Week 25 Proverbs
Yesterday I was reading a collection of proverbs that my bible subtitled: Thirty Sayings of the Wise.
Those Thirty-Sayings were followed by another subtitled section: More Sayings of the Wise.
Those More-Sayings were followed by another subtitle: More Proverbs of Solomon (which went for the next ~140 verses).
I wondered why I’d not been noticing subtitles. I paged back from Thirty Sayings of the Wise past 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10. Chapter ten said: The Proverbs of Solomon. So there haven’t been any subtitles for 13 chapters.
Anyway then I wondered – since Solomon wrote chapters 10-22:16 and 25-29 – did he write chapters 22:17-24:34 too? I just kind of assume he did since that section is sayings-of-the-wise and Solomon was wise. But I also noticed a slight difference in the two.
Many of the Solomon Proverbs are one-verse long: the rich and the poor have this in common: the Lord made them both. But quite a few of the Wise Proverbs are a couple of verses long: don’t weary yourself getting rich. Why waste your time? For riches can disappear as though they had the wings of a bird.
Does that prove anything? Maybe the Wise Proverbs were written by someone else (the last two chapters of the book weren’t written by Solomon). Or maybe ancient Jewish literature had different styles/forms of proverbs and Solomon wrote both kinds. It’s hard to say.
Note: quotes from Proverbs 22:2 & 23:4-5 (NLT). Added note: I figure 99% of Solomon’s proverbs were only one-verse long. Someday I might do a count.