But this great word ‘immortality’ is unparalleled before the Book of Wisdom, and cannot fairly be extracted from the Hebrew.[[150]] The Septuagint has a different view of the pronunciation of the text, and renders ὁδοὶ δὲ μνησικάκων εἰς θάνατον. The easiest plan is to correct n’thībhāh into nith’ābh, with Levy, and render,
but an abominable way (comp. xv. 9) leads unto death.
I do not deny that the idea of eternal life may have been conceived at the time of these proverbs. This may plausibly be inferred from the occurrence of the phrase ‘a tree of life’ in iii. 18, xi. 30, xiii. 12, xv. 4, and ‘a fountain of life’ in x. 11, xiii. 14, xiv. 27, xvi. 22,—phrases certainly borrowed from some traditional story of Paradise analogous to that in Gen. ii.[[151]] It is a singular fact however that in all these passages (even, I think, in iii. 18) these expressions are simply figurative synonyms for ‘refreshment,’ which suggests that the proverb-writers shrank from using them in their literal sense of the individual righteous man.
The importance of the ‘wise men’ as a class is too seldom recognised. To the hasty reader they are overshadowed by the prophets, between whom and the rude masses they seem to have occupied a middle position. Their popular style and genial manners attracted probably a large number of disciples; at any rate, in the time of Jeremiah the ‘counsel’ of the ‘wise men’ was valued as highly as the ‘direction’ (tōra) of the priests and the ‘word’ of the prophets (Jer. xviii. 18). By constantly working on suitable individuals, they produced a moral sympathy with the prophets, without which those heroic men would have laboured in vain. Thus that friendly relation must have sprung up between the prophets and the ‘wise men,’ of which I have spoken already, and which reminds us of the sanction said to have been given to the Seven Sages of Greece by the oracle of Delphi.[[152]]
It is a misfortune that our sources for the history of Israelitish ‘philosophy’ are so scanty. Were there ‘wise men’ in N. Israel? and if so, have any of their proverbs come down to us, besides the mashal or fable of Jotham? Did they confine their activity to the capital city or cities, or did they also, like the ‘scribes,’ settle or itinerate in the provinces? (Matt. ix. 3, Targ. of Judg. v. 9.) Did their public instructions assume anything like the form of the proverbs of our anthologies? Did they teach without fee or reward?[[153]] At any rate, a post-Exile proverb-writer tells us with retrospective glance where the ‘wise men’ awaited their disciples—not in the quietude of the chamber, but either within the massive city-gates, or in the adjacent squares or ‘broad places’ on which the streets converged (i. 20, 21; comp. Job xxix. 7). No doubt they had a large stock of sayings in their memory, such as had been tested by the experience of past generations. Sometimes they would modify old proverbs, sometimes they would frame new ones, so that when their disciples gathered round them, they would ‘bring out of their treasure things new and old.’ From time to time they would commit their ‘wisdom’ to writing in a more perfect form, and such records must have formed the basis of the proverbial collections in the Old Testament.
CHAPTER II.
THE FORM AND ORIGIN OF THE PROVERBS.
In one of the opening verses of the Book of Proverbs (i. 6) three technical names for varieties of proverbs are put together:—(1) māshāl, a short, pointed saying with reference to some striking feature in the life of an individual, or in human life generally, often clothed in figurative language (whence, according to many, the name māshāl, as if ‘similitude;’ comp. παραβολή), (2) m’lîça, perhaps a ‘bent’, ‘oblique’ or (as Sept.) ‘dark’ saying, (3) khîda, a ‘knotty’ or intricate saying, especially a riddle. Each of these words has a variety of applications; for instance (1) is used in Num. xxiii., xxiv., for a parallelistic poem, (1) and (2) sometimes mean a ‘taunting speech’ (see below, and comp. Hab. ii. 6, Isa. xiv. 4, Mic. ii. 4), and (3) can be used, not merely of true riddles with a moral meaning, such as we find here and there in Prov. xxx., but also of didactic statements upon subjects as difficult as riddles (see Ps. xlix. 5, A.V. 4, lxxviii. 2). We have no collection of popular proverbs, such as exists in Arabic; the proverbs in the canonical collection show great technical elaboration, though some may be based on the naive ‘wisdom’ of the people. A very few specimens of the popular proverb have indeed been preserved in the canonical literature.[[154]] ‘Is Saul also among the prophets?’ (1 Sam. x. 12, xix. 24) preserves the memory of a humorous fact in the story of that king. ‘Wickedness proceeds from the wicked’ (1 Sam. xxiv. 13) is, unlike the former, a generalisation, and means that a man’s character is shown by his actions (comp. Isa. xxxii. 6). ‘As is the mother, so is the daughter’ (Ezek. xvi. 44) is also an induction from common experience. ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’ (Jer. xxii. 29, Ezek. xviii. 2), words applied no doubt, as Lowth says, profanely, but not originally meant so, is a figurative way of saying that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. We have one specimen of the riddle (strictly so called)—that well-known one of Samson’s,
From the eater came forth food,
and from the strong one came forth sweetness (Judges xiv. 14).
The parable, too, was doubtless called mashal, and of this we have three Old Testament examples, which will at once occur to the reader (2 Sam, xii. 1-6, xiv. 4-9, 1 Kings xx. 39, 40); but it is more important to draw the reader’s attention to the rare specimens of the fable. Some may think it bold to refer in this connection to a portion of a narrative which seems at first sight to be historical (Num. xxi. 22-35). The strange episode of the speaking ass is, however, most difficult to understand, except as a sportive quasi-historical version of a popular mashal or fable (compare the four Babylonian animal-fables discovered among the fragments of King Assurbanipal’s library).[[155]] The passage being evidently distinct from the rest of the story of Balaam, in passing this judgment upon it, we are not committed as a matter of course to a denial of all historical character to the rest of the narrative. The fables of Jotham (Judg. ix. 8-15) and Joash (2 Kings xiv. 9), in which the trees are introduced speaking, have also their parallels in Babylonian literature. One of them indeed has a claim to be called a mashal on a second account; the tree-fable of Joash is a taunt of the keenest edge, and one of the secondary meanings of mashal is ‘taunting speech’ (see Isa. xiv. 4, A.V.). It is true the ‘taunting speeches’ expressly called mashals—not only those in the prophetic writings (see above), but the verses ascribed to ‘those that speak in mashals’ in Num. xxi. 27-30—are poetical in form, but this is because the Hebrew writers never conceived the idea of a narrative poem; even the prologue of the Book of Job is in prose.