Proverbs

In short

The book contains exactly what people expect – a bunch of short thoughts about wisdom – but also some longer poems about wisdom as well.

Why it is important

While a lot of the Bible leaves you scratching your head, Proverbs gets right to the point: this is good and that is bad.

Now, let me qualify that. Any good English teacher will tell you that in persuasive writing, you want to do two main things:

1. Give away the ending with your introduction (i.e. get to the point)
2. Make your point by “show, don’t tell.”

And the Bible does exactly both of those. Proverbs gives away the ending, while most of the Bible (about 40%) is made of stories which show us what good and bad looks like in action*.

What is in the book of Proverbs

31 chapters.

• The middle 21 chapters are full of… proverbs – the very short wise sayings with almost no apparent connection from one to the next
• But the first 9 chapters and the last chapter contain longer poems on a topic

Authors of Proverbs

Three chapters (1, 10 and 25) begin with the statement that you are about to read the “proverbs of Solomon.” This implies that there are sections that are not written by Solomon. And indeed, chapter 30 is attributed to “Agur” and chapter 31 begins with “The words of King Lemuel. An oracle that his mother taught him” (Prov 31:1). The bulk does seem to be Solomon’s writings, though. (He did write 3,000 – see 1Ki 4:32.)

Footnote

* Of course, Proverbs is not the introduction. Though it is how many people are indeed introduced to the Bible – there is that persistent idea that the Bible is just a big inspirational calendar. I’d like to think this project is utterly destroying that notion, though.