‘Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?’ is the problem for our moralist to solve. He does so by insisting on an education conducted in reliance on divine Wisdom. The reward of diligent attention to the earlier lessons (for each chapter is a lesson, and its repetitions have a pedagogic justification) is the famous portrait of Wisdom in viii. 22-31. She (for Wisdom, khokma, is a feminine word) has indeed been mentioned before (i. 20, iii. 13-20, iv. 5-9), but from viii. 1 to ix. 6 the poet is absorbed in his grand personification. Wisdom is now presented to us, in the familiar dialect of poetry, as the firstborn Child of the Creator. There is but one Wisdom; though her forms are many, in her origin she is one. The Wisdom who presided over the ‘birth’ of nature is the same who by her messengers (the ‘wise men’) calls mankind to turn aside from evil (ix. 3). There can therefore be no real disharmony between nature and morality; the picture leaves no room for an Ahriman, in this and other respects resembling the Cosmogony in Gen. i. and portions of the striking descriptions in Job xxvi., xxviii., xxxviii. There is also no time when we can say that ‘Wisdom was not.’ Faith declares that even in that primitive Chaos of which our reason has a horror divine Wisdom reigned supreme. The heavenly ocean, the ancient hills, the combination of countless delicate atoms to form the ground, the fixing of the vault of heaven on the world-encircling ocean, the separation of sea and dry land[222]—all these were later works of God than the Architect through whom He made them. And how did the Architect work? By a ‘divine improvisation’ which allowed no sense of effort or fatigue, and which still continues with unabated freshness. But though her sportive path[223] can still be traced in the processes of nature, her highest delight is in the regeneration of the moral life of humanity. The passage runs thus—
The bold originality of this passage requires no proof. It cuts away at a blow the old mythical conception of the world as the work of God’s hands, and of an arbitrary omnipotence. ‘God,’ as Hooker says, ‘is a law both to himself and to all things beside;’ ‘his wisdom hath stinted the effects of his power.’ ‘Nor is the freedom of the will of God any whit abated, let, or hindered, by means of this; because the imposition of this law upon himself is his own free and voluntary act’ (‘Jehovah produced me’). The idea, then, of the world as a Cosmos was not adopted by the Jews from the Greeks; it arose of itself as soon as religious men pondered over the phenomena of nature. The author of Job took up the idea, and reexpressed it worthily in xxviii. 12-28, the chief difference between him and his predecessor being that he denies the attainableness for man of wisdom in the larger sense, while the author of the ‘Praise of Wisdom’ does not raise the question whether the higher department of wisdom is open to human enquiry.
At the subsequent history of the conception of Wisdom we can barely glance.[227] The cosmogonist in Gen. i., a sublime thinker, but addressing untutored minds, preferred to convey truth in forms borrowed from mythology. The moralists however saw the poetical and religious importance of the personification of Wisdom, and repeatedly introduced it into their didactic works (see Ecclus. i., xxiv., Wisd. vi.-ix.,[228] and comp. Bar. iii. 29-37). Sirach even takes a step in advance of his original, and at least for a moment identifies Wisdom with the Law of Moses.[229] It became indeed a tradition of Jewish exegesis (see Pirke Aboth, vi. 10) to interpret the absolute Khokma of the Tora, either in opposition to Hellenistic views of the higher wisdom, or from a practical instinct such as Wordsworth followed when in praise of Duty he employed figures which had occurred long before in the ‘Praise of Wisdom,’ or (a closer parallel) Richard Hooker, when he described the Scripture as one embodiment of that divine Law which he so splendidly eulogises at the close of his first book. That Jewish legalism degenerated into a mechanical formalism, should not blind us to the practical instinct in which it originated.
The title ‘The Praise of Wisdom’ has now, I hope, been justified. The passage quoted above forms the high-water mark of this elevated poetry, and points the way to the grand things in the poem of Job. Regularity of structure is not a merit of our treatise, but the repetitions are not feeble, and are perhaps deliberately made. The author is a didactic poet, and only after he can presume that his lessons have been assimilated will he venture on his highest flights. Does Ewald bear this in mind when he divides the book into three sections, I. a general exhortation to wisdom, in which the whole of the truth is touched upon, but no part is completely unfolded (i. 8-iii. 35); II. an exhaustive treatment of a few details (iv. 1-vi. 19); III. a gradual rise to the highest and most universal truth, closing in almost lyric enthusiasm (vi. 20-ix. 18)? Or Hitzig, when, to suit an artificial arrangement, he omits as later additions iii. 22-26, vi. 1-19, viii. 4-12, 14-16, ix. 7-10? These are the two extremes of critical theory; their failure may be taken as a proof that the only possible division is one like that of Delitzsch into fifteen poems, rather loosely connected together, but presenting the same peculiarities of style and diction. Mashals we can only term them in a wide sense of the word; not condensation but expansion is the characteristic of this book; the discourse flows on till the subject has been exhausted, and then, after a brief pause, it gushes forth anew. One of the chapters (ii.) actually forms a single carefully elaborated sentence. Now and then the matter is more broken up; we meet with some small groups of detached sentences (e.g. iii. 27-35, vi. 1-11, 12-19), which introduce some variety into the style, and suggest that the author revised his work with the view of making it an ethical manual, as well as an introduction to the anthology. In one of these groups we find the interesting similitude of the ant, which the Septuagint has supplemented by one of purely Greek origin (see Hitzig and Lagarde) on the bee.
The author has the pen of a ready writer, and his work shows that he has studied the literature of his time. He was familiar[230] with the phraseology of the ‘Solomonic’ proverbs, though he struck out a style of his own, in harmony with the altered conditions of the teaching office. He addresses those who have time to listen, and taste to appreciate his flowing rhetoric. He implies throughout that his audience belongs to the wealthier class, and his favourite images are drawn from the life of the merchant.[231] Clearly too he has a strong hold upon the doctrine that prosperity and adversity are indicative of moral character. Thus, speaking of ethical Wisdom, he says,
And yet there is evidence, even in Prov. i.-ix., of a nascent scepticism on this point, originating probably in some recent event, such as the captivity of the Ten Tribes. In words which remind us of Psalms xxxvii. and lxxiii. the writer exclaims—
and to furnish his disciples with an answer to the sceptic—
With this sweet saying I take leave for the present of this beautiful work. How true it is that the doubts of a believer are the stepping-stones to higher attainments of faith!
There are two extreme views on the date of the Book of Proverbs, between which are the theories of the mass of moderate critics. The one is that represented by Keil in his Introduction and Bishop Ellicott’s Commentary, that the whole book except chaps. xxx., xxxi., and perhaps the heading i. 1-6, is in substance of Solomonic origin;[233] the other is that of Vatke and Reuss (the precursors of Kuenen and Wellhausen) that our proverbs as a collection come from the post-Exile period. Much need not be said on the first of these extreme views. It has been pointed out already that the ethical and religious character even of the earliest proverbial collection stands far removed from that of the historical Solomon. It is indeed a pure hypothesis that any Solomonic element survives in the Book of Proverbs. I doubt not that many bright and witty sayings of Solomon came into circulation, and some of them might conceivably have been gathered up and included in the anthologies. But have we any adequate means of deciding which these are? It would appear from 1 Kings iv. 33 that the wisdom of the historical Solomon expressed itself in spoken fables or moralisations about animals and trees. A few, a very few, of the proverbs in our book may perhaps satisfy the test thus obtained, and be plausibly represented as a Solomonic element. But why Solomon should be singled out as the author, it would tax one’s ingenuity to say, and the judgment of Hitzig (in such matters a conservative critic) must be maintained that the survival of Solomonic proverbs is no more than a possibility.[234]
The other extreme view requires some little explanation. Vatke does not deny that Solomon composed proverbs, but only that his proverbs can have resembled those in the canonical book. Putting aside some sayings of earlier date Vatke holds that the stamp of the post-Exile period (and more particularly of the fifth century) is as marked in the Book of Proverbs as it is, according to him, in that of Job; in short, that both works imply, equally with the still later Ecclesiastes, a long and earnest struggle between the principles represented respectively by the higher prophets and by the priests. The result of this struggle has become to the authors of these books an objective truth which it is henceforth their business to realise as true subjectively.[235] The existence of a free-minded school of thought in the post-Exile period is very plausibly defended both by Vatke and by Kuenen,[236] and if our only choice lay between the extreme alternatives mentioned above, we should be shut up to the acceptance of the latter.
I shall not however discuss here the post-Exile origin of the Book of Proverbs as a whole, but only that part of the hypothesis which relates to the very interesting section designated by Ewald the ‘Praise of Wisdom.’ If this portion is not of Exile or post-Exile origin, I do not see how it can be maintained that any other part of the book is so, except indeed the sayings of Agur and Lemuel (xxx. 1-xxii. 9).
The following are some of the leading arguments for the late origin of Prov. i.-ix. I. These chapters are said to contain a few parallels to passages in works belonging probably to the Exile or post-Exile period (II. Isaiah,[237] Job). I lay no stress on the occurrence of Prov. i. 16 (with the addition of ‘innocent’) in Isa. lix. 7a, because this verse is not in the rhythm of the rest of Prov. i.-ix., and is not found in the Septuagint. There may however be a parallelism between Prov. ii. 15 and Isa. lix. 8; the prophet is, at any rate, influenced by some proverbial work similar to Prov. i.-ix. There may also be one between Prov, i. 24, 26, 27 and Isa. lxv. 12, lxvi. 4. More striking are the affinities already pointed out between Prov. i.-ix. and the Book of Job, which may be taken to prove that these works proceeded from the same circle of ‘wise men,’ but not necessarily that they are of the same period (see above, p. 85).
II. As to the religious ideas of these chapters, (a) The Theism expressed is both pure and broad. Polytheism is not even worthy to be the subject of controversy; the tone is throughout positive. Jehovah’s vast creative activity fills the writer’s mind, and begins to stimulate speculative curiosity; from this point of view comp. Prov. viii. 22-31 with Job xv. 7, 8,[238] xxxviii. 4-11, and Gen. i. (The affinities with the cosmogony are only general,[239] but perhaps gain in importance when taken together with the possible allusion to Gen. ii. in Prov. iii. 18, ‘She is a tree of life’ &c.) (b) It is no objection to the Exile or post-Exile date that the doctrine of invariable retribution is presupposed in this treatise. We find this doctrine both in the speeches of Elihu (Job. xxxii.-xxxvii., a separate work in its origin) and in the Wisdom of Sirach. There is some weight in these arguments. But it can, I think, be shown that the age of Jeremiah contained the germs of various mental products which only matured in the later periods, and Reuss seems to me singularly wilful in assuming that the personification of Wisdom of itself proves the late date of Prov. i.-ix.
III. The luxurious living implied in Prov i.-ix. would suit the Exile and post-Exile period. As soon as the Jews had the chance of participating in the world’s good things, they eagerly availed themselves of it. The prominence of the retribution doctrine in these nine chapters might possibly be accounted for by the prosperity of many of the dispersed Jews. To me however the expression ‘peace-offerings’ (vii. 14) points away from Babylon, just as the expression ‘yarn of Egypt’ in vii. 16 points away from Egypt.
IV. The phraseology of these chapters (as well as of the rest of the book) is said by Hartmann[240] to be late. His instances of late and Aramaising words and forms require testing; an argument of this sort (except in more extreme cases) is not conclusive as to date. Reuss appears to base his linguistic argument rather on the clearness of the style, which ‘betrays this section to be the latest part of the book.’[241] Nöldeke however more soberly infers, from the ‘flowingness and facility of the language,’ that the author lived subsequently to Isaiah.[242]
On the whole, I am compelled to reject the hypothesis of either the Exile or the post-Exile origin of Prov. i.-ix. The Exile-date seems to be excluded by Prov. vii. 14, which implies the sacrificial system; the post-Exile by the want of any sufficient reason for descending so late in the course of history. The fifth century in particular, to which Vatke refers the whole Book of Proverbs, seems to me out of the question for this section of the book. Before the time of Sirach, I cannot find a period in the post-Exile history in which the life of Jerusalem can have much resembled the picture given of it in Prov. i.-ix. But Sirach’s evident imitation of the ‘Praise of Wisdom’ (we shall come back to this in studying Ecclesiasticus) seems of itself to suggest that Prov. i.-ix. is the monument of an earlier age, and this is confirmed by Sirach’s different attitude towards ceremonial religion.
There remains the hypothesis that the treatise, Prov. i.-ix., was written towards the close of the kingdom of Judah. There seems to me no sufficient argument against this view, which agrees with the result above attained on the relation of Prov. i.-ix. to the Book of Job (p. 85). The collapse of the state was sudden, and for some time after the composition or at least promulgation of the Deuteronomic Tōra the Jews appeared to be in the enjoyment of national prosperity. Now the author of Prov. i.-ix. depicts a state of outward prosperity and is evidently familiar with the exhortations of Deuteronomy. Who, as Delitzsch remarks, can fail to hear in Prov. i. 7-ix. an echo of the Shemà (‘hear’), Deut. vi. 4-9 (comp. xi. 18-21)? This is quite consistent with the opinion that Prov. i.-ix. is later than the proverbs in the two principal collections of our book, an opinion which commends itself to most[243] especially on account of the higher moral standard of Prov. i.-ix., and its advance in the treatment of literary form.
I have said ‘the composition or at least promulgation’ of Deuteronomy. If Deuteronomy was written (which is at least possible) as early as the reign of Hezekiah,[244] we may perhaps follow Ewald, who places the ‘Praise of Wisdom’ in the period of relative prosperity which, he thinks, closed the reign of Manasseh.[245] It is noteworthy that Mic. vi., which Ewald plausibly assigns to the period of Manasseh’s persecution, also presents some points of contact with Deuteronomy.[246] And yet it seems to me safer to date the book in the reign of Josiah, when, as we know from history and prophecy, the discourses of Deuteronomy first became generally known.
Next, as to the body of the work. That the collection in x. 1-xxii. 16 is the earliest part of the book is admitted by most critics. The fact that chaps. i.-ix. present linguistic points of contact with it, does not prove the two parts to be of the same date, for the opening chapters also display peculiarities quite unlike those of the ‘Solomonic’ anthology.[247] I have already set forth my own view on this and on other critical points, and will now only register the results of Ewald and of Delitzsch. Both are agreed that the older Book of Proverbs extends from i. 1 to xxiv. 22, i. 1-6 (or 7) being the descriptive heading of the work, and i. 7 (or 8)-ix. 18 a hortatory treatise, by the author, more or less introductory to the sayings which follow. The date of the collection of the latter Ewald places at the beginning of the eighth century; that of the heading and introduction in the middle of the seventh. Towards the end of the seventh century the three appendices (xxii. 17-xxiv. 22, xxiv. 23-35, xxv. 1-xxix. 27) were added; the contents of the two former were derived from two popular proverbial collections, while the latter was a great and officially sanctioned anthology dating from the end of the eighth century. The remaining parts of the book (xxx. 1-xxxi. 9, and xxxi. 10-31) Ewald assigns to the seventh century. Delitzsch (whose view is perhaps the most conservative one still tenable) dates the publication of the first Book of Proverbs as early as the reign of Jehoshaphat (referring to 2 Chr. xvii. 7-9). To its editor he ascribes not only the authorship of i. 1-ix. 18 but the conclusion of the ‘older book’ by the words of the wise, xxii. 17-xxiv. 22, while a later editor is responsible both for the supplementary sayings of the wise, xxiv. 22-34, and for the great Hezekian collection, of which he thus ensured the preservation. The same person probably appended the obscure sayings of Agur (xxx.) and of Lemuel (xxxi. 1-9), possibly too the closing alphabetic poem (xxxi. 10-31), which is assigned by Delitzsch to the pre-Hezekian period. Both Ewald and Delitzsch are substantially agreed as to the existence of a genuine Solomonic element in both the great anthologies (especially in the first), but upon very conjectural grounds.
One point only remains to be considered, however briefly. The Book of Job has already furnished an example of the poetical fiction of the non-Israelitish authorship of a Hebrew poem. It is possible enough that this and the similar instance of the Balaam-oracles were not alone in Hebrew literature. Nor are they so, if a view of the first words of the headings in Prov. xxx. 1, xxxi. 1, which has found many friends, be correct, and we may render in the one case, ‘The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, of (the country of) Massa,’ reading either mimmassā (or, as Delitzsch proposes, mimmēshā or hammassā’ī[248]); and in the other, ‘The words of Lemuel the king of Massa.’ Mühlau in his monograph on ‘Agur’ and ‘Lemuel’ thinks that both the contents and the language of the sayings of Agur ‘almost necessarily point to a region bordering on the Syro-Arabian wastes,’ but his theory of an Israelitish colony in a certain Massa in the Hauran (comp. 1 Chr. v. 10), like a somewhat similar theory of Hitzig’s (he places ‘Massa’ in N. Arabia, comparing 1 Chr. iv. 42, 43, where the Simeonites are said to have settled in Mount Seir, and Isa. xxi. 11, 12[249]), is too conjectural to be readily accepted. There is however much force in a part of the arguments of Mühlau, especially in his first and second (referring to xxxi. 1), ‘The word melek in apposition to Lemuel cannot go without the article,’[250] and ’Massā “utterance” is never used elsewhere except of (prophetic) oracles.’ If any one therefore likes to adopt the above renderings, taking Massa as the name of a country (comp. Gen. xxv. 14, 1 Chr. i. 30), I have no strong objection. Ziegler’s view cited by Mühlau,[251] that Lemuel was an Emeer of an Arabian tribe in the east of Jordan, and that an Israelitish wise man translated the Emeer’s sayings into Hebrew, is perhaps not as untenable as Mühlau thinks, provided that ‘translation’ be taken to include recasting in accordance with the spirit of the Old Testament religion. For my own part, however, I prefer the simpler explanation given already in considering chaps. xxx., xxii. 1-9. I account for the Aramaisms, Arabisms, and other peculiarities of these sections by their post-Exile origin, with which the character of the contents of the most striking portion, xxx. 1-6, appears to me to harmonise (notice e.g. the strong faith in the words of revelation in xxx. 5). But I am not writing a commentary, and can only draw the reader’s attention to some of the most important exegetical phenomena. Let me refer in conclusion to a critical note on p. 175, which has a bearing on the question raised by some whether Job and this part of Proverbs may fitly be called Hebræo-Arabic works. It is strange that Hitzig should have renounced the support for his theory (see p. 171) to be obtained from Prov. xxx. 31.
The sense of proverbs is naturally most difficult to catch when there has been no attempt to group them by subjects. Hence the textual difficulties of so large a part of the earliest anthology. Grätz has made some valuable among many too arbitrary corrections; but a systematic use of the ancient versions is still a desideratum. Lagarde, Oort, Bickell, and others have led the way; but much yet remains to be done. My space only allows me to give some preliminary hints, which may at least stimulate further inquiry, on the relation of the Hebrew text to the versions, especially the Septuagint version (if I should not rather speak of ‘versions’). How comes it, we may ask first of all, that the Septuagint contains so many passages not found in the Hebrew? One answer is that in a foreign land, with a new language and a new circle of ideas, explanation was as necessary to the Hellenistic Jews as translation. Hence the tendency of the Septuagint translators to introduce glosses. But the form of the Book of Proverbs specially favoured interpolations. Sometimes only a few words were inserted to make the text more distinct (e.g. i. 22, xii. 25, xxiv. 23); at other times explanatory or suggested remarks were added, at first perhaps in the margin. Of course, it is perfectly conceivable that the received Hebrew text itself may contain similar additions; the analogy of other books, in which such interpolations occur, even favours this idea. One such insertion is patent; there can be no doubt that i. 16 was added in the Hebrew, to the detriment of the connection, from Isa. lix. 7. As this passage is wanting in the best MSS. of the Septuagint, we might be tempted to use this version as a means of detecting other interpolations in the Hebrew. This however would lead us into researches of too much complexity.
Some of the Septuagint additions are also found in the Vulgate, some again also in the Peshitto; and where a Septuagint addition is not found in the Vulgate we may, at least in some cases, assume that the Septuagint text did not in St. Jerome’s time contain the additional matter. Among the most interesting passages from a text-critical point of view peculiar to the Septuagint are those found at iii. 15, iv. 27, vi. 8, 11, vii. 2, ix. 12,[252], 18, xi. 16, xii. 13, xv. 18, xvi. 5, xix. 7, xxvi. 11, xxvii. 20, 21, xxviii. 10. Most of these can be rendered back into Hebrew, though this is difficult with vi. 11b as it stands, and impossible with vi. 8 (‘the bee’). In any case the Hebrew origin of a proverb does not prove that it was inserted by the original collector or collectors. With regard to the Targum and its deviations from the Hebrew text, it is to be observed that this version has the same relation to the Peshitto as the Vulgate to the old Latin version on which it is based. The Peshitto translates from a Hebrew text substantially the same as our own; though the translator has consulted the Septuagint (according to Hitzig) in the portion of the book beginning at vii. 23.
There are also some remarkable transpositions in the Septuagint Proverbs, reminding us of those in the Septuagint Jeremiah. The three appendices to the Hezekian collection are given in a very different order from that of the Hebrew. The first fourteen verses of chap. xxx. are inserted between ver. 22 and ver. 23 of chap. xxiv., and all the remainder, together with xxxi. 1-9, is placed before chap. xxv. The treatment of the headings in the Septuagint is also remarkable, and seems arbitrary; e.g. it looks as if the translator had expunged all those peculiarities in the superscriptions which suggested a variety of authorship. The proper names in chaps. xxx., xxxi. have been explained away, and the heading in x. 1, which limits the Solomonic authorship too much for the translator, has been actually omitted.
On the Septuagint additions to Proverbs, comp. Deane in Expositor, 1884, pp. 297-301; on the larger subject of the Greek and the Hebrew text, see introduction to Hitzig’s commentary, Lagarde’s Anmerkungen &c., and a series of papers, thorough but less masterly than Hitzig’s or Lagarde’s work, by Heidenheim (title in ‘Aids to the Student,’ below).
Some assume here a corruption of the text, but the margin of the Revised Version gives an appropriate sense. It implies indeed the admission of a downright Arabism, but there are parallels for this in vv. 15, 16, 17, and alqūm for the Arabic al-qaum is (see Gesenius) like elgābhīsh (Ezek. xiii. 11, 13, xxxviii. 22) and almōdād (Gen. x. 26). ‘The king when his army is with him’ may very fitly be adduced as a specimen of the ‘comely in going.’ M. Halévy indeed has suggested that qūm in alqūm may be the Qāvam or Qājam often mentioned in the Sinaitic inscriptions (Bulletin No. 28 of the Société de Linguistique; see Academy, March 27, 1886). But the former view is still the more plausible one. Why should a king with whom is ‘God Qavam’ be described as specially ‘comely in going’? Wetzstein too has stated that alqaum is still pronounced al-qōm by the Bedawins. Comp. Blau, Zeitschr. d. deutschen morg. Ges., xxv. 539.
It is only in modern times that the Book of Proverbs has been disparaged; the early Christian Fathers considered it to be of much ethico-religious value. Hence the sounding title, first used by Clement of Rome (Cor., c. 57), ἡ πανάρετος σοφία. From our point of view, indeed, the value of the book is different in its several parts, but no part is without its use. Can any Christian help seeing the poetic foregleams of Christ in the great monologue of Wisdom in chap. viii.? Dorner may be right in maintaining that the idea of the Incarnation cannot have been evolved from Hebraism or Judaism, and yet the description of Wisdom, ‘sporting with Jehovah’s world’ and ‘having her delights with the sons of men’ (viii. 31), cannot but remind us of the sympathetic, divine-human Teacher, who ‘took the form of a servant.’ How deeply this great section has affected the theology of the past, I need not here relate. Will it ever lose its value as a symbolic picture of the combined transcendence and immanence of the Divine Being?
Turning to the other parts of the book, do they not furnish abundant justification of that type of Christianity which accepts but does not dwell on forms, so bent is it upon moral applications of the religious principle? Do they not show that the ‘fear of the Lord’ is quite compatible with a deep interest in average human life and human nature? The Book of Proverbs, taken as a whole, seems to supply the necessary counterweight to the psalms and the prophecies. The psalmists love God more than aught else; but must every one say, ‘Possessing this, I have pleasure in nothing upon earth’ (Ps. lxxiii. 26)? Would it be good to be always in this mood? Is there not something more satisfactory in the Pauline saying, ‘All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s’? And as for the prophets—do they not (we may conjecture and perhaps partly prove this) depreciate too much the morality and religion of their neighbours? The Book of Proverbs gives us only average morality and religion; yet, if we judge it fairly, how pleasing on the whole is the picture! Taking it as equally authoritative with the psalms and prophecies, shall we not rise to a more comprehensive religion than a mere pupil of psalmists or prophets knew—to one that charges us, not to love God less, but our neighbour more? It would no doubt be easy to criticise the Book from a New Testament point of view. But the New Testament itself has absorbed much that is best in it, and quotations from it occur not unfrequently, especially in the Epistles. Nor can any teacher of the people afford to neglect its stores of happily expressed practical wisdom. We must not even despise its ‘utilitarianism.’ The awful declarations of ‘Wisdom’ in Prov. i. 24-32 are simply the voice of the personified laws of God[253] warning men that the consequences of their acts, even if they may be overruled for good, yet cannot by any cunning be escaped. Does the New Testament quite supersede this form of teaching? And does not the Hebrew sage once at least give a suggestion of that very overruling love of God which is among the characteristic ideas of Christian lore (see Prov. iii. 11)?
The ‘aids’ here mentioned are such as might otherwise escape notice.
W. Nowack, Die Sprüche Salomo’s u.s.w. (a recast of Bertheau’s commentary in the Kurzgefasstes Exeg. Handbuch), 1883; H. Deutsch, Die Sprüche Salomo’s nach der Auffassung im Talmud und Midrasch dargestellt und kritisch untersucht (erster Theil, 1885); Bickell, ‘Exegetisch-kritische Nachlese: Proverbien und Job,’ in Zeitschr. fur kathol. Theologie, 1886, pp. 205-208; Aben Ezra’s commentary on Proverbs, edited by Chaim M. Horowitz, 1884; Loewenstein, Die Proverbien Salomo’s, mit Benutzung älterer und neuerer Manuskripte, 1837 (text and commentary in Hebrew, with German metrical version; contains valuable contributions to a more critical Massoretic text from the papers of W. Heidenheim); M. Heidenheim, ‘Zur Textkritik der Proverbien,’ in his Vierteljahresschrift for 1865 and 1866; Lagarde, Anmerkungen sur griechischen Uebersetzung der Proverbien, 1863; Grätz, ‘Exegetische Studien zu den Salomonischen Sprüchen,’ in his Monatsschrift, 1884; Dijserinck, ‘Kritische Scholien,’ in Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1883, p. 577 &c.; Oort, ‘Spreuken I.-IX.,’ in same periodical, 1885, p. 379 &c.; Böttcher, Aehrenlese, part iii., 1865 (contains 39 pages on Proverbs); Mühlau, De proverbiorum Agur et Lemuel origine, 1869; Bruch, Weisheitslehre der Hebräer, 1851; Hooykaas, Gesch. van de beoefening der Weisheid onder de Hebreen, 1862; Dukes, Rabbinische Blumenlese, 1844 (includes Talmudic proverbs; comp. the older works of Drusius, 1590-1, and Brüll’s supplement in his Jahrbücher, 1885); Delitzsch, art. ‘Sprüche Salomo’s,’ in Herzog-Plitt’s Real-Encyklopädie, ed. 2, vol. xiv.; and the works of Oehler and Schultz on Old Testament Theology (the former in Clark’s Library).