CHAPTER II.

THE FORM AND ORIGIN OF THE PROVERBS.

In one of the opening verses of the Book of Proverbs (i. 6) three technical names for varieties of proverbs are put together:—(1) _māshāl_, a short, pointed saying with reference to some striking feature in the life of an individual, or in human life generally, often clothed in figurative language (whence, according to many, the name _māshāl_, as if ‘similitude;’ comp. παραβολή), (2) _m’lîça_, perhaps a ‘bent’, ‘oblique’ or (as Sept.) ‘dark’ saying, (3) _khîda_, a ‘knotty’ or intricate saying, especially a riddle. Each of these words has a variety of applications; for instance (1) is used in Num. xxiii., xxiv., for a parallelistic poem, (1) and (2) sometimes mean a ‘taunting speech’ (see below, and comp. Hab. ii. 6, Isa. xiv. 4, Mic. ii. 4), and (3) can be used, not merely of true riddles with a moral meaning, such as we find here and there in Prov. xxx., but also of didactic statements upon subjects as difficult as riddles (see Ps. xlix. 5, A.V. 4, lxxviii. 2). We have no collection of popular proverbs, such as exists in Arabic; the proverbs in the canonical collection show great technical elaboration, though some may be based on the naive ‘wisdom’ of the people. A very few specimens of the popular proverb have indeed been preserved in the canonical literature.[154] ‘Is Saul also among the prophets?’ (1 Sam. x. 12, xix. 24) preserves the memory of a humorous fact in the story of that king. ‘Wickedness proceeds from the wicked’ (1 Sam. xxiv. 13) is, unlike the former, a generalisation, and means that a man’s character is shown by his actions (comp. Isa. xxxii. 6). ‘As is the mother, so is the daughter’ (Ezek. xvi. 44) is also an induction from common experience. ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’ (Jer. xxii. 29, Ezek. xviii. 2), words applied no doubt, as Lowth says, profanely, but not originally meant so, is a figurative way of saying that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. We have one specimen of the riddle (strictly so called)—that well-known one of Samson’s,

From the eater came forth food, and from the strong one came forth sweetness (Judges xiv. 14).

The parable, too, was doubtless called _mashal_, and of this we have three Old Testament examples, which will at once occur to the reader (2 Sam, xii. 1-6, xiv. 4-9, 1 Kings xx. 39, 40); but it is more important to draw the reader’s attention to the rare specimens of the fable. Some may think it bold to refer in this connection to a portion of a narrative which seems at first sight to be historical (Num. xxi. 22-35). The strange episode of the speaking ass is, however, most difficult to understand, except as a sportive quasi-historical version of a popular _mashal_ or fable (compare the four Babylonian animal-fables discovered among the fragments of King Assurbanipal’s library).[155] The passage being evidently distinct from the rest of the story of Balaam, in passing this judgment upon it, we are not committed as a matter of course to a denial of all historical character to the rest of the narrative. The fables of Jotham (Judg. ix. 8-15) and Joash (2 Kings xiv. 9), in which the trees are introduced speaking, have also their parallels in Babylonian literature. One of them indeed has a claim to be called a _mashal_ on a second account; the tree-fable of Joash is a taunt of the keenest edge, and one of the secondary meanings of _mashal_ is ‘taunting speech’ (see Isa. xiv. 4, A.V.). It is true the ‘taunting speeches’ expressly called _mashals_—not only those in the prophetic writings (see above), but the verses ascribed to ‘those that speak in _mashals_’ in Num. xxi. 27-30—are poetical in form, but this is because the Hebrew writers never conceived the idea of a narrative poem; even the prologue of the Book of Job is in prose.

These are the principal specimens of the _mashal_ apart from those in the three Books of Old Testament Wisdom. They are but the ‘two or three berries’ left after the beating of the tree (Isa. xvii. 6), and excite a longing for more which cannot be gratified. We may be sure that in Israel’s prime the telling of proverbs was almost as popular as the recital of stories, and became a test of ability. For—

The legs of a lame man hang loose, so is a proverb in the mouth of fools (xxvi. 7);

and though Sirach says of the labouring class, ‘They shall not be found where parables are spoken’ (Ecclus. xxxviii. 33), it is reasonable to account for this by the aristocratic pride of the students of Scripture in the later Jewish community. At any rate, as I have said already, some at least of the early literary proverbs are very possibly based on popular sayings; these would naturally embody a plain, bourgeois experience such as marks not a few of the proverbs in our book. Dr. Oort conjectures[156] that _some of our proverbs were originally current among the people as riddles_, such for instance as, ‘What is sweet as honey?—Pleasant discourse, for it is sweet to the soul and a medicine to the bones’ (xvi. 24); ‘What is worse than meeting a bear?—Meeting a fool in a fit of folly’ (xvii. 12); ‘What is sweet at first, and then like sand in the mouth?—Stolen food’ (xx. 17). Certainly the introduction to the ‘proverbs of Solomon’ may seem to imply (i. 6) that the collection which follows contains specimens of the riddle, but probably all the writer means is that the ‘words of the wise’ are often ‘knotty’ because epigrammatic. We may indeed reasonably hold that, like their prototype Solomon,[157] the ‘wise men’ were accustomed to sharpen their intellects upon enigmas (such as lie at the root of the so-called ‘numerical proverbs’ in xxx. 15, 18, 21, 24, 29; comp. vi. 16); but a still more important discipline than the battle of wits was the habit of keen observation. We cannot reduce all the proverbs involving comparison to the form of riddles, any more than we can do this with the following Buddhist sayings, equal to the more refined specimens of the Hebrew proverb:?—[158]

As rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, so passion will break through an unreflecting mind.

Like a beautiful flower, full of colour, but without scent, are the fine but fruitless words of him who does not act accordingly.

A tamed elephant they lead to battle; the king mounts a tamed elephant; the tamed is the best among men, he who silently endures abuse.

Well-makers lead the water; fletchers bend the arrow; carpenters bend a log of wood; wise people fashion themselves.

Another plausible hypothesis similar to that of Dr. Oort is that some of our proverbs are based on popular fables, as is the case according to Dr. Back with many of the proverbs in the Talmud and Midrash.[159] The Jewish scholar referred to applies this key to Prov. vi. 6-11 (comp. the Aramaic fable of the ant and the grasshopper—see Delitzsch’s note), to the numerical proverbs in chap. xxx. (‘skeletons of fables’ he calls them), and to Eccles. ix. 4 and x. 11. Both proverbs and fables indeed are common in later Jewish literature. Fables, especially animal fables, were not perhaps appropriate vehicles of moral instruction according to the O.T. writers. But the later Jewish teachers do not seem to have felt this objection. Rabbi Meir (2nd cent. A.D.) was the writer of animal fables _par excellence_; Rabbi Hillel (B.C. 30), however, so noted for his versatility, was also a copious fabulist.[160]

This popular origin of some at least of the proverbs sufficiently accounts for their comparatively trite and commonplace character. They were not trite and commonplace to those who first used them, and successive generations loved them because of their antiquity (Job viii. 8-10). Even to us they are not so commonplace as the far less popular and piquant Egyptian proverbs,[161] though I confess that they will hardly compare with the relics of Indian gnomology,[162] still less with the singularly rich and pointed proverbs of the Chinese.[163] The practice of writing antithetic sentences on paper or silk to suspend in houses (contrast Deut. vi. 9) gave an edge to the shrewd earthly wisdom of the countrymen of Confucius. The Jewish intellect developed but slowly into the acuteness of the later periods which produced fables, proverbs, and riddles which can safely challenge comparison.[164]

Footnote 154:

In the Midrash-literature, proverbs are often quoted with an express statement that they are from the lips of the people.

Footnote 155:

See Smith and Sayce’s _Chaldæan Genesis_, pp. 140-154. For the Egyptian animal-fables, which may be the originals of those of Æsop, see Mahaffy, _Prolegomena to Anc. Hist._, p. 390; for the Indian, see the apologues of the Panchatantra by Benfey or Lancereau, and the Buddhist Birth-Stories—‘the oldest, most complete, and most important collection of folk-lore extant’—translated by Rhys Davids, vol. i.

Footnote 156:

_The Bible for Young People_, E. T., iii. 105-6.

Footnote 157:

1 Kings x. 1; comp. Menander’s account in Josephus, _Antiq._ viii. 5, 3.

Footnote 158:

From Max Müller’s translation of the Dhammapada, or ‘Path of Virtue’ (1870).

Footnote 159:

Dr. Back gives a list of these in Grätz’s _Monatsschrift_, 1854, pp. 265-7.

Footnote 160:

In the Talmudic treatise _Soferim_ xvi. 9, a list of Hillel’s acquirements is given, including the conversations of the mountains, the trees, the animals, the demons, &c. On the Jewish fable literature, the wealth of which seems unparalleled, see Back, _Die Fabel in Talmud und Midrash_, in Gratz’s _Monatsschrift_, 1875-1884. Curiously enough the two oldest Jewish fables are similar in character to those of the Old Test.

Footnote 161:

Comp. Renouf, _Hibbert Lectures_, pp. 75, 76, 100-103; Mahaffy, _Prolegomena to Ancient History_, pp. 273-291; Brugsch, _Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter_, p. 91; _Records of the Past_, viii. 157-160.

Footnote 162:

Comp. Weber, _Indische Literaturgeschichte_, p. 227.

Footnote 163:

See Scarborough, _Collection of Chinese Proverbs_ (1875). The Chinese proverbs have no known authors.

Footnote 164:

On the riddles referred to, see Wünsche, _Die Räthselweisheit bei den Hebräern_ (1883). Comp. them with the later Arabic proverbs (see Hariri, and comp. Freytag, _Proverbia arabica_).