Chapter III: The First Collection and Its Appendices

Upon entering what Dante in the _De Monarchiâ_ so well calls ‘the forest’ of the canonical proverbs, we are soon struck by differences of age and growth. The central portion of the book, and in some respects the most interesting, is comprised in x. 1-xxii. 16. To this, which is indeed the original Book of Proverbs, the first nine chapters were intended to serve as the introduction. It is the oldest Hebrew proverbial anthology extant. Probably from its compiler it received the name ‘Proverbs of Solomon,’ and from this title has sprung the tradition accepted by so many subsequent ages and indeed by the editor of the whole book (Prov. i. 1) of Solomon’s authorship of the Proverbs. The title however cannot be historically correct. Those maxims in this anthology which refer to the true God under the name Jehovah (_Yahvè_) are too monotheistic and inculcate too pure a morality to be the work of the Solomon of the Book of Kings. That great despot’s ‘wisdom,’ so far as we can judge both from his character and from the traditional notices, cannot have had a distinctively religious character. Listen to these proverbs,—

Better a little with the fear of Jehovah
than great treasure and turmoil therewith (xv. 16).
The horse is prepared against the day of battle,
but victory is Jehovah’s (xxi. 31).
The mouth of strange women is a deep pit;
he with whom Jehovah is wroth falleth therein (xxii. 14).
A wise son (loveth) his father’s correction,
but a scorner heareth not rebuke (xiii. 1),—

and for a commentary read 1 Kings iv. 26, xi. 1, 4, 14-40, xii. 14, 15. Nor is the moral tone of the ‘Solomonic’ proverbs in its plain bourgeois simplicity any more suitable to the name they bear than the religious. Unless Solomon was like Haroun al-Rashid, and made himself privately acquainted with the ways and thoughts of the citizens, it is difficult to see how he can have written so completely as one of them would have done.

The truth is that both David and Solomon were idealised by later generations. The heroes of a grander if not better age, they towered far above the petty figures of their successors. Favoured by the contemporary depression of Egypt and Assyria, they had been enabled to rear and to retain a powerful empire, comparable to those which afflicted and oppressed the divided people of the later Israelites. Solomon in particular is represented in tradition as not only the most fortunate but the wisest of kings, not in the sense in which it is said that religion is the best part of wisdom (Prov. i. 7), but in that in which the ‘children of the east’ were accustomed to use the word. This is clear from the language of the Hebrew narrator:—

‘And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and
largeness of heart even as the sand on the sea-shore. And Solomon’s
wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country,
and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men; than
Ethan the Ezrahite [read, perhaps, ‘the native,’ i.e. the
Israelite], and Heman, and Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol
[probably a foreigner]: and his fame was in all the nations round
about. And he spoke three thousand proverbs [or, similitudes], and
his songs were a thousand and five. And he spoke of trees, from the
cedar in Lebanon unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he
spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of creeping things, and of
fishes. And there came of all peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon,
from all kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.’ (1 Kings
iv. 29-34.)

I see no reason for not accepting the substance of this tradition. The principal point in it is the ascription to Solomon of a power of apophthegmatic composition which the author, as a devout theist, could not but trace to a divine gift, just as the author of Ex. xxxvi. ascribes the skill of the artisans of the tabernacle to the direct operation of Jehovah. But we are also informed that the talents of Solomon were neither peculiar to him, nor exercised on different subjects from those of foreign sages. The precise meaning of the Hebrew _m’shālīm_ in 1 Kings iv. 32 is suggested by ver. 33. The word seems to mean moralising similitudes[165] derived partly from the animal, partly from the vegetable kingdom (for Lord Bacon’s view,[166] hinted in the _New Atlantis_, is more plausible than sound). Was I not right in saying that the traditional notices of Solomon’s wisdom do not agree with the title of our anthology? I wish that it were otherwise. How gladly one would see a few of Solomon’s genuine utterances (whether proverbs, or similitudes, or fables) incorporated into one or another of the Hebrew Scriptures!

I think however that it is unfair both to the compiler and to the editor who repeats his statement (i. 1) to take the ascription of these proverbs to Solomon literally. Accuracy in the details of literary history was not a qualification which would seem important to an Israelite. The name of Solomon was attached (for dogmatism here seems permissible) to these choice specimens of Hebrew proverbiology simply from a very characteristic hero-worship. Solomon had in fact become the symbol of plain ethical ‘wisdom’ just as David had become the representative of religious lyric poetry. We may see this from the alternative title of the Book of Proverbs in both Jewish and Christian writings—‘Book of Wisdom;’[167] still more from the fiction of Solomon’s authorship of Ecclesiastes, and from the Targumic paraphrase of Jer. ix. 23, ‘Let not _Solomon the son of David_, the wise man, glory in his wisdom.’ Of course, the real names of the authors of the proverbs had been as irrecoverably lost as those of our early ballad-writers.

But though we must deny the Solomonic authorship a far-off influence of the Solomonic age may perhaps be admitted; at least, there are grounds for the opinion that some of the proverbs are as old as the ninth century. (1) The second collection of so-called Solomonic proverbs was compiled according to a credible tradition (xxv. 1) in the reign of Hezekiah; this of itself throws the earlier collection a considerable way back into the eighth century. (2) Upon examining the first anthology we find that some of the proverbs already have a history. For instance, (_a_) the solemn generalisation in xiv. 12 occurs in exactly the same form in xvi. 25, (_b_) eight other proverbs are repeated with slight changes in expression (x. 1 = xv. 20, x. 2 = xi. 4, xiii. 14 = xiv. 27, xiv. 20 = xix. 4, xvi. 2 = xxi. 2, xix, 5 = xix. 9, xx. 10 = xx. 23, xxi. 9 = xxi. 19), but except in the case of xi. 4, xiv. 27 no change in thought, (_c_) ten are repeated, at least so far as one line goes, either exactly or with but slight differences (x. 15 = xviii. 11, x. 6[168] = x. 11, x. 8 = x. 10,[169] xv. 33 = xviii. 12, xi. 13 = xx. 19, xi, 21 = xvi. 5, xii. 14 = xiii. 2, xiv. 31 = xvii. 5, xvi. 18 = xviii. 12, xix. 12 = xx. 2). It is probable that some time would elapse before a proverb attained such notoriety as to be circulated in varying forms. (3) The originality of the diction (_a_) and the careful observance of technical rules of composition (_b_) favour an early date. (_a_) For instance, ‘steersmanship’[170] (xi. 14, xii. 5, xx. 18), as a term for practical wisdom or counsels, evidently springs from a fresh enthusiasm for commerce; a long list of striking expressions might be added from any chapter of the collection. (_b_) Nor is technical precision at all less conspicuous in this early anthology. Each proverb is a distich, i.e. consists of two lines, as a rule three-toned, and in most cases antithetically parallel. It is true, xix. 7 in its present form is a tristich, i.e. consists of three members, but this proverb undoubtedly arose out of two, the second of which is mutilated in the Hebrew text, but is found in a complete though not entirely correct form in the Septuagint. The incomprehensible third line of xix. 7 given in versions based upon the Hebrew now becomes the distich,

He that does much evil perfects mischief;
he that provokes[171] with words shall not escape.

According to Ewald, the collection is divided into five parts by the recurrence at intervals of a proverb exhorting the young to receive instruction; see x. 1, xiii. 1, xv. 20, xvii. 25, xix. 20. If this division is intentional it may be compared with the equally mechanical triple division found by some in Isa. xl. lxvi. Of arrangement by subject there is but little trace; here and there two or more verses come in succession dealing with the same theme. Observe too the recurrence of ‘Jehovah,’ xv. 33, xvi. 1-9, 11, and of the word ‘king’ in xvi. 10, 12-15, which shows that one principle of arrangement was simply the recurrence of certain catchwords. Bickell thinks that another principle was the occurrence of the same initial letter (see xi. 9-12, xx. 7-9, xx. 24-26, xxii. 2-4).

Altogether, it is abundantly clear that we have before us works of art, and not the simple maxims handed down in Israel from father to son. There may sometimes be a traditional basis, but no more. The anthology contrasts, therefore, as Ewald remarks, with the collections of Arabic proverbs due to Abu-Obaida, Maidani[172] and others. But whether we may go on to assert with the same great critic that we have here the wise men’s applications of the truths of religion to the infinite cases and contingencies of the secular life, seems doubtful. It is not clear to me that these wise men were preoccupied by religion. There are indeed not a few fine religious proverbs, but it cannot be shown that those who wrote the secular proverbs also wrote the religious. It is possible and even probable that some of the religious proverbs are the work of the author of the introductory chapters; without dogmatising, I may refer to xiv. 34 (comp. viii. 15, 16), xv. 33, xvi. 1-7, and perhaps to xix. 27, which is quite in the parental tone of chaps. i.-ix. The tone of the secular proverbs is not, from a Christian point of view (of which more later on), an elevated one. The ethical principle is prudential. Virtue or ‘wisdom’ is rewarded, and vice or ‘folly’ punished in this life. It is indeed nowhere expressly said that every trouble is a punishment; but there is nothing like xxiv. 16 in this anthology to prevent the reader from inferring it. At any rate, the writers are clearly not in the van of religious thought: no ‘obstinate questionings’ have yet disturbed their tranquillity.

We need not pause here to demonstrate what no one probably will dispute, that the origin of this first anthology is impersonal. The fact that it is so may well give us the more confidence in the accuracy of the social picture which it contains. This is certainly a pleasing one, and points to a comparatively early period in the history of Judah. Commerce and its attendant luxury have not made such progress as at the time when the introduction was written; poverty is only too well known, but there seems to be a middle class with a sound moral sense, to which the writers of proverbs can appeal. It is true, says one of these, that in daily life ‘rich and poor meet together,’ but for all that ‘Jehovah is the maker of them all’ (xxii. 2), and ‘he that oppresses the poor reproaches his maker’ (xiv. 31). And if it is true on the one hand that ‘the poor is hated even of his neighbour’ (xiv. 20), and that ‘the destruction of the wretched is their poverty’ (x. 15), it is equally so on the other that ‘he that trusts in his riches shall fall’ (xi. 28), and that

Better is the poor man who walks in his blamelessness,
than he who is perverse in his ways and is rich[173] (xix. 1).

The strength of the land still consists in the number of small proprietors tilling their own ground. Two proverbs express an interest in these, e.g.

The poor man’s newly ploughed field gives food in abundance,
but there is that is cut off by injustice (xiii. 23).
Better is a mean man that tills for himself[174]
than he that glorifies himself and has no bread (xii. 9).

All the farmers however were not so diligent as those indicated in these passages. One of the numerous proverbs against laziness (then as now a prevalent vice in this part of the East[175]) brings before us a land-owner who is too lazy to give the order for ploughing at the right time, and so when he looks for the harvest, there is none.

When autumn comes the sluggard ploughs not;
so if he asks at harvest-time, there is nothing (xx. 4).

The right use of the gift of speech is another very favourite subject in this anthology. The charm of suitable words is best described in a Hezekian proverb (xxv. 11), but it is well said in xv. 4 that ‘a gentle tongue is a tree of life,’ and elsewhere that

There is that babbles like the thrusts of a sword,
but the tongue of the wise is gentleness (xii. 18).

The wonderful power of language could hardly at that age have been better expressed than by the saying,

The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters,
a gushing torrent, a wellspring of wisdom (xviii. 4).

The standard of family morals is high; a good wife is described as God’s best gift (xii. 4, xviii. 22, xix. 14), and the restraints of home are commended to the young (xix. 18, xxii. 6, 15), as in the Egyptian proverbs. Monogamy is throughout presupposed, and a want of respect for _either_ parent is condemned (xiii. 1, xv. 5, xix. 26). The king too is repeatedly held up to reverence (xiv. 35, xvi. 10, 12-15, xix. 12, xx. 2, 8, 26, 28, xxii. 11); it is not so in the Hezekian collection. The king however is not identified with the Deity, as in Egypt; we are told that the will of the monarch is pliable in the hand of Jehovah (xxi. 1), and the true glory of a nation is, not in the prowess of its king, but in righteousness (xiv. 34). And even if we must confess that the spirit of the more secular proverbs is utilitarian, the utilitarianism is sometimes a very refined one, as for instance where the refreshing character of a quiet, contented mind is contrasted with the dull reaction which follows on an outburst of passion (xiv. 30). In conclusion, I will quote a few proverbs interesting chiefly as characteristic of their age, and then a few more of the gems of the collection.

(_a_) The poor is hated even by his neighbour,
but the rich has many friends (xiv. 20).
Whoso withholds corn, him the people curse,
but blessing is on the head of him who sells it (xi. 26).
The beginning of strife is as when one lets out water,
so leave off quarrelling before the teeth be shown (xvii. 14).
The gift of a man makes a free space for him,
and brings him before the great (xviii. 16).
‘Bad, bad,’ says the purchaser,
but when he goes away, he boasts (xx. 14).
(_b_) The righteous regards the life of his cattle,[176]
but the heart of the wicked is cruel (xii. 10).
The heart knows its own bitterness,
and a stranger cannot intermeddle with its joy (xiv. 10).
He that covers transgression helps forward love,
but he that repeats a matter separates best friends (xvii. 9).
There are friends (good enough) acting their part,[177]
and there is a loving friend who sticks closer than a brother
(xviii. 24; comp, xvii. 17).
Who can say, I have made my heart clean,
I am pure from my sin? (xx. 9.)
Say not, I will recompense evil;
wait for Jehovah, and he will deliver thee (xx. 22).

The first appendix to the original Book (appended possibly _before_ the composition of the Introduction) is a small collection of proverbial sayings called ‘words of the wise’ (xxii. 17-xxiv. 22). Virtually the same phrase occurs again in xxiv. 23 at the head of a still shorter work, compiled or composed evidently about the same time by another ‘wise man’ (perhaps the whole work has not come down to us). In the introductory verses the compiler’s object in writing down these proverbs is said to have been that his disciple might learn virtue and religion, and might become qualified to teach others. There is one very difficult passage in it, but this has been corrected in a masterly way by Bickell:—[178]

That thy confidence may be in Jehovah,
to make known unto thee thy ways.
Now, yea before now, have I written unto thee,
long before, with counsels and knowledge,
That thou mayest know the rightness of true words,
that thou mayest answer in true words to those that ask thee
(xxii. 19-21).

The construction of ver. 20_b_ and ver. 21 in the Hebrew thus becomes more idiomatic (comp. χθές τε καὶ πρώην), though not free from ambiguity. The words may mean either that the compiler took long over his work, or that this was not the first occasion of his writing. On the latter explanation the passage may imply that the compiler of this anthology also wrote chaps. i.-ix. (comp. i. 6_b_). His hortatory style and predilection for grouping verses may seem to plead for this view. There are however no important points of contact in phraseology between the work before us and Prov. i.-ix.,[179] and certainly the appendix falls far below the standard of the Introduction. At any rate, it is undoubted that these ‘words of the wise’ appeared long after the ‘Solomonic’ proverbs. The peculiarities of style referred to show this, and also the imitation of some of the ‘Solomonic’ proverbs in the ‘words of the wise;’ (comp. xi. 14 with xxiv. 5, 6; xiii. 9 with xxiv. 19, 20; xxii. 14_a_ with xxiii. 27).

There is no occasion to suppose that all these proverbs come from one period; but the hand of a compiler is more conspicuous here than in the first anthology. He has not indeed removed repetitions (see xxii. 28_a_, xxiii. 10_a_; xxiii. 17_a_, xxiv. 1_a_; xxiii. 18, xxiv. 14), but the personal element preponderates so much that he might fairly have prefixed his own name as the author. Artistically, he may perhaps be found wanting. He has left one tristich (i.e. a proverb of three lines), viz. xxii. 29; two pentastichs (i.e. proverbs of five lines), viz. xxiii. 4, 5. xxiv. 13, 14; and one heptastich (i.e. a proverb of seven lines), viz. xxiii. 6-8. Unsymmetrical as these may be, it seems hazardous, unless there be any specially doubtful passage, to restore symmetry (i.e. to convert tristichs into tetrastichs, and so on) by inserting words conjecturally. There are a few distichs (xxii. 28, xxiii. 9, xxiv. 7, 8, 9, 10), thus affording a slight point of contact with the first anthology; more tetrastichs (xxii. 22, 23; 24, 25; 26, 27; xxiii. 10, 11; 15, 16; 17, 18; xxiv. 1, 2; 3, 4; 5, 6; 15, 16; 17, 18; 19, 20; 21, 22), and hexastichs (xxiii. 1-3; 12-14; 19-21; 26-28; xxiv. 11, 12). One octastich occurs (xxiii. 22-25), and one long poem, in the main a group of distichs, referred to again below (xxiii. 29-35).

Beautiful in form, the proverbs of this collection certainly are not; one cannot apply to the author the saying in xxiv. 26, ‘He kisses the lips who answers in suitable words.’ The contents however are not without points of interest. In xxiii. 1-3 we have a picture of a man of the middle class admitted to the table of a governor. Being unused to ‘dainties,’ he is tempted to excess; as a restraint, the ‘wise man’ bids him consider the capriciousness of princely favour (comp. Ecclus. ix. 13). The abuse of luxuries such as wine and meat was in fact a sore evil in the eyes of this writer (see the caution in xxiii. 20, 21 in the Septuagint version, which reminds one of vii. 14). He has even left us a poem on the evils of drunkenness (xxiii. 29-35) which contains several striking details from its satirical opening, ‘Who hath _oi_, who hath _aboi_?’ (interjections expressing pain), to the picturesque comparison of the drunkard to a man ‘that lieth upon the top of a mast,’[180] which shows incidentally that sea-life was by this time a familiar experience. Another interesting passage, though marred by its obscurity, is that in xxiv. 11, 12. The innocent victims of a miscarriage of justice are about to be dragged away to execution; the pupil of the wise is exhorted to ‘deliver’ them, by intervening with resistless energy, like the St. Ives of a favourite Breton legend, and testifying to the innocence of the sufferers (see xxxi. 8). He may of course refuse, thinking to pretend afterwards that he had not heard of the case; but God knows all, and will requite falsehood, not perhaps at once, but at a future time, when ‘the lamp of the wicked shall be put out’ (xxiv. 20). The wise men, as we have seen, clung firmly to the doctrine of retribution in some one of its various forms. We are not therefore surprised that a book of proverbs should conclude with a dissuasion from consorting with lawless persons, and an earnest advice to ‘fear Jehovah and the king’ (xxiv. 21).

Much need not be said of the second appendix (xxiv. 23-34). ‘These also are by wise men,’ writes the collector, implying that he is to be distinguished from the editor of the preceding collection. The proverbs are all[181] either in two, four, or six lines, except ver. 27, where however it is possible that some words have dropped out.[182] At the end comes a parable or apologue professedly drawn from the writer’s experience (reminding us in this of vii. 6-23, but still more of Job v. 3-5). The scene is laid in a vineyard which has run to waste and become a wilderness from the carelessness of its owner (comp. xx. 4). The _mashal_ (xxiv. 30-32) has been lengthened by the addition of two verses from vi. 9, 10, originally no doubt a marginal note. It was needless; the story (if story it can be called) is more vivid in its brevity, and forms a fitting close to this section of proverbial wisdom.

Footnote 165:

Dr. Grätz is of opinion that Solomon was a fabulist like Jotham; in
the text I have followed Josephus (_Ant._ vii. 2, 5). Legend related
how the wise king, like the early men in African folk-lore (Max
Müller, _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 116), talked _with_ (not merely _of_)
beasts, birds, and fishes, but delighted most in the birds.

Footnote 166:

This was also the opinion of Ewald (_History_, iii. 281). It might now
be urged in its favour that Assurbanipal’s library contained bilingual
lists of animals, vegetables, and minerals. But remember that the
Assyrians were incomparably more civilised than the Israelites, and
had both a lexicographical and a scientific interest in making these
lists, and above all that Solomon is not stated to have written, but
only to have _spoken_.

Footnote 167:

See the _Tosefoth_ to the Talmudic treatise _Baba bathra_, 14_b_,
where the name is given both to Proverbs and to Ecclesiastes. It is
however more commonly found in Christian than in Jewish literature,
often under the fuller form ἡ πανάρετος σοφία (see especially
Eusebius, _H. E._, iv. 22).

Footnote 168:

The second line however seems to have intruded from ver. 11, and thus
to have supplanted the original.

Footnote 169:

Here again the second line is evidently an intruder (from ver. 8). We
should doubtless read with Sept., ‘but he that reproves produces
welfare.’

Footnote 170:

This word (_takhbūlōth_) also occurs in xxiv. 6, i. 5, Job xxxvii. 12.

Footnote 171:

For _m’raddēf_ read _m’gaddēf_.

Footnote 172:

Landberg denies that Maidani’s proverbs were ever really popular, but
A. Müller judges that this view is extravagant (_Zeitschrift für
Völkerpsychologie_, xii. 441).

Footnote 173:

The text has ‘than he who is perverse in his lips and is a fool.’ With
Grätz, I follow the Peshitto and (partly) the Vulgate.

Footnote 174:

Pointing _ōbhēd_, with Hitzig, Ewald, and Bickell; comp. ver, 11.
Dijserinck ingeniously emends _çōbhēr_ ‘heaps up’ (i.e. saves).

Footnote 175:

Comp. Thomson, _The Land and the Book_, pp. 336-8.

Footnote 176:

The word is _behēma_ (Seneca’s ‘muta animalia’). Schopenhauer,
thinking perhaps of the Levitical sacrifices, accuses the Old
Testament of cruelty to animals. But see, besides this passage, Gen.
i. 27-29, Num. xxii. 28, Jon. iv. 11.

Footnote 177:

With Hitzig and others, taking _’îsh_ as a softened form _yēsh_ (comp.
2 Sam. xiv. 19, Mic. vi. 10); the _yōd_ is kept as in Aramaic. So
Targ., Pesh.

Footnote 178:

At the end of ver. 19 Bickell nearly follows Sept. Cod. Vat., τὴν ὁδόν
σου (A.C.S. αὐτοῦ). But as this takes the place of _hayyōm_, it would
seem that Bickell ought to begin ver. 20 with _af ethmōl_. This
however would not suit his metrical theory.

Footnote 179:

The phraseological resemblance of xxiii. 19_b_ to iv. 14_b_ is
incomplete. As for _khokmōth_ in xxiv. 7, it means simply ‘wisdom’ (as
in xiv. 1, where _khakmōth_ is wrong); the parallelism with i. 20, ix.
1 is not of critical importance. Any real points of contact (such as
xxiii. 23_a_; comp. iv. 5, 7) can be accounted for by imitation, and
one could easily bring together points of difference.

Footnote 180:

The word for ‘mast’ is a ἅπ. λεγ. The Septuagint and Peshitto have ‘as
a steersman (or seaman) in great breakers.’

Footnote 181:

xxiv. 23_b_ is no exception; it is merely the first line of a
hexastich.

Footnote 182:

For ‘and afterwards’ the Hebrew has ‘afterwards and thou shalt build.’
‘And’ may mean ‘then,’ marking out the perfect as consecutive, but it
may also have been intended to join two parts of a sentence.