Lecture

I. Introduction

The book of Proverbs is perhaps the book in the Bible most famous—best known to most of us—for its wisdom sayings. Wisdom is the ability to make the right choices in life. It has nothing to do with IQ or academic skill or achievement. It has very little to do with experience or the ability to speak well or any other sort of skill. It is primarily the ability to make the right choices. Of course, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That theme Proverbs emphasizes for us.

II. Hebrew Poetry

Proverbs is an anthology, or a collection, of many great materials of various sorts. There are relatively long poems in Proverbs that talk about what wisdom is and how important it is to attain it. There are poems about specific topics, like the way that an ant can be an example to a human of steady hard work, or the concluding poem in the book of Proverbs of how important it is to choose a spouse (that major decision in life should never be undertaken lightly and should always be undertaken with the long-term in view).

But there are also some very short sayings; indeed, most of the book is made up of short statements. These are typically what we call poetic couplets. Sometimes a couplet will be synonymous; that is, it will state something and then state it again in a different wording. We call that a synonymous couplet. Very often in Proverbs, there will be a statement made and then its contrast. “This is good, but that is bad.” That is antithetical parallelism. There is also a kind that one sees in Proverbs, as well as in all Hebrew poetry, that we call synthetic. The first part of an idea is stated, and then the concluding part is given in the second half of the couplet. Proverbs, in particular, has the highest proportion of antithetical parallelism of any poetry in the Bible. It is a thoroughly poetical book and its poetry is heavily antithetical, so when you read Proverbs, you regularly expect to find statements like, “This, on the one hand, is the right thing to do; that, on the other hand, is the wrong thing to do.”

III. Structure of the Book

A. Right Choices (1:1-9:18)

Proverbs has a relatively simple structure, but that structure is informative to us. In chapters 1-9, we see a list of statements and relatively long poems about the importance of seeking wisdom. Nine chapters are dedicated to arguing, in an eloquent, poetic format, for how important it is that each of us should try to develop the ability to make the right choices in life. You know, life is full of choices; and in a way, you can say life is choices. Everything we do involves choice making: when to get up in the morning after the alarm rings; what clothes to wear; what to eat for breakfast; when to leave for work or school or whatever; where to park; who to talk to; what notes to take in class; what work to begin with on the desk or at the plant; how to talk to people, what to say to them; when to take a break for lunch, if that is an option, and so on.

We are making choices all the time. Many of them are routine; many of them are patterned. But we are constantly making choices. We should realize that we are also making, or renewing and repeating, the major choices of life: What will our lives center on? What will be the big issues for us? What will, after we have lived our life, be the product of it? Who will we have cared about? How will we have treated others? What will people say about us in retrospect, in terms of the choices we have made? And, of course, in all of this by far the most important choice is: Have you decided to live for God? Do you belong to the Lord? That is the biggest choice of all. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

B. Wise Choices (10:1-22:16)

After those first nine chapters, in which the emphasis is on the importance of being a wise person, of making wise choices, of getting wisdom, then the Proverbs of Solomon come. These are in chapters 10-22, which is the biggest single block of the book. As far as we can tell from what we are told about Solomon elsewhere in the Bible, Solomon did not make up every one of the hundreds of proverbs in chapters 10-22. He made up many of them, others he collected, some he may have modified and rewritten. It is the same for any writer—nobody comes up with every new idea, every new concept, every word different, every sentence unique. Everyone who writes or composes is building upon what has been available to him or her from the past. Solomon was very creative with his wisdom and did produce a lot of the proverbs himself, so we have this very long section of material, the heart part of the book of Proverbs, called Proverbs of Solomon.

C. Words of the Wise (22:17-24:34)

Then, interestingly, we have a section of material in part of chapter 22, to near the end of chapter 24, that is titled in the book simply Words of the Wise. Presumably, these words are from other sources than Solomon, and he or someone else caused them to be collected. At the end of chapter 24, there are more Words of the Wise, the book of Proverbs tells us. This, again, must have been some separate collection added in, as the book of Proverbs was taking shape under God’s direction.

D. More Proverbs of Solomon (25:1-29:27)

In chapters 25-29, we then come back to a section of material called More Proverbs of Solomon. So perhaps, at some later point, after much of the book was put together, Solomon had gained yet more insight and had composed more proverbs and had gathered others that he put along with those he composed.

E. The Sayings of Agur and Lemuel (30:1-31:9)

Interestingly, we then have in chapters 30 and 31 two units of material that are titled in the book, The Words of Agur and The Words of Lemuel. Now, these individuals are called kings, King Agur and King Lemuel. No one named Agur and no one named Lemuel was ever a king of Israel or Judah. In fact, what we believe we have here are the writings of Arab kings. Imagine that: God taking wisdom from Arab kings (undoubtedly causing Solomon or someone else to select from it) and putting it into the Scripture because He saw that it was good, proper, and it contained wise material, and it was worthy of inclusion.

F. Marrying Well (31:10-31)

Proverbs comes to an end with that wonderful acrostic poem going right through the alphabet on the advantages of marrying well. But not marrying well the way we use the term in modern times to mean marrying someone with money, but marrying well in terms of marrying a person who fears the Lord and embodies the characteristics of a wise person as taught in the book of Proverbs. So that is the outline. It is not all from Solomon. It is from a mixture of various individuals and sources, but Solomon’s work and collective skill dominate the book.

IV. Fifteen Themes

Now, more particularly, what are the kinds of things we find in Proverbs? If there are hundreds and hundreds of them in short couplet form and then dozens in longer poetic form, what are the themes? Well, it turns out that there are at least fifteen major themes in the book. Six of these are really predominant in terms of the sheer number of proverbs, the amount of space devoted to them.

A. Nature of Wisdom

The first of these six, that we might call the big themes in the book or the major themes, is the nature of wisdom itself. It is not always natural or easy or automatic for people to think of how important it is to be wise. Wisdom is a thing you work on. Wisdom is a thing you even spend time agonizing over. Wisdom requires creative thought and study; it requires an effort to master. So in particular, chapters 1-9, as we have noted, are about the nature of wisdom and the importance of seeking it. That is a big theme, and certainly that idea is not limited to chapters1-9. Wisdom is just simply important in its nature. The fact that you have to make choices in life and you need to make godly choices is one of the big issues in the book.

B. Wisdom Opposed to Folly

The second big issue is that of wisdom as opposed to folly. Now it is important to appreciate the fact that in the same way that wisdom, as we understand it in Proverbs, does not mean exactly what the English word wisdom might lead us to think of (in other words, it is right choice making, godly choice making, as opposed to some kind of intelligence or knowledge gained from experience). Likewise, folly is not what we might think the English word used to translate the Hebrew term actually indicates. Folly is more like rebellion. The opposite of wisdom, making the right choices, is not caring enough to make right choices at all—not trying, not investing one’s self in viewing life as constantly offering opportunities to go one way or another. You know, large numbers of people do live this way. They do not set out to pattern their lives in fulfillment of God’s Word and fulfillment of what He has revealed as the right way to live. They just sort of go along and live doing what feels right, or what seems good at the time, or what is fun, or what looks enjoyable, or looks like it might give some form of pleasure. That is what folly is. It is not some sort of idiocy or wild craziness. It is just making the mistake of not trying to live wisely. It is a rebellion against the need to do the whole thing.

C. Righteous Versus Wicked

Another theme is that of the righteous versus the wicked. Now this is, of course, related to wisdom and folly, but the emphasis of Proverbs is not just that you sort of get ahead by doing the right kinds of things or fall behind by doing the wrong sorts of things. But rather, these choices that one makes in life really are moral choices; they are morals. Now that is an important concept and one that, in our culture, is underemphasized, if not neglected almost entirely. We live in an age in which people are quite willing to ignore morality. Statements are made like, “You cannot legislate morality.” So from the point of view of a citizen or government or law, morality is a non-issue. Actually, all you ever do legislate is morality. All laws are under the category of morality. It is just a society’s decision about what is right and wrong. But many people will say that anything to do with personal morality is purely personal. There is no sense of public morality, no sense that it is important for an individual to live a life in concert with others, in recognition of others, with concern for others; and certainly in our society there is very little practical interest in living for God. But the Bible places wisdom squarely in the moral camp; we ought to be moral people. Our failings in life as a group of people, as an individual, as a society, are not primarily psychological or political or economic. They are primarily moral. That is where the big crisis is. Until and unless we think about moral issues, we really do miss wisdom. To be righteous is to be wise; to be wicked is to be foolish.

D. Power of Speech

A fourth important theme of the six major ones is the theme of speech. There is an awful lot in Proverbs about the power of speech: to do harm or to do good. If one uses one’s ability with words to encourage, to support, to perhaps reduce tension, one is doing a wise thing. If, on the other hand, one uses one’s ability to speak to hurt people, to insult them, to discourage them, and so on, one is doing what is foolish. We often underestimate the power of speech, but it is really what most of us work with. Even those people who are involved in working with their hands are usually also using their tongues to get things done or to coordinate or cooperate or whatever. In a family, what generally makes the difference is how you speak to one another. There is a way to disagree in all sorts of circumstances in life that can actually reduce tension, but we all know that there is a way to disagree that can raise it.

E. Family Issues

The family is an additional theme. The family is very important in the book of Proverbs—how to get along with one’s spouse, how to get along with children, how children should relate to parents, how parents should relate to children. One interesting instance of this is the statement in Proverbs that “the person who spares the rod hates his child.” Proverbs are generalizations. They are true generalizations and intended to be generalizations. And so, that proverb would never have been interpreted by anybody in ancient times, in Solomon’s day, to mean you should be sure to whip your children constantly. But rather, if a parent does not discipline adequately, so that his child is brought up to be a decent and responsible and respectful child who behaves properly and is not an annoyance and a problem and source of trouble to others, the parent actually does not love that child. The parent has done the equivalent of hating his own child. People who love their kids keep them in line for the sake of their children, for the sake of their family, for the sake of their community. But it is just one example. There are many relationships in the families that Proverbs addresses.

F. Importance of Work

A sixth major topic of the book is the topic of work. Proverbs stresses the importance of not being lazy, of diligence. The section of Proverbs that deals with the example of the ant and begins, “Go to the ant you sluggard . . . ,” is trying to get the person inclined to laziness to see how important even something as simple as an insect in nature places the significance of being wise enough to be diligent, hard working, and steady before one. There are also other features about work, about the way that work must be done intelligently. You just do not do things for their own sake, about how hard work is a benefit to a society and to individuals and has its own reward. Proverbs does not ask that we work hard just out of sheer cussedness, as if not doing something the easy way is the issue, but rather Proverbs wants us to work hard on things and in ways that are productive.

G. Nine Less-Frequent Themes

In addition, there are nine other issues in the book. These are also significant, important, prominent themes. They just do not get quite as much space as the first six that we have talked about. One of them is the topic of the rich versus the poor or poverty versus wealth. Proverbs regards it, as all of us do, as not desirable for a person to be poor if he can do anything about it. If you can do anything about it, you should be someone who tries not to be so poor that you have to be dependent on others. Proverbs also recognizes that people are poor involuntarily and urges that the rest of us pay attention and help them to the extent we can.

Another theme is that of industry and planning. One might say this refers to business and business decisions, sometimes personal decisions that relate to one’s being an efficient individual in commerce or in the family or in the community or whatever.

The topic of pride versus humility is significant in the book. It is very dangerous to be proud. It almost always skews a person’s life in the wrong direction, whereas humility is invariably the best, the safest, the wisest course. It is a course that pleases God. It is the course that His servants set as an example for us.

Friends and neighbors are a topic in the book—how to get along with them, how to be a good neighbor, the sorts of things that one says and does, the ways one approaches a difficult individual, and how you can change things by going the extra mile with people who are not easy to get along with. Bosses and employees are also a theme. It is usually worded in our English translations as masters and servants, but it is about employers and their employees—about workers and the people who are their bosses and how they should relate to one another, how they should treat one another, what their responsibilities are. The theme of government is significant. It is worded with vocabulary like kings and rulers, but relationship to the government is very important and we need to appreciate the fact that this is what human beings do as proper citizens.

Attitudes are big in the book of Proverbs—hopes and fears and joys and sorrows, how they are to be manifested, what their proper manifestations are in various circumstances. Anger and its dangers is another theme in the book. You know it is not sinful to be angry. God is angry more often than any other figure in the Bible and also in the book of Proverbs. So it is not a sin to be angry, but anger can lead to sin. It never does with God, but it sure can with us. So how to deal with anger, how to assuage it, how to address it when it comes at you from others, is quite a significant theme in the book.

Finally, of the fifteen that constitute the major themes, the prominent themes in the book, there is the theme of the fear of the Lord. It is not mentioned constantly in the book. It is not that every chapter tells you to be sure to fear the Lord, but it is there so frequently and it is such an important theme qualitatively that it really makes a tremendous emphasis and undergirds the whole purpose of the book. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

V. Usefulness of Proverbs

A. Target Audience: Young People

What use can Proverbs be put to? There are many. Let me highlight a couple. First of all, the book is written specifically toward an audience of young people. We ought to be using it in that way. Parents should be using it in their homes. At the dinner table, every once in a while I will pull out the Bible and just pick a Proverb at random and ask my children what it means. Proverbs are worded in what is called a laconic style—so terse, so brief as to be a little bit tricky to figure out. That is purposeful. A proverb, in a way, is kind of a puzzle. You are supposed to have to concentrate on it and think about it; and as you do that, it gets in your mind.

It is a little like the English proverb, “A stitch in time saves nine.” We could say that a whole different way. We could say there are certain kinds of circumstances in which it is necessary to act immediately, or to intervene soon so as to prevent damage from increasing or difficulties from becoming multiplied further down the line of the progress of the situation. But that is an awful lot to say compared to “a stitch in time saves nine.”

The English proverb is much easier to remember. It comes to mind quickly; it does the job once you know what it means. Someone may have to explain it to you, but once you get it, it is the easier thing to remember and has greater impact than the much more complicated way of expressing it. So it is with Proverbs. They are powerful, if they are learned and if they are explained and memorized and made a part of one’s thinking.

B. Predominant Message: Train Young People

Then secondly, we really ought to be using these to train young people. They ought to be used in schools and churches, youth groups, parents of teenagers, because here is a book of the Bible written especially for that audience. Not that everybody does not learn from it—it is never too late to learn what you should have learned; it is never too late to be reminded of what was valuable for you to learn even years ago. But here is a book that God has designed to help young people know what it is to live properly as citizens of this world, and that is a tremendous asset and one we should be making use of. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and Proverbs helps us get it.