PROVERBS, BOOK OF. A book of the Old Testament, containing an anthology of gnomes and sentences, forming, in the Hebrew Canon, the second book of the Hagiographa. Like Job and Ecclesiastes. it belongs to the Wisdom Literature of the Ilehrews. The form of these proverbs is manifold—similes. enigmas. theses and antithe ses, wise sayings, comparisons, etc.. vary con stantly. The book falls naturally into eight dis tinct sections. partially marked off by special titles: (1) Chapters i.-ix., forming a kind of introduction to what follows and chiefly taken up with exhortations to the reader to follow wisdom and flee folly. In chapter viii. Wisdom is per sonified and introduced as the speaker, while in chapter ix. Folly is likewise personified and the two—Wisdom and Folly—are pictured as women. offering rival invitations and inducements to men. (•3) Chapters x.-xxii. 16. with the head ing Proverbs of Solomon,' constitute the kernel of the collection. Each verse is complete in itself and forms an independent saying. (3) Chapters xxii. 17-xxiv. 22. a small separate collection die tinguished from what precedes by a series of maxims that usually extend over several verses— generally two o• three. though in one ease as many as seven. The address. as in the first col leetion, is to a 'son' and the exhortations are described as 'words of the wise.' (4) Chapter xxiv. 23-34. forming an appendix to the preceding and distinguished by a separate heading. (5) Chapters xxv.-xxix., with the heading• 'These also are proverbs of Solomon collected ht• the men of Hezekiah, King of Judah.' In this collection again, each verse. as a general thing, forms an independent saying. though this principle is not consistently carried out. Some of the proverbs in this collection duplicate those found in the second. (6) Chapter xxx.. with the heading 'Words of Agur ben Jake•h,' a series of enig matical sayings. (7) Chapter xxxi. 1-9. exhor tations addressed to Lenmel, King of Mersa, his mother, the main theme of which is a caution against wine and women. ("3) Chapter xxxi. 10
:31. an alphabetical poem devoted to the praise of the virtuous housewife.
It is evident from this survey that the Book of Proverbs is a combination of several distinct collections. to which furthermore a number of fragments from other collections have been added. The name of Solomon is introduced as a symbol of practical and theoretical wisdom, just as elsewhere in the Ohl Testament Solomon is the symbol of wealth, power•, and luxury. Some of the sayings may go hack to the clays of Solomon, and the tradition (xxv. I) which aseribes a col lection of proverbs to the men of Ilezekiali's time may be valid, hut this has no bear ing upon the collection as a whole, nor does it necessarily settle the elate of all the sayings embodied in those portions of the book which are distinetly connected by tradition with the name of Solomon.
The Book of Proverbs represents in all proba bility a gradual growth that extended over a long period of time. Of the separate collections comprised in the book, all the internal evidence points to the second as the oldest, while the fifth comes next. The first is later. The third and fourth divisions may be regarded as fragments which were added to x.-xxii. 11;, and similarly the sixth and seventh divisions are fragments added to xxv.-xxix. The alphabetical poem (xxxi.) is an independent composition of a late date. It is doubtful whether the oldest collee t ion belongs to the pre-exilic period, and the sections were not put together until after the return from Babylonia. The internal evidence. however. is insufficient for fixing the dates of compilation of the various divisions of the hook more definitely. As the latest date for the first section, and therefore the earliest possible date for the compilation in its present shape, we may fix upon n.c. 250. Many of the sayings are no doubt of popular origin. but the great hulk bear a scholastic and pedantic character which points to their rise in literary circles.