Do not withhold good (3:27). Generosity to the poor is a common theme in ancient Near Eastern wisdom. Typical is the following quote from the Egyptian Instructions of Any, but similar sentiments are found in the Babylonian Counsels of Wisdom as well as the Egyptian Ptahhotep and Ankhsheshonqy:29
Do not eat bread while another stands by
Without extending your hand to him.30
The Lord detests (3:32). See comment on 15:8.
He taught me (4:4). Here we learn that the father himself was the recipient of teaching from his father. The family is thus the locus of wisdom teaching, but it also provides the context for learning the law of God (Deut. 6) as well as the meaningful events of the past (Ps. 78:5–8).
The bread of wickedness … the wine of violence (4:17). The metaphor of ingesting food and drink is used to indicate the deeply engrained wickedness of the wicked. Ptahhotep uses similar language when he says: “He lives on what others die on; distortion of speech is his bread; he is ‘a dead man who is alive every day.’ ”31
The heart (4:23). In the Egyptian Complaints of Khakheperresonb,32 the main speaker dialogues with his heart, the center of his emotions, intellect, and will. Indeed, one might recognize in this composition how the heart may well be described as “the wellspring of life.”