Video Transcripts: The Collections of Proverbs

As we saw last time, it's important for us to understand the big picture of how the book of  Proverbs is structured. The book of Proverbs is structured along a number of different lines.  But the big picture is that upfront is the statement about wisdom, and then the lectures on  wisdom and folly, which become the manner in which we approach the Proverbs themselves.  Once we have gone through the lectures concerning wisdom and folly, which consumed the  first nine chapters, then there are different collections of Proverbs themselves in the proverbs  are mostly stated in antithetic parallelism, to lines having opposite ideas, which focus on a  singular or common, larger, moral or ethical pronouncement. Most of the individual Proverbs  in the book of Psalms us of proverbs are from Solomon himself. And the largest single  collection is from the beginning of chapter 10, through almost the end of chapter 22. So most  of the bulk of the book of Proverbs comes from Solomon himself. Now, it's interesting that in  the Hebrew language, there are no numbers. It took the Romans to form the Roman numerals  that we use to give shape to our number system system. How did the Hebrews Express  numerical values, they expressed numerical values by assigning numerical quantities to  letters as they were positioned in the alphabet. In other words, alif would have the value of  one and beit would have the value of two and so on all the way through. And then depending  on the number of letters that were used together, they would have the place markers for  more digits, 10s, and hundreds, etc. The name Solomon represents a numerical value of 375  375. Interesting, these are the proverbs of Solomon. Now what we know from reading through the rest of the book is that there are more than 375 Proverbs of Solomon. In fact, later on a  couple of 100 years after Solomon lived and died, the men of Hezekiah will gather together  another group of sort of Proverbs of Solomon. But these 375 Proverbs of Solomon were  probably gathered at the time of his death or at a high point in his life, at a time when his  wisdom was celebrated. And so the value the numerical value of His name is 375. Therefore  375 of his best proverbs are collected together. Very interesting. Now, in this collection of 375, Proverbs, the first 180 of the Proverbs in the collection are virtually all antithetic, the  dominant form of proverb, poetry, the last 195 are somewhat more fair, varied in their  expression. In other words, the first 100, or 180, are probably the best of the best of the best  of the proverbs of Solomon ever spoke. And indeed, when you look through it, there is a  delightful depth and wisdom and height and breadth of understanding that comes through in  these pithy statements. It's not necessary that we read them as chapters we have, after all,  later on put chapters and verses into our Bibles in order to find places and Mark passages  and, and to gather people to reading parts of the Bible at the same time. So the collection  itself would have been just 375 double line statements, and each of them has value in and of  itself. How might they have been used maybe as banquet entertainment in the times when  kings and rulers from various other courts, other nations came to visit Solomon in Jerusalem?  When deals were being signed, or when pacts were being made or covenants were being  established? They may or may have been part of the banqueting of Solomon, as he had so  many marriages. Solomon was married 1000 times 700 wives and 300 concubines Well, that's a big industry in in Jerusalem at the time, and they would have to have a lot of entertainment  and maybe they called upon Solomon to provide wisdom that they could then shout back and  forth maybe like a vaudeville skits or things like that, where different actors would take the  wisdom of their king, and then shout them back and forth across the stage where they might  have even been published in collections and used as training for the youngsters who are  growing up to be part of the government. And in its functionings in so many ways, including  Solomon's own children, many children from many different marriages, how do we train these, and what's the values and so Solomon sets the bar for the value system through these  collections of Proverbs. After the collections of Solomon's Proverbs, so the 375, there also,  there's also a separate collection called the sayings of the wise now there are two collections  of sayings of the wise. And these may well have been sayings of Solomon. But what's  interesting about these sayings of the wise, the first is the 30, sayings of the wise, and then  there's a fragment, more sayings of the wise five more saying so the wise appended to it. But  the first group of those the sayings of the wise is paralleled in an Egyptian collection, very  similar to it called the Wisdom of Amenemopet. That collection is dated to around 1000 BCE,  which is about the same time as Solomon, and it has nearly parallel structure, and content. It 

also has 30 brief sayings of the wise, in which 10 of them are virtually identical to these  sayings that scholars wonder about this. They know that there has to be some relationship  between the collection in Egypt, and the collection in Israel, between the sayings of the wise  in the book of Proverbs, and this wisdom in Egypt, which came first. I like to think that the  possibility exists. And notice that in Solomon's own life, one of his first if not his very first  marriage was to the daughter of the pharaoh of Egypt. And I wonder whether the wisdom of  Solomon in its fame and others learning about it became a source of a wedding gift, so that  when Solomon and was married to the daughter of the pharaoh of Egypt, that one of the  things Solomon did was collect 30 of his wiser sayings, create a little document and give that  to the bride's father, his father in law, and make this as a tribute to the king who would then  rule wisely in Egypt. It may well be in any case, there's a lot of parallel between these two.  Here's a, an actual picture of one of the manuscripts of the wisdom of Amenemopet

. And here  are some of those Proverbs, both from the wisdom in Egypt and the proverbs of Solomon,  notice the similarity, incline nine years to my sayings apply thine heart to their  comprehension, for it is profitable thing to put them in thy heart. In the sound of Proverbs of  Solomon, we have bow down thine ear, hear the words of the wise and apply thine heart to  unto my knowledge, for it as a pleasant thing, if that keep them within the this is all stated in  King James language, you can find other translations of it as well. But another one from the  wisdom of Amenemopet, removed, not the landmark when the boundary of the fields and  trespass not on the boundary of the widow, and in the book of Proverbs from the sayings of  the wise, remove not the old landmark and enter not into the field of the fatherless. So you  see the parallels between those statements in the Egyptian collection and those in the  Proverbs. So very similar. And here's again, a whole list of Proverbs that are paralleled in the  wisdom of Amenemopet

, that are almost identical in character. Well, after the wisdom of  Amenemopet, and the sayings of the wise come a second collection of Proverbs of Solomon,  it's not as long as the first collection. But it's interesting that these were collected by the men  of Hezekiah. Now Hezekiah was king of Israel, Judah, actually, about 200 years after Solomon. Solomon's reign, of course, was the greatest expression of the power and, and status of the  Israelite society under the wisdom and rule of God. 200 years later, Hezekiah was trying to  recapture that glory at a time when the Assyrian government was pressing down. And  recently God had miraculously delivered the people. And I can imagine that, as Hezekiah  wanted to portray to the people that his kingdom was a resurgence of the glory of the  kingdom of Solomon, one of the ways to do that would be to publish documents from the  past. And so he had his men scurry through all of the archives of the government, and gather  more of the proverbs of Solomon that were recorded there, so that during this year of  celebration and year of restoration, the wisdom of Solomon would again give guidance to the  people as it had during the days of the glory of the kingdom. Though it's similar to the first  collection of Solomon Proverbs, there's more diversity of subject matter in these and literary  form as well. Maybe the first collection was meant to honor Solomon had his death. And that's why there were 375 Proverbs connected to the number of his name, and that these were  some among the leftovers, so that some of the most prominent or most likely sought after  were already in the earlier connection collection. Most of these are still antithetic parallelism  and single couplets, but there are more multiple line proverbs among them. Then comes a  very interesting collection, the sayings of Agur and King Lemuel, and we have no idea who  these people are. Some speculate they were from the Ishmaelite tribe of massa, and a  reference to that, as in Genesis 25, verse 14, that these came from the wisdom of the east  and entered Israelite culture through the traders of Edom. I can imagine that Solomon in his  wisdom was always looking for others who said wise things and gave wise guidance. But it's  hard for us to know where exactly these came from. The form is very different than for the  other Proverbs in the collection. Particularly in the use of numbers for identifying extremes,  there are three things and four, over and over again, for adding emphasis. The Agur  reflections are on life in general, typical situations that you and I might run into, here there  another place, those that are from King Lemuel, as we have it, are more focused on what  happens in the life of kings and rulers. What makes for a good ruler, and what should we  know in order to rule wisely? Again, where these came from, we're not certain probably, 

Solomon found these statements of wisdom, very interesting in his own reading, and so  added them to the court Wisdom literature that was used to train others in good  governments, and the young to find their places in society. Remember the overall plan of  Proverbs still, while much of the book of Proverbs exists in those very brief, usually two lines  of antithetic parallelism nuggets about living wisely, they only make sense after reading that  initial lectures on wisdom and folly in Chapters one through nine as a single unit. There at the  outset, we're told that we are like a young man going into a strange situation in which there  will be women who will seek to have a relationship with Him. And the women are identified in  terms of two, wisdom and folly. If we choose the female wisdom, something happens if we  choose the female folly, something different happens if we choose the female folly, then the  rest of the book doesn't mean anything to us, because we have gone down a path where we  have already chosen against the wisdom of the collection. If however, at the end of those  lectures we choose wisely, we choose wisdom as our life companion, the rest of the books,  the rest of the the feeling, fillings in the book, the rest of the proverbs themselves, are  essentially the atmosphere in and the furnishings of the House of Wisdom. In other words, the Proverbs themselves are the lifestyle of those who may have committed to a one time  relationship with God, as manifested in the personification of wisdom itself in their lives. The  connections between proverbs and the Wisdom literature of the other nations may well show  the success of God's activity through Israel, and the fame of Solomon that spread. God said to Abraham at the beginning of their relationship, that through Abraham and his descendants,  all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And these proverbs show that kind of thing. The  wisdom of Solomon becomes recognized through the ancient Near East, as symbolic of the life with Israel's God that all nations ought to desire. And that in the end is the great mission of  God, seeking to win back all of the nations of the earth. And the wisdom shone through God's  people, entices them, helping them to find attraction to wisdom and wisdoms God rather than folly and destruction. Good things to think about.