[238]. We should perhaps read here v’thigga’ for v’thigra’, following Sept.’s εἰς δε σε ἀφίκετο σοφία; so Merx and Bickell.
[239]. Were the affinities with Gen. i. more definite, critics of Wellhausen’s school would naturally derive from them an argument for the post-Exile origin of Prov. i.-ix. I do not myself attach much weight to these slight parallelisms.
[240]. Die enge Verbindung des A. T. mit dem Neuen, pp. 148-9.
[241]. Geschichte der heiligen Schriften Alten Testaments, p. 494.
[242]. Die alttestamentliche Literatur (1868), p. 159.
[243]. Hitzig, however, almost alone among recent critics, regards the opening chapters as the oldest part of the book.
[244]. This seems to me the earliest probable date, but does not exclude the possibility that early traditional material has been worked into the book.
[245]. History of Israel, iv. 219. It should be mentioned however that Ewald places Job (except the Elihu-portion), Prov. i.-ix., and, last in order, Deuteronomy all in the reign of Manasseh. He fails to recognise the influence of Deuteronomy on the ‘Praise of Wisdom.’
[246]. See Micah in the Cambridge School and College Bible.
[247]. Delitzsch, Proverbs, i. 33; Kuenen, Onderzock, iii. 75.