Proverbs is found in the Hebrew Scriptures, or the Old Testament, is a collection not just of sayings that we normally think of as proverbs, but also other forms of teaching and admonitions. The book is part of a larger collection of texts that are known as wisdom literature. Wisdom literature as a genre is an “umbrella term” as one scholar wrote, “that encompasses humanity’s quest to understand and organize reality, to find answers to basic existential questions, and to pass that information along from one generation to another.” It seeks to provide both instruction for how we are to live our lives, but also exploration or explanation about the way the world works, especially around the problem of suffering. The books of the wisdom literature include the book of Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, which is also sometimes known as Quoheleth, as the name Ecclesiastes comes from the Latin name of the book, and then Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, a series of love poems that the rabbis said no one should be allowed to read until they were adults, with the age of 35 sometimes thrown around.
Sometimes the Psalms are included with the wisdom literature
as well, but while there are some Psalms that have the marks of wisdom
literature, scholars are not in agreement on which those are. Additionally, the
majority of Psalms are not wisdom literature, and so you will sometimes see the
Psalms included, but more often they are not listed as wisdom literature. There
are some other books in the apocrypha, which are excepted by the Roman Catholic
Church but not protestants, which are also counted as wisdom literature. Then
in the New Testament the best example of a full book of literature would be the
letter of James. But, Jesus was also immersed in wisdom teachings. The sermon
on the mount, for example, and the Beatitudes, all are teachings to try and
show us the right way to live. Some other examples, those who exalt themselves
will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted, those who live
by the sword will die by the sword, do unto others as you would have them do
unto you, those are all wisdom teachings, as are his parables. And so it turns
out, even if you aren’t familiar with the other books of wisdom, we are
familiar with the idea of wisdom literature.
Wisdom literature in the Hebrew scriptures have traditionally been attributed to King Solomon, because he was seen as having wisdom. Indeed, we are told that God asked him if he could have anything, and he asked for wisdom, and because of that God granted him not just wisdom but wealth and power as well, although he also ended up with 700 wives and 300 concubines, which doesn’t seem all that wise to me. Or perhaps he was predating Socrates who allegedly said, “By all means marry, if you find a good wife you will be happy. If not, you will become a philosopher and that’s good for any man.” And we’ll come back to that and the proverbs being addressed only to men, in a moment. But 1 Kings says of Solomon that he composed 3000 proverbs and 1005 songs, and so as the first line of Proverbs as we heard today says, these attributed to him. Now did he write all of them? No, and we know that first because not all of the proverbs are even attributed to him. Secondly, there are proverbs that are duplicates of proverbs that predate Solomon, in particular from a collection of proverbs from Egypt. Perhaps these came into his court from his marriage to Pharaoh’s daughter.
But the other thing to keep in mind as
we think about authorship is the simple fact that it was viewed very
differently in the ancient world then it is today. Because Solomon was
associated with wisdom literature, if a writing fit this genre it would be
attributed to Solomon, because he was seen as the personification of this type
of wisdom. The one exception to this is Job, which has no author attribution.
If Solomon did indeed compose Proverbs, or at least much of it, and there is
nothing to indicate that he didn’t, and also the book of Ecclesiastes, we
should note that there is a radical difference between these two works. While
Proverbs has been seen as being optimistic, sometimes overly so, Ecclesiastes
has a pessimistic or cynical mood, conveyed in the first lines, “vanity of
vanities! All is vanity.” But the differences there are for another day, as for
the next six weeks we focus our attention on Proverbs.
Now the book of proverbs consists of more than just what we
would think of as proverbs, which are pithy sayings that contain some truth
about living. The first nine chapters are actually a series of instructions
about the way to conduct yourself, rather than proverbs, and in particular to
be seeking lady wisdom rather than lady folly, and the difference between these
two, and as I said this instruction is being given in particular to young men,
and more specifically to young men of a certain standing as they prepare to
enter adulthood and everything that comes with that, including leadership and
marriage. But, it also says that wisdom is not only available to young men, but
that everyone needs to be continuing to seek after wisdom. And it’s not that
young women were not also supposed to have wisdom, or that they weren’t being
taught wisdom, we can guess that they were based upon the woman portrayed in
chapter 31, which we will end the series with, but we have no idea how or where
that instruction was being done. And the point here is that even though the
context here is masculine and patriarchal does not mean that this instruction
in wisdom is not useful for all people, because it is. Sometimes it just might
need to be tweaked a little to fit a different context. The NRSV has done this
to a point by changing the masculine naming, such as to my son, and making it
more inclusive saying my child.
But these first nine chapters instruct us to begin to pursue
and hunger after wisdom, and telling the negative aspects if we don’t do these
things, and as I said, wisdom is personified as a woman. There are several
reasons why this is happening. The first may simply be that they understood
that women were more enlightened and had greater wisdom than men, not as
likely, but possible. Second is the fact that Hebrew is a gendered language,
like French or Spanish in which nouns have genders assigned, unlike English
which is why we use pronouns, and wisdom in Hebrews is feminine. And the third
reason is that there is a call, as I just said, to pursue wisdom, to seek after
it, and to engage in it as a relationship, to enter into an intimacy and
familiarity with wisdom, and so as instructions go for young men about to enter
into marriage, there is some familiarity with that as a metaphor. And this
relationship and intimacy that we have with wisdom is to be the same one we
have with God, who is the source and beginning of all wisdom. Provers wants us
to know that we get to choose the path we want to follow: wisdom or folly. The
right way or the wrong way. And so, this is a continual journey that we
undertake. It is not a one-time event, and it is something we are always
striving toward, wisdom is better than acquiring either gold or silver, and
part of that wisdom is to know how much more there is for us to learn, and
therefore wisdom, and the pursuit of wisdom, also starts with a sense of
humbleness and of knowing, as Aristotle said, that the more we know, the more
we realize how much we don’t know. Or going back to the message about Paul from
two weeks ago, of being willing to admit that we might be wrong in what we
think because we don’t know enough yet. We have knowledge but not wisdom.
After the first nine chapters, it then moves into what we
are more used to thinking about being proverbs, but it also contains
admonitions, things to do or don’t do. It’s clear that this portion is a
collection of sayings that were compiled over time, and there is not any
definite organization to them, or at least if there was, it’s been lost to
time. There are also duplicate or nearly duplicate sayings found throughout the
book. So, it appears as if they were collected but rather than trying to
combine them, they editors just made sure to include all of them. But here are
some important things to keep in mind. The first is that we so lose something
in translation. In our own proverbs, there is strong use of alliteration and
rhyming. Think of a stitch in time saves… nine. Why nine? Why not ten or eight?
Because nine gives a rhyming characteristic that makes it easier to remember.
Or Look before you… leap. Alliteration. The same thing is happening in the
Hebrew, but we miss that in translation. There are also some other poetic
pieces that are used, which we’ll discuss when we get to the view of the ideal
woman in Proverbs 31. In addition, each proverb has its own context in which it
was created and for the people it was said to. Sometimes we know that context
and sometimes we don’t, and so there will occasionally be proverbs that are
hard to understand because their context might not apply to us anymore. A
modern example, or this is more of an aphorism, and that is the saying that
when you hit two keys on the typewriter at the same time, the letter you don’t
want is the one that will hit the page. Now for those of us who have used a
typewriter, that makes total sense, but for younger generations that has
totally lost its meaning. So, we need to pay attention to that, but sometimes
even when it might not be the same context we can still figure out a way that it
applies to us.
And it is the context that is another key point to consider,
and that is that while proverbs do contain some truth in them, they are not
universal truths. That is, they are not good at all times and in all
situations, and so we will get proverbs that contradict each other. A great
example is two that appear right together in chapter 26. Verse 4 says “Do not
answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself.” Then
verse 5 says “Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in
their own eyes.” So, are we supposed to challenge fools, or not challenge
fools? The answer is yes. We see the same things in modern proverbs. We say
that haste makes waste, but he who hesitates is lost. Old dogs can’t learn new
tricks, but it’s never too late to learn. Too many cooks spoil the soup, but
many hands make for light work. The early bird catches the worm, but it’s the
second mouse who gets the cheese. Each of those statements is true in their own
situations, and so how do we know when it’s right? Well that’s where wisdom
comes in, as Proverbs says, “Like a thorn bush brandished by the hand of a
drunkard is a proverb in the mouth of a fool.” 26:9 So, proverbs are for
everyone, except for fools, and apparently drunks with thorn bushes, and I
don’t know what that means, which makes these a little different than just
general instruction.
And so then to close let’s jump back into the introduction
we heard today, and in particular one line with which most are familiar, and
that is Solomon, or the author, saying “The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Now as we talked
about in Advent when we discussed the phrase do not be afraid, the normal
response to this passage is that we are to be afraid, or terrified of God. If
we are talking about judgment perhaps that’s correct, although we then have to
work in that whole forgiveness and mercy thing. But, instead I think we should
hear two things here. The first is hearing fear in another sense present in the
Hebrew and that is reverence or awe or mystery or wonder of even worship; of
being in the presence of something bigger and greater than we can even begin to
understand. Like standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon and the majesty of
that moment, of sort of feeling like the flee on the side of a dog in magnitude
or importance. And second is to hear fear as a sense of knowing or being aware
of God. So that awe and knowledge of God are the beginning of wisdom, and that
starts not just with knowledge but with action. Because that is a key part of
proverbs is that biblical wisdom is linked to action. And it’s also to know
that not only are we to seek after that wisdom, but that ultimately wisdom is a
divine gift to us, and all wisdom is rooted in God. Even if the proverb doesn’t
mention God, as most of them don’t, they are leading us to the divine.
And so Eugene Peterson translates this passage as saying, “start with God – the first step to leaning is bowing down to God.” Humility plays a large role in the proverbs, because it is only when we are humble and open to new ideas, that it’s not about us and we don’t know it all, that we can then truly begin to worship God. We can begin to pursue, or continue to pursue wisdom, so that no one will think us a fopdoodle, a word I learned this week that means someone who is a fool or someone who does stupid things. So, if bowing down to God is the beginning of wisdom, what are our stumbling blocks that keep us from doing that? Where do we need to turn something in our lives over to God in order to change our relationship with God? Where are we looking for new wisdom in our life? Are we ready to receive new wisdom even if we are old dogs? There is an old saying that when the student is ready the teacher will appear, but we have to be ready, and so may we hear the words of Proverbs to listen to your father’s instruction, and do not reject your mother’s teaching: “for they are a fair garland for your head, and pendants for your neck.” They will adorn you and bring you God’s righteousness. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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