TABLE OF CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. 1. PLAN OF THE BOOK, AND ITS ORIGIN, . 2. THE SEVERAL PARTS OF THE Book, and MANIFOLD FORMS OF THE PAGE 2 6 The Fifteen Mashal-strains of the First Part of the Book, 12 4. THE MANIFOLdness of the STYLE AND FORM OF INSTRUCTION IN THE Relation of the Introduction to the First Collection, 24 27 31 33 Style of the Supplements, xxii. 17-xxiv. 22 and xxiv. 23 ff., 35 THE BOOK OF PROVERBS. T INTRODUCTION. HE Book of Proverbs bears the external title p¬DD, 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, as set forth in my larger Psalmencommentar.2 The memorial word for these three books, viz. Job, Mishle (Proverbs), and Tehillim (Psalms), is no, formed from the first letter of the first word of each book, or, following the Talmudic and Masoretic arrangement of the books, N. Having in view the superscription by bp, 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 1 Kings v. 12 (iv. 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. xxv. 12), not to mention other more arbitrary modes of reconciling the discrepancy. The opinion also of R. Jonathan, that Solomon first composed the Canticles, then the Proverbs, and last of all Ecclesiastes, inasmuch as the first corresponds with the spring-time of youth, the second with the wis 3 1 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. 2 Vol. ii., ed. of 1860, pp. 477–511. 3 Pesikta, ed. Buber (1868), 34b, 35a. Instead of 800, the Masora reckons 915 verses in the Book of Proverbs. * Schir-ha-Schirim Rabba, c. i. f. 4a. VOL. I. A dom 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 ver. 1 to ver. 6. Among the moderns this has been acknowledged by Löwenstein and Maurer; for ver. 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 ver. 2, is practical, and that in a twofold way: partly moral, and partly intellectual. The former is described in vers. 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 ver. 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 i. 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 x. 1 we meet with a new superscription, p, from which point on to xxii. 16 there is by 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 i. 7-ix., which immediately follows the title of the book? Are i. 7-ix., 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 (x. 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, i. 1-6, does not accord with that of the section x. 1-xxii. 6, but that it accords well with that of i. 7-ix. (with the breadth of expression in i. 7-ix., it has also several favourite words not elsewhere occurring in the Book of Proverbs; among these, y, subtilty, and ne, discretion, i. 4), then Ewald's view is probable, that i.-ix. 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 x. 1. But it is also possible that the author of the title has adopted the style of the section i. 7-ix. 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 i. 8-ix. 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 x. 1-xxii. 16. But such an origin of the section as Bertheau thus imagines |