The proverbs may lack something as a text-book for young scientists; yet here is the very essence of the fact of gravitation observed and duly noted: He that casteth a stone on high casteth it on his own head (E. 2725).
Two or three features in what one may call civilised Nature, are worth recording here, although Man played the chief part in their appearing:—
A glimpse of a battlemented town:
A wise man scaleth the citadel of the mighty,
And bringeth down its strong confidence (Pr. 2122).
Of great ships on the sea:
She is like the merchant ships,
She bringeth her food from afar (Pr. 3114).
Of a prosperous dwelling-place:
Through Wisdom is an house builded
And by understanding it is established,
And by knowledge are the chambers furnished,
With all precious and pleasant riches (Pr. 243, 4).
Curiously enough, no reference to sun, moon or stars occurs in Proverbs[107], but there are several allusions in Ecclesiasticus, especially in one remarkable chapter of really poetic appreciation, which tells first of the wonder and the blazing intolerable heat of the sun (E. 431-5), and then celebrates the glories of moon and stars and rainbow—the moon increasing wonderfully in her changing, a beacon for the hosts on high, shineth forth in the firmament of heaven. The beauty of heaven is the glory of the stars, an array giving light in the highest heights of the Lord: at the word of the Holy One they stand in due order and sleep not in their watches. Look upon the rainbow and praise him that made it; exceeding beautiful in the brightness thereof. It compasseth the heaven round about with a circle of glory; the hands of the Most High have constructed it (E. 438-12). Again in a panegyric on the virtues of Simon, the son of Onias, the high-priest “great among his brethren, and the glory of his people,”[108] Ben Sirach says that, when the people gathered round him as he came forth out of the sanctuary, he was glorious
As the morning star from between the clouds;
As the moon at the full;
As the sun shining forth upon the Temple of the Most High;
And as the rainbow giving light in clouds of glory (E. 506, 7).