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 i.-ix. is Solomonic as well as x.-xxii., 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 ii. 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 i. 7-ix., and the larger section x.-xxii. 16, which contains uniform brief Solomonic apothegms, are followed by a third section, xxii. 17-xxiv. 22. Hitzig, indeed, reckons x.-xxiv. 22 as the second section, but with xxii. 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, xxiv. 23 ff., which follows. This short section, an appendix to the

third, bears the superscription, "These things also are pans." 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 is here that of authorship; and if the following proverbs are composed by the pan, "the wise," then they are not the production of the one D, "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 xxv. 1; and this second large section (corresponding to the first, x. 1-xxii. 16) extends to xxix. This fifth portion of the book has a superscription, which, like that of the preceding appendix, commences thus: "Also (D) these are proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah collected." The meaning of the word pay is not doubtful. It signifies, like the Arameo-Arabic пD, to remove from their place, and denotes 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 Pisistratus to edit older works, such as those of Hesiod. The Jewish interpreters, simply following the Talmud, suppose that the "also" (D) 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;1 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 i. 1. The superscription xxv. 1 thus much rather distinguishes the following collection from that going before, as having been made under Hezekialı. As two appendices followed the "Proverbs of Solomon," x. 1-xxii. 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, xxx., is by "Agur the son of Jakeh ;" the second, xxxi.

1Vid. B. Bathra, 15a. 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. 78 f.

1-9, by a "King Lemuel." In so far the superscriptions are clear. The names 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, xxxi. 10 ff. 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, i. 1-6, by which the question is raised, how far the book extends to which it originally belongs; (2) the hortatory discourses, i. 7-ix., 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, x.-xxii. 16; (4) the first appendix to this first collection, "The words of the wise," xxii. 17-xxiv. 22; (5) the second appendix, supplement of the words of some wise men, xxiv. 23 ff.; (6) the second great collection of Solomonic proverbs, which the "men of Hezekiah" collected, xxv.-xxix.; (7) the first appendix to this second collection, the words of Agur the son of Jakeh, xxx.; (8) the second appendix, the words of King Lemuel, xxxi. 1-9; (9) third appendix, the acrostic ode, xxxi. 10 ff. 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" (1 Sam. xxiv. 13); but we seek for such in vain. At the first glance, xxiv. 236 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, ver. 24 f. 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,1 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. xi. 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. x. 1:

1 Isaac Euchel († 1804), in his Commentary on the Proverbs, regards xiv. 4a and xvii. 196 as such popular proverbs.

A wise son maketh his father glad,
And a foolish son is his mother's grief.

Similar forms, x. 16, xii. 5. Elsewhere, as xviii. 14, xx. 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. x. 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. xi. 31 (cf. 1 Pet. iv. 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. xiii. 14, xvi. 10, xix. 20, xxii. 28.1 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 Tаρaßoλń 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

1 Such integral distichs are also xv. 3, xvi. 7, 10, xvii. 13, 15, xviii. 9, 13, xix. 26, 27, xx. 7, 8, 10, 11, 20, 21, xxi. 4, 13, 16, 21, 23, 24, 30, xxii. 4, 11, xxiv. 8, 26, xxvi. 16, xxvii. 14, xxviii. 8, 9, 17, 24, xxix. 1, 5, 12, 14. In xiv. 27, xv. 24, xvii. 23, xix. 27, the second line consists of one sentence with ↳ and the infin.; in xvi. 12, 26, xxi. 25, xxii. 9, xxvii. 1, xxix. 19, of one sentence with 2; with D', xviii. 2, xxiii. 17. The two lines, as xi. 31, xv. 11, xvii. 7, xix. 7ab, 10, xx. 27, form a conclusion a minori ad mojus, or the reverse. The former or the latter clauses stand in grammatical relation in xxiii. 1, 2, 15 f., xxvii. 22, xxix. 21 (cf. xxii. 29, xxiv. 10, xxvi. 12, xxix. 20, with hypoth. perf., and xxvi. 26 with hypoth. fut.); in the logical relation of reason and consequence, xvii. 14, xx. 2, 4; in comparative relation, xii. 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.