“Judah, I verily knew that it was for this cause thine heart was sad. Nevertheless I would comfort thee, my friend. Hear now my words. They are not all lost to Zion that are gone forth from Zion’s gates. Thou knowest there is no evil in thy son. Take heart. Are not the families of our people there in Egypt many and prosperous? Thy son will be a loyal Jew in Egypt, not forsaking his father’s faith. I am persuaded he will send his tribute to the Temple when the time comes round. Aye! and thine eye shall see him again ere long returning to keep the feast at Jerusalem and to make glad thine heart. My brother, hear thou the thought which the Lord hath given me concerning this thing. It is written that all flesh shall come to worship before the Lord in His holy hill; but how shall this thing come to pass? They chant in the Temple of His outstretched arm and His mighty acts. What if the stretching out of His arm is in the going forth of these His children unto the ends of the earth; seest thou not how that already praise is offered to His Name in many lands, and His glory is exalted among the heathen? In the Temple they sigh for the day when all peoples shall come crouching to Zion; but what if thy son, and others even as he, have gone to prepare the way of the Lord and to make straight His paths, and in Alexandria, Babylon, and Antioch are beginning the victory of our God, a victory which shall be (as saith Zechariah) ‘not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ saith the Lord? So shall thy son’s going be turned to God’s glory, and perchance it hath happened in accordance with His will. Saith not Isaiah that His ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts? And when thou sayest of the priests and scribes that all their care is for the Law and the Temple, and that they know not how to speak unto the heart of these young men, in truth thy reproach is just. But herein is our work. We have the answer for this need in Israel. Have we not counsel for success in life with allegiance to our God; so that our words are from the Lord, though we praise not the Law daily neither make mention of the prophet’s hopes? If then we be found faithful and our task well done, none in Israel shall reckon that Wisdom is of the Greeks only, but rather that their Wisdom is found folly in the latter end. Honour, long life, and riches are in our words and they that hearken unto us shall find them and yet shall not depart from justice nor hate mercy. He that heareth our words and learneth our Wisdom shall even dwell with the Greeks and be wiser than they, being delivered from the snares of their iniquities and the vanity of their faiths. So shall it be with thy son, my brother. He will not forget thy instruction. And like him there shall be many who, though they go forth from Jerusalem, will yet give diligent heed unto our precepts, and with them shall go Wisdom to be a guide unto their feet that they shall not stumble. Yea, even of those that in Zion seem to heed us not, some perchance shall remember in a distant land, and so be saved from falling. But, come, thou knowest this even as I, though sorrow for a moment had hidden it from thine eyes. With the blessing of God we do not labour in vain.”
“Friend, thou comfortest well; and in my soul I know that these thy words are true, and that our work is of God, and that our children’s children shall see the reward of all our labours. But as for this generation many there be that scorn and few that hear.”
“Be our zeal the greater then!” responded Joseph, “What saith the prophet?—Precept on precept, line upon line; and for us therefore ‘Proverb on proverb,’”
The older man smiled at him gently, pleased by the words and spirit of his friend: “Thou art a true friend and wise counsellor, ben Abijah. And now let us leave this place, and, if it seem good to thee, let us pass through the streets and take note of them that buy and sell; for the heat is not yet upon us and the markets are full this day. Comest thou with me?”
“I come gladly. Thou shalt see—we shall find one here, one there, that hath need of our wisdom; and perhaps to-day we shall even catch the ear of the multitude, and many will give heed both to hear and to receive our teaching.”
CHAPTER VII
Men and Manners
Students of the Old Testament do not require to be told that the universalism of the Book of Proverbs is a remarkable fact. But even those whose knowledge of Jewish history is not exact, and who have not made a comparative study of the post-exilic writings, need have no difficulty in perceiving how strange it is, if they will give the briefest consideration to the following points. Just how free are these sayings from indications of the national aspirations or religious peculiarities of the Jews? Never once in the whole Book of Proverbs is mention made of Israel or of any synonym for Israel! Not a word is said of the nation’s past history or present fears and hopes; the word “prophet” never once occurs, although the influence of prophetic teaching is frequently manifest; Priests, Levites, Temple and even Jerusalem are absolutely ignored; “sacrifice” is mentioned four times in disparagement; To do justice and judgement is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice (Pr. 213; cp. 158; 17{1{(mg)}}; 2127): and “offerings” once incidentally: I have peaceofferings with me (Pr. 714). Even the divinely appointed Law is passed silently by; it is neither commended nor condemned. True, the word “law” is often found in Proverbs, but the law which men are there bidden to observe is not the precepts, ritual or moral, of the great Pentateuch, not the Law of Moses, but the doctrine laid down by the Sage and his confrêres! Ben Sirach differs from the Sages represented in Proverbs to this extent that once or twice he identifies the Law of Moses with the Divine Wisdom, and asserts that Wisdom has chosen Zion for her resting-place.[48] Otherwise his book has precisely the same broadly humanistic and super-national character.
Clearly one need not be an expert in Jewish history to see that all this is startling; but it seems little less than astounding as soon as it is brought into comparison with the passionate patriotism and religious exclusiveness that characterise other books of the Old Testament, not only those that set forth the Law, but also such prophecies as Isaiah 40-66, or again the Psalms. For example, contrast the ecclesiastical version of Israel’s history given in the Books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, which in its present form is the work of a Levite of Jerusalem writing about 350-250 B.C., i.e., at the very period of this Wisdom preaching. A glance will show that the narrative of the Chronicler is consistently intended to set forth the praises and virtues of the holy city, Jerusalem, and its inhabitants, the true “Israel.” From first to last his work burns with national devotion, and the events of history are by him so related as to make prominent the honours due to the divine Law of Moses, wherein he sees the nation’s eternal hope and sure defence. Greater contrast there could scarcely be. The seeming indifference of Proverbs and Ben Sirach would be explained if the Sages had been irreligious or mere worldly-wise men, contemptuous of altruistic, national sentiment. But their doctrine is in no way anti-national: there is absolutely no whisper of polemic against Judaism or even depreciation of its special tenets. Neither were they irreligious; that is quite certain. Although on the surface there is no warm glow of religious zeal, again and again “the fear of Jehovah,” said they, “is the foundation of Wisdom.” The Sages, at least the majority of them, were respectable, earnest, and God-fearing Jews. It seems to the present writer psychologically incredible to suppose that such persons in Jerusalem of 300-200 B.C. were, in their heart of hearts, unmoved by the extraordinary distinctive sentiments of their race. Why then the apparent apathy shown in their proverbs?
It is true that a taste for aphoristic ethical teaching was manifesting itself at this period in various countries besides Judæa, and that such moralistic teaching always tends to be cosmopolitan, but we find therein no adequate explanation of the astonishing facts just mentioned. It is more to the point to follow up a hint suggested by the conversation of the two Wise-men depicted in the preceding chapter. Hellenism seemed to be in the ascendant, as no observant person in Jerusalem of the third century could fail to perceive; equally, no sober-minded pietist of the old school could be blind to its demoralising tendencies, and no patriot fail to dread its disintegrating effect on Judaism. How to encounter the insidious and attractive force that threatened the overthrow not only of Jewish nationality but of Jewish virtue: that was the problem for every loyal Jew. The Priests and Levites of the Law of Moses were fighting the foe in one way. The Wise had chanced on another weapon for the fray. In the old, common-sense maxims of their fathers, which being rooted in Israel’s religious faith and enriched by the ethical idealism of the great prophets presented a general moral standard, or at least a moral ardour, clearly superior to the normal tone of the neighbouring Hellenic cities, the Wise perceived they had an instrument for countering the peril on its more mundane side. Their duty was to teach men that in order to get on in life it was not necessary, even in the clamorous confident Hellenic atmosphere, to fling morality overboard and laugh at the fear of Jehovah. To suppose that all, or even the majority, of the Wise-men consciously formulated this point of view is of course not essential: many of them may have been actuated by an instinctive rather than a reasoned antagonism to the spirit of the age. The point is that, viewing the teaching of wisdom on the one part and the circumstances of the period on the other, this is the rôle the Wise in actual fact fulfilled. Now it is evident that the nature of the work presented to them was such as to make the advocacy of nationalism or even of the duty of conformity to the Law somewhat irrelevant for them. It was for others to enjoin these things. The Wise kept to their own path. Broad-minded yet loyal Jews, they were engaged on a task that happened to be naturally independent of the ritual injunctions of the Law and of any immediate political concerns.[49] It was their business to urge morality, and to be very practical in so doing; to tell men how to get on and not be blackguards; to persuade men that the wages of sin is not victory but death—a noble task, however matter-of-fact the means they used for its achievement.
We believe, then, that the universalism of these proverbs is to be explained chiefly as the mark of the Wise-men’s ability to keep to the point, not as evidence either of lack of patriotism or of indifference to the national faith. They were speaking to the heart on the common things of daily life that men of all races necessarily share with one another. Consequently—perhaps without their knowing or intending it—what they said transcended time and country. It was none the less work for their people. As we hope to show later, there is good reason to believe that the plain, common-sense morality of the Wise preserved for Judaism the respect and affection of many ordinary men, whom the Levites, with all their enthusiasm for the specific forms of the national worship, would have lost. Religion has no right to despise or overlook even the least of its advocates. There was One who said, “He that is not against us is on our part.”