Esther, must be allowed weight; the presumption is that the
arrangers of the Canonical books regarded it as being in general
later than the Prophetical books. No help can be got from the
titles. Examination of titles in the Prophets and the Psalms
(to say nothing of Ecclesiastes and Wisdom of Solomon) makes
it evident that these have been added by late editors who were
governed by vague traditions or fanciful associations or caprice,
be
and there is no reason to suppose the titles in Proverbs to exceptions to the general rule. The ascription of parts of Proverbs to Solomon (i. 1, x. 1, xxv. 1) means nothing for'us except that there was a disposition among the later Jews to refer their books to great names of the past, Enoch, Daniel, Job, Moses, David, Solomon, Ezra; as also, outside of Jewry, works were ascribed to Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Tacitus and others that were not composed by these authors. The supposition of a Solomonic authorship for Proverbs is excluded by the whole colouring of the book, in which monotheism and monogamy are assumed, without discussion, to be generally accepted, while in Solomon's time and by Solomon's self the worship of many gods and the taking of more than one wife were freely practised, without rebuke from priest or prophet. The high ethical conception of the kingly ofnce in Proverbs is out of keeping with the despotic character of Solomon's government. It is supposed, indeed, by some modern writers that the notice in xxv. 1 (“ These are proverbs of Solomon, that the men of Hezekiah king of Judah transcribed ”) is too circumstantial to be merely a late tradition or scribal guess. But similarly definite titles are prefixed elsewhere, for example, to Ps. li.-lx., where they cannot possibly be correct. Hezekiah's time may have been selected by the author of the title (or by the tradition which he represents) as being the next great literary period in Judah after Solomon, the time of Micah and Isaiah, or the selection may have been suggested by the military glory of the period (the repulse of the Assyrian army) and by the fame of Hezekiah as a pious monarch and a vigorous reformer of the national religion. But to regard Hezekiah as a Jewish Pisistratus is to ascribe to the time a literary spirit of which the extant documents give no hint; the literature of the age was wholly occupied with the past history, the religious conditions and the political fortunes of the nation, subjects alien to the book of Proverbs. The objections to the Solomonic age as the time of origination of the book apply also to the period extending from Solomon through the 6th century. But there are considerations that lead us to put its origin still later. One of these is the non national character of the thought. The historical and prophetical books and the Pentateuch are wholly concerned with the nation. For them Israel is the centre of the world, the point around which all other things revolv¢%every other people derives its claim to consideration from its relation to Israelthe only subject deserving attention is the extent of the Jewish nation's obedience or disobedience to its divinely given law, on which depends its prosperity or its adversity. In Proverbs there is a notable absence of this point of view. The name Israel and the terms temple, prophet, priest, covenant, do not occur in the book. The “ vision ” (that is, prophetic vision) in the Hebrew text of xxix. 18 (“ Where there is no vision, people throw off restraint ”) is an error of text. No writer who was acquainted with Hebrew history could suppose that there was any relation between the national morality and the abundance of prophetic visions; the period in which such visions were most numerous is precisely that in which the corruption of morals is painted by the prophets in the darkest colours and, on the other hand, the people are said (in Pss. xliv. and lxxiv.) to have been obedient at a time when there was no prophet. Moreover, this reading supplies no antithesis in the couplet, the second line of which is: “ But he who obeys instruction (or law), happy is he ”; we should expect the first line to read: “Where there is no guidance people throw off restraint, ” as in xi. 14: “ Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.” Prophets play so great a part in the early history that the ignoring of them here is significant. The decadence of prophecy is indicated in two passages that belong probably to the Greek period: in Lech. xiii. 2 sqq. prophecy is identified with the “unclean spirit, ” the pretender to visions is threatened with death by his parents, and, so great is the general contempt for the class, protests that he is no prophet but a tiller of the ground, accounting for the wounds on his person (such as these charlatans used to inflict on themselves) by declaring that they were received in the house of his friends (that is, apparently, in a drunken quarrel); from a very different point of view Joel ii. 28 seq. (Heb. iii. 1 seq.) predicts that in the latter times (in the ideal restoration of the people) all persons, free and bond, male and female, shall have the spirit of prophecy - that is, the old order shall be set aside and a new religious constitution established. Proverbs belongs to the time when prophecy, as a helpful institution, had disappeared, and wisdom had taken its place. So also the term law had here taken on a new meaning. It is no longer the law of Moses or that of the prophetic revelation-it is the standard of right doing resident in every 1nan's mind, the creation of wise reflection; such a conception lies outside the point of view that forms the very substance of Hebrew thought in the period prior to the 5th century. It is true that the nationalistic tinge is found in late writings (Chronicles, Psalms), and that its absence, therefore, is not merely a matter of date; but it is hardly conceivable that an author of any time before the 5th century could have ignored the nationalistic point of View so completely as Proverbs does. Another noteworthy feature of the book is the picture it gives of social life. The organization of the family is treated much more fully than in the Law and the Prophets, and has a more modern aspect. In Deut. xxi. 18 sqq. (of the 7th century) a disobedient son, complained of by his parents, is to be stoned to death by the men of the city; in Proverbs (xiii. 24, xxii. 15, xxiii. 13 seq., xxix. 15, 17) a bad child is 'to be chastised, and much is said of the training of children by instruction. The impression made by a number of passages (i. 8, xxiii. 22 al.) is that a regular system of family education existed, more definitely ethical than that indicated in Deut. vi. 7, which merely enjoins teaching children the details of the national law. In addition to this parental instruction we find hints of a sort of academic training, particularly in chs. i.-ix., in which the sage appears to address ga circle of youths. If we may credit the Talmudic tract Pirke;Aboth (ch. i.), Jewish academies under the charge of great teachers existed early in the 2nd century B.C., and the beginnings of such institutions may go back a century; they would probably be suggested by the Greek schools of philosophy, which early sprang up in Western Asia and Egypt under Alexander's successors.
Monogamy, as is remarked above, is assumed in Proverbs to be the recognized custom. Polygamy was legal and usual in the 7th century (Deut. xxi. 15) and the 6th (Lev. xviii. 17, 18), and doubtless continued to be practised some time after by the Jews, though on this point we have no definite information; Herod, who was a despot, and was not a Jew, cannot be taken as an illustration of Jewish custom; the obscure passage, Mal. IO sqq. (450-400 B.C.) may have monogamy in mind, but its position on this point is not clear. What is certain is that the definite assumption of monogamy is found only in such late books as Ben-Sira (Ecclesiasticus), Tobit and Judith. In regard to punishment for the violation of a husband's rights Proverbs shows a marked advance on the old usage. The Pentateuchal law (Lev. xx. ro) prescribes death as the punishment for adultery; Proverbs (v., vi. 27 sqq., vii.) treats the offence as a sin against the offender himself, an act of suicidal folly, the punishment coming sometimes from the jealous husband, but chiefly in the way of the physical deprivation and social ignominy that befall the adulterer. This change of punishment imports not a falling off in the moral standard but rather the conviction that a crime of this sort is best dealt with by public opinion; in any case it means a change in the constitution of society. The experiences described in Proverbs belong especially to city life. Something is said here and there bearing on agricultural pursuits, and there is a paragraph (xxvii. 23 sqq.)-a little treatise it may be called-enjoining on the landowner the
