wait for Jehovah, and he will deliver thee (xx. 22).
The first appendix to the original Book (appended possibly before the composition of the Introduction) is a small collection of proverbial sayings called ‘words of the wise’ (xxii. 17-xxiv. 22). Virtually the same phrase occurs again in xxiv. 23 at the head of a still shorter work, compiled or composed evidently about the same time by another ‘wise man’ (perhaps the whole work has not come down to us). In the introductory verses the compiler’s object in writing down these proverbs is said to have been that his disciple might learn virtue and religion, and might become qualified to teach others. There is one very difficult passage in it, but this has been corrected in a masterly way by Bickell:—[[178]]
That thy confidence may be in Jehovah,
to make known unto thee thy ways.
Now, yea before now, have I written unto thee,
long before, with counsels and knowledge,
That thou mayest know the rightness of true words,
that thou mayest answer in true words to those that ask thee
(xxii. 19-21).
The construction of ver. 20b and ver. 21 in the Hebrew thus becomes more idiomatic (comp. χθές τε καὶ πρώην), though not free from ambiguity. The words may mean either that the compiler took long over his work, or that this was not the first occasion of his writing. On the latter explanation the passage may imply that the compiler of this anthology also wrote chaps. i.-ix. (comp. i. 6b). His hortatory style and predilection for grouping verses may seem to plead for this view. There are however no important points of contact in phraseology between the work before us and Prov. i.-ix.,[[179]] and certainly the appendix falls far below the standard of the Introduction. At any rate, it is undoubted that these ‘words of the wise’ appeared long after the ‘Solomonic’ proverbs. The peculiarities of style referred to show this, and also the imitation of some of the ‘Solomonic’ proverbs in the ‘words of the wise;’ (comp. xi. 14 with xxiv. 5, 6; xiii. 9 with xxiv. 19, 20; xxii. 14a with xxiii. 27).