#23 Introduction to the Book of Proverbs, Part 3:

The Concluding Poem and Its Interpretive Significance

 

Proverbs Overview

  • Prologue: the purpose of Proverbs (1:1-7)
  • Lectures on Wisdom & Folly (1:8-9:18)
  • Collections of Proverbs: (10:1-31:9)
    - “The Proverbs of Solomon” (10:1-22:16)
    - “Sayings of the Wise” (22:17-24:22)
    - “More Sayings of the Wise” (24:23-34)
    - “More Proverbs of Solomon” (25:1-29:27)
    - “The Sayings of Agur” (30:1-23)
    - “The Sayings of King Lemuel” (31:1-9)
  • Epilogue: “The Wife of Noble Character” (31:10-31)


Epilogue: “Wife of Noble Character”
 31:10-31

  • This is an acrostic poem:
    The beginning letter of each successive couplet follows the 22-letters of the Hebrew alphabet in sequence. This technique communicates completeness of an idea (everything from A-Z).
  • What is the purpose?
    - Describe the ideal woman/wife?
    - Identify the appropriate tasks of a homemaker?
  • Think back to the opening “lectures:”
    - There we were asked to choose a “wife”
    - If we chose “Wisdom,” chapters 10-30 described the furnishings and lifestyle in our marriage home
    - This concluding poem summarizes the good life created by Wisdom

 

One more note on “Wisdom”

  • In its personification of Wisdom, Proverbs 8 includes a section that makes “Wisdom” the creative partner of Yahweh (22-31).
  • Correlating this to the Prologue of John (1:1-18) where “The Word” is the creative agent of God, some Christian theologians have interpreted the “Wisdom” of Proverbs 8 as a pre-incarnate manifestation of the second person of the Trinity.
  • This is highly speculative at best, and adds little to either Wisdom theology or Christology.

 

Remember the Overall Plan in Proverbs

  • While much of the book of Proverbs exists as these very brief (usually two-line antithetic parallelism) nuggets about living wisely, these only make sense after reading and understanding the “Lectures on Wisdom and Folly” (chapters 1-9) as a single unit.
  • If, at the end of these lectures, we choose Folly as our life-companion, the rest of the book means nothing to us.
  • If, however, at the end of these lectures, we choose Wisdom as our life-companion, the rest of the book is essentially the atmosphere in and furnishings of the house of Wisdom.
  • In other words, the Proverbs themselves are the lifestyle of those who have committed to a life-time relationship with God, as manifested in the personification of Wisdom.
  • The connections between Proverbs and the wisdom literature of other nations may well show the success of God’s activity through Israel (cf. Genesis 12), by which the wisdom of Solomon became recognized throughout the ancient Near East as symbolic of life with Israel’s God.
  • This is the great mission of God, seeking to win back all the nations of the earth.
Modifié le: jeudi 9 août 2018, 09:31