i. 32, iv. 18 f., can easily be so understood. In the Mashal chains of chap. iv. and ix. we meet with proverbs that are synonymous (ix. 7, 10), antithetic (iii. 35, ix. 8), integral, or of one thought (iii. 29, 30), and synthetic (i. 7, iii. 5, 7), of two lines and of four lines variously disposed (iii. 9 f., 11 f., 31 f., 33 f.); but the parabolic scheme is not at all met with, separate proverbs such as iii. 27 f. are altogether without form, and keeping out of view the octastich numerical proverb, vi. 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. ix. 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. iii. 9 f.:

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 fagrance 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 iv. 1-9 from the Peshito, and iv. 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 i. 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 by can in no respect be strange to us, since the collection of proverbs here commencing, compared with i. 7–ix., may with special right bear the name Mishle. The 375 proverbs which are classed together in this part, x.-xxii. 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 xix. 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 xix. 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 τελεσιουργεῖ κακίαν,

[He that does much harm perfects mischief,]

ὅς δὲ ἐρεθίζει λόγους οὐ σωθήσεται.

[And he that uses provoking words shall not escape.]

Perhaps the false rendering of

מרע רבים ישלם 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, xi. 7, 25, 30, xii. 14, 28, xiv. 19, etc.; the integral, or of one thought, xiv. 7, xv. 3, etc., particularly in proverbs with the comparative 12, xii. 9, xv. 16, 17, xvi. 8, 19, xvii. 10, xxi. 19, xxii. 1, and with the ascending [much more], xi. 31, xv. 11, xvii. 7, xix. 7, 10, xxi. 27; the synthetic, x. 18, xi. 29, xiv. 17, xix. 13; the parabolic, the most feebly represented, for the only specimens of it are x. 26, xi. 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, xxii. 17-xxiv. 22, of "words of the wise," prefaced by the introduction xxii. 17-21, which undeniably is of the same nature as the greater introduction, i. 7–ix., 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 xxii. 28, xxiii. 9, xxiv. 7, 8, 9, 10, to the Mashal song xxiii. 29-35. Between these limits are the tetrastichs, which are the most popular form, xxii. 22 f., 24 f., 26 f., xxiii. 10 f., 15 f., 17 f., xxiv. 1 f., 3 f., 5 f., 15 f., 17 f., 19 f., 21 f.,-pentastichs, xxiii. 4 f., xxiv. 13 f., and hexastichs, xxiii. 1-3, 12-14, 19-21, 26-28, xxiv. 11 f.;-of tristichs, heptastichs, and octastichs are at least found one specimen of each, xxii. 29, xxiii. 6-8, xxiii. 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 xxiv. 12 contains eighteen words; and the poet is not to be made accountable for such an arrangement, for in his mind xxiv. 11 f. forms a hexastich, and indeed a very elegant one. Not the words of the Masoretic verse, but the sticks 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. xxiv. 4b, xxiv. 8a, 10b); 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, xxiv. 23 ff., with the superscription, "These things also to the wise," which contains a hexastich, xxiv. 236-25, a distich, ver. 26, a tristich, ver. 27, a tetrastich, ver. 28 f., and a Mashal ode, ver. 30 ff., on the sluggard -the last in the form of an experience of the poet like Ps. xxxvii. 35 f. The moral which he has drawn from this recorded observation is expressed in two verses such as we have already found at vi. 10 f. These two appendices are, as is evident from their commencement as well as from their conclusion, in closest relation to the introduction, i. 7-ix.

There now follows in xxv.-xxix. 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 xxiv. 30 ff., a Mashal hymn, stands at the end of the two appendices, so the Mashal hymn xxvii. 23 ff. 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. x. 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, xxv. 8, 13, 20, xxvii. 10, 22, xxviii. 10, tetrastichs, xxv. 4 f., 9 f., 21 f., xxvi. 18 f., 24 f., xxvii. 15 f., and pentastichs, xxv. 6 f., besides the Mashal hymn already referred to, The kind of arrangement is not essentially different from that in

B

the first collection; it is equally devoid of plan, yet there are here some chains or strings of related proverbs, xxvi. 1–12, 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 it is the parabolic, and especially the emblematic; in xxv.-xxvii. 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: xxv. 2, an antithetic proverb; xxv. 3, a priamel with three subjects; xxv. 4f., an emblematic tetrastich; xxv. 6 f., a pentastich; xxv. 8, a tristich; xxv. 9 f., a tetrastich, with the negative D; xxv. 11, an emblematic distich ("Golden apples in silver caskets-a word spoken in a fitting way"). The antithetic proverbs are found especially in xxviii. and xxix.: the first and the last proverb of the whole collection, xxv. 2, xxix. 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, xxx., according to the inscription, is by an otherwise unknown author, Agur the son of Jakeh. The first poem of this appendix presents 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, xxx. 5 f.; a prayer for a moderate position between riches and poverty, vers. 7–9; a distich against slander, ver. 10; a priamel without the conclusion, vers. 11-14; the insatiable four (a Midda), ver. 15 f.; a tetrastich regarding the disobedient son, ver. 17; the incomprehensible four, vers. 18-20; the intolerable four, vers. 21-23; the diminutive but prudent four, vers. 24-28; the excellent four, vers. 29-31; a pentastich recommending prudent silence, ver. 32 f. Two other supplements form the conclusion of the whole book: the counsel of Lemuel's mother to her royal son, xxxi. 2-9, and the praise of the virtuous woman in the form of an alphabetical acrostic, xxxi. 10 ff.

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