1. Alyce McKenzie imagines what such a day would be like in Preaching Proverbs: Wisdom for the Pulpit (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), xi–xii.
2. Some believe the two should be kept separate; see P. F. Craffert, “Relationships Between Social-Scientific, Literary, and Rhetorical Interpretations of Texts,” BTB 26 (Spring 1996): 45–55.
3. O. H. Steck, Old Testament Exegesis: A Guide to the Methodology (Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1995), 3–16.
4. R. P. Knierim, “On the Task of Old Testament Theology,” in A Biblical Itinerary: In Search of Method, Form and Content: Essays in Honor of George W. Coats, ed. E. E. Carpenter (JSOTSup 240; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 151–66.
5. A. Taylor, The Proverb (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1931), 3.
6. W. Mieder, Proverbs Are Never Out of Season: Popular Wisdom in the Modern Age (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1993), 18–40.
7. L. and R. Flavell, Dictionary of Proverbs and Their Origins (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1993), 2.
8. K. Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1973), 2–3. Burke first published this essay in 1941.
9. T. Long, Preaching and the Literary Forms of the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), 59.
10. K. Snodgrass, “Parables and the Hebrew Scriptures,” in To Hear and Obey: Essays in Honor of Fredrick Carlson Holmgren, ed. B. Bergfalk and P. E. Koptak (Chicago: Covenant Publications, 1997), 164–77.
11. S. Niditch, Folklore and the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993), 67–87.
12. A detailed list of wisdom forms can be found in D. Garrett, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs (NAC 14; Nashville: Broadman, 1993), 29–38.
13. O. Moll, Sprichwörterbibliographie (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1958), noted in W. Mieder, International Proverb Scholarship: An Annotated Bibliography, 2 vols. (New York and London: Garland, 1982, 1990). See also W. Mieder and A. Dundes, The Wisdom of Many: Essays on the Proverb (New York and London: Garland, 1981).
14. P. W. Skehan, “Wisdom’s House,” in Studies in Israelite Poetry and Wisdom (Washington, D. C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1971), 27–45, proposes a similar three-part structure.
15. D. A. Dorsey, The Literary Structure of the Old Testament: A Commentary on Genesis-Malachi (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 187, proposes a five-part structure.
a Two-part introduction (1:1–7; 1:8–9:18)
b Solomon’s proverbs-first collection (10:1–22:16)
c Words of the wise (22:17–24:34)
b′ Solomon’s proverbs-second collection (25:1–29:27)
a′ Two-part conclusion (30:1–33; 31:1–31)
16. J. R. Wilson, “Biblical Wisdom, Spiritual Formation, and the Virtues,” in The Way of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Bruce K. Waltke, ed. J. I. Packer and S. K. Soderlund (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 297–307.
17. R. Meynet, Rhetorical Analysis: An Introduction to Biblical Rhetoric (JSOTSup 256; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 172–77.
18. K. Egan, Teaching As Story Telling: An Alternative Approach to Teaching and the Curriculum (London: Routledge, 1988). Egan shows how good teachers use binary oppositions to make content clear and compelling.
19. On “modes of thought,” see N. Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (San Diego and New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1982), 54; on “perspective,” see K. Burke, “The Four Master Tropes,” in A Grammar of Motives (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1945), 503–5.
20. W. W. Hallo, ed., The Context of Scripture (Leiden: Brill, 1997), xxvi.
21. W. McKane, Proverbs: A New Approach (London: SCM, 1970), 51–208. Thirty years after its publication, this introduction to “International Wisdom” is still essential reading. For a challenge to McKane’s theory, see S. Weeks, Early Israelite Wisdom (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 53–73, who argues that sufficient evidence is lacking.
22. “The Instructions of Shuruppak,” ANET, 594–95 and BWL, 92–95.
23. B. Alster, Proverbs of Ancient Sumer: The World’s Earliest Proverb Collections, 2 vols. (Bethesda, Md.: CDL Press, 1997). Proverbs appear as early as 2600 B.C. and are often found on tablets used to teach writing to scribes.
24. W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 1.
25. “Ahiqar: A New Translation and Introduction,” trans. J. Lindenberger, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1985), 2:498; ANET, 428 (cf. Prov. 23:13–14).
26. “The Instruction of Ptahhotep,” AEL, 1:63; ANET, 412.
27. “Inscription of Nefer-Seshem-Re Called Shesi,” AEL, 1:17.
28. R. Murphy provides a balanced assessment of the question in Proverbs, 290–94, and The Tree of Life, 23–25. See also J. H. Walton, “Cases of Alleged Borrowing,” in Ancient Israelite Literature in Its Cultural Context (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989), 192–97; and N. Whybray’s review of research in The Book of Proverbs: A Survey of Modern Study (HBIS 1; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 6–14, 78–84.
29. See J. Ruffle, “The Teaching of Amenemope and Its Connection with the Book of Proverbs,” TynBul 28 (1977): 29–68; reprinted in R. B. Zuck, Learning from the Sages: Selected Studies on the Book of Proverbs (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), 293–331.
30. N. Shupak, “The ‘Sitz-im-Leben’ of the Book of Proverbs in the Light of a Comparison of Biblical and Egyptian Wisdom Literature,” RB 94:1 (1987): 98–119, and Where Can Wisdom be Found? (OBO 130; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 339. Similarities include the heated and cool-tempered persons (cf. Prov. 19:19), weighing of hearts (24:12), and chambers of the belly (“inmost being,” 20:30).
31. J. Crenshaw, “Education in Ancient Israel,” JBL 104 (1985): 601–15; and “The Contemplative Life,” in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, ed. J. Sasson (New York: Scribners, 1995); both reprinted in Urgent Advice and Probing Questions: Collected Writings on Old Testament Wisdom (Macon, Ga.: Mercer Univ. Press, 1995). See also F. W. Golka, “The Israelite Wisdom School or ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes,’ ” in The Leopard’s Spots: Biblical and African Wisdom in Proverbs (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1993), 4–15.
32. J. L. Crenshaw, “The Perils of Specializing in Wisdom: What I Have Learned from Thirty Years of Teaching,” in Urgent Advice, 594, and Education in Ancient Israel: Across the Deadening Silence (New York: Doubleday, 1998).
33. B. K. Waltke, “The Book of Proverbs and Ancient Wisdom Literature,” BibSac 139 (1979): 221–38; reprinted in Learning from the Sages: Selected Studies on the Book of Proverbs, ed. R. B. Zuck (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), 49–65.
34. J. D. Martin, Proverbs (OTG; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 18–31; D. W. Jamieson-Drake, Scribes and Schools in Monarchic Judah (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 138–57.
35. B. S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament As Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 553. Childs believes that the ascriptions to Agur and Lemuel indicate that the first verse credits Solomon with a general responsibility for the whole book, 548.
36. C. V. Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (BLS 11; Sheffield: Almond Press, 1985).
37. Against the view of M. V. Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 6, 48–49. However, Fox’s skepticism about various attempts to date Prov. 1–9 in the mid-fifth century b.c. rightly argues that correspondences between text and context do not rule out other social-historical contexts. So, for example, Fox suggests that personified Wisdom may be a response to Greek philosophy, but he adds that while this and other characteristics “allow for a Hellenistic dating, they do not prove it.”
38. W. G. Plaut, The Book of Proverbs: A Commentary (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1961), 10.
39. R. E. Clements has suggested that “for the most part the proverbs and admonitions of the wise men of ancient Israel have little to gain or lose by being ascribed to Solomon. They are intended to be true and memorable in themselves, rather than on account of their notable authorship” (“Solomon and the Origins of Wisdom in Israel,” in Perspectives on the Hebrew Bible: Essays in Honor of Walter J. Harrelson, ed. James L. Crenshaw [Macon, Ga.: Mercer Univ. Press, 1988], 25).
40. D. Patrick and A. Scult, Rhetoric and Biblical Interpretation (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), 12, define rhetoric as “the means by which a text establishes and manages its relationship to its audience in order to achieve a particular effect.”
41. S. Fowl, “The Ethics of Interpretation; or, What’s Left Over After the Elimination of Meaning,” in The Bible in Three Dimensions: Essays in Celebration of the Fortieth Anniversary of the Department of Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield, ed. D. J. A. Clines, S. E. Fowl, and S. E. Porter (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), 379–98.
42. For more detailed descriptions of this approach, see P. E. Koptak, “Reading Scripture with Kenneth Burke: Genesis 38,” in To Hear and Obey: Essays in Honor of Fredrick Carlson Holmgren, ed. B. J. Bergfalk and P. E. Koptak (Chicago: Covenant Publications, 1997): 84–94, and “Rhetorical Identification in Preaching,” Preaching 14 (November/December 1998): 11–18.
43. J. B. White, When Words Lose Their Meaning: Constitutions of Language, Character, and Community (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1984), 14–20. For White, language in general and reading in particular have three functions: to establish a relationship between writer and reader, to form individual character, and to constitute and reconstitute culture.
44. A. Ogden Bellis, “The Gender and Motives of the Wisdom Teacher in Proverbs 7,” in Wisdom and Psalms: The Feminist Companion to the Bible, Second Series, ed. A. Brenner and C. R. Fontaine (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 90–91.
45. E. Dyck, “Canon As Context for Interpretation,” in The Act of Bible Reading: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Biblical Interpretation, ed. E. Dyck (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 33–64. See also D. F. Morgan, Between Text and Community: The “Writings” in Canonical Interpretation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990).
46. See M. Garsiel, The First Book of Samuel: A Literary Study of the Comparative Structures, Analogies and Parallels (Ramat-Gan: Revivim, 1985). On inner-biblical interpretation, see M. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985).
47. C. J. Scalise, From Scripture to Theology: A Canonical Journey into Hermeneutics (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996). Scalise argues that interpreters must explain how each biblical text functions as authority for the Christian church. See also Scalise, Hermeneutics As Theological Prolegomena: A Canonical Approach (Macon: Mercer Univ. Press, 1994).
48. See R. Schultz, “Integrating Old Testament Theology and Exegesis: Literary, Thematic and Canonical Issues,” in NIDOTTE, 185–205.
49. J. Sanders, “Hermeneutics,” in IDBSup (Nashville: Abingdon, 1962), 402–7.
50. On this topic, see L. Boström, The God of the Sages: The Portrayal of God in the Book of Proverbs (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1990).
51. R. E. Clements, “Israel in Its Historical and Cultural Setting,” in The World of Ancient Israel: Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives, ed. R. E. Clements (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989), 7–10. See also L. Purdue, J. Blenkinsopp, J. J. Collins, C. Meyers, Families in Ancient Israel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 225–49.
52. E. M. Curtis, “Old Testament Wisdom: A Model for Faith-Learning Integration,” Christian Scholar’s Review 15/3 (1986): 213–27.
53. Emerging Judaism identified wisdom with torah, as seen in Sir. 24:23 and in 19:20, “All wisdom is fear of the Lord and in all wisdom is the fulfillment of the Law.” See R. Murphy, The Tree of Life, 78–79.
54. In the Hebrew canon, the major division after “The Torah” is called “The Prophets.” It includes the historical books Joshua through 2 Kings and the prophetic books Isaiah through Malachi (except for Ruth, Lamentations, and Daniel, which are found in the third major division, “The Writings”).
55. G. Wilson describes the relationship between wisdom and traditional teachings of covenant and law as “holy tension . . . a tension through which they provide needed ‘words of wisdom’ ” (“Wisdom,” NIDOTTE, 4:1277).
56. W. A. Beardslee, “Uses of the Proverb in the Synoptic Gospels,” Int 24 (1970): 61–73; reprinted in Mieder and Dundes, The Wisdom of Many. See also A. P. Winton, The Proverbs of Jesus: Issues of History and Rhetoric (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990).
57. B. Witherington III, Jesus the Sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1994). See also F. W. Burnett, “Wisdom,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. J. B. Green and S. McKnight (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 873–77.
58. Witherington, Jesus the Sage, 370, n. 102, reminds us that John chose the term logos (word) and not Sophia (wisdom). For a discussion of Paul’s use of Sophia, see J. S. Lamp, First Corinthians 1–4 in Light of Jewish Wisdom Traditions: Christ, Wisdom and Spirituality (Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen, 2000), 117–88.
59. Also, the language for describing wisdom in the apocryphal Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon provides a variety of words and images that are transferred to Jesus. The question is explored in greater detail in the comments for chs. 1, 3, and 8, where Woman Wisdom appears.
60. For help in preaching from the book of Proverbs, see E. Achtemeier, Preaching from the Old Testament (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1989); and D. Gowan, Reclaiming the Old Testament for the Christian Pulpit (Atlanta: John Knox, 1980), for chapters on wisdom literature. T. Long, Preaching and the Literary Forms of the Bible, and A. M. McKenzie, Preaching Proverbs, have chapters dedicated to the book of Proverbs.
61. F. C. Holmgren, “Barking Dogs Never Bite, Except Now and Then: Proverbs and Job,” AThR 61 (1979): 341–53.
62. D. Atkinson, Pastoral Ethics (Oxford: Lynx Communications, 1994), 12–13.
63. D. Gill lists faithfulness as the first of the virtues in Being Good: Building Moral Character (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 103–13.
64. Kidner, Proverbs, 59.
65. Hubbard, Proverbs, 48.
66. After S. Hauerwas, A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (Notre Dame, Ind.: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1981).
67. See W. P. Brown, Character in Crisis: A Fresh Approach to the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996).
68. Throughout the commentary, use of “Yahweh” signifies the tetragrammaton YHWH (NIV, “LORD”).
1. See the introduction on these topics.
2. AEL, 1:63; ANET, 413 (sec. 40).
3. W. P. Brown, Character in Crisis, 23–30, sees a chiastic or mirror pattern that distinguishes: comprehensive intellectual virtues (1:2a and 7), literary expressions of wisdom (1:2b and 6), instrumental virtues (1:3a and 4–5), and, at the center position of greatest importance, moral and communal virtues (1:3b).
4. Kidner, Proverbs, 36.
5. See the section “Wisdom in the Old Testament” in the introduction.
6. Scott, Proverbs, 36.
7. Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 36, understands śekel as insight, “the ability to grasp the meanings or implications of a situation or message,” combining understanding and expertise.
8. Brown, Character in Crisis, 42. See also footnote 3. Brown sees a chiastic structure in verses 2–7 with these three terms at the center focus.
9. Whybray, Proverbs, 32.
10. Scott, Proverbs, 33.
11. McKane, Proverbs, 265, noting that both terms “border on the pejorative,” takes this as an indication that early wisdom teaching was secular and pragmatic to a fault. But there is no reason to look to a hypothetical history of the text to explain the jarring use of terminology here.
12. Scott L. Harris, Proverbs 1–9: A Study of Inner-Biblical Interpretation (SBLDS 150; Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1995), 191–93.
,” 14. McKane, Proverbs, 266.
15. Crenshaw, Education in Ancient Israel, 66–69.
16. J. Day, “Foreign Semitic Influence on the Wisdom of Israel and Its Appropriation in the Book of Proverbs,” in Wisdom in Ancient Israel: Essays in Honour of J. A. Emerton, ed. J. Day, R. P. Gordon, and H. G. M. Williamson (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995), 67. Fear of the deity, while not central to Babylonian wisdom literature, can be found in the “Counsels of Wisdom” and the “Babylonian Theodicy.”
17. See the section “Fear of Yahweh” in the introduction.
18. For this idea of a distinct readership, see C. Seitz, World Without End: The Old Testament As Abiding Theological Witness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), chs. 7, 10.
19. Kurt Rudolph, “Wisdom,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: MacMillan, 1987), 15:393–401.
20. B. A. Kimball, Orators and Philosophers: A History of the Idea of Liberal Education (New York: College Entrance Examination Board, 1995). Some rhetoricians were known as “sophists” or “teachers of wisdom,” G. A. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1980), 25–40.
21. R. J. Clifford speaks of three dimensions in wisdom: sapiential (a way of seeing reality), ethical (a way of conducting oneself), and religious (a way of relation to the order of God); see The Wisdom Literature (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), 50, after L. Alonso-Schoekel, Proverbios (Madrid: Ediciones Christiandad, 1984).
22. Stanley Hauerwas, Wilderness Wanderings: Probing Twentieth Century Theology and Philosophy (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1997), 171. “Good writers therefore try to force those of us who read them to attend to what we read, for in so doing, they demand of us the formation of new habits, which thereby changes our lives,” 172.
23. For help in preaching from the book of Proverbs, E. Achtemeier, Preaching from the Old Testament, and D. Gowan, Reclaiming the Old Testament for the Christian Pulpit, have chapters on preaching from the wisdom literature. T. Long, Preaching and the Literary Forms of the Bible, and A. M. McKenzie, Preaching Proverbs, have chapters dedicated to the book of Proverbs.
24. R. Clapp, A Peculiar People: The Church As Culture in a Post-Christian Society (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996), offers some suggestions.
25. D. J. Estes, Hear My Son: Teaching and Learning in Proverbs 1–9 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 14.
26. Ashely Woodwiss supports this point while arguing for another: “While the term catechesis may be off-putting to some Protestants (and invoke painful memories for some Catholics!) it points to the substantive differences that ought to exist between Christian educational practice and secularized public education. Education is always character formation. The question is, what kind of character and for what?” “What Is the Church Good For?” Books and Culture 3/6 (1997): 39.
27. J. R. Wilson, Gospel Virtues: Practicing Faith, Hope, and Love in Uncertain Times (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 72–88. Four features of faith apply to education in the book of Proverbs: It is all encompassing and does not fall into secularism, it is communal, it is a gift, and it makes personal demands.
28. M. G. Witten, All Is Forgiven: The Secular Message in American Protestantism (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993).
29. W. R. Baker, Sticks and Stones: The Discipleship of Our Speech (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996). Baker expounds the biblical teaching of speech ethics with frequent reference to ancient Near Eastern wisdom, Greek philosophy and rhetoric, and the rabbinic tradition.
30. Cited in D. Beckmann and A. Simon, Grace at the Table: Ending Hunger in God’s World (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 4. The authors, leaders in Bread for the World, a Christian citizen’s movement, recommend political action to accompany the work of feeding hungry people. Changing national policies, they argue, will bring about long-term results.
1. See the introduction for a discussion of how young women can appropriate teaching that is not addressed to them. Although everyone faces this problem as readers of an ancient text, it is especially acute for female readers.
2. T. A. Hildebrandt, “Proverb,” in Cracking Old Testament Codes: A Guide to Interpreting the Literary Genres of the Old Testament, ed. D. B. Sandy and R. L. Giese Jr. (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1995), 240. R. Murphy, Wisdom Literature, 55, finds similarities to the casuistic, “If you are . . .” in Ptahhotep, but there are no indications of the court context of Ptahhotep here.
3. Hubbard, Proverbs, 51.
4. Van Leeuwen, “Proverbs,” 38.
5. Kidner, Proverbs, 60.
6. Note that outcomes are also compared. The “my son” of 1:8 and 15 are both followed by motive clauses marked by “for” (ki). T. Boys, Tacita Sacra (London: T. Hamilton, 1824), quoted in R. Meynet, Rhetorical Analysis: An Introduction to Biblical Rhetoric (Sheffield: Academic Press, 1998), 97.
7. Crenshaw, Education in Ancient Israel, 116.
8. O. Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms, trans. T. J. Hallett (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), 92.
9. Clifford, The Wisdom Literature, 58, translates both occurrences with “senselessly.”
10. While the translation is not Garrett’s, the insight is his; Proverbs, 70.
11. M. L. Taylor, “Local Perspective: The Principal of Albany Park Multicultural Academy Speaks Out on Gangs,” Hands-On 9/4 (1999): 4.
12. See also Mic. 7:2, “All men lie in wait to shed blood; each hunts his brother with a net.”
13. Many commentators view this as a gloss, a quote inserted from Isa. 59:7 to explain the enigmatic proverb in Prov. 1:17. R. J. Clifford, “The Text and Versions of Proverbs,” in Wisdom, You Are My Sister (CBQMS 29; Washington, D. C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1997), 48. The reference to Isaiah does seem intentional, but for a different purpose as explained above.
14. Harris, Proverbs 1–9, 43, 52–61.
15. Ibid., 52–65. Harris argues that the citations are intentional, reinforcing the parent’s instructions with teaching from the Torah and Prophets.
16. B. Anderson, “Musings: Being Taught While Serving,” Hands-On 9/4 (1999): 21, 30.
17. J. B. Schor, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (New York: Basic Books, 1991).
18. J. B. Schor, The Overspent American: Upscaling, Downshifting, and the New Consumer (New York: Basic Books, 1998).
19. Schor’s book is reviewed, along with Robert Frank’s Luxury Fever, in “No Satisfaction: The Trials of the Shopping Nation,” The New Yorker 74/43 (Jan. 25, 1999): 88–92.
20. Some help in understanding the problem can be found in R. Clapp, ed., The Consuming Passion: Christianity and the Consumer Culture (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1998). Clapp observes that the “consumptive ethos is exceedingly complex,” 12.
1. Murphy, Wisdom Literature, 55.
2. See the survey of views in C. V. Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1985), 23–46; and J. Day, “Foreign Semitic Influence on the Wisdom of Israel and its Appropriation in the Book of Proverbs,” in Wisdom in Ancient Israel: Essays in Honour of J. A. Emerton, ed. J. Day, R. P. Gordon, and H. G. M. Williamson (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995), 68–70.
3. See the Akkadian Oracles and Prophecies spoken by women and goddesses, ANET, 449–51. Unlike Wisdom, these goddesses direct worship to themselves: “I am Ishtar of Arbela. . . . When you were small, I sustained you. Fear not, praise me!”
4. R. Murphy, The Tree of Life: An Exploration of Biblical Wisdom Literature, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 133–34.
5. Hubbard, Proverbs, 55, rightly observes that this address is the negative antithesis of the speech in ch. 8.
6. See also Ex. 10:3; 1 Sam. 1:14; 2 Sam. 2:26; Hos. 6:5.
7. Harris, Proverbs 1–9, 93–95. In the early days of this country, women speakers such as Harriet Livermore, who preached before Congress, claimed that like the prophets, they received their authority to speak from God. See M. W. Casey, “The First Female Public Speakers in America (1630–1840): Searching for Egalitarian Christian Primitivism,” JCR 23/1 (March 2000): 1–28.
8. “Give heed to my reproof; I will pour out my thoughts to you. . . .”
9. R. Murphy translates the first phrase as yet another rejection of Wisdom, “turn from my reproof,” but this move toward consistency is unnecessary (“Wisdom’s Song: Proverbs 1:20–23,” CBQ 48 [1986]: 456–60).
10. P. Trible, “Wisdom Builds a Poem: The Architecture of Proverbs 1:20–33,” JBL 94 (1975): 509–18. D. Garrett, Proverbs, 71, and Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 101–4, propose different arrangements.
11. Garrett, Proverbs, 71.
12. Abstracts of quality often take feminine plural (B. K. Waltke and M. O’ Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax [Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990], 121, sec. 7.4.2).
13. Trible reviews scholarly opinion and derives four roles: preacher of repentance, prophet, teacher, and counselor, “Wisdom Builds a Poem,” 509.
14. See McKane, Proverbs, 274–76.
15. Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 99, understands the verb as only a call to attention, but the larger context supports a sense of turning to repent or “respond.”
16. B. Waltke, “Lady Wisdom as Mediatrix: An Exposition of Proverbs 1:20–33,” Presbyterion: Covenant Seminary Review 14 (Spring 1988): 1–15. Waltke understands her role as that of a mediator who speaks to humans with the authority of divine revelation.
17. Rosemary Reuther expressed surprise that the idea of prayer to Sophia or Divine Wisdom would provoke criticism, since she understands it as one of the many biblical images for God (“Divine Wisdom and Christian Fear: The Controversy over Female God-Images in the Churches Today,” 30 Good Minutes: The Chicago Sunday Evening Club, broadcast January 1, 1995).
18. A. Campolo, “The Faith Equation,” in Ten Great Preachers: Messages and Interviews, ed. B. Turpie (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 29–31.
19. I argued this point in “Preaching Lawfully,” Ex Auditu 11 (1995): 145–52.
20. “School Gives Teens Another Chance,” Chicago Tribune, Friday, Aug. 23, 1998.
1. AEL, 2:149; see also ANET, 421–22.
2. McKane, Proverbs, 278–81, claims that strictly speaking, the typical components of ancient Near Eastern instructions (imperatives, motives, and conclusions: “Do this . . . for . . . so that . . .”) are not in this text. However, if one takes the whole chapter as a literary unit, all three can be found: imperative (“turn your ear to wisdom,” 2:1–4), motive (“he guards the course of the just,” 2:8–19), and conclusion (“thus you will walk in the ways of good men,” 2:20–22).
3. See D. N. Freedman, “Acrostic Poems in the Hebrew Bible: Alphabetic and Otherwise,” CBQ 48 (1986): 408–31; “Acrostics and Metrics in Hebrew Poetry,” HTR 65 (1972): 367–92, for examples in Lam. 5, Ps. 33 and 94, and Proverbs.
4. D. N. Freedman, “Proverbs 2 and 31: A Study in Structural Complementarity,” in Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg, ed. M. Cogan, B. L. Eichler, and J. H. Tigay (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 47–55. Both acrostics, having nearly identical counts of syllables, serve as a set of bookends, a structure echoed in Sirach.
5. After Scott, Proverbs, 43–43.
6. Murphy, Proverbs, 14, after P. Skehan, “The Seven Columns of Wisdom’s House in Proverbs 1–9,” in Studies in Israelite Poetry and Wisdom (CBQMS 1; Washington, D. C.: Catholic Biblical Association, 1971), 9.
7. Garrett, Proverbs, 75, argues that the section on God emphasizes understanding God and his ways, the second on wisdom emphasizes “proper and careful behavior in life.”
8. See the connection between mining and wisdom in Job 28.
9. M. V. Fox, “The Pedagogy of Proverbs 2,” JBL 113 (1994): 237. Fox argues that “incline the heart” denotes more than paying attention but actually desiring and choosing, as in Judg. 9:3; 1 Kings 11:3; and Ps. 119:36, encompassing both attention and the action that results.
10. “The Teaching of Duaf’s son Khety,” in R. B. Parkinson, Voices from Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Middle Kingdom Writings (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 75–76.
11. Fear and knowledge are “the two classic Old Testament terms for true religion—the twin poles of awe and intimacy” (Kidner, Proverbs, 61).
12. Clifford, Proverbs, 44, has “resourcefulness” in agreement with M. V. Fox, “Words for Wisdom,” ZAH 6 (1993): 149–69, who stresses the attribute or “ability to devise plans and stratagems of a sort that give one power, particularly in conflicts,” over the outcome it brings.
13. A. Ross, “Proverbs,” 912, says that “the term includes the ideas of both sound wisdom and its effect: viz., abiding success, i.e., achievement and deliverance.”
14. C. C. Maier, “Conflicting Attractions: Parental Wisdom and the ‘Strange Woman’ in Proverbs 1–9,” in Wisdom and Psalms: A Feminist Companion to the Bible (Second Series), ed. A. Brenner and C. R. Fontaine (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 104. Maier suggests that the symbol of the wicked men possibly reflects a historical group of “upper-class males who gain their riches not through inherited wealth but by taking part in international trade and usury.” Such a view allegorizes the violence and thievery, ignores the evidence for symbolism of prophetic concerns for covenant faithfulness, and overlooks the possibility that an upper class male can be led astray by petty thieving and womanizing. The biblical image of violent men is applicable to a wide range of situations without an appeal to historical speculation. Shakespeare’s Falstaff and the wild Prince Hal from Henry IV are examples of wild living done for its own sake.
15. See Mal. 2:14; all adultery involves some form of abandonment. Note that “partner of her youth” is restated as “wife of your youth” in Prov. 5:18; the theme of adultery applies to men and women alike.
16. See also Gen. 40:23 and Jer. 2:32 for forgetting in general. Other texts use the word for forgetting God (Deut. 8:14; Jer. 3:21) and God’s law (Hos. 4:6). Jer. 13:21–25 associates forgetting with adultery (13:27).
17. Warnings against adultery as a form of faithlessness against one’s neighbor are common in ancient wisdom literature, esp. in Egypt. “The Instruction of Ptahhotep” reads, “Beware of approaching the women! . . . A thousand men are turned away from their good; a short moment like a dream, then death comes for having known them” (AEL, 1:68).
18. J. Blenkinsopp, “The Social Context of the ‘Outsider Woman’ in Proverbs 1–9,” Bib 72 (1991): 457–73. C. C. Maier, Die “Fremde Frau” in Proverbien 1–9 (OBO 144; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), 99, argues that the mention of “covenant” names her as a member of Israelite society who has departed from its norms. Her loyalties are “other,” but her origin is not.
19. There is a good case that the terms make reference to the woman’s relation to another man. Whybray, Proverbs, 55, argues that the Bible uses zarah for persons outside the family or tribe, or even for a person other than oneself (Job 19:27; Prov. 14:10; 27:2). Therefore, the “other woman” could be “the wife of another man” and nokriyah a reference to another family (see Gen. 31:15).
20. Righteousness becomes the source or capstone for all other virtues, originating in the God who is “righteous in all his ways” (Ps. 145:17) and who “is our righteousness” (Jer. 33:16). Persons created in the image of God are to bear witness to this righteousness in their lives (Isa. 42:6). M. Ish-Horowicz, “Righteousness (ṣedek) in the Bible and Its Rabbinic Interpretations,” in The Interpretation of the Bible: The International Symposium in Slovenia, ed. J. Krašovec (JSOTSup 289; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 577–87.
21. Maier, Fremde Frau, 100–101.
22. If 1:7 marks the beginning of wisdom, 2:5 notes its culmination (see M. V. Fox, “Ideas of Wisdom in Proverbs 1–9,” JBL 116 [1997]: 620).
23. Skehan, “The Seven Columns of Wisdom’s House,” 9–10.
24. F. M. Wilson, “Sacred and Profane? The Yahwistic Redaction of Proverbs Reconsidered,” in The Listening Heart: Essays in Wisdom and the Psalms in Honor of Roland E. Murphy, O. Carm., ed. K. G. Hoglund et al. (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), 313–34. See also W. G. Jeanrond, “The Significance of Revelation for Biblical Theology,” BibInt 5 (April 1998): 243–57.
25. E. T. Charry, By the Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1997), vii. Charry dedicated her book to a young man who is serving a life-sentence in prison for following the way of violent men outlined here; she reports that she speaks with him every week on the phone.
26. W. P. Brown, Character in Crisis: A Fresh Approach to the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 40, after C. Newsom, “Women and the Discourse of Patriarchal Wisdom: A Study of Proverbs 1–9,” in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel, ed. P. Day (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1989), 156.
27. P. J. Nel, The Structure and Ethos of the Wisdom Admonitions in Proverbs (BZAW 158; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1982), 120–27. “The motivation and starting point of wisdom’s ethos is the recognition of evil,” 126.
28. Many will agree with David Gill: “We are living today in an ethical wilderness” (Being Good: Building Moral Character, 11).
29. Holmgren, “Barking Dogs Never Bite, Except Now and Then: Proverbs and Job,” 341–53.
30. Fox, “Pedagogy,” 241–43. Fox makes reference to medieval rabbinic commentators who thought that spiritual enlightenment must be awaited patiently.
31. Estes, Hear My Son: Teaching and Learning in Proverbs 1–9, 135–49.
32. M. Talbot, “A Mighty Fortress,” in The New York Times Magazine (Feb. 27, 2000).
33. M. Volf, “Floating Along?” in The Gospel and Our Culture 12/1 (March 2000): 1–2, reproduced from the April 5, 2000, issue of the Christian Century, 114.
1. M. V. Fox, “The Pedagogy of Proverbs 2,” 235, and Proverbs 1–9, 141–71, recognizes only two “lectures” (3:1–12, 21–35) with an “interlude” in 3:13–20. Also, McKane, Proverbs, 289; Meinhold, Die Sprüche I, 72–82; Scott, Proverbs, 46. R. C. Van Leeuwen, “Proverbs,” 47, sees a similar alternation between instruction and hymn at work in Prov. 8–9. P. Overland, “Did the Sage Draw from the Shema?” CBQ 62 (July 2000): 424–40, claims that correspondence with Deut. 6:4–9 establishes the coherence of Prov. 3:1–12.
2. Kidner also divides this way, Proverbs, 63–66.
3. A. Meinhold, “Gott und Mensch in Proverbien III,” VT 37 (1987): 468–77.
4. The heart is most likely the seat of intentions here, but in other contexts, the heart is said to experience distress (Ps. 13:3) and joy (Ps. 4:8; 13:6; 16:9). M. S. Smith, “The Heart and Innards in Israelite Emotional Expressions: Notes from Anthropology and Psychobiology,” JBL 117 (1998): 429. See also Van Leeuwen, “Excursus: The Heart in the Old Testament,” in “Proverbs,” 60–61; the heart is used metaphorically for the “internal wellspring of the acting self.”
5. So also Murphy, Proverbs, 24, speaks against the argument in favor of rewards presented by Whybray, Proverbs, 58–65.
6. S. Niditch, Oral World and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 86–87. The charge to write commands and bind them around the neck plays on the iconic value of writing.
7. Kidner, Proverbs, 64, notes the parallel with Cyrus, Isa. 45:13; cf. 40:3.
8. The LXX translates “and he punishes” in the second line of 3:12. The word mastigoi, “beats,” reads the Heb. kʾb as an imperfect verb instead of a noun (based on its use in Job 5:18), but the emendation to the Heb. required to read that way is unnecessary; the text makes sense as it stands.
9. In disagreement with Kidner, Proverbs, 64, and Scott, Proverbs, 47.
10. The term may refer to red corals, but since they are not as valuable in our day, the translation of “rubies” works well.
11. C. Kayatz, Studien zu Proverbien 1–9 (Neukirchener-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1966), 104–5, claims to have found an Egyptian precursor to this image. A drawing portrays a feminine personification of Maʾat, the Egyptian principle of order, holding a sign of life in her right hand and a scepter signifying rule and honor in the other. However, determination of influence is difficult and precarious; one should look first to the biblical context to determine the meaning of the image and acknowledge that a number of variations on a common image were widespread in the ancient world.
12. O. Keel and C. Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses and Images of God in Ancient Israel, trans. T. Trapp (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 393–405.
13. R. E. Clements, “Wisdom,” in It Is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture: Essays in Honour of Barnabas Lindars, ed. D. A. Carson and H. G. M. Williamson (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988), 68–69, suggests that associations from both traditions may have been in the mind of the wisdom writer.
14. W. Vogels, “ ‘Like One of Us, Knowing tob and raʿ’ (Gen. 3:22),” Semeia 81 (1998): 145–57.
15. R. Marcus, “The Tree of Life in Proverbs,” JBL 62 (1943): 117–20, argues that the phrase in Proverbs carries with it a connotation of health and healing that carried over into Jewish tradition. Modeled after the book of Proverbs, the book of Sirach has Wisdom describing herself as a number of desirable trees with blossoms, “a harvest of honor and wealth” (Sir. 24:17).
16. On the use of the tree and its association with happiness and reward in Ps. 1:3–5, see Y. Gitay, “Psalm 1 and the Rhetoric of Religious Argumentation,” in Literary Structure and Rhetorical Strategies in the Hebrew Bible, ed. L. J. de Regt, J. de Waard, and J. P. Fokkelman (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns), 237–38.
17. “Blessed” in 3:13 and 8:32, 34; “silver and gold” in 3:14 and 8:10; “rubies” in 3:15 and 8:11; “riches” in 3:16 and 8:20–21; “heavens,” “clouds,” and “foundations” in 3:19–20 and 8:27–29. See also the terms for worth in 31:10–12 and “blessed” in 31:28.
18. Fox, “Words for Wisdom,” 159–65.
19. D. Dorsey, The Roads and Highways of Ancient Israel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1991), 30–33. See also idem, “Travel; Transportation,” ISBE, 4:891–97.
20. Kidner, Proverbs, 66.
21. B. Alster, Proverbs of Ancient Sumer, 1:319 (UET 6/2 322).
22. Hubbard, Proverbs, 77, translates 3:29, “for he dwells with you for safety’s sake,” adding that neighborhood watch signs of today show that we also look to our neighbors for security.
23. Toʿabat is used in Deuteronomy with idols and the gold and silver used to make them (Deut. 7:25), blemished sacrifices (17:1), cross-dressing (22:5), and dishonesty in trade (25:16). Blessings and cursings come in 11:26–28 and 27:14–28:68.
24. Murphy, Proverbs, 23, calls the similarities, “cultic associations.” But R. E. Clements, “Abomination in the Book of Proverbs,” in Texts, Temples and Traditions: A Tribute to Menachem Haran, ed. M. V. Fox et. al. (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 211–25, argues that wisdom writers used the phrase for something that is wrong in and of itself. McKane, Proverbs, 301, insists that the common vocabulary is not an indication of interdependence but rather a general antipathy to injustice in the ancient Near East.
25. P. Nel, “
,” NIDOTTE, 4:131.
26. Q. J. Schultze, Communicating for Life: Christian Stewardship in Community and Media (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 26.
27. A correlation between Prov. 3:1–10 and Deut. 6 highlights the following echoes: “Bind” and “write” love and faithfulness (3:3; cf. Deut. 6:8–9), “all your heart” (Prov. 3:5; cf. Deut. 6:5), health and nourishment to body and bones (Prov. 3:7–8; cf. Deut. 6:5, “all your soul), “wealth” and “crops” (Prov. 3:9–10; cf. Deut. 6:5, “all your strength” or abundance, Heb. meʿod) (see Overland, “Did the Sage Draw from the Shema?” 427–33). Also the commands “do not forget” (Prov. 3:1; cf. Deut. 6:12) and “fear of the LORD” (Prov. 3:7; cf. Deut. 6:13) share common vocabulary.
28. Deut. 6:4–9: “sit,” “walk on the road [derek],” and “lie down” (cf. Prov. 3:24). Clifford, Proverbs, 52, does not conclude that Proverbs is talking about law, but “that there was a common tradition of exhoratory rhetoric among the scribes of Jerusalem.”
29. See also Vogels, “ ‘Like One of Us,’ ” 145–57. If Vogels is right that holding Adam and Eve back from the tree of life was the first act of salvation, we find another here in Proverbs: God’s correction offering another chance at life as it was meant to be.
30. The point is made very well in the final chapter of B. Hybels, Making Life Work: Putting God’s Wisdom into Action (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 192–206, a series of lessons from the book of Proverbs.
31. On the use of binary opposites in teaching, see K. Egan, Teaching As Storytelling: An Alternative Approach to Teaching and the Curriculum (London: Routledge, 1988), 27–31.
32. See the discussion of 3:11–12 in “Original Meaning” section, esp. the argument for translating “father” rather than “punish.”
33. W. Stegner, Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs: Living and Writing in the West (New York: Random House, 1992), xix–xx.
34. Ibid., xxi.
35. O. F. Williams and P. E. Murphy, “The Ethics of Virtue: A Moral Theory for Business,” in A Virtuous Life in Business: Stories of Courage and Integrity in the Corporate World, ed. O. F. Williams and J. W. Houck, (Lanham, Md.: Rowan & Littlefield, 1992), 13. The project was inspired by A. MacIntyre, After Virtue, 2d ed. (Notre Dame, Ind.: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1984).
36. C. S. Calian, “Religious Roots and Business Practices: Vignettes from Life,” in A Virtuous Life in Business, 85.
37. M. L. King Jr., “I Have a Dream,” in Three Centuries of American Rhetorical Discourse: An Anthology and Review, ed. R. F. Reid (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1988), 724. On King’s use of the Bible in his speeches and sermons, see R. Lischer, The Preacher King: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Word That Moved America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 197–220.
38. C. Plantinga Jr., Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 7–23. The preacher was my seminary teacher, Dr. C. John Weborg.
1. McKane, Proverbs, 302–3; see also N. C. Habel, “The Symbolism of Wisdom in Proverbs 1–9,” Int 26 (April 1972): 131–57.
2. Plaut, Proverbs, 67: “The father speaks as if he were in the place of divine authority, and indeed Jewish tradition compares the parent to God.”
3. G. Baumann, “A Figure with Many Facets: The Literary and Theological Functions of Personified Wisdom in Proverbs 1–9,” in Wisdom and Psalms: A Feminist Companion to the Bible, 2d series, ed. A. Brenner and C. R. Fontaine (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 46–52.
4. Whybray, The Book of Proverbs, 22–25.
5. Clifford, Proverbs, 61, proposes an association with 1 Kings 3:7 and Solomon’s claim that he is “only a child.” See also Sir. 51:13–30; Wisd. Sol. 7:1–14, where the young person seeks wisdom directly from the Lord.
6. R. Murphy, “Wisdom and Eros in Proverbs 1–9,” CBQ 50 (1988): 600–603; Proverbs, 27–29.
7. Garrett, Proverbs, 87; Kidner Proverbs, 67; Kidner observes that the phrase calls for the decision to pursue wisdom more than intelligence.
8. D. Grossberg, “Multiple Meaning: Part of a Compound Literary Device in the Hebrew Bible,” East Asia Journal of Theology 4 (1986): 77–86.
9. Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 171.
10. On the garland and crown, see also 16:31; Isa. 62:3; Jer. 13:18; Ezek. 16:12. Recall that “the wise inherit honor,” Prov. 3:35.
11. The contrast of light and dark has been called an “archetypal metaphor” because it is readily understood, applicable to a wide range of situations and able to evoke intense emotions. M. Osborne, “Archetypal Metaphor in Rhetoric: the Light-Dark Family,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 53 (1967): 115–26.
12. This description of the two paths does not speak in the imperative voice of the instruction, but that does not mean it is to be separated from it as Whybray, Composition, 13, suggests. Rather, the metaphor of the path links it to the instruction (cf. 3:17) and serves as its climax (see Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 182).
13. Van Leeuwen, “Proverbs,” 59, points out that the adulteress does not know her paths are crooked (5:6), the simple young man goes to his death “not knowing” (7:23), and those who go to Folly’s house “do not know” that the dead are there (9:18).
14. Heart can refer to mind (3:3; 6:32; 7:7), emotions (15:3, 15), will (11:20; 14:14), or one’s whole inner being (3:5) (see Kidner, Proverbs, 68).
17. B. Alster, Proverbs of Ancient Sumer: The World’s Earliest Proverb Collections, 2 vols. (Bethesda, Md.: CDL Press, 1997), 1:24.
18. Using another Heb. word for “turn” (swr), the metaphor of right and left was well established (Deut. 5:32; 17:11; 28:14; Josh. 23:6).
19. McKane, Proverbs, 311; Kidner, Proverbs, 68.
20. C. H. Kraft, Communication Theory for Christian Witness, rev. ed. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1991), 4–10.
21. M. Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998), 105–7.
22. J. E. Loader, The Logic of the Spirit: Human Development in Theological Perspective (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998), 5. Loader views the question as a cry of the human spirit “to someone or someplace beyond the self.” “The human spirit, for all its creative energy, will wander aimlessly through time without any sense of its true center of gravity unless it is seized by the Spirit of God. Then it may beg on its knees to be transformed and thereby be conformed to what God is doing in the world to make persons human the way Jesus was human” (54–55).
23. J. Crenshaw, “The Missing Voice,” in A Biblical Itinerary: In Search of Method, Form and Content: Essays in Honor of George W. Coats, ed. E. E. Carpenter (JSOTSup 240; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 133–43.
24. J. Westerhoff, Spiritual Life: The Foundation for Preaching and Teaching (Knoxville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 42. Westerhoff believes that the best teachers are those who know how to make a place for the learner to ask questions and search for answers.
25. A. Peetoom, “One Christian’s Defense of Whole Language,” Christian Educators Journal (December 1993): 23–25. I’m grateful to David Lindberg for giving me a copy of this article.
1. The four descriptions of the strange woman (NIV “adulteress”) are in 2:16–19; 5:1–14; 6:24–35; 7:5–27. Each adds its details to the composite picture of the strange woman. The warning in this chapter is filled with images of loss and dissipation, a contrast between keeping what is one’s own and losing it to others (waters and wife). Ch. 6 lays out the problem of the wrathful husband, ch. 7 on the words of the strange woman and their deadly lure. Each description begins with nearly identical words for her seductive speech.
2. Skehan, “The Seven Columns of Wisdom’s House in Proverbs 1–9,” 9–14.
3. Clifford, Proverbs, 69, points out the contrast between the dangers of the forbidden woman (vv. 1–14) and the joys of loving one’s own wife (vv. 15–23).
4. R. L. Harris, “Why Hebrew Sheʾol Was Translated ‘Grave,’ ” in The NIV: The Making of a Contemporary Translation, ed. K. L. Barker (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 58–71. See also E. Merrill’s observation that šeʾol is both a place and power (“
,” NIDOTTE, 4:6–7). The emphasis here is likely on place, the end of the woman’s path.
5. Scott, Proverbs, 54.
6. The young man is to drink from his own cistern, not hers (5:15), and we might even look to the intoxication in 5:19, 20, and 23 as part of the eating and drinking motif.
7. Plaut, Proverbs, 75.
8. Garrett, Proverbs, 91–92, translates, “her ways wander and you do not know it,” arguing that the death of the young man is at issue. The masculine second person “you” is consistent with 5:9, but the third person feminine is consistent with the verbs of 5:3–6. I take it as decisive that “her paths are crooked,” the clear reading, is in parallel with the person who does not consider her paths (so also Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 193).
9. See Perdue, Proverbs, 120–21, for a summary of the view that “strangers” represent foreign religions, and McKane, Proverbs, 311–20, for the argument against it.
10. Blenkinsopp, “The Social Context of the ‘Outsider Woman’ in Proverbs 1–9,” 457–73. See also Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs, 269. Camp sees the intermarriage of the exiles in Ezra 10:2–11 as a possible background, particularly the forfeiture of property described in 10:8. However, the similarities do not by themselves establish a historical connection. While a canonical reading can better understand the significance of the teaching in Proverbs by reading Ezra, using Ezra as the historical referent is not warranted when reading a text that only makes historical references to Solomon and Hezekiah.
11. See Whybray, Proverbs, 88.
12. Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 194–97. Fox rightly suggests that “strength” in 5:9 points to the productivity of procreation and agriculture, both of which produce a kind of wealth and strength. One has offspring to help one build up one’s substance. To lose these would be to lose one’s legacy.
13. R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York: Basic Books, 1985), 179–84.
14. See Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 200–201, for a brief history of interpretation.
15. For physical love described as drinking wine, see Song 1:4; 4:10; 5:1; 7:9; 8:2.
16. P. A. Kruger, “Promiscuity or Marriage Fidelity? A Note on Prov. 5:15–18,” JNSL 13 (1987): 61–68.
17. W. C. Kaiser Jr., “True Marital Love in Proverbs 5:15–23 and the Interpretation of the Song of Songs,” in The Way of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Bruce K. Waltke, ed. J. I. Packer and S. K. Soderlund (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 106–16. Kaiser concludes that the water satisfies a husband’s desire. It is best not to look for distinctions in the five water metaphors (cistern, well, springs, streams, fountain), for they all point to the refreshing and life-giving qualities of water. Because it is scarce and precious in the Middle East, water spilled in the streets is like loss of life.
18. For cisterns privately owned, see 2 Kings 18:31; Isa. 36:16; Jer. 38:6. Kruger views the waters of the cistern and springs in the streets as symbols for one’s wife and the strange woman respectively, but the word for “strangers” in Prov. 5:17 is the masculine zarim, which cannot refer to the strange woman. If, however, the metaphor itself is “fluid,” then we have a hint that others, “strangers,” will ultimately possess what is the man’s own if he takes his own loving attentions and brings them to the street.
19. Hubbard, Proverbs, 93.
20. Scott, Proverbs, 55, translates, “As the saying is. . . .”
21. R. Murphy, “Wisdom and Eros in Proverbs 1–9,” CBQ 50 (1988): 600–603.
22. L. Lyke, “The Song of Songs, Proverbs, and the Theology of Love,” in Theological Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs, ed. C. Seitz and K. Greene-McCreight (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 210–11. Lyke contends that the metaphors for sexuality have human and divine registers that are “inseparable,” 222–23.
23. J. Goldingay, “Proverbs V and IX,” RB 84 (1977): 80–93, sees no relation between 5:20 and 5:21–23 and relocates verse 20 between 5:2 and 3, but this is unnecessary. Apart from the catchword that connects the three verses, one can also see the strategy for placement in the mirror structure of chs. 4 and 5.
24. Paths can refer to wagon tracks or as a metaphor for “habits” (Kidner, Proverbs, 71).
25. R. Murphy, “The Kerygma of the Book of Proverbs,” Int 20 (1966): 3–14.
26. Basic meaning is “to stray” (Ezek. 34:6), perhaps from drink (Isa. 28:7). One should not lead astray (Deut. 27:18; Prov. 28:10). The term can also stand for unintended error (Gen. 43:12; Ps. 119:67; Prov. 20:1; Eccl. 10:5; Isa. 28:7), but one may not excuse self (Eccl. 5:6) (E. Jenni and C. Westermann, eds., Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament, trans. M. E. Biddle, 3 vols. [Peabody Mass.: Hendrickson, 1997], 3:1302–4).
27. Ross, “Proverbs,” 931.
28. After the introduction of the theme in 2:16–19, sixty-five verses deal with sexual conduct. There are more verses devoted to the strange woman than to Woman Wisdom! (see Murphy, “Wisdom and Eros in Proverbs 1–9”).
29. K. Kayser, When Love Dies: The Process of Marital Disaffection (New York and London: Guilford Press, 1993), 1–3.
30. L. B. Smedes, Mere Morality: What God Expects from Ordinary People (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 160–67.
31. P. Ricouer, “The Nuptial Metaphor,” in A. La Cocque and P. Ricouer, Thinking Biblically: Exegetical and Hermeneutical Studies, trans. D. Pellauer (Chicago and London: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1998), 266–303.
32. M. Muggeridge, Chronicles of Wasted Time I: The Green Stick (New York: W. Morrow and Co., 1973), 269.
33. Plantinga, Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be, 123.
34. Aitken, Proverbs, 66.
35. J. M. Gottman and L. J. Krokoff, “Marital Interaction and Satisfaction: A Longitudinal View,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 57/1 (1989): 47–52.
36. Karen Kayser observes that couples who view marriage as a lifelong commitment do stay together in greater numbers, in part because of their intention to make it work. She also recommends that couples invest in learning marriage building skills and not wait until there are problems to seek help (When Love Dies, 122–26; 140–47).
37. J. W. McClendon Jr., Ethics: Systematic Theology (Nashville: Abingdon, 1986), 1:154. Following Jonathan Edwards, McClendon distinguishes grace-love (that loves for the good of the other) and delight-love (that brings good to the lover). Both are at work in this picture of married love.
38. M. L. Stackhouse, Covenant and Commitments: Faith, Family, and Economic Life (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), looks to the biblical covenant to guide discussions on marriage and family issues.
39. R. Russo, Straight Man (New York: Random House, 1997), 196.
1. Many interpreters have noted the interruption as well as the apparent lack of coherence in 6:1–19. For a summary, see Harris, Proverbs 1–9: A Study of Inner-Biblical Interpretation, 112–15.
2. Whybray, The Composition of the Book of Proverbs, 51, supports those commentators who find a common theme of folly in 6:1–11 and a theme of wickedness in 6:12–19.
3. In Israel, borrowing and lending was to be done in a spirit of charity, without charging interest (Ex. 22:25; Lev. 25:35–37; Ps. 15:5). Debts were to be canceled if one could not pay (Deut. 15:2), and lenders were not to take a millstone necessary for work or a coat necessary for warmth as security against the debt (Deut. 24:6, 10–13). The Bible includes many reports of creditors who were harsh (2 Kings 4:1; Neh. 5:1–12) and charged exorbitant interest (Ezek. 18:8; 22:12).
4. Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 213–14, cites Sir. 29:14–20: “Give surety for your neighbor (only) in accordance with your ability, and keep yourself from collapse” (cf. Sir. 8:13).
5. The ant appears again in 30:25 as one of four small but wise creatures; the second line recalls 6:8b (“they gather their food in summer”).
6. A letter from an Akkadian ruler also argues from the ant’s behavior: “Further, when (even) ants are smitten, they do not accept it (passively), but they bite the hand of the man who smites them. How could I hesitate this day when two of my towns are taken?” ANET, 486.
7. The motif is not limited to wisdom writings; the Bible often compares the knowledge of animals with the stubborn foolishness of humans (Job 12:7; Isa. 1:3; Jer. 8:7).
8. Hubbard, Proverbs, 99.
9. Perhaps this is why Jeremiah could complain, “I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me” (Jer. 15:10).
10. Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 219, observes that in Judg. 19:22 and 1 Kings 21:10, such men have reputations that precede them.
11. Hubbard, Proverbs, 101, views them as “hexes, spells, evil eyes, harmful omens,” and other acts of magic or witchcraft (cf. Deut. 18:9–14).
12. Whybray, Proverbs, 99–100, points to a similar form in Amos 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 13; 2:1, 4, 6.
13. W. M. W. Roth, Numerical Sayings in the Old Testament: A Form Critical Study (VTSup 13; Leiden: Brill, 1965); “The Numerical Sequence x/x+1 in the Old Testament,” VT 12 (1962): 300–311.
14. Hubbard, Proverbs, 102–3, sets all of 6:1–19 in the context of legal entanglements.
15. Whybray, Composition, 49.
16. Skehan, “The Seven Columns of Wisdom’s House in Proverbs 1–9,” in Studies in Israelite Poetry and Wisdom (CBQMS 1; Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association, 1971), 9–14, believes that 6:1–19 correspond to the introduction in ch. 2, particularly the mention of wicked men in 2:12–15. While those men also appear in 4:10–27 and possibly 3:29–35, the juxtaposition of evil men and the other/strange woman in ch. 6 is most like that of 2:12–19.
17. Murphy, Proverbs, 38, sees a reference to the Shema (“Hear O Israel”), Deut. 6:6–9 and 11:18–21, after Maier, Die Fremde Frau in Proverbien 1–9 (OBO 144; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1995), 153–58. Murphy goes on to suggest that parental teaching is placed on a level with that of Moses. Their teaching actualizes the commands, moving from matters of moral legislation to moral character.
18. Note that the woman assures the young man that her husband is on a distant journey in 7:19–20. Fear of meeting the wronged husband shows up in ancient Near Eastern texts as well.
19. E. Liebow, Tally’s Corner: A Study of Negro Streetcorner Men (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1967) is the classic study of urban poverty. More recently, B. Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting by in America (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001), documents the author’s experience of working at a series of minimum wage jobs.
20. M. R. Gornik, “Practicing Faith in the Inner City,” Books and Culture 7/3 (May/June 2001): 10–12.
21. Harris, Proverbs 1–9: A Study of Inner-Biblical Interpretation, 112–15, looks to the conflict and Judah’s taking of a pledge on behalf of Benjamin, but the connection is tenuous.
22. In Israel and the ancient Near East, adultery was a crime against the wronged husband, not the wife. See L. Purdue, J. Blenkinsopp, J. J. Collins, C. Meyers, Families in Ancient Israel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 183–85.
23. For example, the lazy and the wicked are juxtaposed in 10:3–4, 25–26. The scoundrel appears again in 16:27–30. Both chs. 10 and 16 mark the beginning of new sections; see the outline in the introduction.
24. Van Leeuwen, “Proverbs,” 74, particularly in realizing when one has made a mistake.
25. B. Hybels, Making Life Work: Putting God’s Wisdom into Action (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 36–38.
26. Ibid., 144.
1. G. A. Yee, “ ‘I Have Perfumed My Bed with Myrrh’: The Foreign Woman (ʾiššâ zārâ) in Proverbs 1–9,” JSOT 43 (1989): 53–68.
2. The viewpoint is extended into the individual sayings as well. The speech of the strange woman is a pit (22:14), and the prostitute is a pit that lies in wait (23:27–28).
3. The Instruction of Any, in AEL, 2:137. See also Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 102–3.
4. Yee, “The Foreign Woman,” 56.
5. Plaut, Proverbs, 99.
6. O. Keel and C. Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel, trans. T. Trapp (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 210. An ivory plaque from Samaria has a picture of a woman in a series of frames that appears to be a woman looking out a window, but the authors add that it is not clear if it depicts a goddess, a cult prostitute, or someone else.
7. For a summary of the position, see A. Ogden Bellis, “The Gender and Motives of the Wisdom Teacher in Proverbs 7,” in Wisdom and Psalms: The Feminist Companion to the Bible, Second Series, ed. A. Brenner and C. R. Fontaine, (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 84–86.
8. The apocryphal Sir. 9:7 includes in its warnings about prostitution and adultery, “Do not look around in the streets of a city, or wander about in its deserted sections.”
9. Plaut, Proverbs, 101.
10. P. Bird, “ ‘To Play the Harlot’: An Inquiry into an Old Testament Metaphor,” in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel, ed. P. L. Day (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 75–94. Texts like Hosea use the metaphor to name Israel as the despised zonah.
11. Clifford, Proverbs, 83, observes a wordplay on the prostitute’s clothing, so that “the woman may cover her breast (= heart) with a shawl while at the same time covering her heart (= mind, intent).”
12. Garrett, Proverbs, 106, and D. A. Garrett, “Votive Prostitution Again: A Comparison of Proverbs 7:13–14 and 21:28–29,” JBL (1990): 681–82. In both instances, the brazen face indicates a “bold faced lie.”
13. B. A. Musk, “Honour and Shame,” Evangelical Review of Theology 20 (1996): 164.
14. R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York: Basic Books, 1985), 57. Alter suggests that in this narrative (rare among biblical poetic texts), reported speech reveals character as it does in prose texts.
15. N. Kiuchi, “Spirituality in Offering a Peace Offering,” TynBul 50 (1999): 23–31.
16. K. Van Der Toorn, “Female Prostitution in Payment of Vows in Ancient Israel,” JBL 108 (1989): 193–205; G. Boström, Proverbia Studien: Die Weisheit und das fremde Weib in Spr. 1–9 (Lund: Gleerup, 1935), 120–34. Boström’s association with the goddess Astarte has been revived by J. B. Burns, “Proverbs 7:6–27: Vignettes from the Cycle of Astarte and Adonis,” SJOT 9 (1995): 20–36.
17. T. W. Carledge, Vows in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 55, 140. Clifford, Proverbs, 88–89, draws an interesting parallel with Judg. 11:30–31. The common vocabulary of “vow,” “come out,” and “meet,” suggests that the young man, like Jepthah’s daughter, will become a sacrifice that fulfills a vow, but this connection is tenuous.
18. However, linens and spices on a bed can also signify death and burial (2 Chron. 16:14; Matt. 27:59; Mark 15:46; Luke 23:53; John 11:44b; 19:40; 20:7). See R. H. O’Connell, “Proverbs VII 6–17: A Case of Fatal Deception in a ‘Woman and the Window’ Type-Scene,” VT 41 (1991): 235–41.
19. Alter, Art of Biblical Poetry, 59.
20. The word appears a third time when she says that her husband has “taken” a bag of money (7:20), even as his wife “takes” the young man with her “teaching.”
21. The NIV footnote follows the versions in reconstructing the Heb. to read, “like a fool to the stocks for punishment” (TNK).
22. N. S. Murrell, “Hermeneutics as Interpretation Part 2: Contextual Truths in Sub-Version Preaching,” Caribbean Journal of Evangelical Theology 3 (1999): 53–57.
23. Blenkinsopp, “The Social Context of the ‘Outsider Woman’ in Proverbs 1–9,” 457–73; H. C. Washington, “The Strange Woman (ʾissa zara/nokriya) of Proverbs 1–9 and Post-Exilic Judaean Society,” in Second Temple Studies 2: Temple and Community in the Persian Period, ed. T. C. Eskenazi and K. H. Richards (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), 217–42. The translators of the LXX took the other/strange woman as a symbol of foreign wisdom, particularly Greek philosophy; see J. Cook, “ʾishah zarah (Proverbs 1–9 Septuagint): A Metaphor for Foreign Wisdom?” ZAW 106 (1994): 458–76.
24. See, e.g., C. V. Camp, “What’s So Strange About the Strange Woman?” in The Bible and the Politics of Exegesis, ed. D. Jobling et. al. (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1991), 17–31.
25. C. Maier, “Conflicting Attractions: Parental Wisdom and the ‘Strange Woman’ in Proverbs 1–9,” in Wisdom and Psalms: A Feminist Companion to the Bible (Second Series), ed. A. Brenner and C. R. Fontaine (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 102.
26. An example of a clearly identified allegory is the parable of the trees in Judg. 9:7–21.
27. Yee, “The Foreign Woman,” 53–68. C. L. Seow, “Dangerous Seductress or Elusive Lover? The Woman of Ecclesiastes 7,” in Women, Gender, and Christian Community, ed. J. D. Douglass and J. F. Kay (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 23–33. Seow adds to the list of seductresses the woman who is a snare in Eccl. 7:25–29.
28. J. Cheryl Exum suggests that we always ask the question of a text, “Whose interests are being served?” J. C. Exum, “Feminist Criticism: Whose Interests Are Being Served?” in Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies, ed. G. A. Yee (Minneapolis: Fortress Press), 65–90.
29. C. A. Newsom, “Woman and the Discourse of Patriarchal Wisdom: A Study of Proverbs 1–9,” in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel, ed. P. L. Day (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 142–60.
30. A. Brenner “Proverbs 1–9: an F Voice?” and F. van Dijk-Hemmes, “Traces of Women’s Texts in the Hebrew Bible,” in On Gendering Texts: Female and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible, ed. A. Brenner and F. Van Dijk-Hemmes (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 113–30.
31. Bellis, “Gender and Motives,” 79–91. Bellis reminds readers that this concern for sexual freedom in particular and women’s freedom in general is both Western and contemporary; it was most likely not part of the cultural understanding of the original audience.
32. Ibid., 90–91.
33. C. Camp, “Wise and Strange: An Interpretation of the Female Imagery in Proverbs in Light of Trickster Mythology,” in A Feminist Companion to Wisdom Literature, ed. A. Brenner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 150; originally published in Semeia 42 (1988): 14–26.
34. For this reason, teachers of past generations, such as Richard Rolle, also warned young Christians to steer clear of women: “For nothing so harms a novice, nor is there any thing that so quickly draws the one sitting in prayer away from the heavenly symphony . . . like the pleasing beauty of a beautiful woman.” Quoted in A. W. Astell, The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1990), 113.
35. G. Spencer, A Heart for Truth: Taking Your Faith to College (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 115–33.
36. Clifford, Proverbs, 86–87, after D. Grossberg, “Two Kinds of Sexual Relationships in the Hebrew Bible,” HS 35 (1994): 7–25.
37. The teacher’s voice continues into chs. 8 and 9 as it quotes Wisdom and then Folly, but the direct address of “my son” disappears.
38. F. Rich, “Naked Capitalists,” New York Times Magazine (May 20, 2001), 51.
39. M. Sanborn and T. Paulson, eds., Meditations for the Road Warrior (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), cited in C. Crosby, “Advice for the Road Warrior,” Life@Work Journal 1/3 (August, 1998): 10–11.
40. R. M. Saucier, “One Reporter’s Story,” in Restoring the Soul of a Church: Healing Congregations Wounded by Clergy Sexual Misconduct, ed. N. M. Hopkins, and M. Laaser (Collegeville: Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1995), 191.
41. The image is Spencer’s, A Heart for Truth, 115–16.
1. See the discussion on personification in 1:20–33.
2. Meinhold, Die Sprüche, 1:135–37, sees a structure similar to the speech in ch. 1: Introduction (8:1–3; cf. 1:20–31), Wisdom’s Speech (8:4–36; cf. 1:22–33), Invitation (8:32–36; cf. 1:32–33). He notes that in 8:4–11, four lines speak to her addressees (vv. 4–5), eight to the quality of her speech (vv. 6–9), and four to the comparison of wisdom with treasures (vv. 10–11).
3. R. Murphy, “The Kerygma of the Book of Proverbs,” Int 20 (1966): 5.
4. G. A. Yee, “The Theology of Creation in Proverbs 8:22–31,” in Creation in the Biblical Traditions, ed. R. J. Clifford and J. J. Collins (CBQMS 24; Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association, 1992), 86.
5. E. Scheffer, “Archaeology and Wisdom,” OTE 10 (1997): 459–73.
6. Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 267, sees Woman Wisdom moving between places within and without the city walls.
7. Some commentators emend the word negidim (lit. “nobles” or “princes”) to read “straight things,” but Kidner, Proverbs, 77, disagrees. Perhaps here is a pun that looks ahead to wisdom’s assistance of kings and governors in vv. 15 and 16. Garrett, Proverbs, 107, suggests emending to “discerning” (mebin) after v. 9.
8. Murphy, Proverbs, 50.
9. T. B. Farrell, Norms of Rhetorical Culture (New Haven and London: Yale Univ. Press, 1993), 94–99, contends that establishing good character is not the task of the speaker alone but audience and communicator together. See 1:5 and 9:9 for a similar strategy of appeal to the character of the listener.
10. Comparable to the woman of Tekoa (2 Sam. 14), Abigail (1 Sam. 25), and Bathsheba (1 Kings 1); S. Schroer, “Wise and Counseling Women in Ancient Israel: Literary and Historical Ideals of the Personified HOKMA,” in A. Brenner, ed., A Feminist Companion to Wisdom Literature (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 67–84.
11. E. Teeter, The Presentation of MAAT: Ritual and Legitimacy in Ancient Egypt (SAOC 57; Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 1997). Teeter understands the scene as a legitimation of the king’s competence and authority to govern.
12. So, e.g., The Code of Hammurabi begins, “At that time Anum and Enlil named me to promote the welfare of the people, me, Hammurabi, the devout, god-fearing prince, to cause justice to prevail in the land. Hammurabi, the shepherd, called by Enlil am I, the one who makes affluence and plenty abound” (ANET, 164).
13. Murphy, Proverbs, 49. Clifford, Proverbs, 93, adds that the use of the first-person “I” sound unites the Heb. text of 8:12–21.
14. R. Van Leeuwen, “Proverbs,” 90, and “Liminality and Worldview in Proverbs 1–9,” Semeia 50 (1990): 111–44.
15. Clifford, Proverbs, 95.
16. B. Brummett, Rhetoric in Popular Culture (New York: St. Martins, 1994), 63–66, 157–59, calls this a metonymic function of artistic works: “Metonymy occurs when something complex is reduced to a more manageable sign of complex things, as when the complexities of British government are reduced into the public figures of the Prime Minister, or of the reigning monarch.”
17. H. C. Brichto, Toward a Grammar of Biblical Poetics: Tales of the Prophets (New York: Oxford, 1992), 258. “Biblical Hebrew, to the best of my knowledge, has no word for the abstraction expressed in our word art. And even in modern Hebrew there is no alternative to the loan word humor. Artistry, however, is one of the meanings of hokma (wisdom), and the closest approximation to the humorous is the root ṣḥq (smile, jeer, laugh).”
18. R. Murphy, The Tree of Life, 147, says: “The best one can say is that Lady Wisdom is a divine communication: God’s communication, extension, of self to human beings. And that is no small insight the biblical wisdom literature bequeaths to us.”
19. C. Fontaine, “The Social Roles of Women in the World of Wisdom,” in A Feminist Companion to Wisdom Literature, ed. A. Brenner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 33–34, observes that the speech of the other woman is a reverse image of the wifely virtues of ch. 31 and a perverse use of Woman Wisdom’s power of speech in chs. 1, 8, and 9.
20. Aristotle, On Rhetoric, trans. G. A. Kennedy (New York/Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1991), 2.1 (120–21). Kennedy uses the terms “practical wisdom” (phronesis), “virtue” (arete), and “good will” (eunoia).
21. I. W. Provan, “On ‘Seeing’ the Trees While Missing the Forest: The Wisdom of Characters and Readers in 2 Samuel and 1 Kings,” in In Search of Wisdom: Essays in Old Testament Interpretation in Honour of Ronald E. Clements, ed. E. Ball (JSOTSup 300; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 153–73. Provan argues that every mention of wisdom prior to Solomon’s requests illustrates the limitations of human wisdom and its machinations.
22. W. Janzen, Old Testament Ethics: A Paradigmatic Approach (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 17–19, calls the account a “wisdom model story” after P. K. McCarter Jr., I Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes and Commentary (AB8; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1980), 401. McCarter saw it as “a story about the education of a future king. David is like the young man to whom much of the Book of Proverbs is addressed. . . .”
23. See also Provan, “On ‘Seeing’ the Trees,” 165–71.
24. Meinhold, Die Sprüche, 1:139.
25. C. Knechtle, Give Me an Answer That Satisfies My Heart and Mind (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1986).
26. J. Ellul, Money and Power, trans. L. Neff (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1984), 35–72.
27. R. J. Foster, Money, Sex, and Power: The Challenge of the Disciplined Life (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985), 175. Foster’s discussion of power is essential reading.
28. The phrase is borrowed from R. Fisher and W. Ury, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (New York: Penguin, 1981).
29. Foster, Money, Sex, and Power, 228–48.
1. The concerns for speaker credibility, or rhetorical ethos, were discussed in 8:1–21. We might say with only a little exaggeration that the concerns of ethos shape the whole speech. The three qualities of the trustworthy speaker are: good character (integrity) 8:1–11; good will (love) 8:12–21; good sense (competence) 8:22–31.
2. Habel, “The Symbolism of Wisdom in Proverbs 1–9,” 131–57, argues that the primary symbol of the book is derek, the way of wisdom. Personified Wisdom is first a guide and protector, then the wayside counselor, then the cosmic, primordial force, who is “the beginning, impetus and source of Yahweh’s own way.”
3. Aitkin, Proverbs, 82, helpfully points out that the root meaning of “acquire” can be used for the acts of purchasing (Gen. 47:20), creating (Gen. 14:19), or begetting (Gen. 4:1). See also B. Vawter, “Proverbs 8:22: Wisdom and Creation,” JBL 99 (1980): 205–16, who would retain the meaning “acquire.”
4. J. A. Foster, “The Motherhood of God: The Use of God-Language in the Hebrew Scriptures,” in Uncovering Ancient Stones: Essays in Memory of H. Neil Richardson, ed. L. M. Hope (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1994): 93–102. After examining the four uses of the term for birthing (here and Deut. 32:18; Ps. 90:1–2; Isa. 45:9–11), Foster concludes that the point is not so much the motherhood of God as the imagery of creation having a beginning like a birth, so she translates “to bring forth in pain” or to “writhe in labor.”
5. Murphy, Proverbs, 52, sees a similar motif at work in Eliphaz’s taunts to Job (Job 15:7–8).
6. Each line begins with Hebrew be, which the niv translates “when.”
7. So we recall that the creation is a separating of waters above and below by means of a sky-firmament and a separation of dry land and seas by boundaries (back to Gen. 1 and 9). Job asked who possessed the wisdom to count the clouds and tip over the water jars of the heavens, and the answer to his rhetorical question is Yahweh (Job 38:37). Note Ps. 78:23: “Yet he gave a command to the skies above and opened the doors of the heavens.”
8. Van Leeuwen, “Proverbs,” 93–94; although the symbolic connection he sees between the waters here and the waters of sexuality in 5:15–20 is not as obvious. The link between boundaries of the sea and human behavior in Jer. 5:21–29 is much closer to the imagery set out here. On the boundaries of the sea, see Job 38:8–11; Ps. 104:6–9; 148:4–6.
9. G. A. Yee, “An Analysis of Prov. 8:22–31 According to Style and Structure,” ZAW 94 (1982): 58–66.
10. Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 287.
11. Van Leeuwen, “Proverbs,” 94–95, notes the delight and celebration at the completion of a construction project (1 Kings 8:62–66; Job 38:7; Jer. 30:18–19; 31:4; Zech. 8:5). Use of the verb for dancing and rejoicing at victory can be found at 1 Sam. 18:7; 2 Sam. 6:5, 21; 1 Chron. 13:8; 15:29; Jer. 30:19; 31:4.
12. Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 288–89, suggests that she plays before God, enjoying her study of the wonders of his work in the world, just as study in the Jewish tradition is considered a joy. See also Yee, “Theology of Creation” 85–96.
13. Perhaps this laughter plays on the mocking laughter of Wisdom’s detractors (śḥq italicized): fools find pleasure in evil conduct (10:23), a wicked person can deceive a neighbor and claim to have been joking (26:19), and a fool can go to court and scoff/mock (29:9), bringing misery.
14. C. L. Rogers III, “The Meaning and Significance of the Hebrew Word ʾamon in Proverbs 8:30,” ZAW 109 (1997): 208–20, argues that the words are in apposition, translating, “I was beside him, who is an ʾamon,” naming Yahweh, not Wisdom, as artisan. Murphy, Proverbs, 47, seeks to preserve the ambiguity with “Then I was with him, as artisan.”
15. Clifford, Proverbs, 23–28, 100–101, follows the tradition that takes ʾamon as a loanword from Akkadian ummānu, the scribe or sage who brought the arts to the world. She is therefore not a counselor to Yahweh but to humankind. See also Van Leeuwen, “Proverbs,” 94–95, who argues that the ummānu does represent an “architect-adviser.”
16. V. Hurowitz, “Nursling, Advisor, Architect? ʾamon and the Role of Wisdom in Proverbs 8:22–31,” Bib 80 (1999): 391–400; M. Fox, “ʾamon Again,” JBL 115 (1996): 699–702, argues for “being raised, growing up” (cf. Est. 2:20).
17. The images of building are clear in the poem, but it is not clear to me how this is creating a safe place for Wisdom to play as Yee, “Theology of Creation” 85–96, argues.
18. C. V. Camp, Wise, Strange, and Holy (JSOTSup 320; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), uses the symbols of Wisdom and the strange woman as a lens for the conflict in the Bible between that which is holy and that which is not.
19. While Wisdom may serve as a symbol of created order, as von Rad observed, she is more than the “self-revelation of creation.” G. von Rad, Wisdom in Israel (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972), 144–76. Murphy, Proverbs, 54–55, adds that she is the “revelation of God.”
20. So W. P. Brown, The Ethos of the Cosmos: The Genesis of Moral Imagination in the Bible (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 10–11, speaks of character using the original meaning of ethos as “stall” or “dwelling.” “At base, it designates a place or habitation.”
21. G. M. Landes, “Creation Tradition in Proverbs 8:22–31 and Genesis 1,” in A Light Unto My Path: Old Testament Studies in Honor of Jacob M. Myers, ed. H. N. Bream, R. D. Heim, C. A. Moore (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1974), 279–93. Both texts included the presence of primordial waters and the motif of priority in creation, but Prov. 8 uses ten different words for creation whereas Gen. 1 uses three or four. See also M. Bauks and G. Baumann, “Im Angang war . . . ? Gen. 1:1ff and Prov. 8:22–31 im Vergleich,” Biblische Notizen 71 (1994): 24–52.
22. So also the “twin pillars” of creation and covenant are woven throughout wisdom theology. R. L. Schultz, “Unity or Diversity in Wisdom Theology? A Canonical and Covenantal Perspective,” TynBul 48/2 (1997): 271–306.
23. Brown, Ethos of the Cosmos, 12–27, reminds us that ancient Near Eastern creation accounts often stood as symbols of the ideal social order.
24. C. V. Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (BLS 11; Sheffield: Almond Press, 1985), suggests that the symbol of Wisdom was a strategic response to the loss of the monarchy in postexilic Judaism.
25. S. Cole, M. Ronan, H. Taussig, Wisdom’s Feast: Sophia in Study and Celebration, new ed. (Kansas City, Mo.: Sheed and Ward, 1996). Included in this new edition is a report of the Sophia movement in the 1980s and early 1990s.
26. K. H. Jobes, “Sophia Christology: The Way of Wisdom?” The Way of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Bruce K. Waltke, ed. J. I. Packer and S. K. Soderlund (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 226–50, examines the claims of the Sophia movement in detail before concluding that the regendering is both anachronistic to the time of the Bible and inappropriate for our own. See also the discussions of personified Wisdom in 1:20–33 in this commentary.
27. S. Schroer, “Wise and Counseling Women in Ancient Israel: Literary and Historical Ideals of the Personified HOKMA,” in A. Brenner ed., A Feminist Companion to Wisdom Literature (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 195. Schroer believes that Wisdom’s picture of a counseling woman who can challenge, rejoice, and become angry is true to women’s experience.
28. See K. M. O’Connor, “Wisdom Literature and Experience of the Divine,” in Biblical Theology: Problems and Perspectives (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 183–95, who writes: “In contemporary rereadings of the text, Wisdom offers biblical theology a symbol of God who breaks the boundaries of gender and nationality, who relates to humans in intimacy and mutuality, and who joins them to the earth and to one another at her banquet of life.” O’Connor goes on to argue that the speech is an example of ancient Near Eastern aretology, in which a goddess praises herself. “Hence Proverbs 8:1–21 and the poems that follow (8:22–32, 32–36) by their very genre, cast Wisdom as a divine being.”
29. T. Longman III, How to Read Proverbs (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 109–10, reminds us that personification is a metaphor, a poetic device. Therefore, we must treat the analogy as a response to this poetic description of wisdom.
30. This discussion is indebted to D. H. Williams, “Proverbs 8:22–31,” Int 48 (1994): 275–79; and F. C. Holmgren, The Old Testament and the Significance of Jesus: Embracing Change, Maintaining Identity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 139–91.
31. E. Achtemeier, Preaching Hard Texts of the Old Testament (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1998), 111–15, reminds us that “personified wisdom is not divine or a hypostatsis or an incarnation of God: The monotheistic Hebrew Scriptures would never accept such a doctrine. She reveals the ways of God—of love and righteousness and life—that are built into the structure of the universe. Indeed we would not go wrong if we characterized wisdom as the plan of God, whereby he has ordered all the natural world and directed the course of human history,” 112.
32. Does this picture of a teaching woman speak to the issue of women’s leadership in the church’s ministry? Even if we grant that Wisdom is a personified literary figure and not a real teaching woman, she also embodies the roles of counseling women in the Old Testament, including Lemuel’s mother in Prov. 31. This image in itself does not establish a warrant, but it points toward a picture of women active in ministry, not away from it. See R. T. France, Women in the Church’s Ministry: A Test Case for Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), for a discussion of approaches to the question and a position favoring women in ministry.
33. R. Murphy, “The Kerygma of the Book of Proverbs,” Int 20 (1966): 3–14. “Only wisdom personified is said to proclaim (kerusso) in the LXX. What is the message? It is the message of life.”
34. P. A. Olson, The Journey to Wisdom: Self-Education in Patristic and Medieval Literature (Lincoln and London: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1995), contends that the early and medieval Christians did not foster a cavalier attitude toward the environment, as some have charged, but rather that their understanding of the wisdom tradition encouraged reverence toward the created world. D. Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom of God: An Ecological Theology (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1995), overreads the connection of Wisdom and Jesus but makes important points about environmental stewardship that are supported by the general teaching of Proverbs.
35. For a description of DeWitt’s work, see Q. J. Schultze, Communicating for Life: Christian Stewardship in Community and Media (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 1–4.
1. M. Odell Gilchrist, “Proverbs 1–9: Instruction or Riddle?” Proceedings of the Eastern Great Lakes and Midwest Biblical Societies 4 (1984): 131–45, believes that the instruction genre does not fit this chapter and that chs. 1–9 together form a riddle to expound the thematic statement of 1:1–7. McKane, Proverbs, 1–10, acknowledges that less than half of chs. 1–9 conforms to this definition of instruction. Moreover, the antithesis between avoiding the other woman and embracing Wisdom is not seen in Egyptian charges to avoid adultery.
2. Meinhold, Die Sprüche, 1:156.
3. Whybray argues that the prologue of Proverbs provides the hermeneutical lens for the rest of the book and should be consulted as a touchstone for interpretation, but not as a clue to a “grand structural scheme” (Reading the Psalms as a Book [JSOTSup 222; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996], 84).
4. R. C. Van Leeuwen, “Building God’s House: An Exploration in Wisdom,” in The Way of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Bruce K. Waltke, ed. J. I. Packer and S. K. Soderlund (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 204–11, shows the parallel between God’s founding the earth by wisdom, understanding, and knowledge (3:10–20) and building a house (24:3–4).
5. K. G. Sandelin, Wisdom as Nourisher: A Study of An Old Testament Theme, Its Development Within Early Judaism and its Impact on Early Christianity (Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 1986), 19–26. Sandelin shows how early Jewish and Christian communities did such allegorical reading.
6. M. V. Fox, “Ideas of Wisdom in Proverbs 1–9,” JBL 116 (1997): 626. See also Sir. 32:1–13.
7. Estes, Hear My Son, 122; Aitken, Proverbs, 90; Whybray, Proverbs, 142–43.
8. Clifford, Proverbs, 106.
9. Van Leeuwen, “Proverbs,” 102.
10. Skehan, “The Seven Columns of Wisdom’s House in Proverbs 1–9,” 9–14. Again, allegorical fancy has derived every sort of referent for the seven pillars, including the seven days of creation, the seven planets, the seven liberal arts, and the seven fruits of the spirit (see Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 297–98).
11. Susan Niditch suggests that it is a victory-enthronement banquet on the analogy of Isa. 55 (Oral World and Written Word, 22). Clifford, Proverbs, 104, notes that Isa. 55 requires turning from evil before eating the sacred meal; he also thinks that Folly’s call resembles the goddess Anat’s deceptive and dangerous invitation to Aqhat.
12. The picture extends the images of the tree of life (3:18), the protector (4:6–9), and a “sister” (7:4). In a sense, all three of the intervening images can be interpreted as metaphors for a good wife.
13. R. C. Stallman, “Divine Hospitality and Wisdom’s Banquet in Proverbs 9:1–6,” in The Way of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Bruce K. Waltke, ed. J. I. Packer and S. K. Soderlund (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 117–33. However, I do not agree with Stallman that Wisdom represents God, who is the host. Rather, she resembles him, and her feast resembles his provision of the wisdom tradition, which will teach and nourish those who accept the call.
14. Meinhold, Die Sprüche, 1:155–58.
15. The righteous person has appeared before (2:20; 3:33; 4:18), but for the first time such a one is associated with wisdom, perhaps a foreshadow of the contrast between the righteous and wicked central to chs. 10–15.
16. In the ancient Near East, teachers recognized that everyone can be taught, but some will not learn. The problem was not a lack of intelligence but will. M. V. Fox, “Who Can Learn? A Dispute in Ancient Pedagogy,” in Wisdom You Are My Sister (CBQMS 29; Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1997), 62–77.
17. The LXX adds some exposition: “Son, if you are wise for yourself, you shall also be wise for your neighbors; and if you should prove wicked, you alone will bear the evil. He that stays himself upon falsehoods, attempts to rule the winds, and the same will pursue birds in their flight: for he has forsaken the ways of his own vineyard, and he has caused the axles of his own husbandry to go astray; and he goes through a dry desert, and a land appointed to drought, and he gathers barrenness with his hands.”
18. C. V. Camp, “Woman Wisdom as Root Metaphor: A Theological Consideration,” in The Listening Heart: Essays in Wisdom and the Psalms in Honor of Roland E. Murphy, ed. K. Hoglund et al. (JSOTSup 58; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), 45–76.
19. The word “guests” comes from qrʾ, “to call.” The LXX does not present a tragic ending in 9:18: “But he knows that mighty men die by her, and he falls in with a snare of hell. But hasten away, delay not in the place, neither fix your eye upon her: for thus you shall go through strange water; but abstain from strange water, and drink not of a strange fountain, that you may live long, and years of life may be added to you.”
20. Gilchrist, “Proverbs 1–9: Instruction or Riddle?” 131–45.
21. R. Murphy, “The Faces of Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs,” in Mélanges bibliques et orientaux en l’honneur de M. Henri Cazelles, ed. A. Caquot and M. Delcor (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1981), 337–45. Murphy proposes that the inaccessibility of wisdom in Job and limits on human attainment in Ecclesiastes distanced wisdom so that Woman Wisdom and her call developed as a integration of divine call and human response.
22. Stallman, “Divine Hospitality,” 120.
23. R. Mason, Old Testament Pictures of God (Oxford: Regents Park College, 1993), 201–2. Mason adds that the personification also shows a breakthrough of the feminine part of God.
24. “Fear of the LORD” frames the instructions of chs. 1–2 and 8–9 (1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10; the phrase also appears in 10:27; 14:27; 15:33; 19:23; 22:4; 31:30). Themes appear in mirror fashion. In the first and last, “the fear of the LORD is the beginning” (1:7; 9:10), in the second and fourth it leads one to shun evil (1:29; 8:13), and the middle appearance urges seeking and finding Wisdom (8:13).
25. So also with the acquisition of “understanding” (binah). The proverbs promise to teach how one understands words of insight (1:2); the father urges the son to acquire understanding (4:1, 5, 7); Wisdom claims to possess understanding (8:14) and to be able to help others acquire it (9:6), directing them to the fear of the Lord and knowledge of the Holy One that is understanding (9:10).
26. Estes, Hear My Son, 123.
27. P. H. Gibbon, “The End of Admiration: The Media and the Loss of Heroes,” Vital Speeches of the Day 65 (June 15, 1999): 523.
28. W. D. Romanowski, Pop Culture Wars: Religion and the Role of Entertainment in American Life (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996). See also Romanowski’s Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2001).
29. N. Gabler, Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality (New York: Vintage Books, 2000), argues that our understanding of life has been profoundly shaped by the “reality” of the movies.