An Introduction to the Book of Proverbs (DRAFT)

Throughout Proverbs there is an emphasis on the damages caused by certain actions. Adultery, prohibited elsewhere by the Mosaic Law, is here condemned because it is damaging. In my experience, it is not sufficient to say, "That is wrong because God prohibits it!"; it is much more helpful to say, "Look at the damage this could cause." Christian author, James Dobson (before he went off the rails, seduced by politics), was a child psychologist with good advice for families. I recall his advice to husbands: if you fantasize about an affair with another woman, play the tape to the end. To the divorce, separation from children....  That advice fits the theme of chapter 7 and indeed, the "play it to the end" is the theme of Proverbs.

Sources: Kidner and Alter, as with the Psalms.

Proverbs 1-9 in the first section, a multipart poetic essay on the very importance of wisdom.

10-22 consists of short pithy sayings contrasting wisdom and foolishness, righteousness and wickedness.

At this point, from chapter 10 on, we have had about 375 short statements, most of them two lines with a "this... but that..." form. We now begin a collection of longer proverbs. Some of these proverbs (from 22:17 through 23:12) appear to be closely related to other teachings in the ANE, especially the Teaching of Amenemope, an ancient Egyptian document from about 1200 BC. Although the connection between the Egyptian document and these proverbs is a bit tenuous, it is clear that teachings on wisdom were part of the ANE culture. Alter says that this passage includes some Aramaic loan words, indicative of this borrowing.

The Words of Ahikar (Egyptian) include some sayings that also appear in Proverbs.

Instruction of Ptah-hotep (also Egyptian)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Maxims_of_Ptahhotep

Babylonian

Instruction of Shuruppak

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_of_Shuruppak

Counsels of Wisdom

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counsels_of_Wisdom

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The Setting

The  book of Proverbs...

Outline

The book of Proverbs....

Resources and References

My practice is to read through the text from the New International Version (NIV), copied into the blog and italicized in blue.  At the head of each blue paragraph of text I place a short title; after the text I place my thoughts or comments in black.  I begin this process with my own reactions and thoughts and then supplement these comments with gleanings from a commentary or two.

The real goal of this blog is to force me to read every verse thoughtfully. I hope that you, too, read the passages thoughtfully!   Feel free to disagree -- or to react in other ways! (I place hyperlinks in pink, created so that one can click on a link and see the linked site open in another window... and go down a rabbit hole if you wish!)

For the book of Proverbs, I have relied on the commentaries by Kidner and Alter, as with the Psalms.

There are other resources online.

• Amongst the online commentaries provided by EasyEnglishBible, is an online commentary on Proverbs. (The Easy English Bible commentaries are easy to read, with deliberately simple language intended for those for whom English is a second language. The Old Testament text is included in the commentary.) 
• The Gospel Coalition now has a set of online commentaries. Here is their commentary on Proverbs.

I highly recommend the Bible Project. The Bible Project also has something close to a course on Proverbs that begins here.