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were written for him. All those which are addressed to "My son,” and in which the personal pronoun is used, it is claimed, are given to Solomon by "wise men or teachers" and that all these sententious sayings were given to young Solomon by these men to fit him for rulership. But this produceth other difficulties. The proverbs of Solomon would in this case be very few in comparison with the size of the book, and furthermore we do not know who these wise men or teachers were who instructed the King and wrote such words of wisdom.

It seems to us that there is another way in which these sections containing the personal address," My son," may be explained. When the Lord appeared unto Solomon in Gibeon, He said unto him, “Ask what I shall give thee." Then Solomon asked for an understanding heart, to discern between good and bad. Then the Lord said, "Lo I have given thee a wise and understanding heart" (1 Kings iii:5, etc.) His prayer was answered. Then the Lord must have spoken to him by His Spirit and given Him the instructions he needed as the king over His people Israel. It is more than probable that the sections in which the address "My son" and the personal pronoun is used contain the heavenly instructions given to the young king in the beginning of his reign by the Lord Himself. One cannot be dogmatic about this, but if such was the case the difficulties disappear. There is no need to put these proverbs for Solomon into the mouths of unknown wise men. It was the Lord who spoke to Solomon, addressing him thus and Solomon guided by the Spirit of God penned all these words. But it seems that the beginning of chapter iv contains a brief autobiography of Solomon relating to his training. If wise men or teachers had spoken these words their names would have been mentioned and their sayings would have appeared in a different setting, without being found in different sections of the book.

As Dr. Thirtle has pointed out, these sayings, instructions given to Solomon, as we take it by the Lord in answer to his prayer for an understanding heart, cover certain commands relating to Israel's kings, as given in the law of Moses. These commands we find in Deut. xvii:14-20.

"When thou art come unto the land which the Lord the God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me; thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother. But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. And it

shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites: And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel."

Now in the sections of Proverbs, pointed out above, in which the personal address is used, some instructions are given which correspond to the commandments relating to the king, as found in the passage from Deuteronomy which we have quoted. Of special interest are the repeated warnings against the "strange woman, "The strange woman against which the Spirit of God warned him in his youth, are the women of other nations, Gentiles. The passage in Deuteronomy says, "Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away." The Spirit of the Lord anticipated the sad end of the great and wise king and therefore warned him against the strange woman, under the picture of the harlot, who ensnares and whose ways end in death. But the heavenly wisdom which had instructed him and warned was not heeded. It is written, "King Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, the Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in to you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods. Solomon clave unto these in love" (1 Kings xi.) Then followed his downfall. "It came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods." Then he worshipped Ashtoreth, Milcom and Chemosh and other idol gods. The words of wisdom the Lord gave him, thus giving him understanding, were not heeded and the allurements of the strange woman, of which his inspired pen had warned, became a mournful fact in his own history.

The literary form of these proverbs is mostly in the form of couplets or distichs. The two clauses of the couplet are generally related to each other by what has been termed parallelism, according to Hebrew poetry. Three kinds of parallelism have been pointed out.

1. Synonymous Parallelism. Here the second clause restates what is given in the first clause.

"Judgments are prepared for scorners

And stripes for the back of fools."-Proverbs xix:29.

2. Antithetic Parallelism. Here a truth which is stated in the

first clause is made stronger in the second clause by contrast with an opposite truth.

"The light of the righteous rejoiceth,

But the lamp of the wicked shall be put out.”—Proverbs xiii:9. 3. Synthetic Parallelism. The second clause develops the thought of the first.

"The terror of a king is as the roaring of a lion

He that provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own life."-Proverbs xx:2.

The Teachings of Proverbs

The Proverbs, speaking generally, give moral teachings as to human conduct, often giving the contrast between the righteous and the wicked. But besides this there is much which goes deeper. Many of these short sayings can be applied to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the Gospel. There is one portion which speaks definitely of the Son of God, our Lord, who is Wisdom. This is found in chapter viii:22-31. When we read in chapter xiii:7, “There is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great wealth," we can well think of Him who was rich and became poor for our sake that we by His poverty might be rich. Then there are verses which speak of a friend, "There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother" (xviii:24). "A friend loveth at all times, and is born as a brother for adversity" (xvii:17). Well do we think, in reading such and similar verses in this book, of our Lord, who is the friend of sinners. Proverbs in spiritual instruction and application has an inexhaustible wealth.

The Spirit of God makes use of this Book in quoting from it in the New Testament: Chapter i:16 is quoted in Romans iii:15; iii:11-12 in Hebrews xii:5-6, also in Rev. liii:19; iii:34 in James iv:6 and 1 Peter v:5; iv:26 in Hebrews xii:13; x:12 in 1 Peter iv:8; xi:31 in 1 Peter iv:18; xxv:21-22, in Romans xii:20; and xxvi:11 in 2 Peter ii:22.

Proverbs ought to be studied by believers as diligently as any other portion of God's Holy Word. The prayerful searcher will soon be rewarded by many nuggets of divine truth.

We make another suggestion on the study of this Book. Many of the lessons given in these proverbs are illustrated by the lives of the godly and ungodly recorded in the Bible. It will prove a most helpful occupation to fit the experiences of these two classes as found in the Word of God to many of these proverbs.

The Division of Proverbs

of

As already stated in our introduction the Book of Proverbs, as a book, was not in existence in the days of Solomon; it was completed through the interest, no doubt inspired interest, of King Hezekiah. That Solomon wrote the

proverbs as attributed to him is beyond question.

The scope of this book is quite simple for it is clearly marked in its contents.

We find seven sections.

I. INSTRUCTIONS OF WISDOM GIVEN TO SOLOMON. Chapters i-ix.

II. THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON. Chapters x

xix:19.

III. INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN TO SOLOMON. Chapter xix:20-xxiv.

IV. THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON COLLECTED BY HEZEKIAH. Chapter xxv-xxvi.

V. INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN TO SOLOMON. Chapters xxvii-xxix.

VI. THE WORDS OF AGUR THE SON OF JAKEH. Chapter xxx.

VII. THE WORDS OF KING LEMUEL TAUGHT HIM BY HIS MOTHER. Chapter xxxi.

It will be seen at a glance that instructions given to Solomon alternate with the proverbs of Solomon, teaching others as he first had been taught. The description of the virtuous woman in the last chapter is in the Hebrew in the form of an acrostic. The twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet are found in these verses, just like in the alphabetic Psalms and in Lamentations.

Analysis and Annotations

A detailed analysis, as we have made it in other books, cannot be fully made in this collection of proverbs. Most of them are detached and each has a message by itself. To interpret each separately, to point out the many spiritual lessons, as well as prophetic application, to show their relation to other portions of the Word of God and to explain them by incidents taken from the Bible, would require volumes; and even then the spiritual meaning would not be exhausted. All we can do is to hint at their meaning and give some annotations which, under God, may be helpful in the closer study of this book.

I. INSTRUCTIONS OF WISDOM GIVEN TO SOLOMON

1. The Introduction.

Chapter i:8-ix.

CHAPTER I.

1-7.

2. Warning against Evil Companions and Coveteousness. 8-19. 3. The Appeal of Wisdom. 20-33.

1. The Introduction: Verses 1-7. The introductory words of these verses present the object of the book. These proverbs were given to Solomon, and contain instructions he received from the Lord. They are given to him that he might know wisdom. The word wisdom is the characteristic word of this book for it occurs in the original language 42 times, which is 6 times 7. Six in Scripture is the human number, while 7 is the divine number. Wisdom is the first thing to be acquired, and that is followed by instruction, or admonition, to receive the instruction, the discipline of wisdom. The instructions are in justice, judgment and equity and they give subtilty to the simple. The word "subtilty" means prudence; the word "simple" has the meaning of

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