and for a commentary read 1 Kings iv. 26, xi. 1, 4, 14-40, xii. 14, 15. Nor is the moral tone of the ‘Solomonic’ proverbs in its plain bourgeois simplicity any more suitable to the name they bear than the religious. Unless Solomon was like Haroun al-Rashid, and made himself privately acquainted with the ways and thoughts of the citizens, it is difficult to see how he can have written so completely as one of them would have done.
The truth is that both David and Solomon were idealised by later generations. The heroes of a grander if not better age, they towered far above the petty figures of their successors. Favoured by the contemporary depression of Egypt and Assyria, they had been enabled to rear and to retain a powerful empire, comparable to those which afflicted and oppressed the divided people of the later Israelites. Solomon in particular is represented in tradition as not only the most fortunate but the wisest of kings, not in the sense in which it is said that religion is the best part of wisdom (Prov. i. 7), but in that in which the ‘children of the east’ were accustomed to use the word. This is clear from the language of the Hebrew narrator:—
‘And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart even as the sand on the sea-shore. And Solomon’s wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite [read, perhaps, ‘the native,’ i.e. the Israelite], and Heman, and Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol [probably a foreigner]: and his fame was in all the nations round about. And he spoke three thousand proverbs [or, similitudes], and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spoke of trees, from the cedar in Lebanon unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of creeping things, and of fishes. And there came of all peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.’ (1 Kings iv. 29-34.)
I see no reason for not accepting the substance of this tradition. The principal point in it is the ascription to Solomon of a power of apophthegmatic composition which the author, as a devout theist, could not but trace to a divine gift, just as the author of Ex. xxxvi. ascribes the skill of the artisans of the tabernacle to the direct operation of Jehovah. But we are also informed that the talents of Solomon were neither peculiar to him, nor exercised on different subjects from those of foreign sages. The precise meaning of the Hebrew m’shālīm in 1 Kings iv. 32 is suggested by ver. 33. The word seems to mean moralising similitudes[[165]] derived partly from the animal, partly from the vegetable kingdom (for Lord Bacon’s view,[[166]] hinted in the New Atlantis, is more plausible than sound). Was I not right in saying that the traditional notices of Solomon’s wisdom do not agree with the title of our anthology? I wish that it were otherwise. How gladly one would see a few of Solomon’s genuine utterances (whether proverbs, or similitudes, or fables) incorporated into one or another of the Hebrew Scriptures!
I think however that it is unfair both to the compiler and to the editor who repeats his statement (i. 1) to take the ascription of these proverbs to Solomon literally. Accuracy in the details of literary history was not a qualification which would seem important to an Israelite. The name of Solomon was attached (for dogmatism here seems permissible) to these choice specimens of Hebrew proverbiology simply from a very characteristic hero-worship. Solomon had in fact become the symbol of plain ethical ‘wisdom’ just as David had become the representative of religious lyric poetry. We may see this from the alternative title of the Book of Proverbs in both Jewish and Christian writings—‘Book of Wisdom;’[[167]] still more from the fiction of Solomon’s authorship of Ecclesiastes, and from the Targumic paraphrase of Jer. ix. 23, ‘Let not Solomon the son of David, the wise man, glory in his wisdom.’ Of course, the real names of the authors of the proverbs had been as irrecoverably lost as those of our early ballad-writers.
But though we must deny the Solomonic authorship a far-off influence of the Solomonic age may perhaps be admitted; at least, there are grounds for the opinion that some of the proverbs are as old as the ninth century. (1) The second collection of so-called Solomonic proverbs was compiled according to a credible tradition (xxv. 1) in the reign of Hezekiah; this of itself throws the earlier collection a considerable way back into the eighth century. (2) Upon examining the first anthology we find that some of the proverbs already have a history. For instance, (a) the solemn generalisation in xiv. 12 occurs in exactly the same form in xvi. 25, (b) eight other proverbs are repeated with slight changes in expression (x. 1 = xv. 20, x. 2 = xi. 4, xiii. 14 = xiv. 27, xiv. 20 = xix. 4, xvi. 2 = xxi. 2, xix, 5 = xix. 9, xx. 10 = xx. 23, xxi. 9 = xxi. 19), but except in the case of xi. 4, xiv. 27 no change in thought, (c) ten are repeated, at least so far as one line goes, either exactly or with but slight differences (x. 15 = xviii. 11, x. 6[[168]] = x. 11, x. 8 = x. 10,[[169]] xv. 33 = xviii. 12, xi. 13 = xx. 19, xi, 21 = xvi. 5, xii. 14 = xiii. 2, xiv. 31 = xvii. 5, xvi. 18 = xviii. 12, xix. 12 = xx. 2). It is probable that some time would elapse before a proverb attained such notoriety as to be circulated in varying forms. (3) The originality of the diction (a) and the careful observance of technical rules of composition (b) favour an early date. (a) For instance, ‘steersmanship’[[170]] (xi. 14, xii. 5, xx. 18), as a term for practical wisdom or counsels, evidently springs from a fresh enthusiasm for commerce; a long list of striking expressions might be added from any chapter of the collection. (b) Nor is technical precision at all less conspicuous in this early anthology. Each proverb is a distich, i.e. consists of two lines, as a rule three-toned, and in most cases antithetically parallel. It is true, xix. 7 in its present form is a tristich, i.e. consists of three members, but this proverb undoubtedly arose out of two, the second of which is mutilated in the Hebrew text, but is found in a complete though not entirely correct form in the Septuagint. The incomprehensible third line of xix. 7 given in versions based upon the Hebrew now becomes the distich,
He that does much evil perfects mischief;
he that provokes[[171]] with words shall not escape.
According to Ewald, the collection is divided into five parts by the recurrence at intervals of a proverb exhorting the young to receive instruction; see x. 1, xiii. 1, xv. 20, xvii. 25, xix. 20. If this division is intentional it may be compared with the equally mechanical triple division found by some in Isa. xl. lxvi. Of arrangement by subject there is but little trace; here and there two or more verses come in succession dealing with the same theme. Observe too the recurrence of ‘Jehovah,’ xv. 33, xvi. 1-9, 11, and of the word ‘king’ in xvi. 10, 12-15, which shows that one principle of arrangement was simply the recurrence of certain catchwords. Bickell thinks that another principle was the occurrence of the same initial letter (see xi. 9-12, xx. 7-9, xx. 24-26, xxii. 2-4).
Altogether, it is abundantly clear that we have before us works of art, and not the simple maxims handed down in Israel from father to son. There may sometimes be a traditional basis, but no more. The anthology contrasts, therefore, as Ewald remarks, with the collections of Arabic proverbs due to Abu-Obaida, Maidani[[172]] and others. But whether we may go on to assert with the same great critic that we have here the wise men’s applications of the truths of religion to the infinite cases and contingencies of the secular life, seems doubtful. It is not clear to me that these wise men were preoccupied by religion. There are indeed not a few fine religious proverbs, but it cannot be shown that those who wrote the secular proverbs also wrote the religious. It is possible and even probable that some of the religious proverbs are the work of the author of the introductory chapters; without dogmatising, I may refer to xiv. 34 (comp. viii. 15, 16), xv. 33, xvi. 1-7, and perhaps to xix. 27, which is quite in the parental tone of chaps. i.-ix. The tone of the secular proverbs is not, from a Christian point of view (of which more later on), an elevated one. The ethical principle is prudential. Virtue or ‘wisdom’ is rewarded, and vice or ‘folly’ punished in this life. It is indeed nowhere expressly said that every trouble is a punishment; but there is nothing like xxiv. 16 in this anthology to prevent the reader from inferring it. At any rate, the writers are clearly not in the van of religious thought: no ‘obstinate questionings’ have yet disturbed their tranquillity.