Chapter 28 PROVERBS
What is a proverb? It is a pithy saying that carries a general truth. ‘A stitch in time saves one-thousand-and-fifty-seven stitches and a patch’, carries the same sentiment but it is neither pithy or memorable.
A proverb is not a law. It is not cause and effect. It is not a requirement that we make a stitch in a garment in case it gets torn. It is not a promise. ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away’, carries no guarantee and cannot be regarded as true in every case only helpful in general. The underlying principle of a proverb is good advice for healthy living in a short sharp statement. This is important because we are not entitled to read proverbs and say God has promised. If God wants to use a proverb to apply a truth it must have a second ingredient, a confirmation that this will apply to you personally.
When a child of God reads in proverbs, ‘The craftsman with his skills will serve before Kings’, it is not a promise from God of high things to come. Many have taken a proverb to be a promise from God without the second ingredient and some have lost their faith when things fail to materialise. Proverbs are only a general observation. To make a proverb of my own I might suggest: ‘bet each way - it is not a certainty- unless you have inside information’! We have no God given right to treat wisdom literature as a promise per-say. I have heard some claim God has broken his promise over the verse, ‘Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it’. It is not a promise but a general observation. Solomon lays that principle out in his Introduction.
The proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel;
This book is to know wisdom and chastening; to understand prudent words; and to receive the direction of prudence, justice, judgment, and equity.
Proverbs give prudence to the simple of understanding, and to the youth knowledge and council. If any wise person will hear them, quality of life will increase, and the man of understanding will acquire wise counsel:
To understand a parable and its interpretation; The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, those that heed them will become wise those that don’t are fools and the consequence of their actions will be their chastisement.309
The initial compiler of the book was Solomon but others added after him. His aim was to make prudence common in the land. Today we might commission a song writer to spread an attitude or viewpoint throughout the land. In early Church influence when people could not read, it is amazing how much scripture they knew through Celtic songs or ‘Spirituals’. Prudence is the ability to make good choices. Prudence to the simple means pithy statements that make complicated choices easier, be they in song or proverb.
Solomon has the reputation of being wise but reputation is not always accurate. Solomon was wise for everyone else but not always so for himself. The first nine chapters are preparatory warnings for the youth about life relationships. He spends a good deal of time telling his son what to avoid in his choice of a wife, but he had seven-hundred attempts at it before he got one right. He added a further three-hundred concubines before he found one deep soul-mate. That is not wisdom by any stretch of the imagination. Untold torment of all the failed relationships left behind spoiled lives of so many women. From all that he expected from his requirements listed in the first nine chapters, it is little surprise he was so ‘Lamentable’ by middle age. Contrast that with the wisdom of his wife who is much more positive about women in chapter-thirty-one.
Wisdom is important in the common life of all, in the street, in the market place or in the work place. Solomon may have had many big projects that turned out well, these gave him wisdom in the eyes of the world, but he caused disaster in the lives of his subjects. He spoke of wisdom in trade deals which to him really only meant he got a good bargain. He gives wisdom about discipline but for his workers he introduced Egyptian style bond labour. After his death the people asked his son to be a bit more lenient on them because the burden placed on them by Solomon had been so great.
Proverbs are so familiar people don’t know where they come from, nine-hundred proverbs cover: wisdom and folly; pride and humility; love and lust; wealth and poverty; work and leisure; masters and servants; husbands and wives. Most are black or white in nature, proverbs rarely deal with the grey in life.
They are not religious per-say, they do not divide the secular and sacred. But that is because they were written before Greek thinking separated the sacred and the secular by with a large gulf. Today, ‘good living’ means wealth but in Solomon’s time good living meant moral living. Solomon cannot be held as an example here either with his life of material comfort. Likewise, folly and Wisdom were moral qualities not mental as we view them today disability was mental or physical was viewed much more leniently then than now. Wisdom may never make you wealthy or popular, it may not give you an educational degree or a powerful position, it is meant to change the heart, the morality, the outlook on life and make life’s travel more comfortable on the inside.
From chapter-twenty-two on, Solomon collected proverbs from his world travels. Many from this section come from Arabia and Egypt. The queen of Sheba came to hear Solomon’s wisdom, bringing with her some of her own sayings to go in his book. One section is lifted from a copy of king Hezekiah’s ‘clever sayings’.
309 Proverbs 1: 1 -9