The proverbs in the later collection (xxv.-xxix.), though they present some diversities, do not differ so essentially from the earlier ones as to give any sufficient grounds for questioning the accuracy of the superscription (xxv. I). The title itself informs us that the compilation was not made till four cen turies after Solomon, and the differences are not greater than might be looked for in sayings that had been so long floating about among the com mon people, and thereby subjected to disfigure ment and change. The indications of an altered state of society and a de;rease of confidence in the rulers, in which Ewald'discovers such unmistak able proofs of a later date, are hardly so evident to others as to himself. We know too little of the internal economy of Solomon's reign to enable us to pronounce authoritatively that such and such expressions are inconsistent with the state of the people and tone of thought at that period.
The objection brought by Eichhom and others against assigning the proverbs in the two collec tions to Solomon, that the genius of no one man, not even one as divinely gifted with wisdom as Solomon, is sufficient for the production of so large a number, is puerile in the extreme. Those we possess are but a portion of the 300o ascribed to him (1 Kings iv. 32), and scarcely give 20 for each of the forty years of his reign.
Similar and equally futile objections have been based, by Bertholdt and others, on the familiarity displayed in the proverbs with circumstances and conditions in life with which it is supposed that Solomon as a king could have had no experimental acquaintance. For example, it is maintained that x. 5 ; xii. to, I I ; xiv. 4 ; xx. 4, must have been written by a landowner or husbandman ; x. 15, by a poor man ; xi. 14, xiv. 19, by a citizen of a well ordered state ; xi. 26, by a tradesman ; xii. 4, by one who was not a polygamist ; xiv. I, xv. 25, Xvi. 11, xvii. 2, xix. 13, 14, xx. IO, 14, 23, by an ordinary citizen ; xxv. 2-7, not by a king, but by one who had lived some time at a court ; xxvii. II, by a teacher of youth ; xvii. 23-27, by a sage who lived a nomadic life ; xxviii. 16, by one free from those errors which weakened Solomon's throne, and robbed his son of his kingdom. It is needless to point out the weakness of these fancied arguments which would affect no one who had not a theory of his own to support. They are akin to those which have been used with as little success to prove that no one man could have written the plays of Shakspeare, and display the most marvellous ignorance of that manysidedness and keenness of perception and insight which are characteristic of the highly-gifted among mankind.
As little weight is to be assigned to the objec tions drawn from the repetitions. It is true that we find the same idea, and even the same words, recurring not only in the two collections (ex. gr., xxi. 9, xxv. 24 ; xviii. 8, xxvi. 22 ; xxii. 3, xxvii. 12 ; xxii. 13, xxvi. 13 ; xix. 24, xxvi. 15 ; xix. 1, xxviii. 6), but in the same collection (ex. gr., xiv. 12, xvi. 25 ; x. I, xv. 20 ; xvi. 2, xxi. 2 ; X. 2, xi. 4; xiii. 14, xiv. 27 ; xXVi. 12, xxix. 20). This latter is, however, no more, as Umbreit re marks, than is natural in such a compilation, in the formation of which one is very apt to forget what had been already set down ; while the former class of repetitions is easily to be accounted for by the anxiety of the collectors to lose nothing which had the stamp of Solomon's authorship, even though the same idea had been already ex pressed in the earlier collection, and goes far to confirm the view that Solomon was the composer of the whole.
The internal evidence—derived from language, construction, ideas, historic background, and the like—varies with every successive critic, and is entirely inadequate to warrant any decisive verdict. Its precariousness is proved by the opposite results to which the same data lead various commenta tors. Keil maintains that every part of the book, with the exception of the last two chapters, corre sponds to the epoch of Solomon, and that only. Eichhom agrees with this to a certain extent, but limits the correspondence to i.-xxiv. ; while Ewald, Hitzig, and Bertheau, and other minor critics, arrive at conclusions, expressed with equal confi dence, and at variance with these and with one another. There is, however, one evidence which speaks strongly in favour of an early date—the entire absence of all reference to idolatry. The form of religion appearing throughout is purely Jehovistic (as we have noticed above, Elohim oc curs only four times in the body of the work), and false gods and foreign faiths are not even referred to.
The above remarks refer chiefly to the collection of proverbs properly so called, which we have no difficulty in ascribing, on the whole, to Solomon as their ultimate author.
The case is different with regard to the introduc tory chapters (i.-ix.), and there is more ground for the diversity of opinion as to their date and 'author ship. It is certainly quite possible that the whole or a considerable portion of this section may have been written by Solomon. The differences of style, of which Ewald makes much, are, as Ber theau has shown, somewhat exaggerated by him, and are not perhaps greater than may be accounted for by the different nature of the compositions. The terse simplicity of a proverb would be out of place in a series of hortatory addresses such as those which characterise this section. Ewald dwells with emphasis on the internal evidence of a late date afforded by the state of society, and the tone of feeling as portrayed here. But we repeat our former remark, that we know too little of the in ternal history of Judwa at this time to allow us to speak with so much confidence on these points, and express our conviction that the conclusions drawn by Ewald are not warranted by the pre mises. The imagery all points to a large and profli gate city, such as Jerusalem may well have become during the middle of Solomon's prosperous reign ; and the vivid representation of the habits of the foreign prostitutes and lawless freebooters who roamed its streets, as Professor Plumptre has well remarked, is hardly more than could have been attained by one who, like Haroun Alraschid, was fond of laying aside his kingly state and visiting his city in disguise.