[31] Not but what the belief is at least as old as the Hebrew Law, I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me, and shewing mercy unto the thousandth generation of them that love Me and keep My commandments.
[32] A study, not a half-hearted perusal of the text in the English Bible.
[33] Cp. Numbers 2127, Wherefore they that speak in proverbs say “Come ye to Heshbon,”...
[34] For these titles see Chapter II., p. 37. That such a phrase as The proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel (Pr. I1) at the head of a section does not necessarily imply or even claim authorship, may seem astonishing to those unacquainted with ancient literature, but it is easily understood by those who have made so much as a moderate study of the subject. The ancient title in modern parlance would be represented by some such heading as the following, “A collection of sayings representative of Hebrew wisdom dedicated to the memory and example of that royal lover of Wisdom, King Solomon.” To suppose that the propriety of the ancient procedure ought to be judged by modern canons of literary right and wrong would be both unjust and foolish. Similarly from the heading prefixed to Pr. 25-29, These also are proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, copied out; it does not follow that the proverbs in those chapters were old in Hezekiah’s time. Probably Hezekiah, like Solomon, showed special interest in literary work, and it may be that a collection of proverbs formed in his reign is the nucleus of the present chapters 25-29 (So Volz, Weisheit, p. 95). On the other hand it is possible that nothing more should be inferred than that, there being a tradition of literary activity in Hezekiah’s reign, the compilers of the Book of Proverbs made use of the tradition in order to indicate (by this title) that in their opinion the proverbs of chaps. 25-29 were later than or secondary to the “Solomonic” proverbs which precede in chs. 1-24 (So Toy, Proverbs, § vi., and p. 457); and see also Driver, Literature of the Old Testament, p. 405.
[35] Detailed proof is impossible, and the question must be argued on general evidence, which any modern commentary on the Book of Proverbs will supply. Toy, Proverbs, § vi. is emphatic in his view that no authority whatever attaches to titles ascribing proverbs to Solomon. Volz ([p. 95]) is non-committal: “Whether small fragments of Solomon’s work have been transmitted to us cannot be determined.” Driver, Literature of the Old Testament, p. 406f, is of much the same opinion; but, remarking that the “proverbs in 101ff exhibit great uniformity of type,” he remarks that “perhaps this type was set by Solomon.”
[36] Compare the way in which the Greeks tended to associate all fables with the name of Æsop.
[37] Ephesians 612 (Weymouth’s translation).
[38] Cp. the similar but more poetic description in Psalm 1.
[39] What follows is without reference to the ancient civilisation of the far East, India or China. The “world” we are here considering means the civilisation of the lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea. A few pages later, the terms “Eastern” and “Western” will be used with similar latitude: “Eastern” or (“Oriental”) denoting the peoples of Egypt, Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia; and “Western” the peoples of Greece, Macedonia, and the old Greek colonies of the Ægean islands and the coast of Asia Minor.
[40] Amos 521f.