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.