Outline: There are three sections.
1. Chapters 1-9: Solomon’s Introduction — He calls for his own younger kin to be wise, and uses the image of wisdom as a good woman who is seldom sought, and has to go forth and call men who seem unwilling to come to her. Thus, we have this paradox of a marvelous perfect woman every man should be fighting to have, but no one seems to want her.
2. Chapters 10-29: A large collection of proverbs, each requiring some explanation.
3. Chapters 30-31: Collected material from other authors.
Preliminary Notes
All proverbs are contextual, as is the Hebrew language itself, often enough. In a few cases, they seem to contradict each other because the difference in context is not obvious to Western readers. Some of these proverbs aim at “Choose this, not that.” Some are more a matter of, “If you choose this, it comes with that.” Still others reflect holy cynicism: “It matters not what you choose because that’s the way people are.”
Several are repeated outright, while many are restatements of the same thought, or at least the same theme. Most of them are couplets. The proverbs come in the form of parallel ideas or as contrasts. In some cases, the second line simply expands on the first.
Wisdom is more than a cerebral capability, though it is often expressed as clear thinking. It happens to be clear thinking and devotion to whatever promotes shalom — social stability. Wisdom is seldom a mere matter of advanced intellect, but is more at moral discernment. It is the sense of how things work with God in control. Folly is just about any path a man chooses that ignores or is insensitive to God’s moral character in Creation.
Virtually the whole collection is cast in the context of a Covenant Nation and the society naturally arising from it. Too much of what they took for granted is not obvious when reading the proverbs, and too much of what we take for granted is simply not there.
In the larger middle section, I’ll probably try to present the text of each proverb for consideration. Because of copyright considerations, I’m likely to use one that is free to copy and modify the wording according to my own research into translation issues. Meanwhile, you simply cannot approach a study like this without reading the whole thing through at least two or three times to absorb the bigger picture.
