PROVERBS, THE 1300K OF (Heb. JThh/e, LXX. Parohnia Salomontos, Vulg. Prorerbia), a canonical book of the Old Testament, containing an anthology of gnomes and sen tences, the fruit of reflections on the Mosaic law and on the divine guidance of the peo ple of the Israelites. It is also called the " Book of Wisdom," inasmuch as it embraces the doctrines of the old covenant crystallized into religious maxims of thought, will, and action. Practical piety is enjoined under the name of "life," while "death" represents sin throughout. The form of these proverbs is manifold—similes, enigmas, theses and antitheses, wise sayings, gnomes, comparisons, etc., vary constantly. The book is divided into three sections, to which the two last chapters form an appendix. The first section (chaps. i.-ix.) contains a description and a recommendation of wisdom as the highest good obtainable, and is further subdivided into three portions. The second (x.-xxiv. 34) is equally in three portions, in the first of which the sentences are very loosely strung together; while, in the second, they are joined into more continuous utterances, sometimes running througu several verses; and the third, which has the inscription: " These, too, am of the wise men," contains, again, some single sentences, principally in the form of commandments and Vrohibitions. The third section (xxv. xxix.) is inscribed: "These are also proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekialt king of Judah copied out," and is somewhat different from the former by the more pre dominant form of theses and antitheses, catch-words by which an association of ideas is produced, and similes. The first chapter appended (xxx.) contains the proverbs of Agur, which, in a very artificial garb, teach the true wisdom and its practice iu life; the second (xxxi.), inscribed: "Words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him," contains from verses 1-9 wise maxims for a king anent chastity and temperance, and from 10-31, the praise and properties of a good wife, in the form of an alphabetical song. Tradition has ascribed the authorship of this book to Solomon, " the wisest of men:" but although neither the language, nor the structure, nor—as has principally been urged—the contents, are of a nature to convince us of the absolute necessity of assum ing various authors and various epochs, there is no doubt a strong presumption in favor of this hypothesis. Who the Agur was that is mentioned as the author of the last chap
ter but one, is not easily conjectured. Equally unsatisfactory are the results of the speculations about the reputed author of the last chapter, Lemuel, by some supposed to be the brother of Agur. Probably it is nothing more than a symbolic name. The last section (xxxi. 10-31)—an alphabetical acrostic—probably belongs to the 7th c. mu., and by its language and form, does not appear to belong to the author of the preceding part of the chapter. The nucleus of the book is formed by the second section (x.-xxii. 16), to which the first (i.-ix.) was added by way of introduction, and the tghird as the con cluding portion. Whether that first anthology (from the 3,000 proverbs of Solomon mentioned 1 Kings iv. 32) was collected and redacted (into section two) during Solo mon's lifetime, is very doubtful; so much, however, is certain, that the learned men at the time of Hezekiah undertook their additional collection with a view to a then already existing portion. It may not be superfluous to add, that Jerome. misled by 1 Kings iv. 32, erroneously states our book of proverbs to contain the 3,000 proverbs there ascribed to Solomon. The canonicity of the book is matter of controversy in the Talmud; there seems to have been at one time an objection to receive it among the number of sacred books, on account of certain contradictions contained in it; this objec tion, however, was overruled, and it occurs in the order of the Hagiographa (Kethubim) of the hEasoretic code, generally between Job and Ecclesiastes. The order followed in the authorized version had been adopted already in the time of Jerome.—Principal writers on Proverbs are Ewald, Bertheau, Hitzig, ?ster, Rosennifiller, Umbreit, M. Stuart, and Dr. Noyes.