the eyes of the birds to be caught, they forthwith fly away. The principle stress lies on the בּעיני (before the eyes) as the reason of the חנּם (in vain), according to the saying of Ovid, Quae nimis apparent retia, vitat avis. The applicatio similitudinis lying near, according to J. H. Michaelis, is missed even by himself and by most others. If the poet wished to say that they carried on their work of blood with such open boldness, that he must be more than a simpleton who would allow himself to be caught by them, that would be an unsuitable ground of warning; for would there not be equally great need for warning against fellowship with them, if they had begun their enticement with more cunning, and reckoned on greater success? Hitzig, Ewald, Zöckler, and others, therefore interpret חנם, not in the sense of in vain, inasmuch as they do not let themselves be caught; but: in vain, for they see not the net, but only the scattered corn. But according to the preceding, הרשׁת (the net) leads us to think only either of the net of the malicious designs, or the net of the alluring deceptions. Thus, as Ziegler has noticed, the warned ought to make application of the similitude to himself: Go not with them, for their intention is bad; go not with them, for if the bird flees away from the net which is spread out before it, thou wilt not surely be so blind as suffer thyself to be ensnared by their gross enticements. בּעל כּנף: the furnished with the wing (wings in Ecc 10:20); בּעל forms the idea of property (lord).

Pro 1:18

The causal conj. כּי (for) in Pro 1:16 and Pro 1:17 are coordinated; and there now follows, introduced by the conj. ו (“and”), a third reason for the warning:

And they lie in wait for their own blood,

They lay snares for their own lives.

The warning of Pro 1:16 is founded on the immorality of the conduct of the enticer; that of Pro 1:17 on the audaciousness of the seduction as such, and now on the self-destruction which the robber and murderer bring upon themselves: they wish to murder others, but, as the result shows, they only murder themselves. The expression is shaped after Pro 1:11, as if it were: They lay snares, as they themselves say, for the blood of others; but it is in reality for their own blood: they certainly lie in wait, as they say; but not, as they add, for the innocent, but for their own lives (Fl.). Instead of לדמם, there might be used לדמיהם, after Mic 7:2; but לנפשׁם would signify ipsis (post-biblical, לעצמם), while לנפשׁתם leaves unobliterated the idea of the life: animis ipsorum; for if the O.T. language seeks to express ipse in any other way than by the personal pronoun spoken emphatically, this is done by the addition of נפשׁ (Isa 53:11). המו was on this account necessary, because Pro 1:17 has another subject (cf. Psa 63:10).

Pro 1:19

An epiphonema:

Such is the lot of all who indulge in covetousness;

It takes away the life of its owner.

This language is formed after Job 8:13. Here, as there, in the word ארחות, the ideas of action and issue, manner of life and its result, are all combined. בּצע signifies properly that which is cut off, a piece, fragment broken off, then that which one breaks off and takes to himself - booty, gain, particularly unjust gain (Pro 28:16). בּצע בּצע is he who is greedy or covetous. The subject to יקּח is בּצע, covetousness, πλεονεξία (see Isa 57:17). As Hoses, Job 4:11, says of three other things that they taken away לב, the understanding (νοῦς), so here we are taught regarding unjust gain or covetousness, that it takes away נפשׁ, the life (ψυχή) (לקח נפשׁ, to take away the life, 1Ki 19:10; Psa 31:14). בּעליו denotes not the possessor of unjust gain, but as an inward conception, like בעל אף, Pro 22:24, cf. Pro 23:2; Pro 24:8; Ecc 10:11, him of whom covetousness is the property. The sing. נפשׁ does not show that בּעליו is thought of as sing.; cf. Pro 22:23, Ps. 34:23; but according to Pro 3:27; Pro 16:22; Ecc 8:8, this is nevertheless probable, although the usage without the suffix is always בּעל בּצע, and not בּעלי (of plur. intens. בּעלים).

Pro 1:20

Looking to its form and vocalization, חכמות may be an Aramaizing abstract formation (Gesen.; Ew. 165, c; Olsh. 219, b); for although the forms אחות and גּלות are of a different origin, yet in רבּות and הוללות such abstract formations lie before us. The termination ûth is here, by the passing over of the u into the less obscure but more intensive o (cf. יהו in the beginning and middle of the word, and יהוּ יהו at the end of the word), raised to ôth, and thereby is brought near to the fem. plur. (cf. חכמות, Pro 14:1, sapientia, as our plur. of the neut. sapiens, חכמה), approaching to the abstract. On the other hand, that חכמות is sing. of abstract signification, is not decisively denoted by its being joined to the plur. of the predicate (for תּרנּה here, as at Pro 8:3, is scarcely plur.; and if ראמות, Pro 24:7, is plur., חכמות as the numerical plur. may refer to the different sciences or departments of knowledge); but perhaps by this, that it interchanges with תּבוּנות, Psa 49:4, cf. Pro 11:12; Pro 28:16, and that an abstract formation from חכמה (fem. of חכם, חכם), which besides is not concrete, was unnecessary. Still less is חכמות = חכמת a singular, which has it in view to change חכמה into a proper name, for proof of which Hitzig refers to תּהומות, Psa 78:15; the singular ending ôth without an abstract signification does not exist. After that Dietrich, in his Abhandl. 1846, has shown that the origin of the plur. proceeds not from separate calculation, but from comprehension,In the Indo-Germanic languages the s of the plur. also probably proceeds from the prep. sa (sam) = συν. See Schleicher, Compend. der vergl. Gram. §247. and that particularly also names denoting intellectual strength are frequently plur., which multiply the conception not externally but internally, there is no longer any justifiable doubt that חכמות signifies the all-comprehending, absolute, or, as Böttcher, §689, expresses it, the full personal wisdom. Since such intensive plurals are sometimes united with the plur. of the predicate, as e.g., the monotheistically interpreted Elohim, Gen 35:7 (see l.c.), so תּרנּה may be plur. On the other hand, the idea that it is a forma mixta of תּרן (from רנן) and תּרנה (Job 39:23) or תּרנּה, the final sound in ah opposes. It may, however, be the emphatic form of the 3rd fem. sing. of רנן; for, that the Hebr. has such an emphatic form, corresponding to the Arab. taktubanna, is shown by these three examples (keeping out of view the suspicion of a corruption of the text, Olsh. p. 452), Jdg 5:26; Job 17:16; Isa 28:3; cf. תּשׁלחנה, Oba 1:13 (see Caspari, l.c.), an example of the 2nd masc. sing. of this formation. רנן (with רנה) is a word imitative of sound (Schallwort), used to denote “a clear-sounding, shrill voice (thence the Arab. rannan, of a speaker who has a clear, piercing voice); then the clear shrill sound of a string or chord of a bow, or the clear tinkle of the arrow in the quiver, and of the metal that has been struck” (Fl.). The meaning of רחבות is covered by plateae (Luk 14:21), wide places; and חוּץ, which elsewhere may mean that which is without, before the gates of the city and courts, here means the “open air,” in contradistinction to the inside of the houses.

Pro 1:21 המיּות (plur. of הומי, the ground-form of הומה, from המי = המה), “they who are making noise;” for the epithet is poetically used (Isa 22:2) as a substantive, crowded noisy streets or places. ראשׁ is the place from which on several sides streets go forth: cf. ras el-ain, the place where the well breaks forth; ras en-nahr, the place from which the stream divides itself; the sing. is meant distributively as little as at Pro 8:2. פּתח, if distinguished from שׁער (which also signifies cleft, breach), is the opening of the gate, the entrance by the gate. Four times the poet says that Wisdom goes forth preaching, and four times that she preaches publicly; the בּעיר used in five places implies that Wisdom preaches not in the field, before the few who there are met with, but in the city, which is full of people.

Pro 1:22

The poet has now reached that part of his introduction where he makes use of the very words uttered by Wisdom:

How long, ye simple, will ye love simplicity,

And scorners delight in scorning,

And fools hate knowledge?

Three classes of men are here addressed: the פּתים, the simple, who, being accessible to seduction, are only too susceptible of evil; the לצים, mockers, i.e., free-thinkers (from לוּץ, Arab. luṣ, flectere, torquere, properly qui verbis obliquis utitur); and the כּסילים, fools, i.e., the mentally imbecile and stupid (from כּסל, Arab. kasal, to be thick, coarse, indolent). The address to these passes immediately over into a declaration regarding them; cf. the same enallage, Pro 1:27. עד־מתי has the accent Mahpach, on account of the Pasek following; vid., Torath Emeth, p. 26. Intentionally, Wisdom addresses only the פתים, to whom she expects to find soonest access. Between the futt., which express the continuing love and hatred, stands the perf. חמדוּ, which expresses that in which the mockers found pleasure, that which was the object of their love. להם is the so-called dat. ethicus, which reflexively refers to that which is said to be the will and pleasure of the subject; as we say, “I am fond of this and that.” The form תּאהבוּ, Abulwalîd, Parchon, and Kimchi regard as Piel; but תּאהבוּ instead of תּאהבוּ would be a recompensatio of the virtual doubling, defacing the character of the Piel. Schultens regards it as a defectively written Paiël (in Syr.), but it is not proved that this conjugation exists in Hebr.; much rather תּאהבוּ is the only possible Kal form with תּאהבוּן without the pause, regularly formed from תּאהבוּ (vid., Ewald, §193, a). The division by the accent Mercha-Mahpach of the two words תאהבו פתי is equal in value to the connecting of them by Makkeph; vid., Baer’s Psalterium, p. x. In codd., and also in correct texts, תאהבו is written with the accent Galgal on the first syllable, as the servant of the Mercha-Mahpach. The Gaja is incorrectly here and there placed under the תּ.

Pro 1:23

To the call to thoughtfulness which lies in the complaint “How long?” there follows the entreaty:

Turn ye at my reproof!

Behold! I would pour out my Spirit upon you,

I would make you to know my words. 23a is not a clause expressive of a wish, which with the particle expressive of a wish, which is wanting, would be תּשׁוּבוּ־נא, or according to Pro 23:1 and Pro 27:23 would be שׁוב תּשׁוּבוּ. The הנּה, introducing the principal clause, stamps 23a as the conditional clause; the relation of the expressions is as Isa 26:10; Job 20:24. תּשׁוּבוּIn the Hagiographa everywhere written plene, with exception of Job 17:10. is not equivalent to si convertamini, which would require תּפנוּ, but to si revertamini; but לתוכהתּיThe Metheg belongs to the ת, under which it should be placed (and not to the ל), as the commencing sound of the second syllable before the tone-syllable; cf. Pro 1:25. does not therefore mean at my reproof, i.e., in consequence of it (Hitzig, after Num 16:34), but it is a constructio praegnans: turning and placing yourselves under my reproof. With תוכחת there is supposed an ἔλεγχος (lxx, Symm.): bringing proof, conviction, punishment. If they, leaving their hitherto accustomed way, permit themselves to be warned against their wickedness, then would Wisdom cause her words to flow forth to them, i.e., would without reserve disclose and communicate to them her spirit, cause them to know (namely by experience) her words. הבּיע (from נבע, R. נב; vid., Genesis, p. 635) is a common figurative word, expressive of the free pouring forth of thoughts and words, for the mouth is conceived of as a fountain (cf. Pro 18:4 with Mat 12:34), and the ῥῆσις (vid., lxx) as ῥεῦσις; only here it has the Spirit as object, but parallel with דּברי, thus the Spirit as the active power of the words, which, if the Spirit expresses Himself in them, are πνεῦμα καὶ ζωή, Joh 6:63. The addresses of Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs touch closely upon the discourses of the Lord in the Logos-Gospel. Wisdom appears here as the fountain of the words of salvation for men; and these words of salvation are related to her, just as the λόγοι to the divine λόγος expressing Himself therein.

Pro 1:24-27

The address of Wisdom now takes another course. Between Pro 1:23 and Pro 1:24 there is a pause, as between Isa 1:20 and Isa 1:21. In vain Wisdom expects that her complaints and enticements will be heard. Therefore she turns her call to repentance into a discourse announcing judgment. 24 Because I have called, and ye refused;      Stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; 25 And ye have rejected all my counsel      And to my reproof have not yielded: 26 Therefore will I also laugh at your calamity,      Will mock when your terror cometh; 27 When like a storm your terror cometh,      And your destruction swept on like a whirlwind;      When distress and anguish cometh upon you.

Commencing with יען (which, like מען, from ענה, to oppose, denotes the intention, but more the fundamental reason or the cause than, as למען, the motive or object), the clause, connected with גּם־אני, ego vicissim, turns to the conclusion. As here יען קראתי (as the word of Jahve) are connected by גּם־אני to the expression of the talio in Isa 66:4, so also מאם, with its contrast אבה, Isa 1:19. The construction quoniam vocavi et renuistis for quoniam quum vocarem renuistis (cf. Isa 12:1) is the common diffuse (zerstreute) Semitic, the paratactic instead of the periodizing style. The stretching out of the hand is, like the “spreading out” in Isa 65:2, significant of striving to beckon to the wandering, and to bring them near. Regarding הקשׁיב, viz., אזנו, to make the ear still (R. קש), arrigere, incorrectly explained by Schultens, after the Arab ḳashab, polire, by aurem purgare, vid., Isaiah, p. 257, note.

Pro 1:28-31

Then - this sublime preacher in the streets continues - distress shall teach them to pray: 28 Then shall they call on me, and I will not answer;      They shall early seek after me, and not find me; 29 Because that they hated knowledge,      And did not choose the fear of Jahve. 30 They have not yielded to my counsel,      Despised all my reproof: 31 Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their way,      And satiate themselves with their own counsels.

In the full emphatic forms, יקראנני, they shall call on me, ישׁחרנני, they shall seek me, and ימצאנני, they shall find me, the suffix ני may be joined to the old plur. ending ûn (Gesenius, Olshausen, Böttcher); but open forms like יברכנהוּ, He will bless him,יכבּדנני, He will honour me (from יכבּדנּי), and the like, rather favour the conclusion that נ is epenthetic (Ew. §250, b).In the Codd. יקראנני is written; in this case the Metheg indicates the tone syllable: vid., Torath Emeth, p. 7 note, p. 21 note; and Accentssystem, ii. §1, note. In ישׁחרנני the Rebia is to be placed over the ר. In the Silluk-word ימצאנני it appears undoubtedly that the form is to be spoken as Milel, i.e., with tone on the penult.

The address here takes the form of a declaration: Stultos nunc indignos censet ulteriori alloquio (Mich.). It is that laughter and scorn, Pro 1:26, which here sounds forth from the address of the Judge regarding the incorrigible. שׁחר is denom. of שׁחר, to go out and to seek with the morning twilight, as also בּקּר, Psa 27:5, perhaps to appear early, and usually (Arab.) bakar (I, II, IV), to rise early, to be zealous (Lane: “He hastened to do or accomplish, or attain the thing needed”). Zöckler, with Hitzig, erroneously regards Pro 1:29, Pro 1:30 as the antecedent to Pro 1:31. With ויאכלוּ, “and they shall eat,” the futt. announcing judgment are continued from Pro 1:28; cf. Deu 28:46-48. The conclusion after תּהת כּי, “therefore because,” or as usually expressed (except here and Deu 4:37, cf. Gen 4:25), תּהת אשׁר (ἀνθ ̓ ὧν), is otherwise characterized, Deu 22:29; 2Ch 21:12; and besides, תהת אשׁר stands after (e.g., 1Sa 26:21; 2Ki 22:17; Jer 29:19) oftener than before the principal clause. בּחר combines in itself the meanings of eligere and diligere (Fl.). The construction of אבה ל (to be inclining towards) follows that of the analogous שׁמע ל (to hear). Each one eats of the fruit of his way - good fruit of good ways (Isa 3:10), and evil fruit of evil ways. “The מן, 31b, introduces the object from which, as a whole, that which one eats, and with which he is satisfied, is taken as a part, or the object from which, as from a fountain, satisfaction flows forth” (Fl.). In correct texts, ויאכלוּ has the accent Dechî, and at the same time Munach as its servant. Regarding the laws of punctuation, according to which וּממּעצתיהם (with Munach on the tone-syllable, Tarcha on the antepenult, and Metheg before the Chateph-Pathach) is to be written, see Baer’s Torath Emeth, p. 11, Accentssystem, iv. §4. Norzi accents the word incorrectly with Rebia Mugrash. With the exception of Pro 22:22, the pluraletA plur. denoting unity in the circumstances, and a similarity in the relations of time and space. מועצות has always the meaning of ungodly counsels.

Pro 1:32-33

The discourse is now summarily brought to a close: 32 For the perverseness of the simple slays them,      And the security of fools destroys them. 33 But whoever harkeneth to me dwells secure,      And is at rest from fear of evil.

Of the two interpretations of שׁוּב, a turning towards (with אל and the like, conversion) or a turning away (with מאחרי or מעל, desertion), in משׁוּבה the latter (as in the post-Bib. תּשׁוּבה, repentance, the former) is expressed; apostasy from wisdom and from God are conjoined. שׁלוה is here carnalis securitas; but the word may also denote the external and the internal peace of the righteous, as שׁאנן, whence שׁלאנן, Job 21:23, as a superlative is formed by the insertion of the ל of שׁלו, is taken in bonam et malam partem. שׁאנן is, according to the Masora (also in Jer 30:10; Jer 46:27; Jer 48:11), 3rd perf. Pilel (Ewald, §120, a), from the unused שׁאן, to be quiet: he has attained to full quietness, and enjoys such. The construction with מן follows the analogy of הניח מן (to give rest from), שׁקט מן (to rest from), and the like. The negative interpretation of מן, sine ullo pavore mali (Schultens, Ewald), is unnecessary; also Job 21:9 may be explained by “peace from terror,” especially since שׁלום is derived from the root של, extrahere. פּחד רעה, “fear of evil,” one may perhaps distinguish from פחד רע as the genitive of combination.

Proverbs

We have now before us, I. A new author, or penman rather, or pen (if you will) made use of by the Holy Ghost for making known the mind of God to us, writing as moved by the finger of God (so the Spirit of God is called), and that is Solomon; through his hand came this book of Scripture and the two that follow it, Ecclesiastes and Canticles, a sermon and a song. Some think he wrote Canticles when he was very young, Proverbs in the midst of his days, and Ecclesiastes when he was old. In the title of his song he only writes himself Solomon, perhaps because he wrote it before his accession to the throne, being filled with the Holy Ghost when he was young. In the title of his Proverbs he writes himself the son of David, king of Israel, for then he ruled over all Israel. In the title of his Ecclesiastes he writes himself the son of David, king of Jerusalem, because then perhaps his influence had grown less upon the distant tribes, and he confined himself very much in Jerusalem. Concerning this author we may observe, 1. That he was a king, and a king's son. The penmen of scripture, hitherto, were most of them men of the first rank in the world, as Moses and Joshua, Samuel and David, and now Solomon; but, after him, the inspired writers were generally poor prophets, men of no figure in the world, because that dispensation was approaching in the which God would choose the weak and foolish things of the world to confound the wise and mighty and the poor should be employed to evangelize. Solomon was a very rich king, and his dominions were very large, a king of the first magnitude, and yet he addicted himself to the study of divine things, and was a prophet and a prophet's son. It is no disparagement to the greatest princes and potentates in the world to instruct those about them in religion and the laws of it. 2. That he was one whom God endued with extraordinary measures of wisdom and knowledge, in answer to his prayers at his accession to the throne. His prayer was exemplary: Give me a wise and an understanding heart; the answer to it was encouraging: he had what he desired and all other things were added to him. Now here we find what good use he made of the wisdom God gave him; he not only governed himself and his kingdom with it, but he gave rules of wisdom to others also, and transmitted them to posterity. Thus must we trade with the talents with which we are entrusted, according as they are. 3. That he was one who had his faults, and in his latter end turned aside from those good ways of God which in this book he had directed others in. We have the story of it 1 Kings xi., and a sad story it is, that the penman of such a book as this should apostatize as he did. Tell it not in Gath. But let those who are most eminently useful take warning by this not to be proud or secure; and let us all learn not to think the worse of good instructions though we have them from those who do not themselves altogether live up to them.

II. A new way of writing, in which divine wisdom is taught us by Proverbs, or short sentences, which contain their whole design within themselves and are not connected with one another. We have had divine laws, histories, and songs, and now divine proverbs; such various methods has Infinite Wisdom used for our instruction, that, no stone being left unturned to do us good, we may be inexcusable if we perish in our folly. Teaching by proverbs was, 1. An ancient way of teaching. It was the most ancient way among the Greeks; each of the seven wise men of Greece had some one saying that he valued himself upon, and that made him famous. These sentences were inscribed on pillars, and had in great veneration as that which was said to come down from heaven. A cœlo descendit, Gnothi seauton—Know thyself is a precept which came down from heaven. 2. It was a plain and easy way of teaching, which cost neither the teachers nor the learners much pains, nor put their understandings nor their memories to the stretch. Long periods, and arguments far-fetched, must be laboured both by him that frames them and by him that would understand them, while a proverb, which carries both its sense and its evidence in a little compass, is quickly apprehended and subscribed to, and is easily retained. Both David's devotions and Solomon's instructions are sententious, which may recommend that way of expression to those who minister about holy things, both in praying and preaching. 3. It was a very profitable way of teaching, and served admirably well to answer the end. The word Mashal, here used for a proverb, comes from a word that signifies to rule or have dominion, because of the commanding power and influence which wise and weighty sayings have upon the children of men; he that teaches by them dominatur in concionibus—rules his auditory. It is easy to observe how the world is governed by proverbs. As saith the proverb of the ancients (1 Sam. xxiv. 13), or (as we commonly express it) As the old saying is, goes very far with most men in forming their notions and fixing their resolves. Much of the wisdom of the ancients has been handed down to posterity by proverbs; and some think we may judge of the temper and character of a nation by the complexion of its vulgar proverbs. Proverbs in conversation are like axioms in philosophy, maxims in law, and postulata in the mathematics, which nobody disputes, but every one endeavours to expound so as to have them on his side. Yet there are many corrupt proverbs, which tend to debauch men's minds and harden them in sin. The devil has his proverbs, and the world and the flesh have their proverbs, which reflect reproach on God and religion (as Ezek. xii. 22; xviii. 2), to guard us against the corrupt influences of which God has his proverbs, which are all wise and good, and tend to make us so. These proverbs of Solomon were not merely a collection of the wise sayings that had been formerly delivered, as some have imagined, but were the dictates of the Spirit of God in Solomon. The very first of them (ch. i. 7) agrees with what God said to man in the beginning (Job xxviii. 28, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom); so that though Solomon was great, and his name may serve as much as any man's to recommend his writings, yet, behold, a greater than Solomon is here. It is God, by Solomon, that here speaks to us: I say, to us; for these proverbs were written for our learning, and, when Solomon speaks to his son, the exhortation is said to speak to us as unto children, Heb. xii. 5. And, as we have no book so useful to us in our devotions as David's psalms, so have we none so serviceable to us, for the right ordering of our conversations, as Solomon's proverbs, which as David says of the commandments, are exceedingly broad, containing, in a little compass, a complete body of divine ethics, politics, and economics, exposing every vice, recommending every virtue, and suggesting rules for the government of ourselves in every relation and condition, and every turn of the conversation. The learned bishop Hall has drawn up a system of moral philosophy out of Solomon's Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. The first nine chapters of this book are reckoned as a preface, by way of exhortation to the study and practice of wisdom's rules, and caution against those things that would hinder therein. We have then the first volume of Solomon's proverbs (ch. x.-xxiv.); after that a second volume (ch. xxv.-xxix.); and then Agur's prophecy (ch. xxx.), and Lemuel's (ch. xxxi.). The scope of all is one and the same, to direct us so to order our conversation aright as that in the end we may see the salvation of the Lord. The best comment on these rules is to be ruled by them.

Those who read David's psalms, especially those towards the latter end, would be tempted to think that religion is all rapture and consists in nothing but the ecstasies and transports of devotion; and doubtless there is a time for them, and if there be a heaven upon earth it is in them: but, while we are on earth, we cannot be wholly taken up with them; we have a life to live in the flesh, must have a conversation in the world, and into that we must now be taught to carry our religion, which is a rational thing, and very serviceable to the government of human life, and tends as much to make us discreet as to make us devout, to make the face shine before men, in a prudent, honest, useful conversation, as to make the heart burn towards God in holy and pious affections. In this chapter we have, I. The title of the book, showing the general scope and design of it, ver. 1-6. II. The first principle of it recommended to our serious consideration, ver. 7-9. III. A necessary caution against bad company, ver. 10-19. IV. A faithful and lively representation of wisdom's reasonings with the children of men, and the certain ruin of those who turn a deaf ear to those reasonings, ver. 20-33.

The Design of the Proverbs.

1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel; 2 To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; 3 To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity; 4 To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. 5 A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels: 6 To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

We have here an introduction to this book, which some think was prefixed by the collector and publisher, as Ezra; but it is rather supposed to have been penned by Solomon himself, who, in the beginning of his book, proposes his end in writing it, that he might keep to his business, and closely pursue that end. We are here told,

I. Who wrote these wise sayings, v. 1. They are the proverbs of Solomon. 1. His name signifies peaceable, and the character both of his spirit and of his reign answered to it; both were peaceable. David, whose life was full of troubles, wrote a book of devotion; for is any afflicted? let him pray. Solomon, who lived quietly, wrote a book of instruction; for when the churches had rest they were edified. In times of peace we should learn ourselves, and teach others, that which in troublous times both they and we must practise. 2. He was the son of David; it was his honour to stand related to that good man, and he reckoned it so with good reason, for he fared the better for it, 1 Kings xi. 12. He had been blessed with a good education, and many a good prayer had been put up for him (Ps. lxxii. 1), the effect of both which appeared in his wisdom and usefulness. The generation of the upright are sometimes thus blessed, that they are made blessings, eminent blessings, in their day. Christ is often called the Son of David, and Solomon was a type of him in this, as in other things, that he opened his mouth in parables or proverbs. 3. He was king of Israel—a king, and yet it was no disparagement to him to be an instructor of the ignorant, and a teacher of babes—king of Israel, that people among whom God was known and his name was great; among them he learned wisdom, and to them he communicated it. All the earth sought to Solomon to hear his wisdom, which excelled all men's (1 Kings iv. 30; x. 24); it was an honour to Israel that their king was such a dictator, such an oracle. Solomon was famous for apophthegms; every word he said had weight in it, and something that was surprising and edifying. His servants who attended him, and heard his wisdom, had, among them, collected 3000 proverbs of his which they wrote in their day-books; but these were of his own writing, and do not amount to nearly a thousand. In these he was divinely inspired. Some think that out of those other proverbs of his, which were not so inspired, the apocryphal books of Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon were compiled, in which are many excellent sayings, and of great use; but, take altogether, they are far short of this book. The Roman emperors had each of them his symbol or motto, as many now have with their coat of arms. But Solomon had many weighty sayings, not as theirs, borrowed from others, but all the product of that extraordinary wisdom which God had endued him with.

II. For what end they were written (v. 2-4), not to gain a reputation to the author, or strengthen his interest among his subjects, but for the use and benefit of all that in every age and place will govern themselves by these dictates and study them closely. This book will help us, 1. To form right notions of things, and to possess our minds with clear and distinct ideas of them, that we may know wisdom and instruction, that wisdom which is got by instruction, by divine revelation, may know both how to speak and act wisely ourselves and to give instruction to others. 2. To distinguish between truth and falsehood, good and evil—to perceive the words of understanding, to apprehend them, to judge of them, to guard against mistakes, and to accommodate what we are taught to ourselves and our own use, that we may discern things that differ and not be imposed upon, and may approve things that are excellent and not lose the benefit of them, as the apostle prays, Phil. i. 10. 3. To order our conversation aright in every things, v. 3. This book will give, that we may receive, the instruction of wisdom, that knowledge which will guide our practice in justice, judgment, and equity (v. 3), which will dispose us to render to all their due, to God the things that are God's, in all the exercises of religion, and to all men what is due to them, according to the obligations which by relation, office, contract, or upon any other account, we lie under to them. Note, Those are truly wise, and none but those, who are universally conscientious; and the design of the scripture is to teach us that wisdom, justice in the duties of the first table, judgment in those of the second table, and equity (that is sincerity) in both; so some distinguish them.

III. For whose use they were written, v. 4. They are of use to all, but are designed especially, 1. For the simple, to give subtlety to them. The instructions here given are plain and easy, and level to the meanest capacity, the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein; and those are likely to receive benefit by them who are sensible of their own ignorance and their need to be taught, and are therefore desirous to receive instruction; and those who receive these instructions in their light and power, though they be simple, will hereby be made subtle, graciously crafty to know the sin they should avoid and the duty they should do, and to escape the tempter's wiles. He that is harmless as the dove by observing Solomon's rules may become wise as the serpent; and he that has been sinfully foolish when he begins to govern himself by the word of God becomes graciously wise. 2. For young people, to give them knowledge and discretion. Youth is the learning age, catches at instructions, receives impressions, and retains what is then received; it is therefore of great consequence that the mind be then seasoned well, nor can it receive a better tincture than from Solomon's proverbs. Youth is rash, and heady, and inconsiderate; man is born like the wild ass's colt, and therefore needs to be broken by the restraints and managed by the rules we find here. And, if young people will but take heed to their ways according to Solomon's proverbs, they will soon gain the knowledge and discretion of the ancients. Solomon had an eye to posterity in writing this book, hoping by it to season the minds of the rising generation with the generous principles of wisdom and virtue.

IV. What good use may be made of them, v. 5, 6. Those who are young and simple may by them be made wise, and are not excluded from Solomon's school, as they were from Plato's. But is it only for such? No; here is not only milk for babes, but strong meat for strong men. This book will not only make the foolish and bad wise and good, but the wise and good wiser and better; and though the simple and the young man may perhaps slight those instructions, and not be the better for them, yet the wise man will hear. Wisdom will be justified by her own children, though not by the children sitting in the market-place. Note, Even wise men must hear, and not think themselves too wise to learn. A wise man is sensible of his own defects (Plurima ignoro, sed ignorantiam meam non ignoro—I am ignorant of many things, but not of my own ignorance), and therefore is still pressing forward, that he may increase in learning, may know more and know it better, more clearly and distinctly, and may know better how to make use of it. As long as we live we should strive to increase in all useful learning. It was a saying of one of the greatest of the rabbin, Qui non auget scientiam, amittit de ea—If our stock of knowledge by not increasing, it is wasting; and those that would increase in learning must study the scriptures; these perfect the man of God. A wise man, by increasing in learning, is not only profitable to himself, but to others also, 1. As a counsellor. A man of understanding in these precepts of wisdom, by comparing them with one another and with his own observations, shall by degrees attain unto wise counsels; he stands fair for preferment, and will be consulted as an oracle, and entrusted with the management of public affairs; he shall come to sit at the helm, so the word signifies. Note, Industry is the way to honour; and those whom God has blessed with wisdom must study to do good with it, according as their sphere is. It is more dignity indeed to be counsellor to the prince, but it is more charity to be counsellor to the poor, as Job was with his wisdom. Job xxix. 15, I was eyes to the blind. 2. As an interpreter (v. 6)—to understand a proverb. Solomon was himself famous for expounding riddles and resolving hard questions, which was of old the celebrated entertainment of the eastern princes, witness the solutions he gave to the enquiries with which the queen of Sheba thought to puzzle him. Now here he undertakes to furnish his readers with that talent, as far as would be serviceable to the best purposes. "They shall understand a proverb, even the interpretation, without which the proverb is a nut uncracked; when they hear a wise saying, though it be figurative, they shall take the sense of it, and know how to make use of it." The words of the wise are sometimes dark sayings. In St. Paul's epistles there is that which is hard to be understood; but to those who, being well-versed in the scriptures, know how to compare spiritual things with spiritual, they will be easy and safe; so that, if you ask them, Have you understood all these things? they may answer, Yea, Lord. Note, It is a credit to religion when men of honesty are men of sense; all good people therefore should aim to be intelligent, and run to and fro, take pains in the use of means, that their knowledge may be increased.

Parental Admonitions.

7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. 8 My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: 9 For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.

Solomon, having undertaken to teach a young man knowledge and discretion, here lays down two general rules to be observed in order thereunto, and those are, to fear God and honour his parents, which two fundamental laws of morality Pythagoras begins his golden verses with, but the former of them in a wretchedly corrupted state. Primum, deos immortales cole, parentesque honora—First worship the immortal gods, and honour your parents. To make young people such as they should be,

I. Let them have regard to God as their supreme.

1. He lays down this truth, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (v. 7); it is the principal part of knowledge (so the margin); it is the head of knowledge; that is, (1.) Of all things that are to be known this is most evident, that God is to be feared, to be reverenced, served, and worshipped; this is so the beginning of knowledge that those know nothing who do not know this. (2.) In order to the attaining of all useful knowledge this is most necessary, that we fear God; we are not qualified to profit by the instructions that are given us unless our minds be possessed with a holy reverence of God, and every thought within us be brought into obedience to him. If any man will do his will, he shall know of his doctrine, John vii. 17. (3.) As all our knowledge must take rise from the fear of God, so it must tend to it as its perfection and centre. Those know enough who know how to fear God, who are careful in every thing to please him and fearful of offending him in any thing; this is the Alpha and Omega of knowledge.

2. To confirm this truth, that an eye to God must both direct and quicken all our pursuits of knowledge, he observes, Fools (atheists, who have no regard to God) despise wisdom and instruction; having no dread at all of God's wrath, nor any desire of his favour, they will not give you thanks for telling them what they may do to escape his wrath and obtain his favour. Those who say to the Almighty, Depart from us, who are so far from fearing him that they set him at defiance, can excite no surprise if they desire not the knowledge of his ways, but despise that instruction. Note, Those are fools who do not fear God and value the scriptures; and though they may pretend to be admirers of wit they are really strangers and enemies to wisdom.

II. Let them have regard to their parents as their superiors (v. 8, 9): My son, hear the instruction of thy father. He means, not only that he would have his own children to be observant of him, and of what he said to them, nor only that he would have his pupils, and those who came to him to be taught, to look upon him as their father and attend to his precepts with the disposition of children, but that he would have all children to be dutiful and respectful to their parents, and to conform to the virtuous and religious education which they give them, according to the law of the fifth commandment.

1. He takes it for granted that parents will, with all the wisdom they have, instruct their children, and, with all the authority they have, give law to them for their good. They are reasonable creatures, and therefore we must not give them law without instruction; we must draw them with the cords of a man, and when we tell them what they must do we must tell them why. But they are corrupt and wilful, and therefore with the instruction there is need of a law. Abraham will not only catechize, but command, his household. Both the father and the mother must do all they can for the good education of their children, and all little enough.

2. He charges children both to receive and to retain the good lessons and laws their parents give them. (1.) To receive them with readiness: "Hear the instruction of thy father; hear it and heed it; hear it and bid it welcome, and be thankful for it, and subscribe to it." (2.) To retain them with resolution: "Forsake not their law; think not that when thou art grown up, and no longer under tutors and governors, thou mayest live at large; no, the law of thy mother was according to the law of thy God, and therefore it must never be forsaken; thou wast trained up in the way in which thou shouldst go, and therefore, when thou art old, thou must not depart from it." Some observe that whereas the Gentile ethics, and the laws of the Persians and Romans, provided only that children should pay respect to their father, the divine law secures the honour of the mother also.

3. He recommends this as that which is very graceful and will put an honour upon us: "The instructions and laws of thy parents, carefully observed and lived up to, shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head (v. 9), such an ornament as is, in the sight of God, of great price, and shall make thee look as great as those that wear gold chains about their necks." Let divine truths and commands be to us a coronet, or a collar of SS, which are badges of first-rate honours; let us value them, and be ambitious of them, and then they shall be so to us. Those are truly valuable, and shall be valued, who value themselves more by their virtue and piety than by their worldly wealth and dignity.

Parental Admonitions.

10 My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. 11 If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: 12 Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: 13 We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil: 14 Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: 15 My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: 16 For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. 17 Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. 18 And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives. 19 So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.

Here Solomon gives another general rule to young people, in order to their finding out, and keeping in, the paths of wisdom, and that is to take heed of the snare of bad company. David's psalms begin with this caution, and so do Solomon's proverbs; for nothing is more destructive, both to a lively devotion and to a regular conversation (v. 10): "My son, whom I love, and have a tender concern for, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not." This is good advice for parents to give their children when they send them abroad into the world; it is the same that St. Peter gave to his new converts, (Acts ii. 40), Save yourselves from this untoward generation. Observe, 1. How industrious wicked people are to seduce others into the paths of the destroyer: they will entice. Sinners love company in sin; the angels that fell were tempters almost as soon as they were sinners. They do not threaten or argue, but entice with flattery and fair speech; with a bait they draw the unwary young man to the hook. But they mistake if they think that by bringing others to partake with them in their guilt, and to be bound, as it were, in the bond with them, they shall have the less to pay themselves; for they will have so much the more to answer for. 2. How cautious young people should be that they be not seduced by them: "Consent thou not; and then, though they entice thee, they cannot force thee. Do not say as they say, nor do as they do or would have thee to do; have no fellowship with them." To enforce this caution,

I. He represents the fallacious reasonings which sinners use in their enticements, and the arts of wheedling which they have for the beguiling of unstable souls. He specifies highwaymen, who do what they can to draw others into their gang, v. 11-14. See here what they would have the young man to do: "Come with us (v. 11); let us have thy company." At first they pretend to ask no more; but the courtship rises higher (v. 14): "Cast in thy lot among us; come in partner with us, join thy force to ours, and let us resolve to live and die together: thou shalt fare as we fare; and let us all have one purse, that what we get together we may spend merrily together," for that is it they aim at. Two unreasonable insatiable lusts they propose to themselves the gratification of, and therewith entice their pray into the snare:—1. Their cruelty. They thirst after blood, and hate those that are innocent and never gave them any provocation, because by their honesty and industry they shame and condemn them: "Let us therefore lay wait for their blood, and lurk privily for them; they are conscious to themselves of no crime and consequently apprehensive of no danger, but travel unarmed; therefore we shall make the more easy prey of them. And, O how sweet it will be to swallow them up alive!" v. 12. These bloody men would do this as greedily as the hungry lion devours the lamb. If it be objected, "The remains of the murdered will betray the murderers;" they answer, "No danger of that; we will swallow them whole as those that are buried." Who could imagine that human nature should degenerate so far that it should ever be a pleasure to one man to destroy another! 2. Their covetousness. They hope to get a good booty by it (v. 13): "We shall find all precious substance by following this trade. What though we venture our necks by it? we shall fill our houses with spoil." See here, (1.) The idea they have of worldly wealth. They call it precious substance; whereas it is neither substance nor precious; it is a shadow; it is vanity, especially that which is got by robbery, Ps. lxii. 10. It is as that which is not, which will give a man no solid satisfaction. It is cheap, it is common, yet, in their account, it is precious, and therefore they will hazard their lives, and perhaps their souls, in pursuit of it. It is the ruining mistake of thousands that they over-value the wealth of this world and look on it as precious substance. (2.) The abundance of it which they promise themselves: We shall fill our houses with it. Those who trade with sin promise themselves mighty bargains, and that it will turn to a vast account (All this will I give thee, says the tempter); but they only dream that they eat; the housefuls dwindle into scarcely a handful, like the grass on the house-tops.

II. He shows the perniciousness of these ways, as a reason why we should dread them (v. 15): "My son, walk not thou in the way with them; do not associate with them; get, and keep, as far off from them as thou canst; refrain thy foot from their path; do not take example by them, not do as they do." Such is the corruption of our nature that our foot is very prone to step into the path of sin, so that we must use necessary violence upon ourselves to refrain our foot from it, and check ourselves if at any time we take the least step towards it. Consider, 1. How pernicious their way is in its own nature (v. 16): Their feet run to evil, to that which is displeasing to God and hurtful to mankind, for they make haste to shed blood. Note, The way of sin is down-hill; men not only cannot stop themselves, but, the longer they continue in it, the faster they run, and make haste in it, as if they were afraid they should not do mischief enough and were resolved to lose no time. They said they would proceed leisurely (Let us lay wait for blood, v. 11), but thou wilt find they are all in haste, so much has Satan filled their hearts. 2. How pernicious the consequences of it will be. They are plainly told that this wicked way will certainly end in their own destruction, and yet they persist in it. Herein, (1.) They are like the silly bird, that sees the net spread to take her, and yet it is in vain; she is decoyed into it by the bait, and will not take the warning which her own eyes gave her, v. 17. But we think ourselves of more value than many sparrows, and therefore should have more wit, and act with more caution. God has made us wiser than the fowls of heaven (Job xxxv. 11), and shall we then be as stupid as they? (2.) They are worse than the birds, and have not the sense which we sometimes perceive them to have; for the fowler knows it is in vain to lay his snare in the sight of the bird, and therefore he has arts to conceal it. But the sinner sees ruin at the end of his way; the murderer, the thief, see the jail and the gallows before them, nay, they may see hell before them; their watchmen tell them they shall surely die, but it is to no purpose; they rush into sin, and rush on in it, like the horse into the battle. For really the stone they roll will turn upon themselves, v. 18, 19. They lay wait, and lurk privily, for the blood and lives of others, but it will prove, contrary to their intention, to be for their own blood, their own lives; they will come, at length, to a shameful end; and, if they escape the sword of the magistrate, yet there is a divine Nemesis that pursues them. Vengeance suffers them not to live. Their greediness of gain hurries them upon those practices which will not suffer them to live out half their days, but will cut off the number of their months in the midst. They have little reason to be proud of their property in that which takes away the life of the owners and then passes to other masters; and what is a man profited, though he gain the world, if he lose his life? For then he can enjoy the world no longer; much less if he lose his soul, and that be drowned in destruction and perdition, as multitudes are by the love of money.

Now, though Solomon specifies only the temptation to rob on the highway, yet he intends hereby to warn us against all other evils which sinners entice men to. Such are the ways of the drunkards and unclean; they are indulging themselves in those pleasures which tend to their ruin both here and for ever; and therefore consent not to them.

Wisdom's Exhortations; Doom of Obdurate Sinners.

20 Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: 21 She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, 22 How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? 23 Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. 24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; 25 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: 26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; 27 When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. 28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: 29 For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord : 30 They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. 31 Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. 32 For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. 33 But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.

Solomon, having shown how dangerous it is to hearken to the temptations of Satan, here shows how dangerous it is not to hearken to the calls of God, which we shall for ever rue the neglect of. Observe,

I. By whom God calls to us—by wisdom. It is wisdom that crieth without. The word is plural—wisdoms, for, as there is infinite wisdom in God, so there is the manifold wisdom of God, Eph. iii. 10. God speaks to the children of men by all the kinds of wisdom, and, as in every will, so in every word, of God there is a counsel. 1. Human understanding is wisdom, the light and law of nature, the powers and faculties of reason, and the office of conscience, Job xxxviii. 36. By these God speaks to the children of men, and reasons with them. The spirit of a man is the candle of the Lord; and, wherever men go, they may hear a voice behind them, saying, This is the way; and the voice of conscience is the voice of God, and not always a still small voice, but sometimes it cries. 2. Civil government is wisdom; it is God's ordinance; magistrates are his vicegerents. God by David had said to the fools, Deal not foolishly, Ps. lxxv. 4. In the opening of the gates, and in the places of concourse, where courts were kept, the judges, the wisdom of the nation, called to wicked people, in God's name, to repent and reform. 3. Divine revelation is wisdom; all its dictates, all its laws, are wise as wisdom itself. God does, by the written word, by the law of Moses, which sets before us the blessing and the curse, by the priests' lips which keep knowledge, by his servants the prophets, and all the ministers of this word, declare his mind to sinners, and give them warning as plainly as that which is proclaimed in the streets or courts of judicature by the criers. God, in his word, not only opens the case, but argues it with the children of men. Come, now, and let us reason together, Isa. i. 18. 4. Christ himself is Wisdom, is Wisdoms, for in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and he is the centre of all divine revelation, not only the essential Wisdom, but the eternal Word, by whom God speaks to us and to whom he has committed all judgment; he it is therefore who here both pleads with sinners and passes sentence on them. He calls himself Wisdom, Luke vii. 35.

II. How he calls to us, and in what manner. 1. Very publicly, that whosoever hath ears to hear may hear, since all are welcome to take the benefit of what is said and all are concerned to heed it. The rules of wisdom are published without in the streets, not in the schools only, or in the palaces of princes, but in the chief places of concourse, among the common people that pass and repass in the opening of the gates and in the city. It is comfortable casting the net of the gospel where there is a multitude of fish, in hopes that then some will be enclosed. This was fulfilled in our Lord Jesus, who taught openly in the temple, in crowds of people, and in secret said nothing (John xviii. 20), and charged his ministers to proclaim his gospel on the housetop, Matt. x. 27. God says (Isa. xlv. 19), I have not spoken in secret. There is no speech or language where Wisdom's voice is not heard. Truth seeks not corners, nor is virtue ashamed of itself. 2. Very pathetically; she cries, and again she cries, as one in earnest. Jesus stood and cried. She utters her voice, she utters her words with all possible clearness and affection. God is desirous to be heard and heeded.

III. What the call of God and Christ is.

1. He reproves sinners for their folly and their obstinately persisting in it, v. 22. Observe, (1.) Who they are that Wisdom here reproves and expostulates with. In general, they are such as are simple, and therefore might justly be despised, such as love simplicity, and therefore might justly be despaired of; but we must use the means even with those that we have but little hopes of, because we know not what divine grace may do. Three sorts of persons are here called to:—[1.] Simple ones that love simplicity. Sin is simplicity, and sinners are simple ones; they do foolishly, very foolishly; and the condition of those is very bad who love simplicity, are fond of their simple notions of good and evil, their simple prejudices against the ways of God, and are in their element when they are doing a simple thing, sporting themselves in their own deceivings and flattering themselves in their wickedness. [2.] Scorners that delight in scorning—proud people that take a pleasure in hectoring all about them, jovial people that banter all mankind, and make a jest of every thing that comes in their way. But scoffers at religion are especially meant, the worst of sinners, that scorn to submit to the truths and laws of Christ, and to the reproofs and admonitions of his word, and take a pride in running down every thing that is sacred and serious. [3.] Fools that hate knowledge. None but fools hate knowledge. Those only are enemies to religion that do not understand it aright. And those are the worst of fools that hate to be instructed and reformed, and have a rooted antipathy to serious godliness. (2.) How the reproof is expressed: "How long will you do so?" This implies that the God of heaven desires the conversion and reformation of sinners and not their ruin, that he is much displeased with their obstinacy and dilatoriness, that he waits to be gracious, and is willing to reason the case with them.

2. He invites them to repent and become wise, v. 23. And here, (1.) The precept is plain: Turn you at my reproof. We do not make a right use of the reproofs that are given us for that which is evil if we do not turn from it to that which is good; for for this end the reproof was given. Turn, that is, return to your right mind, turn to God, turn to your duty, turn and live. (2.) The promises are very encouraging. Those that love simplicity find themselves under a moral impotency to change their own mind and way; they cannot turn by any power of their own. To this God answers, "Behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you; set yourselves to do what you can, and the grace of God shall set in with you, and work in you both to will and to do that good which, without that grace, you could not do." Help thyself, and God will help thee; stretch forth thy withered hand, and Christ will strengthen and heal it. [1.] The author of this grace is the Spirit, and that is promised: I will pour out my Spirit unto you, as oil, as water; you shall have the Spirit in abundance, rivers of living water, John vii. 38. Our heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to those that ask him. [2.] The means of this grace is the word, which, if we take it aright, will turn us; it is therefore promised, "I will make known my words unto you, not only speak them to you, but make them known, give you to understand them." Note, Special grace is necessary to a sincere conversion. But that grace shall never be denied to any that honestly seek it and submit to it.

3. He reads the doom of those that continue obstinate against all these means and methods of grace. It is large and very terrible, v. 24-32. Wisdom, having called sinners to return, pauses awhile, to see what effect the call has, hearkens and hears; but they speak not aright (Jer. viii. 6), and therefore she goes on to tell them what will be in the end hereof.

(1.) The crime is recited and it is highly provoking. See what it is for which judgment will be given against impenitent sinners in the great day, and you will say they deserve it, and the Lord is righteous in it. It is, in short, rejecting Christ and the offers of his grace, and refusing to submit to the terms of his gospel, which would have saved them both from the curse of the law of God and from the dominion of the law of sin. [1.] Christ called to them, to warn them of their danger; he stretched out his hand to offer them mercy, nay, to help them out of their miserable condition, stretched out his hand for them to take hold of, but they refused and no man regarded; some were careless and never heeded it, nor took notice of what was said to them; others were wilful, and, though they could not avoid hearing the will of Christ, yet they gave him a flat denial, they refused, v. 24. They were in love with their folly, and would not be made wise. They were obstinate to all the methods that were taken to reclaim them. God stretched out his hand in mercies bestowed upon them, and, when those would not work upon them, in corrections, but all were in vain; they regarded the operations of his hand no more than the declarations of his mouth. [2.] Christ reproved and counselled them, not only reproved them for what they did amiss, but counselled them to do better (those are reproofs of instruction and evidences of love and good-will), but they set at nought all his counsel as not worth heeding, and would none of his reproof, as if it were below them to be reproved by him and as if they had never done any thing that deserved reproof, v. 25. This is repeated (v. 30): "They would none of my counsel, but rejected it with disdain; they called reproofs reproaches, and took them as an insult (Jer. vi. 10); nay, they despised all my reproof, as if it were all a jest, and not worth taking notice of." Note, Those are marked for ruin that are deaf to reproof and good counsel. [3.] They were exhorted to submit to the government of right reason and religion, but they rebelled against both. First, Reason should not rule them, for they hated knowledge (v. 29), hated the light of divine truth because it discovered to them the evil of their deeds, John iii. 20. They hated to be told that which they could not bear to know. Secondly, Religion could not rule them, for they did not choose the fear of the Lord, but chose to walk in the way of their heart and in the sight of their eyes. They were pressed to set God always before them, but they chose rather to cast him and his fear behind their backs. Note, Those who do not choose the fear of the Lord show that they have no knowledge.

(2.) The sentence is pronounced, and it is certainly ruining. Those that will not submit to God's government will certainly perish under his wrath and curse, and the gospel itself will not relieve them. They would not take the benefit of God's mercy when it was offered them, and therefore justly fall as victims to his justice, ch. xxix. 1. The threatenings here will have their full accomplishment in the judgment of the great day and the eternal misery of the impenitent, of which yet there are some earnests in present judgments. [1.] Now sinners are in prosperity and secure; they live at ease, and set sorrow at defiance. But, First, Their calamity will come (v. 26); sickness will come, and those diseases which they shall apprehend to be the very arrests and harbingers of death; other troubles will come, in mind, in estate, which will convince them of their folly in setting God at a distance. Secondly, Their calamity will put them into a great fright. Fear seizes them, and they apprehend that bad will be worse. When public judgments are abroad the sinners in Zion are afraid, fearfulness surprises the hypocrites. Death is the king of terrors to them (Job xv. 21, and xviii. 11, &c.); this fear will be their continual torment. Thirdly, According to their fright will it be to them. Their fear shall come (the thing they were afraid of shall befal them); it shall come as desolation, as a mighty deluge bearing down all before it; it shall be their destruction, their total and final destruction; and it shall come as a whirlwind, which suddenly and forcibly drives away all the chaff. Note, Those that will not admit the fear of God lay themselves open to all other fears, and their fears will not prove causeless. Fourthly, Their fright will then be turned into despair: Distress and anguish shall come upon them, for, having fallen into the pit they were afraid of, they shall see no way to escape, v. 27. Saul cries out (2 Sam. i. 9), Anguish has come upon me; and in hell there is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth for anguish, tribulation and anguish to the soul of the sinner, the fruit of the indignation and wrath of the righteous God, Rom. ii. 8, 9. [2.] Now God pities their folly, but he will then laugh at their calamity (v. 26): "I also will laugh at your distress, even as you laughed at my counsel." Those that ridicule religion will thereby but make themselves ridiculous before all the world. The righteous will laugh at them (Ps. lii. 6), for God himself will. It intimates that they shall be for ever shut out of God's compassions; they have so long sinned against mercy that they have now quite sinned it away. His eye shall not spare, neither will he have pity. Nay, his justice being glorified in their ruin, he will be pleased with it, though now he would rather they should turn and live. Ah! I will ease me of my adversaries. [3.] Now God is ready to hear their prayers and to meet them with mercy, if they would but seek to him for it; but then the door will be shut, and they shall cry in vain (v. 28): "Then shall they call upon me when it is too late, Lord, Lord, open to us. They would then gladly be beholden to that mercy which now they reject and make light of; but I will not answer, because, when I called, they would not answer;" all the answer then will be, Depart from me, I know you not. This has been the case of some even in this life, as of Saul, whom God answered not by Urim or prophets; but, ordinarily, while there is life there is room for prayer and hope of speeding, and therefore this must refer to the inexorable justice of the last judgment. Then those that slighted God will seek him early (that is, earnestly), but in vain; they shall not find him, because they sought him not when he might be found, Isa. lv. 6. The rich man in hell begged, but was denied. [4.] Now they are eager upon their own way, and fond of their own devices; but then they will have enough of them (v. 31), according to the proverb, Let men drink as they brew; they shall eat the fruit of their own way; their wages shall be according to their work, and, as was their choice, so shall their doom be, Gal. vi. 7, 8. Note, First, There is a natural tendency in sin to destruction, Jam. i. 15. Sinners are certainly miserable if they do but eat the fruit of their own way. Secondly, Those that perish must thank themselves, and can lay no blame upon any other. It is their own device; let them make their boast of it. God chooses their delusions, Isa. lxvi. 4. [5.] Now they value themselves upon their worldly prosperity; but then that shall help to aggravate their ruin, v. 32. First, They are now proud that they can turn away from God and get clear of the restraints of religion; but that very thing shall slay them, the remembrance of it shall cut them to the heart. Secondly, They are now proud of their own security and sensuality; but the ease of the simple (so the margin reads it) shall slay them; the more secure they are the more certain and the more dreadful will their destruction be, and the prosperity of fools shall help to destroy them, by puffing them up with pride, gluing their hearts to the world, furnishing them with fuel for their lusts, and hardening their hearts in their evil ways.

4. He concludes with an assurance of safety and happiness to all those that submit to the instructions of wisdom ( v. 33): "Whoso hearkeneth unto me, and will be ruled by me, he shall," (1.) "Be safe; he shall dwell under the special protection of Heaven, so that nothing shall do him any real hurt." (2.) "He shall be easy, and have no disquieting apprehensions of danger; he shall not only be safe from evil, but quiet from the fear of it." Though the earth be removed, yet shall not they fear. Would we be safe from evil, and quiet from the fear of it? Let religion always rule us and the word of God be our counsellor. That is the way to dwell safely in this world, and to be quiet from the fear of evil in the other world.

CHAP. I. Verſ. 1. The Proverbs.]

OR, Maſter-ſentences, Maximes, Axiomes, Speeches of ſpecial precellency and prodominancy: [non-Latin text not transcribed] Dominari, quae vita dominae & moderatices eſſe debent. [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Received Rules that muſt over-rule matters, and mightily prevail in the minds of men. The principal (no doubt) they are of thoſe three thouſand, mentioned, 1 King. 4.32. and far beyond thoſe golden layings of Phocylides (prophanely preferred before theſe holy parables by that Apoſtate Julian, De Euripide Cicero pronu[illegible: 1 letter]ciavit plures eſſe in eo ſententias quam verba. anſu nefario) as having in them more ſentences than words, and being ſo farre above all humane praiſe for weight and worth, that (as Salaſt writeth of Carthage) I had better ſpeak nothing of them, than too little, ſith too much is too little.

Of Salomon] who better (a deal) deſerves to bee ſtiled Maſter of the Sentences, than Peter Lombard; and to bee eſteemed [non-Latin text not transcribed], as one ſaith of Homer; or as another ſaith of Hierome, Zenophon. that hee was a man quem nullum ſcibile latuit, that knew all that was knowable by a man. [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Euripid. [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Demoſt. [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Thucyd. & Diodor.

King of Iſrael] Eccleſ. 1.1. King of Jeruſalem, which was now the Iſrael of Iſrael, as Athens was (in its flouriſh) ſaid to bee the Greece of Greece, yea, the Soul, and Sun, and eye of Greece; yea the common School of all mankind. For King Solomon exceeded all the Kings of the Earth, both in Riches, and in Wiſdome. And all the world ſought to ſee Solomon, to hear his Wiſdome which God had put into his heart, 1 King. 10.23, 24. For the more wiſe the Preacher was, the more hee taught the people knowledge, and cauſe them to hear, and ſearched forth many Parables, Eccleſ. 12.9. Even words of delight, verſ. 10. See the Note there.

Verſ. 2. To know Wiſdome] That is, to give others to know, to wiſe them, as Dan. 12.3. to give the knowledge of ſalvation, Luk. 1.77. to ſhew men great and mighty things which they know not, Jer. 33.3. but may here hence bee taught, better than out of Lipſius his Bee-hive, or Machiavels Spiderweb.

Verſ: 3. To receive the inſtruction] Tertullian calls the Bible (and the Proverbs by a ſpecialty) Noſtra digeſta, from the Lawyers; and others our Pundects, from them alſo. Is there not a thin veil laid over them, which is more rarified by reading, and at laſt wholly worn away▪ Surely as by much reading the Statute-book men grow worldly-wiſe; And as a friend (it is Chryſoſtomes compariſon) that is acquainted with his friend, will get out the meaning of a letter or phraſe, which another could not that is a ſtranger; ſo it is in Scripture. And herein (as one well obſerveth) the pooreſt Ideot being a ſound Chriſtian, goeth beyond the profoundeſt Clarks that are not ſanctified, that hee hath his own heart inſtead of a Commentary to help him to underſtand even the moſt needful points of the Scripture.

Verſ. 4. To give ſubtilty] Serpentine ſubtilty, Gen. 3.1. ſacred ſagacity, a ſharp wit, a deep reach, a Spirit that ſearcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God, 1 Cor. 2.10. [illegible: 1 letter]nd transformeth a man into the [illegible: 1 letter]ame Image from glory to glory,Pet. Mar[illegible: 1 letter]. in Rom. Ep. dedicat. [illegible: 1 letter] Cor. [illegible: 1 letter].1[illegible: 1 letter] Equidem ſc[illegible: 2 letters] m[illegible: 2 letters]tos eſſ[illegible: 1 letter] qui h[illegible: 1 letter]c non redan[illegible: 2 letters] & non p[illegible: 2 letters] cos qui ea rideant, noſque inf[illegible: 1 letter]nire arbit[illegible: 1 letter]ntur, faith Peter Martyre [illegible: 1 span] velim, &c. that is, I wot well there bee many that will not beleeve it, and not a few that will deride it, and think wee are [illegible: 1 letter]ad in aſcribing ſo much to the Scriptures. But oh that they would bee entreated to make trial a while, and to take to the reading of the Bible! Male mihi ſit [illegible: 1 word] eum in [illegible: 1 word] cauſa jure au[illegible: 1 letter]im) niſi [illegible: 1 letter]andem capiantur ſentient dentiqua quamtum divina hac ab humanis diſtent, &c. Let mee never bee beleeved, if they perceive not a plain and palpable difference betwixt theſe and all humane writings whatſoever. And to the ſame purpoſe Eraſmus, Eraſm. Praefat. in Lucam. expertus ſum in [illegible: 2 letters]cipſo, ſaith hee, I can ſpeak it by experience, that there is little good to bee gotten by reading the Bible curſorily and careleſly: But do it duly and diligently, with attention and affection, and you ſhall finde [illegible: 1 word] an efficacy, as is [illegible: 1 word] bee found in no other Book that can bee named.

To the ſimple] [illegible: 1 letter]atuo [non-Latin text not transcribed] fatuello (Lipſius this diminutive) to the ſilly-ſimple, whoſe learning hangs not in his light, who holds not [illegible: 1 span] wiſe to bee taught, that is not uncounſellable, unperſwad[illegible: 2 letters]le. [illegible: 1 span] qui ſibi ſapit, Chytra[illegible: 1 letter]s. hee is two fools that it wiſe in his own eyes, Pr[illegible: 3 letters] 3. [illegible: 1 span] [illegible: 2 letters] noro, ſed ignorantiam meam non ignoro. Little though it [illegible: 1 span], [illegible: 1 letter]et this I know, that I know but little.

Ariſt. Ethic. lib. 1. Job 1[illegible: 1 letter].12. Eccleſ. 11.10. To the young man Though rude and raſh, [illegible: 1 letter]ead-long and [illegible: 1 letter]ead long [illegible: 1 letter]ntameable and untractable, as a wilde-aſſe-colt; though [illegible: 1 span] luſts, 2 Tim. 2.22. and madly ſet upon ſin, yet hee may cleanſe his waies, by cleaving to Gods Word, Pſal. 119.9. and become a young Saint, an old Angel whereas otherwiſe, like young Lapwings, hee is apt to bee ſnatched up by every Buzzard.

Verſ. 5. A wiſe man will hear] Hearing and ſeeing are by Ariſtotle called the learned ſenſes, becauſe by theſe doores, learning, yea life entreth into the ſoul, Iſa. 55.3. David Chytrous, when hee lay a dying, lift up himſelf to hear the diſcourſes of his friends that ſate by him, and ſaid, that hee ſhould dye with better cheer, if hee might dye learning ſomething.

Si mori[illegible: 1 letter]und[illegible: 2 letters] etiam ſi quid [illegible: 1 letter]idic [illegible: 1 letter]ſſet Meich. Adam. And will encreaſe learning] Take heed what you hear: unto you that hear, ſhall more bee given, Mark. 4.24. See the Note there; Onely ponder, and apply what you hear. For they that do otherwiſe, are like the Wolf, who never attain to any more divine learning than to ſpell Pater; but when they ſhould come to put together, and to apply it to their ſouls, they ſay Agnus, their minds running a madding after the profits and pleaſures of the world, and they thinking thoſe little leſs than mad, tha[illegible: 1 letter] run to and fro to encreaſe knowledge, Dan. 12.4.

Verſ. 6. To underſtand a Proverb, and the Interpretation] Or, the ſweetneſs thereof, there being nothing ſo ſweet to a good ſoul, as the knowledge of dark and deep myſteries; Pſal. 119.103.Heb. Me[illegible: 1 letter]it [illegible: 1 letter]a[illegible: 1 letter] unde. fortaſſe Graecum [non-Latin text not transcribed] & Lati[illegible: 1 letter]um Mel. Rivet. where the ſame word is uſed. The little Book of the Revelation was in Johns mouth ſweet as hony, Rev. 10.9, 10. See the Note there.

And their dark ſayings] Dark to thoſe that are acute obtuſi, that have not their ſenſes exerciſed to diſcern both good and evil, Heb. 5.14. Legum obſcuritates non aſſignemus culpae ſcribentium ſed inſcitiae non aſſe quentium, ſaith hee in Gellius. If the Law bee dark to any, the fault is not in the Law-giver, but in thoſe that ſhould better underſtand it.

Verſ. 7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning] Or the chief and principal pointThe head or firſt-fruits; the head and heigh. of wiſdome (as the word here ſignifieth) yea, wiſdome it ſelf, Job 28.28. This Solomon had learned by the inſtruction of his Father (as it is in the next verſe) who had taught it him of a childe. Prov. 4.4. with Pſal. 111.10. and therefore ſets it here in the beginning of his works, as the beginning of all:Hoc eſt enim totus homo. As in the end hee makes it the end of all, Eccleſ. 12.13. yea, the All of man, without which hee counts him not a compleat man, though never ſo wiſe to the world-ward. Heathen Sages, as Seneca, Socrates, &c. were wiſe in their Generation, and had many excellent gifts, but they miſſed of the main; there was no fear of God before their eyes: Being herein as Alchimiſts, who miſs of their end, but yet finde many excellent things by the way. Theſe Merchants found goodly pearls, but the pearl of price they failed of, Mat. 13.45, 46. The Prophet calls the fear of God our treaſure, Iſa. 33.6.

But fools deſpiſe] Fools; ſo are all ſuch as fear not God, being abominable, diſobedient, and to every good work reprobate, or injudicious, Tit. 1.16. Evil is Hebrew for a fool; Nebul[illegible: 1 letter] of Nabal, Fool of [non-Latin text not transcribed]. When one highly commended the Cardinal Julian to Sigiſmund, hee anſwered, Tamen Romanus eſt, Yet hee is a Popeling; So, yet hee is a Fool, becauſe void of Gods true fear. Behold they have rejected the word of the Lord, [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Ariſt. Rhe[illegible: 1 letter]. and what wiſdome is in them? Jer. 8.9.

Verſ. 8. Hear the instruction of thy Father, &c.] It is not fit to diſobey God, thy Father, nor thy Teacher, ſaith Ariſtotle. Our Parents, ſaid Hierocles, are [non-Latin text not transcribed], our houſhold-gods: and their words ſhould bee received as Oracles; This is a principal fruit of the fear of God, which it here fitly followeth: like as in the decalogue, the Commandement for honouring of Parents, is ſet next of all to thoſe of the firſt Table, nay, is indeed (as Philo ſaith of it) [non-Latin text not transcribed], a mixt Commandement.

Verſ. 9. For they ſhall bee an ornament] Virgil. Plato. A mans wiſdome maketh his face to ſhine, Eccleſ. 8.1. Tum pietate gravem, &c. [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Neither gold, nor precious ſtone ſo gliſtereth, ſaith Plato, as the prudent mind of a pious perſon. Nothing ſo beautifies as grace doth; Moſes and Joſeph were fair to God, and favoured of all men. A Crown of Gold, a Chain of Pearl, are no ſuch Ornaments as are here commended.

Verſ. 10. If ſinners entice thee] To an ill bargain, to a match of miſchief, as Ahab did Jehoſaphat, as Potiphers wife would have done Joſeph: and truly, that hee yeelded not, was no leſs a wonder, than that thoſe three Worthies burnt not in the midſt of the fiery furnace. But as the Sun-ſhine puts out fire, ſo did the fear of God the fire of luſt.

Conſent thou not] But carry a ſevere rebuke in thy countena[illegible: 1 letter]ce, as God doth, Pſal. 80.16. To rebuke them is the ready way to bee rid of them.

Verſ. 11. If they ſay] The Dragon bites the Elephants [illegible: 1 letter]ar, and thence ſucks his blood; becauſe hee knows that to bee the onely place that hee cannot reach with his trunck to defend. So deal the red Dragon and his Angels; with good words and fair ſpeeches they deceive the hearts of the ſimple, [illegible: 1 letter]om. 16.18. With much fair ſpeech ſhee cauſed him to yeeld, with the flattering of her lips ſhee forced him, Prov. 7.21.

Come with mee] If ſinners have their Come, ſhould not Saints much more▪ Come let us go to the houſe of the Lord, Iſa. 2.3. Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord, Verſ. 5. Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to ſeek the Lord of Hoſts: I will go alſo, Zech. 8.21. ſhould wee not incite, intice, whe[illegible: 1 letter], and provoke one another? [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Heb. 10.24. ſharpen and extimulate, as Prov, 27.17. rouſe and ſtir up each other to love and good works, 2 Pet. 1.13.

Verſ. 12. Let us ſwallow them up alive] As the Devil doth, 1 Pet. 5.8. 2 Tim. 2.26. Homo homini daemon. The poor Indians have been heard to ſay, It had been better that their Countrey had been given to the Devils of Hell, than to the Spaniards: and that if the cruel Spaniards go to Heaven when they dye, they (for their parts) deſire not to come there.

Verſ. 13. Wee ſhall finde all precious ſubſtance] But thoſe that rake together, rem, rem, quocunque modo rem, that count all good fiſh that comes to net, will in the end catch the Devil and all.

Fill our houſes with ſpoil] Not conſidering, that they conſult ſhame to their houſes by cutting off many people, and ſinning againſt their own ſouls, Hab. 2.10. Hee that brings home a pack of plaguy cloaths, hath no ſuch great booty of it.

Verſ. 14. Let us all have one purſe] How much better were a wallet to beg from door to door, than ſuch a curſed hoard of evil-gotten goods?

Verſ. 15. Walk not thou in the way with them] God will not take the wicked by the hand,Pſal. 26. Job 8.20. Why then ſhould wee? Gather not my ſoul with ſinners, ſaith David. O Lord let mee not go to Hell where the wicked are: for Lord, thou knoweſt I never loved their company here, ſaid a good Gentlewoman when ſhee was to dye, being in much trouble of conſcience.

Verſ. 16. For their feet run to evil] By the abuſe of their locomotive faculty, given them to a better purpoſe. They run, as if they ſhould not come time enough, they take long ſtrides toward the burning lake, which is now but a little before them.

Verſ. 17. Surely in vain the net] Which is to ſay, Silly birds pick up the meat, but ſee not the net, and ſo become a prey to the fowler. If the fruits of the fleſh grow out of the trees of your hearts (ſaith bleſſed Bradford) ſurely,Sermon of Repent. pag. 70. ſurely, the Devil is at Inne with you; you are his birds, whom when hee hath well fed, hee will broach you, and eat you, chaw you, and champ you world without end, in eternal woe and miſery.

Verſ. 18. And they lay wait] Their ſin will ſurely finde them out. No doubt this man is a Murderer,Nemo nequitiam gorit in pect[illegible: 1 letter]re, qui non idem Nemeſin in tergo. ſaid thoſe Barbarians, Act. 28.4. whom though hee had eſcaped the Sea, yet vengeance ſuffereth not to live. Surely I have ſeen yeſterday the blood of Naboth, 1 King. 9.26. Murder ever bleeds freſh in the eye of God: to him many years, yea, that eternity that is paſt, is but yeſterday.

Verſ. 19. Which taketh away the life] The greater wealth, the greater ſpoil awaits a man: As a tree with thick and large [illegible: 1 letter]oughs, every man deſires to lop him. Trithemius writeth, that the Templars at the requeſt of Philip King of France, were put down, and extinct upon pretext of hereſie, but indeed, becauſe they were rich, and Philip ſore longed after their poſſeſſions. Cyprus for its great wealth,Sixtus Rufus. Virgil. Iſidor. became a ſpoil to the Romans. Auri ſacra fames, &c. [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Covetouſneſs is daring and deſperate: it rides without reins, as Balaam did after the wages of wickedneſs, the Mammon of iniquity, Luk. 16.9.

Verſ. 20. Wiſdome] Hebrew, Wiſdomes: That is, the moſt abſolute and ſoveraign wiſdome, the Lord Jeſus, in whom are bid all the treaſures of wiſdome and knowledge, Col. 2. who alſo is made unto us of God wiſdome, righteouſneſs, &c. 1 Cor. 1.30.

Cryeth without] The Hebrew word ſignifies oft, to ſhout for joy, as Pſal. 81.2. Levit. 9. ult. Chriſt ſurely cryed ſweetly, the roof of his mouth was like the beſt Wine that goeth down ſweetly, Cant. 7.9. with a deſire did hee deſire our ſalvation, though hee well knew it ſhould coſt him ſo very dear, Luk. 22.15.

Shee uttereth her voice] Verbis non ſolum deſerti[illegible: 1 letter], ſed & exertis. In the laſt day, that great day of the feaſt Jeſus ſtood and cried, ſaying. If any man thirſt, let him come unto mee end drink, John 7.37. &c.

Verſ. 21. In the cheef place of concourſe] Veritas non quaerit angulos. Chriſt as his manner was, preached in the Synagogues. Paul diſputed in the market, with whomſoever hee met, and preached in the midſt of Mars-hill, Act. 17.17.22. And at Rome his bonds in Chriſt were manifeſt in all Caeſars Court, Phil. 1.13. and in all other places.

Verſ. 22. How long yee ſimple ones] The fatuelli that are eaſily perſwaded into a fools Paradiſe. Theſe are the beſt ſort of bad men: The Apoſtle calls them [non-Latin text not transcribed], Rom. 16.18. Optimi putantur Pointifices, (ſaith Papirius Maſſonius a Popiſh Writer) ſi vel lenitèr mali ſint; In vita Pauli. 3. vel minus honi quàm caeteri mortale eſſe ſalent. Thoſe are thought to be very good Popes, that are not ſtark naught, or that have any good at all in them. Theſe Simplicians are much better than ſcorners, that delight in their ſcorning, but far beyond thoſe fools that hate knowledge. See a like gradation, Pſal. 1.1. with the Note there. Peccata non ſunt paria Nemo repentè fit turpiſſimus. All ſins are not alike ſinful: and wicked men grow worſe and worſe.

Verſ. 23. Turn you at my reproof] Hee that reproves, and then directs not how to do better, is as hee that ſnuffs a Lamp, but poures not in oyl to maintain it.

Behold I will poure out my spirit] Now if men make their hearts as an Adamant, leſt they ſhould hear, &c. and wilfully withſtand the Spirit, let them read their neck-verſe in the following words, and in that parallel Text, Zach. 7.11, 12, 13. Reſiſting the Spirit is a ſtep to the unpardonable ſin.

Verſ. 24. Becauſe I have called, and yee refuſed] If any ask, why did God ſuffer them to refuſe, and not make them yeeld? I anſwer with Auguſtin, Doctiorem quarat, qui hanc quaeſtionem ei explicet. Let him look one that can tell him, for I cannot.

Verſ. 25. But yee have ſet at naugh[illegible: 1 letter]] As thoſe recuſant gueſts in the Goſpel, that pretended they therefore came not, becauſe they had bought Farms and Oxen, but indeed it was becauſe their Farms and Oxen had bought them. They had either ſo much to do, or ſo little to do, that they could not make uſe of ſo fair an offer, ſo ſweet advice and advantage.

And would none of my reproof] Ruinam praecedunt ſtillicidi[illegible: 1 letter]. It is a ſure preſage and deſert of ruine, when men will not bee ruled. The Cypreſs,Prov. 29.1. the more it is watered, the more it is withered. The tree that is not for fruit, is for the fire. The earth that beareth thorns and briars onely, is rejected, &c. Heb. 6.8.

Verſ. 26. I will alſo laugh] Quod Deus loquitur cum riſu, tu legas cum fletu. If God laugh, thou haſt good cauſe to cry.Auguſtin. Note here the venemous nature of ſin, which is ſo offenſive to God, as it makes him (againſt his ordinary wont) merry at his Creatures miſery, who otherwiſe delights in mercy, Mich. 7.18.

When your fear cometh] That terrible tempeſt,Lactan. Inſtit. S[illegible: 1 letter]luſt. Job 15.21, 22. Pſal. 11.6, Tullus Hoſtilius (a prophane Prince) ſet up and worſhiped at Rome two new Gods, viz. Pavor and Pallor▪ as Lactantius teſtifieth. Cataline was wont to bee afraid at any ſudden noiſe, as being haunted with the furies of his own evil conſcience:Daniel. Thua[illegible: 1 letter]. So was our Richard the third after the murther of his two innocent Nephews, and Charles the ninth of France after the Pariſtan Maſſacre: Theſe Tyrants became more terrible to themſelves, than ever they had been to others.

Verſ. 27. When your fear cometh as deſolation] Scilicet, of war, which laies heaps upon heaps; and leaves not a ſtone upon a ſtone, A[illegible: 1 letter]at. 24.

As a whirlewind] Suddenly and irreſiſtibly, and with a terrible noiſe and fragor.

Verſ. 28. Then ſhall they call, &c. This was Sauls miſery, The Philiſtims are upon mee, and God will not anſwer mee. This was Moa[illegible: 1 letter]s curſe, Iſa. 10.12. This was the caſe of Davids enemies, Pſal. 18.41. A doleful caſe it is ſurely, when a man ſhall loſe his prayers, and ſhall nor be a button the better for all his pretended oriſons and devotions.Prov. 28.9. Hee that turneth away his ear from hearing of the Law, even his prayer ſhall bee abominable. If God anſwer him at all, it is according to the Idols of his heart, Ezek. 14.3. with bitter anſwers. as Judg. 10.13, 14. Or if better, yet it is but as hee anſwered the Iſraelites for Quails, and afterwards for a King, better have been without Deus ſaepe dat iratus quod negat propitius. Giftleſs gifts God gives ſometimes, Joſh. 24.20. Hee will conſume you after that hee hath done you good.

Verſ. 29. For that they hated knowledge] Theſe are the worſt ſort of ſinners, verſ. 22. that not onely ſlight knowledge, but hate it, as theeves do a torch in the night;Herodot. curſe it, as Ethiopians do the ſcorching Sun; flie againſt it, as Batts do againſt the light. This is the condemnation, this is Hell afore-hand, John 3.20.

And did not chuſe] [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Refuſe the evil, Iſa. 7. and chuſe the good: chuſe the things that pleaſe God, Iſa. 56.4. that wherein hee delights, Iſa. 65.12. Such a choiſe made Moſes, Heb. 11.25. and Joſhuah, ch. 24.15. and Mary, Luk. 10.42.

Verſ. 30. They would none of my Counſel] Theſe are condemned and menaced, as well as thoſe that deſpiſed or execrated Gods reproof. So alſo in the precedent verſe, not onely they that hated knowledge, but that did not chuſe the fear of the Lord.

They despiſed all my reproof] Hebrew, They execrated, blaſphemed it.

Verſ. 31. Therefore ſhall they eat of the fruit] Eat as they baked, drink as they brewed. They that ſow the wind of iniquity, ſhall reap the whirlewind of miſery. Aequum eſt ut faber quas fecit compedes ipſe geſt it.

And bee filled with their own devices] Their Never-enough ſhall bee quit with fire enough in the bottome of Hell.

Verſ. 32. For the turning away] Whereas it might bee objected, that mean-while wicked men live at eaſe and proſper. It is granted, but withal aſſerted, that theſe fatted Oxen are but fitted for the ſlaughter. The Sunſhine of proſperity ripens the ſin of the wicked apace. Bernard calls it miſericordiam omni indignatione crudeliorem, a mercy that hee had no mind to. What good is there in having a fine ſute with the plague in it? As ſoon may a man miſcarry upon the ſoft ſands, as upon the hard rocks.

Horat. Pſal. 112.Verſ. 33. ſhall bee quiet from the fear] Impavidum ferient ruinae. Hee ſhall not bee afraid of evil tidings. His Ark is pitched within and without; toſſed it may bee, but not drowned, ſhaken, but not ſhivered, &c.