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Pro 4:18., can easily be so understood. In the Mashal chains of chap. 4 and chap. 9 we meet with proverbs that are synonymous (Pro 9:7, Pro 9:10), antithetic (Pro 3:35; Pro 9:8), integral, or of one thought (Pro 3:29-30), and synthetic (Pro 1:7; Pro 3:5, Pro 3:7), of two lines and of four lines variously disposed (Pro 3:9., 11f., 31f., 33f.); but the parabolic scheme is not at all met with, separate proverbs such as Pro 3:27. are altogether without form, and keeping out of view the octastich numerical proverb, Pro 6:16-19, the thoughts which form the unity of separate groups are so widely expanded that the measure of the Mashal proper is far exceeded. The character of this whole part is not concentrating, but unfolding. Even the intermingling proverbs of two lines possess the same character. They are for the most part more like dissolved drops than gold coins with sharp outline and firm impress; as e.g., Pro 9:7 :
He that correcteth the mocker getteth to himself shame;
And he that rebuketh the sinner his dishonour.
The few that consist of four lines are closer, more compact, more finished, because they allow greater space for the expression; e.g., Pro 3:9.:
Honour Jahve with thy wealth,
And with the first-fruits of all thine income:
And thy barns shall be filled with plenty,
And thy vats shall overflow with must.
But beyond the four lines the author knows no limits of artistic harmony; the discourse flows on till it has wholly or provisionally exhausted the subject; it pauses not till it reaches the end of its course, and then, taking breath, it starts anew. We cannot, moreover, deny that there is beauty in this new springing forth of the stream of the discourse with its fresh transparent waves; but it is a peculiar beauty of the rhetorically decomposed, dissolved Mashal, going forth, as it were, from its confinement, and breathing its fragrance far and wide.
The fifteen discourses, in which the Teacher appears twelve times and Wisdom three times, are neither of a symmetrically chiselled form nor of internally fashioned coherence, but yet are a garland of songs having internal unity, with a well-arranged manifoldness of contents. It is true that Bertheau recognises here neither unity of the contents nor unity of the formal character; but there is no Old Testament portion of like extent, and at the same time of more systematic internal unity, and which bears throughout a like formal