Today in our journey along Route 66 we are visiting the book of Proverbs...
Author
The book of Proverbs is one of three biblical books ascribed to Solomon. According to the Talmud, Solomon wrote The Song of Songs, when he was young, the wisdom of Proverbs in midlife, and Ecclesiastes in old age. Some sections of Proverbs are ascribed to other authors: Agur son of Jakeh, and King Lemuel. Modern scholars doubt whether Solomon wrote any part of Proverbs. Neither the language nor the content fits the time of Solomon.
Scholars today view Proverbs as a collective work, containing the wisdom of mostly anonymous wise men and women from many walks of life and different periods of time. Some scholars think the authors of Proverbs were the sages who served as counselors, bureaucrats, and teachers during the Divided Kingdom. Perhaps, all three wisdom books of the Old Testament (Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes) reflect the worldview of the intellectual elite.
Date
Proverbs probably received its final editing during the post-exilic period (sixth century BCE and later). Many of its sayings may well have originated during earlier periods, but authorship is attributed to Solomon on an honorary basis, perhaps due to his fabled wisdom as recounted in 1 Kings 3-4.
Themes
The book of Proverbs contains human wisdom. Nowhere is the wisdom contained in this book attributed directly to God. There is no “thus saith the Lord” as in the prophets. Hebrew wise men (and women) rooted their theology in knowledge about God obtained through the observation of creation and human nature. Covenant, redemption, and law are less important in the wisdom books than elsewhere in Hebrew Scripture.
Hebrew wisdom literature has its parallels in the wisdom literature of Egypt and Mesopotamia. For example, Proverbs 22:17-24:22 derives in some way from the earlier Egyptian Instruction of Amenemope. Egyptian influence on Judah was particularly strong during the reign of Hezekiah in the late eighth and early seventh century BCE.
However, the wisdom literature of the Near East was transformed by the Hebrews, who emphasized “the fear of the Lord”. This fear involves awe, obedience, and a proper relationship to God. The Hebrew wisdom writers were interested in the practical living out of wisdom; thus, a contrast is continually drawn between the righteous/wise and the wicked/foolish. The writers of Proverbs believe that certain actions invariably produce certain consequences. The books of Job and Ecclesiastes provide a different perspective, albeit also from the wisdom tradition.
The personification of Wisdom as a female figure is another interesting feature of Proverbs. We see in this book: Woman Wisdom in chapters 1-9 and 31, Woman Folly in chapter 9, and Woman Stranger in chapter 2. The figure of Wisdom speaks with divine authority (1:20-33) and played a role in creation (chapter 8).
There are many literary forms in the book of Proverbs. Parallelism is but one of those forms. Parallelism is important here just as in Hebrew poetry. Furthermore, there are three different types of parallelism in Proverbs. In synonymous parallelism the second line agrees with the first. In antithetic parallelism, the second line contrasts with the first. And in synthetic parallelism the second line advances the thought of the first line without agreeing or disagreeing.
Chapters 1-9 of Proverbs contain lengthy wisdom poems celebrating the virtues of Woman Wisdom; these chapters also contain instruction. The style of instruction, borrowed from the Egyptians, contains both positive and negative admonitions to youth as from a parent or teacher.
Proverbs 31:1-9 is unusual in that it purports to be instruction from a queen mother. The acrostic poem on the Woman of Worth in which each line begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet is another type of extended composition just as we encountered at the beginning of Proverbs.
In chapters 10-30 we encounter the highly crafted, two-line artistic proverbs for which the book is, perhaps, best known. Proverbs is an anthology and the sayings in this section, especially, should be judged individually. Not all these sayings will speak to every reader. Nonetheless, most readers will find something of insight and good sense put into memorable form somewhere in the book of Proverbs.
Structure
- “The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel”—fifteen long poems that should be read as a unit (1:1-9:18)
- “The proverbs of Solomon”—mostly two-line proverbs that can be read individually (10:1-22:16)
- “Words of the Sages” (22:17-24:22)
- “These are also by the sages” (24:23-24)
- “These too are proverbs of Solomon, which the men of King Hezekiah of Judah copied” (25:1-29:27)
- Appendices (30:1-31:31)
Key Concept—A Father’s Instruction
My favorite verses in all of Proverbs are the first six verses of chapter 3. Therefore, I would like to focus on these…
My son, do not forget my teaching,
but keep my commands in your heart,
for they will prolong your life many years
and bring you peace and prosperity.
Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
bind them around your neck,
write them on the tablet of your heart.
Then you will win favor and a good name
in the sight of God and man.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
Let’s examine these verses bit by bit. First, we have the words…
My Son
In Proverbs 1-9 there are ten separate sections of what David Atkinson calls “fatherly talks”. These are very like ancient Egyptian school instruction books in that they have similar form and content.
These are some of my favorite verses from Proverbs both because of what they say and because of how I once received them. On one occasion when I was leaving my parents’ home and traveling back to seminary at Princeton, my father printed out these verses on a sheet of paper and gave them to me as a parting gift of wisdom. This was meaningful to me for at least two reasons. First, because my father had recently returned to personal daily Bible reading. I think my father read a good bit of the Bible in the early days after his conversion, but not so much in later years. Then, in the last years of his life, he returned to reading the Bible every day. The verses he printed out for me on that day, sometime between 1985 and 1988, had no doubt come from his morning Bible reading.
Second, these verses were meaningful to me because of the stage of life I was then in. I was about to launch out on my own. My father was mirroring the role of the father in Proverbs by passing these words on to me as his son.
I framed these verses and hung them on my wall for years as a reminder of what is most important in life. Then, when my eldest son departed for college, I gave him these framed verses. The next time I saw these framed verses, in my son’s dorm room, the glass on the frame had broken, but the underlying message remained intact. Looking back on the event now, it strikes me that this was prophetic in a way. I believe we all go through breaking experiences in life, but I also believe that God’s word to us can remain firm and clear even behind that which is broken.
Do not forget my teaching.
Samuel Johnson once said, “People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.” I think that is true. Experts tell us that we learn most of what we need to learn in life during our first six years. Perhaps during the rest of life, we simply need to be reminded. One of the golden words of the Hebrew Scriptures is the word “remember”. It has been said,
There is no spiritual life or growth apart from the great spiritual heritage of the past. No religion recognized this truth more clearly than Judaism, with its strong emphasis on the teaching of its youth concerning the great facts and truths of its holy history (Exod. 12:26-27; Deut. 6).[1]
But keep my commands in your heart.
One would think that a father would instruct his son to keep his commandments in mind. But no. This Jewish father instructs his son to keep his commandments in his heart.
For the ancient Jews, the heart represented the whole inner person, including the mind, the will, and the emotions. Instruction that begins with the logic of the mind, must travel through the heart of the affections before it is worked out by the feet and hands of our will.
In verse three the father puts this expression even more descriptively. He instructs his son to write his commandments on the tablet of his heart. Instead of writing his father’s commandments on a physical tablet as a student might do with lessons in school, the son is to write his father’s commandments on the spiritual tablet of his inner being.
I wonder: how do we get our heavenly Father’s instruction into our inner being? Well, as we have talked about before, there are several steps involved. We can start by hearing God’s commandments in church. But then we must move on to reading God’s commandments for ourselves. And then we must go deeper through study, meditation, and memorization of God’s commands. And finally, if we really want to get God’s commandments engraved on our inner being, we must obey our heavenly Father’s instruction.
I love this prayer from The Book of Common Prayer…
Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
For they will prolong your life many years
In verse 8 the father says that fearing the Lord and shunning evil will bring health to our bodies and nourishment to our bones.
David Atkinson tells us…
Body and bones refer to our whole selves, and the picture here is of health which touches every part of the person. Health in the Bible is a holistic word: to be whole is to be in the right with God at all levels of our being. This is not to say that trust in the Lord will ensure permanent physical health; once again there is plenty in Proverbs which talks about sickness and depression. It is to say that spiritual, emotional and bodily well-being are all bound up together: we human beings are psychosomatic-spiritual unities. It is also to say that walking in God’s way is to walk the way of wholeness for the whole of our being.
Scientists are now confirming what people of faith have known for millennia, that spiritual practices affect our physical health. In her book, How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others (Princeton University Press, 2020), Stanford anthropologist, Tanya Luhrmann, explains that religious practices and narratives can create deep, positive changes for the people who engage in them. “Prayer is a lot like cognitive behavioral therapy,” Luhrmann says. “It’s a way you attend to your own inner experience, let go of distracting thoughts and focus on more positive thoughts. By expressing gratitude, you shift attention from the way that things are going wrong to the ways they are going right.”
Rather than presume that people worship because they believe, or build cathedrals because the belief is already present, Luhrmann flips the equation. She argues instead that people believe because they worship. In other words, engaging fully in rituals and practices bring one closer to God, and this is so satisfying to practitioners that their faith endures.
Research has repeatedly shown that people of faith report feeling better and healthier. One of the most striking findings in social epidemiology, Luhrmann notes, is that religious involvement with God is better for your body in terms of immune functions and reducing loneliness. One explanation for this, Luhrmann writes, is that for those with an intense faith, God becomes a social relationship. MRI results indicate that in terms of brain function, talking to God resembles conversing with a friend.
But the nature of that relationship is also key in terms of health. The more that God is seen as judgmental and negative, the more mental health symptoms are reported. In contrast, people who represent their relationship with God as being loving and satisfying pray more and report fewer mental health symptoms. “The data suggest that when it’s a good relationship, it’s better for the body,” Luhrmann said.[2]
Let love and faithfulness never leave you.
Love for God and others is essentially reactive, a response to God’s love for us. Love and faithfulness are key words when it comes to the covenant relationship between Yahweh and his people. God’s love for us prompts trust, awe, reverent obedience, responsible stewardship of God’s gifts, and a willingness to learn and grow through discipline. It occurs to me that love and faithfulness is what God cares most to see in all our relationships… in marriage… in our families… with our neighbors… in church… at work… and wherever we go.
Note too that faithfulness and faith go together. Real faith, real trust in God, produces faithfulness. Trust is another one of the key words in this passage. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”
George Macdonald once wrote,
This is a sane, wholesome, practical, working faith: first, that it is a man’s business to do the will of God; second, that God takes on himself the special care of that man; and third, that therefore that man ought never to be afraid of anything.
Finally, the father in Proverbs notes for his son two benefits of trusting in the Lord. One is favor and a good name in the sight of God and others.
The word for favor can also be translated as grace. If we have the grace of God in our lives, then there is not much else that we really need. If we have God’s favor, does it really matter what others think of us?
The phrase, a good name, can be translated as high esteem. It occurs to me that if we really know in the depths of our being the esteem with which God holds us in his mind and heart, then we will have proper self-esteem.
A second benefit of trusting in the Lord is that God will make our paths straight. This is a metaphor taken from road building. (See Isaiah 40:3.) The metaphor suggests that trust in the Lord will smooth out a person’s rough patches.
We may naturally question whether life works this way 100% of the time. Most of us here have lived long enough to know that trusting in the Lord doesn’t always make life smooth.
But I think what the father here is suggesting to his son is that we need to trust in the Lord even when things are unclear and unsmooth. We need to lean not on our own understanding even when we think we know best. The God who holds the future can see further than we can. His covenant love offers deeper security than any insurance policy on the market in our world today.
As one of the characters says in the film, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, “Everything will be alright in the end so if it is not alright it is not the end.”
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