SOCIOLOGICAL-STRUCTURAL CONSTRAINTS UPON WISDOM: Proverbs 15:28-22:16: Kovacs

SOCIOLOGICAL-STRUCTURAL CONSTRAINTS UPON

WISDOM: THE SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL MATRIX OF

PROVERBS 15:28-22:16

Brian Watson Kovacs

VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, PH.D., 1978

Used with permission

Digitized by Dr. Ted Hildebrandt and Dr. Perry Phillips,

Gordon College, 2007

PREFACE

This dissertation represents an attempt at

synthesis—and closure—to an intellectual odyssey that

has lasted nearly fifteen years. It combines disparate

elements, which may ultimately prove incommensurable. Its

conclusion has been much delayed, causing pain and frus-

tratin not only to me but to those who thought they saw

something of value in it and in the lines of inquiry sug-

gested by it. Time has made it a more thorough and mature

document, especially the analysis of Proverbs IIb itself,

though at the cost of some inconsistency and, loss of

clarity. Parts of this work were written at various times

over an eight-year period. Ideas change. Approaches

change. The writer who finished this work is far different

from the one who started it. From it, however, has de-

veloped a conception of interdisciplinary research and

teaching that may justify its deferral. Such integration

means that much impinges on what is actually said here that

cannot be dealt with adequately or at length. I have

faced the difficult choice of whether or not to cite my

other work. For one whose career and research are less

integrative, the choice is easy. Humility usually wins out.

I doubt the humility, however, of failing to mention what

iiii

is an inherent part of the formulative process. So, I

choose to cite myself, at the risk of seeming arrogant,

to clarify the synthesis which this work represents.

I wish that I could do justice to the encourage-

ment and support that I have received over so many years

in producing this dissertation. To mention some people is

to do injustice to others by leaving them out. I am

fortunate to have such good and caring friends, whose coun-

sel and whose friendship I value above all else in the

world. Jim Crenshaw has been friend, colleague and teacher.

I know that I am a mystery to him and that that mystery is

more grief than glory. His guidance and influence pervade

this work and the life that is represented through it.

Phil Hyatt ordered me to create a synthesis in my disserta-

tion.¹ hope some measure of what he sought can be found

here. John Gammie offered insight and encouragement when

the vision seemed to have been lost. Norman Gottwald pro-

vided a superb critique of the theses underlying the chapter

on Proverbs IIb. The Dempster Graduate Fellowship under-

wrote travel and research for some of the work on this

dissertation. To my Committee, working under duress—

Walter Harrelson, Dan Patte, Doug Knight, Howard Harrod—

I offer my thanks and condolences. Gene Floyd made sense

of the senseless and converted it into typed manuscript, for

which thanks are hardly adequate recognition. Many other

people should see themselves and their influence among

these pages; that friendship is beyond value or mere men-

tion. For all of them, this work at last is finished.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

PREFACE iiii

LIST OF TABLES vii

Procedure

Chapter

1. INTRODUCTION 1

Background 1

Procedure 13

II. THE DEFINITION OF WISDOM 31

III. A WISDOM TYPOLOGY 105

IV. HE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK OF PROVERBS 246

V. THE SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL MATRIX OF

PROVERBS 15:28-22:16 317

Introduction 317

Space 322

Time 475

VI. CONCLUSION 516

APPENDIX 519

SELECTEb BIBLIOGRAPHY 580

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1. Terms for "Wisdom," "Understanding,"

"Knowledge" . 520

2. Terms Relating to Folly or Ignorance 521

3. Additional Technical Wisdom Terms 522

4. Additional Technical Wisdom Terms

Peculiar to Proverbs 10 ff 523

5. The Semantic Field of Wisdom (Adapted

from Fohrer's Analysis) 524

6. Characteristics of Wisdom, Late Wisdom

and Myth (Adapted from H. H. Schmid) 527

7. Antithesis 534

8. Sayings Dealing with Yahweh 535

9. Architecture of Proverbs 15:28-22:16 538

10. Royal Sayings 540

11. Twb-mn Sayings 540

12. Twb Sayings (Word "Twb" Appears, Irrespec-

tive of Form) 541

13. Admonition or Vetitive Form 541

14. Propriety Sayings 542

15. Wisdom Terms 543

16. Elements of Wisdom 546

17. Lb Sayings 549

18. Ignorance 549

19. Folly 550

vii

Table Page

20. Discipline 550

21. 'Instruction' Sayings: Mwsr 551

22. Speech 551

23. Irony 552

24. Friend/Neighbor Sayings 552

25. Law Courts 553

26. Elements of Evil and Folly 554

27. Simple Retribution: Without Yahweh's

Agency 558

28. Gulf Between Wisdom and Folly 558

29. Adversity Sayings 559

30. Altruism 559

31. Noblesse Oblige 560

32. Wealth 560

33. The Powerful 561

34. Poverty 561

35. Hisd Sayings 561

36. Wisdom Standard of Values: Implied "Higher

Standard 562

37. Status Quo 562

38. Slave Sayings 563

39. Intentionality 563

40. Miscellaneous Special Concepts 540

41. Familistic Sayings 564

42. Contagion 565

viii

Table Page

43. Vulnerability 567

44. 'Way' Sayings: Drk 568

45. Observation (Form) 568

46. Descriptions 569

47. Pragmatic Sayings 569

48. Teaching 570

49. The Righteous 570

50. Purpose/End of the Wicked 571

51. Weights-Measures-Scales 571

52. 'Abomination' Sayings: Tw^cbh 572

53. Naturalistic Savings [Or, Neo-

Naturalistic] 572

54. Animals 573

55. War Sayings 573

56. (Rhetorical) Questions 573

57. Attitude 574

58. Light/Lamp Sayings 574

59. 'Spirit' Sayings: Rwhi 575

60. Correction, Admonition 575

61. Tradition 576

62. Npš: Sayings 576

63. Yr't-yhwh Sayings 577

64. Life Sayings 577

65. Death Sayings 578

Table Page

66. Sayings Involving "Fate" 578

67. Future 579

68. Sickness 579

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Background

As both literature and philosophy of life, the

Hebrew mashal holds a powerful elective affinity for the

Modern reader. Its seeming assurance about the means and

ends of 1ife is tempered with a certain irony. It often

exhibits a humanistic concern. Together, the sayings en-

capsulate and hold up to view features of human experience

that transcend a separation of considerable physical,

temporal, social and cultural space. Superficially, their

settings and their objectives seem to require no elaborate

translation. Literatures and philosophies arising from

entirely different social and historical settings may have

a special saliency, as it were an "elective affinity," for

a particular group at some specific time in its social

history.¹ Such is the case, I suggest, in our (hermeneutic)

¹Max Weber originally coined the term Wahlver-

wandtschaften--"elective affinities"--as sociological term-

inus technicus in the articulation of his theoretical

approach to the study of religion's development as social

ideology. He appropriated the word from the title of a

lesser-known novel of Goethe's. In his usage, it refers to

the dialectic relationship that exists between social

re-discovery of wisdom and wisdom literature.

Because the original setting is no longer relevant

in such affinities and because the new social application

invests these works and ideas with quite different meanings

and emphases, the literary historian must be scrupulous to

avoid anachronism which arises from attributing historical

validity to saliences that are in fact creatures of his

own time. The biblical scholar of this wisdom finds him-

self or herself today operating under just such prudential

admonitions. Certainly, intellectual understanding is

hermeneutic, indeed it may even be normative.¹ The scholar

structure and its legitimating ideology: each alters the

other in systematic, if not determined, ways. The explana-

tions that groups develop to interpret their social reality,

which are often derived through historical processes from

the cultural stuff of other peoples at other times and

places, have a basic compatibility with the social organiza-

tion which values, preserves and transmits them. This com-

patibility increases with time. Ideas change social struc-

ture; social organization alters its legitimating interpre-

tive system over time. Thus, all ideology is hermeneutic.

Elective affinities--the interactions between groups and

their interpretive realities--become powerful but creative

social forces. Weber's archetypal case is laid out in his

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans.

Talcott Parsons (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958);

and his "The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism,"

in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans., ed. and

with an introduction by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), pp. 129-56. See

also his Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive

Sociology, ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittig, trans.

Ephraim Fischoff et al., 3 vols. (New York: Bedminster Press,

1968), 2:447-529, 583-90.

¹Richard E. Palmer, Hermeneutics: Interpretation

Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger and Gadamer,

must somehow strive to manipulate this tool of our under-

standing without being in turn controlled or manipulated by

it more than some hermeneutically essential minimum.

Literary historical research is a cumulative and approxi-

mative science. As all our scholarly implements become

more sophisticated, as our application of them is refined,

issues we believe to have settled must be raised, debated

and answered again. We observe this kind of flux in current

studies of wisdom in general and of the mashal collections

of Proverbs in particular.¹

Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology and Existen-

tial Philosophy, ed. John Wild. (Evanston: Northwestern Uni-

versity Press, 1969), pp. 12-32. See also Hans-Georg

Gadamer, Truth and Method, A Continuum Book (New York: Sea-

bury Press 1975); and Karl Löwith, Nature, History and

Existentialism, and Other Essays in the Philosophy of History,

ed. with a Critical Introduction by Arnold Levison, Northwestern

University Studies in Phenomenology and Existen-

tial Philosophy, ed. John Wild (Evanston: Northwestern Uni-

versity Press, 1966).

¹James L. Crenshaw surveys this development in his

introduction to an important collection of essays reflect-

ing research into wisdom and the directions it has taken in

the last generation or so of scholarship, "Prolegomenon,"

in Studies in Ancient Israelite Wisdom, The Library of Bib-

lical Studies, ed. Harry M. Orlinsky (New York: KTAV Pub-

lishing House, 1976), pp. 1-60. See also his article

"Wisdom in the Old Testament," in The Interpreter's Dic-

tionary of the Bible: Supplementary Volume (Nashville:

Abingdon, 1976), pp. 952-56. In the same volume, see

Ronald J. Williams, "Wisdom in the Ancient Near East," pp.

949-52; and Hans G. Conzelmann, "Wisdom in the New Testa-

ment," pp. 956-60. Also, James L. Crenshaw, "Wisdom," in

Old Testament Form Criticism, ed. John H. Hayes, Trinity

University Monograph Series in Religion, vol. 2, ed. John H.

Hayes (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1974), pp.

225-64; Gerhard von Rad, Weisheit in Israel (Neukirchen-

All historical criticism of literature requires the

operating assumption that a work somehow, in form or con-

tent or motif, betrays and conveys the setting within which

it was constructed into its present form, however composite.

In a complex work, if we can isolate the earlier constituent

elements, we may be able to discern important aspects of

its socio-historical development, as well as the lineaments

of its literary history. Individual works may resist such

analysis, perhaps because they are too brief, their lan-

guage too ambiguous, or the effects of later redaction too

gross; but, to reject this working assumption is ultimately

to deny the possibility of doing meaningful study of lit-

erary works as the stuff of social and intellectual history.

How we retrieve this history is a question, of methodology.

If we accept, albeit with some generosity the implications

of affinities as hermeneutic, we may admit that different

methodologies will be effective with different elements or

aspects of this history. There is a congeniality--affinity

--of methodology and material, as well as of social struc-

ture and ideology. Indeed, we may need to be methodologi-

cally eclectic if we are to deal adequately with this

Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1970): On this concept of in-

terpretation as it applies to the development of exegesis,

see Georg Fohrer, et al., Exegese des Alten Testaments:

Einführung in die Methodik, Uni-Taschenbücher, vol. 267

(Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1973), pp. 9-30.

history at all.¹

The problem of setting resembles in its implica-

tions the aesthetic issue of intention, though the Biblical

scholar seldom has the opportunity to raise the latter, and

often then only by indirection. What may at first seem to

be a marginal change in setting can have considerable in-

fluence on the interpretation to be given to a work. The

"what-it-meant" side of hermeneutic's dialectic of analysis

includes not only the bare meaning of the words used, but

who communicated through them (i.e., their social location)

and how they were used. We can be frustrated by knowing

what the words say without knowing what they said: what

they meant in that social and historical context.² The

phenomenologically-informed researcher sees the problem of

setting divided into two poles of investigation.

First, within what objective social order did this

literature arise and acquire its meaning? We seek a his-

tory of the society’s institutions with their system and

¹Fohrer, et al., pp. 9-30, 148-71.

²Hans-Georg Gadamer, "On the Scope and Function of

Hermeneutic Reflection," trans. G. B. Hess and R. E. Palmer,

Continuum 8 (1970):77-95; and his Philosophical Hermeneutics,

trans. and ed. David E. Linge (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1976). See also, Paul Ricoeur, History

and Truth, trans. with an Introduction by Charles A.

Kelbley, Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology

and Existential Philosophy, ed. John Wild (Evanston: North-

western University Press, 1965).

order projected against the comparative background of the

histories and institutions of neighboring societies. This

aspect of meaning also includes the question what standing

the works and their authors both held and acquired within

the community. Thus, the question of canon finally is

relevant to the objective meaning of a work.¹

Second, how did the writer(s) perceive and struc-

ture the experiential world to achieve that understanding

which he attempted to communicate in his work? Here we are

concerned with the subjective pole of meaning. A work be-

speaks the worldviews of its authors and editors. Where

the literary history is convoluted and the internal con-

struction of the work has become complex and interwoven,

the search for consistent and intelligible world-views can

become quite demanding. Here again, the danger is that the

researcher's ideas of "intelligible" or "consistent" which

are his cultural and personal perceptions of rationality

may be imposed on the work. Since the wise seem to have

been attempting to organize and interpret the realm of

¹Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations: An Intro-

duction to Phenomenology, trans. Dorothy Cairns (The Hague:

Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), cp. 56-88; Alfred Schutz, The

Phenomenology of the Social World, trans. George Walsh and

Frederick Lehnert, Northwestern Studies in Phenomenology

and Existential Philosophy, ed. John Wild (Evanston: North-

western University Press, 1967), pp. 1-44; Peter L. Berger

and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality:

A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Garden City, N.Y.:

Doubleday & Co., 1966), pp. 45-85.

experience in order to cope with it more intelligently and

successfully, the danger of anachronistic rationality is

far more immediate than its opposite: accepting any con-

tradiction or inconsistency, even to the controversion of

common sense, on the appeal to cultural difference or even

the oriental mind soi-disant.¹

This second pole of analysis is especially important.

In order to comprehend a work adequately, we need to under-

stand it as itself a hermeneutic act: an attempt to give

coherent meaning to experience. A literary work reflects

both subjectivity and objectivity. It results from the in-

teraction of the author(s)'s subjectivity and "objective"

experience perceived through traditionally-defined. objec-

tive social reality given an objective literary form. For

a time, biblical criticism attempted to deal with the sub-

jective dimension of hermeneutic by psychologizing biblical

writers as they were then historically understood. As

authors became schools, as biblical works unveiled their

complex composite character to researchers, psychological

¹Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, pp. 89-151; and

his Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy: Philosophy

as Rigorous Science and Philosophy and the Crisis of Euro-

pean Man, trans. and with an introduction by Quentin Lauer,

Academy Library of Harper Torchbooks (New York: Harper &

Row, 1965), pp. 188-89; Schutz, Phenomenology of the Social

World, pp. 102-7, 144-76; Berger and Luckmann, Social Con-

struction of Reality, pp. 135-73; Peter L. Berger and Thomas

Luckmann, "Sociology of Religion and Sociology of Knowledge,"

Sociology and Social Research: An International Journal 47

(July 1963): 417-27.

analysis of biblical literature became untenable in most

cases. Subjective analysis, however, was often discarded

with psychologizing.

Literature is virtually the only historical arti-

fact which provides the scholar access to the subjectivity,

the mind or minds, of people in their historical matrix.

What it meant to be a person of such-and-such an ancient

social world is accessible, if at all, only through litera-

ture. Moreover, the only vehicle we have to accomplish

that reconstruction is our own individual subjectivities as

literary and social historians. The objective literary

artifact becomes the tool through which to project that co-

herent understanding which a particular layer or segment of

the work reflects. The objective document is the con-

ceptual product of a subjectivity.

Since we can approach the work only through our in-

dividual consciousnesses, unnormed by access to any other,

our interpretation of the document and our projection of its

meanings are biased by our own hermeneutic of our own

reality, however much it may be the informed and structured

product of a process of social learning. The phenomenolo-

gist argues that certain standardized procedures can con-

trol, but not eliminate, this bias. To omit any attempt to

project the subjective hermeneutic pole is to omit one of

the most important social, historical and theological con-

tributions of this literature. Socially accepted

interpretations of the world arise from the interactions

of individual consciousnesses, socially in-formed, with

socially-defined experiences. Meaning is both subjective

and objective.¹

We are both the beneficiaries and the slaves of

the western distinction between faith and reason. We

recognize the need to ask how dedication to understanding

relates to the religious faith of a people, while we are

therefore compelled to investigate an issue that people, or

^lEdmund Husserl clearly states the problem in The

Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Philosophy:

An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy, trans. and

an introduction by David Carr, Northwestern University

Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, ed.

John Wild (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970).

He develops a subjective analytic in The Phenomenology of

Internal Time-Consciousness, ed. Martin Heidegger, trans.

James S. Churchill (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

1964). Another approach can be found Alfred Schutz and

Thomas Luckmann, The Structures of the Life-World, trans.

Richard M. Zaner and H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., North-

western University Studies in Phenomenology and Existen-

tial Philosophy, ed. John Wild (Evanston: Northwestern Uni-

versity, 1973). Cf. Hans-Joachim Kraus, Geschichte der

Historisch-Kritischen Erforschung des Alten Testaments, 2d

rev. and enlarged ed. (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Ver-

lag, 1956, 1969). A variety of methodological essays deal-

ing with such a program may be found in Maurice Natanson,

ed., Phenomenology and the Social Sciences, Northwestern

University Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philoso-

phy, ed. John. Wild (Evanston: Northwestern University Press,

1973); Karl-Otto Apel et al., Hermeneutik und Ideologie-

kritik, Theorie-Diskussion. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp

Verlag, 1971); James M. Edie, Francis H. Parker, and Calvin

O. Schrag, eds., Patterns of the Life-World:. Essays in

Honor of John Wild, Northwestern University Studies in

Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, ed. John Wild

(Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970).

at least the intellectual classes of that people, would not

have granted validity. In consequence, we may tend to take

silence on cultic or formal religious matters as dis-

valuation or outright rejection, rather than take it as a

result of the focusing of their attention. We speak here

not merely of the notorious argument from silence; it is

admittedly quite difficult to establish the givens of a

society. Whatever some group takes for granted is not open

to discussion, except either when it is no longer a uni-

versal social given or when it is confronted by a direct

challenge from within or without. The most important ele-

ments in the foundation of a people's understanding and in-

terpretation of the world are taken-for-granted.¹They are

so basic that they need not be expressed. Rationalizing

objective reconstruction may overlook this taken-for-granted

¹Thomas Luckmann, The Invisible Religion: The

Problem of Religion in Modern Society (New York: Macmillan

Company, 1961); Schutz, Phenomenology of the Social World,

pp. 86-96, 144-63; Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers, vol. 1:

The Problem of Social Reality, ed. Maurice Natanson, 2d ed.

(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967); vol. 2: Studies in

Social Theory, ed. Arvid Broderson (The Hague: Martinus

Nijhoff, 1964); vol. 3: Studies in Phenomenological Philoso-

phy, ed. Ilse Schutz (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff„ 1966);

1:15-19, 224-31; 2:12-19, 53-63; 3:116-32. Cf. Norman K.

Gottwald, "Biblical Theology or Biblical Sociology: On

Affirming and Defining the 'Uniqueness' of Israel," in The

Bible and Liberation: Political and Social Hermeneutics,

a Radical Religion Reader. (Berkeley: Community for Religious

Research and Education, 1976), pp. 42-57; and in the same

place, Norman K. Gottwald and Frank S. Frick, "The Social

World of Ancient Israel," pp. 110-19.

dimension since it is never stated within the work. Sub-

jective analysis may reveal it to us as we attempt to pro-

ject a coherent and meaning-full perspective on the world.

The demands of our subjectivity for coherence may reveal

what objective analysis must omit. Silence is a legiti-

mate tool of the literary historian, though it is among

the most difficult to wield.

While great progress has been made in understand-

ing wisdom during the past decade, the interest in wisdom

studies has not carried as far as some of us might have

wished. Considerable debate has been devoted to the prob-

lem of definition: identifying what it is which distin-

guishes this phenomenon wisdom from other understandings of

the world.¹ The issue remains undecided.² While the ap-

parent secularism of wisdom has been called into question,

its rationality has endured.³ Still, the literature

¹Crenshaw, "Prolegomena," pp. 1-60; James L. Cren-

shaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influence upon 'His-

torical Literature," Journal of Biblical Literature 88

(June 1969):129-42.

² Crenshaw, "Wisdom in the Old Testament," p. 952.

Cf. John G. Gammie, "Notes on Israelite Pedagogy in the

Monarchic Period," paper prepared for the Consultation on

Wisdom, Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting,

St. Louis, Missouri, 28-31 October 1976; R. N. Whybray,

The Intellectual Tradition in the Old Testament, Beiheft

zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 135,

ed. Georg Fohrer (New. York: Walter de Gruyter, 1974).

³Walther Zimmerli, "The Place and Limit of the Wis-

dom in the Framework of the Old Testament Theology,”

fragments on examination. What seems to be a single

literature either atomizes under analysis into a wide

variety of literatures having little in common, or else

wisdom becomes so broadly defined that it threatens to

absorb materials and modes of thought and expression whose

distinctive character we hesitate to surrender.¹Either

wisdom as such hardly seems to exist at all, or everything

seems to be wisdom. We face a version of Moore's Paradox

of Analysis: every definition is either trivial or false.²

Every analysis of wisdom either does not adequately dif-

ferentiate wisdom from other material or it excludes from

wisdom what we obviously must include.

In the chapters which follow, we shall try to ac-

complish two objectives. First, we shall try to resolve

the methodological difficulty of differentiating wisdom.

That is, we shall attempt to show what has been misleading

Scottish Journal of Theology 17 (1964):146-58; cf. his

earlier "Zur Struktur der Alttestamentlichen Weisheit,"

Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, n.s.,

10 (1933):177-204.

¹Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influence,"

pp. 129-42.

²G. E. Moore in his Principia Ethica (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1903); on which see Richard B.

Brandt, Ethical. Theory: The Problems of Normative and

Critical Ethics, Prentice-Hall Philosophy Series, ed.

Arthur E. Murphy (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall,

1959), pp. 164-66.

in existing efforts to resolve the problem of wisdom: that

these efforts operate from fundamentally incompatible

methodological presuppositions. We shall then argue that

one approach, the social-historical (sociological), has

certain elements which here make it a more analytically

powerful and useful definitional methodology for the lit-

erary historian. Second, we shall take an instance from

wisdom, Proverbs 16:1-22:16 (which we are calling Proverbs

IIb for simplicity's sake) and endeavor to show how sub-

jective analysis based on this methodology can help us re-

fine our understanding of this literature and its social,

historical, literary and theological character.

Procedure

My research into wisdom began as a suitably modest

enterprise. I wanted to demonstrate that it was possible

to project a distinct, clearly delineated world-view from

the material contained within one of the major biblical

proverb collections, Proverbs IIb. If convincing, such a

demonstration would show that the material stemmed from an

identifiable social milieu which might provide us insight

into the nature of wisdom—social and theological—at that

time. It would serve as a benchmark for developmental

theories of wisdom such as those of Schmid, Skladny and even

von Rad. The project would be self-validating. If it

could be done and done convincingly, then a fortiori the

material used in that projection would have to constitute

something more than a loose editorial Gemisch. At the

least, it would demonstrate stringent selection criteria

at work in whatever earlier or outside material might have

been chosen for inclusion in the collection. At most, it

might help prove that the collection so—called should be

considered essentially a composition, however much it might

draw on traditional poetic conventions and stylistic or

—rhetorical techniques. Rhetorical analysis of the collec-

tion lends credence in fact to the latter position.

Gradually, however, I came to realize that the

argument. being developed concerning Proverbs IIb represented

the linch-pin of a much larger, more convoluted and more

far-reaching argument concerning the nature of wisdom and

the wisdom movement. The analysis of Proverbs IIb cannot

readily be separated from this larger argument. On the

other hand, the lineaments of this latter would not be

clear by implication from an examination of the passage

alone. There is, moreover, a methodological issue here.

I am making a plaidoyer for the applicability of a certain

methodology, and its operating presuppositions, to the prob-

lem of the nature and development of wisdom as a Hebrew and

early Jewish religious phenomenon. The discussion which

follows is not essentially a methodological treatise,

especially since it argues for the necessity, not merely

the utility, of methodological eclecticism, a point in-

creasingly being emphasized in biblical exegesis. Rather,

it is an attempt to restructure some of the debate con-

cerning the nature and development of wisdom by an appeal

to the evidence.

We begin by listing a number of different approaches

to the problem of definition that have been taken in wisdom

scholarship. Each has contributed to the refinement of our

understanding of wisdom as a socio-historical phenomenon

and has held significant sway in the scholarly debate. Each,

however, has been opposed by other persuasive approaches to

the problem of defining wisdom, and no one approach seems

to offer a clear and convincing superiority in its analysis.

The analytic paradox spoken of above remains: either we

exclude what common sense dictates including or include what

common sense dictates excluding, without decisively justi-

fying either alternative. The dilemma nay be insoluble.

Wisdom may be undefinable. Perhaps wisdom is a primitive

term whose definition ought never to be attempted as such.

Perhaps, as we shall argue, wisdom is not a single phenome-

non, but a variety of sometimes related phenomena which

must be distinguished from one another if our language is

not to betray us.¹

In reviewing the various approaches to definition

we should be aware that this debate has made significant

progress. Even without definition, important elements of

wisdom's modes of perceiving and relating to the world have

been established. The theological underpinnings of wisdom

have begun to appear.² The problem of wisdom's claim over

¹Whybray, Intellectual Tradition, pp. 1-5; Crenshaw,

"Method in Determining Wisdom Influence," pp. 129-42;

Crenshaw, "Prolegomenon,” pp. 3-5.

²Berend Gemser, “The Spiritual Structure of Biblical

Aphoristic Wisdom," Adhuc Loquitur: Collected. Essays, ed.

A. van Selms and A. S. van der Woude, Pretoria Oriental

Series, vol. 7 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968), pp. 138-49;

James L. Crenshaw, Prophetic Conflict: Its Effect upon

Israelite Religion, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die Alt-

testamentliche Wissenschaft, vol. 124 (New York: Walter

de Gruyte, 1971), pp. 116-23; von Rad, Weisheit in Israel,

pp. 75-148; Hartmut Gese, Lehre und Wirklichkeit in der

Alten Weisheit: Studien zu den Sprüchen Salomos und zu dem

Buche Hiob (Tübingen: J. C. 3.: Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1938),

pp. 29-50; Horst Dietrich Preuss, "Erwägungen zum Theo-

logischen Ort Alttestamentlicher Weisheitsliteratur,"

Evangelische Theologie 30 (1970): 393-417; Horst Dietrich

Preuss, "Das Gottesbild der älteren Weisheit Israels,"

in Vetus Testamentum Supplements; vol. 23 (Leiden: E. J.

Brill, 1972), pp. 117-43; Hans Heinrich Schmid, Wesen und

Geschichte der Weisheit: eine Untersuchung zur Alt-

orientalischen und Israelitischen Weisheitsliteratur,

Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissen-

schaft, vol. 101 (Berlin: Verlag Alfred Töpelmann, 1966);

Roland E. Murphy, "Wisdom—Theses and Hypotheses," in

Israelite Wisdom: Theological and Literary Essays in Honor

of Samuel Terrien, ed. John G. Gammie, Walter A. Bruegge-

mann, W. Lee Humphreys and James M. Ward (Missoula, Mon-

tana: Scholars Press, 1978, forthcoming); and in the same

place, Hans-Jürgen Hermisson, "Observations on the Creation

Theology in Wisdom."

its adherents has shown its authoritative nature.¹ On

the other hand, the flow and ebb of the tide of wisdom's

popularity in the past decade may be related to our in-

ability to make more progress than we have in developing

any decisive new in-roads in this research. Zimmerli's

reassessment of his position statement of 1933 gives ground

to modern critics but stakes out a territory not yet far

removed from that earlier one.²The attempt to place wis-

dom at the center of Hebrew religious thought and practice

seems to have led to a proliferation of studies which

identified wisdom in virtually every strain of Hebrew re-

ligion.³ So much did this occur that hardly a biblical

book, hardly an era, hardly a literary form and hardly a

stratum of Hebrew religious thought, practice or society

remained free from wisdom involvement. This cannot be.

If everything is wisdom, then what is distinctive about

wisdom? The theological rehabilitation of wisdom almost

¹Crenshaw, Prophetic Conflict, pp. 116-23; Gese,

Lehre und Wirklichkeit, pp. 29-50; Hans Heinrich Schmid,

Gerechtigkeit als Weitordnung: Hintergrund und Geschichte

des Alttestamentlichen Gerechtigeitsbegriffes, Beiträge

zur Historischen Theologie, vol. 40 (Tübingen: J. C. B.

Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1968); cf. von Rad, Weisheit in

Israel, pp. 102-30.

²Zimmerli, "Place and Limit of Wisdom," pp. 146-

58; Zimmerli, "Struktur," pp. 177-204.

³Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influence,"

p. 129, n. 1; Whybray, Intellectual Tradition, p. 1, n. 1.

created a monster that seemed poised to invade and devour

the rest of Hebrew religious thought.¹This apparent ex-

cess revealed a methodological weakness--in the sense of a

lack of precise and controlled research technique--which I

would suspect has also discouraged many wisdom enthusiasts.

Do we really know what we are talking about? Are our

methodologies and perspectives sufficiently conformable

with one another that we can engage in coordinated and

systematic research? While I submit that the answer is an

unequivocal “yes,” I also Imagine that some people have not

waited around for the answer.

Thus, enumerating definitions becomes increasingly

unsatisfactory, not because it does not further the wisdom

debate, but because everything else seems to hinge on a

dilemma we have been slow to resolve. I propose, then, that

we work around the issue by recognizing the inherent multi-

vocality of 'wisdom.' I suggest a typology of wisdom con-

sistent with the ways in which wisdom seems to appear for

us historically. We ought to be able to talk far more pre-

cisely and cogently with respect to a specific type of

wisdom than we can to "wisdom in general"--whatever that

might be. Again, perhaps part of our difficulty is that

we have been trying to compass too much: incompatible

¹Crenshaw, "Prolegomenon," pp. 3-6.

types of wisdom that, because of the methodologies or con-

texts out of which they appear, cannot be conformed to one

another, even for definition's sake, without producing in-

superable problems at the present stage of our knowledge.

The problem of wisdom, however, goes far beyond

epistemological or linguistic clarification. Fundamental

historical issues will not be solved by stipulation. Some

of these types of wisdom are trivial; others are arbitrary;

many are secondary or derivative. The question becomes:

what provides the fundamental conceptual power inherent in

the use of the term 'wisdom' that enables us to apply it to

find historical unity or coherence in what seems to be a

diverse variety of literarily-expressed historical phenomena.

If we must, we may ultimately trace the term to an in-

ference made by the historian. In other words, we may find

ourselves forced to argue that the Hebrews never explicitly

conceived of wisdom as a distinct social or religious or

intellectual phenomenon.¹ We would then see relationships

that people in that milieu never explicitly saw nor identi-

fied. Such a conclusion would be very costly. It would

gravely undermine arguments for the historical development

--evolution--of wisdom in any form. Combined with the

atomization inherent in some theories of wisdom, it would

¹Whybray, Intellectual Tradition, p. 54.

threaten to leave us without a phenomenon as such to study

at all.¹ Thus, we potentially face precisely the opposite

threat to the current direction in wisdom studies. In-

stead of finding wisdom diffusing itself throughout Hebrew

life and thought, we might find the concept breaking down

as a powerful historical conceptual tool. It would be less

than edifying to be left with little more than a loose col-

lection of literary forms, perhaps an elite but diffuse and

undistinctive social milieu, or a semiotic of 'wisdom' and

related terms held together by little more than their

semantic field. What is at stake is the conceptual and ex-

planatory power of 'wisdom' for the literary historian.

Evolutionary theories of wisdom, which predominate

in the field, force both the methodological and the his-

torical issues. Most of these approaches depart from some

explicit or implicit philosophy of history which postulates

a series of compatible historical processes that can be

discerned behind the literature and its formal expression.

These theories represent an attempt to unify wisdom. One

type evolves into another as a result of historical

¹Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influ-

ence," p. 131.

²I develop this point in my "Evidence for the De-

velopment of a World-View in Proverbs: An Assessment,"

paper presented to the Southeastern regional meeting of

the Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta, 17-19 March

1977.

processes whose effects can be discerned elsewhere in

Hebrew society at that time, as well as at other points

in time and places in history.¹A few of these positions

rely on pan-historic principles: the same fundamental

processes of change underlie the entire sweep of human his-

tory regardless of the scale of the analysis, the time-

period or the culture under study.² Evolutionary ap-

proaches raise the question what provides the coherence or

¹Typical, though by no means exhaustive, of such

approaches and methodologies are Otto Eissfeldt, Der

Maschal im Alten Testament: eine Wortgeschichtliche

Untersuchung nebst einer Literargeschicntlichen Unter-

suchung der mšl Genannten Gattungen "Volksprichwort" und

Spottlied," Beiheft zur Zeitscnrift für die Alttestament-

liche Wissenschaft, vol. 24 (Giessen: A. Töpelmann [vormals

J. Ricker], 1913); Udo Skiadny, Die Ältesten Spruchsammlungen

in Israel (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1962);

William McKane, Proverbs: A New Approach, Old Testament

Library (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970) ; Schmid,

Wesen und Geschichte der Weisheit.

²Formalism derived from the work of Andre Jolles

seems to have had a significant impact on the theories of

Schmid and von Rad. Andre Jolles, Einfache Formen: Legende,

Sage, Mythe, Rätsel, Spruch, Kasus, Memorabile, Märchen,

Witz, ed. Alfred Schossig, 2d ed. (Haile [Saale]: Veb) Max

Niemeyer Verlag, 1956); cf.. Hermann Bausinger, Formen der

Volkspoesie, Grundlagen der Germanistik, no. 6 (Berlin:

E. Schmidt, 1968). While Jollesian formalism is by no

means the dominant theory in Germanistic studies, nor has

it been, its influence seems to have been pervasive in Old

Testament form criticism, if the nuances of vocabulary and

methodology are any guide; proving such influence, however,

is often difficult. Alternatively, Hegelian evolutionism

often seems to underlie exegetical methodologies. The.

argument for such an implicit historical philosophy goes

far beyond the scope of the present discussion, but it has

at least been sketched out in my paper, "Development of a

World-View."

continuity that underlies and unifies such seemingly di-

verse or diffuse phenomena. What entitles us to postulate

of them such transformations? Obviously, we cannot appeal

back to the processes of change grounded in our philosophy

of history: the argument would be circular. The unity is

surely not self-evident: why should one form or type of

wisdom evolve at all, let alone develop into another specific

kind of wisdom? What does it mean to label these 'wisdom'

at all? The coherence cannot be an inference of the his-

torical researcher without being circular. Something about

wisdom, from the data, must justify bringing together ma-

terials that differ in type. The problem becomes more

poignant when one wants to begin talking about wisdom

evolving into rabbinic-legal or apocalyptic thought, or

literature, or social movements.¹ What can such a hy-

pothesis possibly mean?

If the ground for such arguments is that there is

¹Jean-Paul Audet, "Origines Comparées de la Double

Tradition de la Loi et de la Sagesse dans le Proche-Orient

Ancien," in Trudy 25. Mezduradnego Kongressa Vostckovedov:

Moskva 9-16 Avgusta 1960, vol. 1 (Moscow: Izdatelystvo

Vostocnoj Literatury, 1962), pp. 352-57; Gerhard von Rad,

Old Testament Theology, vol. 1: The Theology of Israel's

Historical Traditions; vol. 2: The Theology of Israel's

Prophetic Traditions; trans. D. M. G. Stalker, 2 vols.

(New York: Harper and Row, 1962, 1965), 2: 300-15; cf.

Gunter Wied, "Der Auferstehungsglaube des Späten Israels

in seiner Bedeutung für das Verhältnis von Apokalyptik und

Weisheit," unpublished Th.D. dissertation, Bonn, 1967; cf.

Peter von der Osten-Sacken, Die Apokalyptik in ihren

Verhältnis zu Prophetie und Weisheit, Theoiogie Existenz

Heute, vol. 157 (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1969).

formal unity, it would obviously be invalid. The same can

be said for perceiving some coherence or continuity of

world-view. Indeed, the problem is to find unity in what

is superficially diverse. To argue that wisdom and rab-

binism or apocalyptic represent essentially equivalent or

related thought-worlds would be patently absurd. While the

evolutionary argument is sometimes stated in terms of form

or thought, ethic or context, none of these is sufficient

for a valid and convincing argument, especially in light of

our epistemological (definitional) and linguistic (typolog-

ical) analysis. Implicitly or explicitly, such theories re-

quire, and are appealing to, another ground. Only if there

is a continuously-existing, identifiable and self-identi-

fied social group who seek, develop, preserve and transmit

'wisdom' can evolutionary theories have a convincing—

and valid—argument concerning this literature. If

the continuity is not sociological, then the very

diversity of the phenomenon undercuts the validity of de-

velopmental or evolutionary arguments, except as the

otherwise ungrounded expressions of a particular philoso-

phy of history. On the other hand, if some specific group

can be identified as the carrier of 'wisdom,' then its

typological diversity is secondary to a sociological and

socio-historical continuity. If there are no wise as a

specific historical group, whatever they may have called

themselves and however they might have derived their

identity, then 'wisdom' as a category of historical analy-

sis threatens to fall apart. Such divers forms, theologies,

and social milieux do not provide their own unity; the

scholar's inference of unity or coherence must rest on

something beyond his methodology per se.

The assumption that such a group existed is, on

the basis of present methodology, no less tenuous than the

assumption that 'wisdom' has a clear pre-analytic meaning.

Whybray has shown that the assumption is not clearly

grounded in the historical evidence.¹ The literature

does not explicitly refer to such a group, and references

elsewhere scarcely require such a hypothesis. Indeed, the

absence of an overt Standesethik is an often-noted pe-

culiarity of the Hebrew wisdom literature.² The fact that

such a group is methodologically necessary unfortunately

does not mean that it actually existed. To resolve this

problem, we need a new approach.

¹Intellectual Tradition, pp. 6-54.

²Whybray, Intellectual Tradition, pp. 6-54; von

Rad, Weisheit in Israel, pp. 39-148; von Rad, Old Testa-

ment Theology, 1:418-41; "Struktur," pp. 177-

204; Zimmerli, "Place and Limit of Wisdom," pp. 146-58;

cf. Hans-Jürgen Hermisson, Studien zur Israelitischen

Spruchweisheit, Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten

and Neuen Testament, vol. 28 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neu-

kirchener Verlag, 1968), pp. 94-96; Ephraim E. Urbach,

Class-Status and Leadership in the World of the Palestinian

Sages, Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and

Humanities, vol. 2, no. 4 (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of

Sciences and Humanities, 1966); cf. Brian W. Kovacs, "Is

There a Class-Ethic in Proverbs?" in Essays in Old Testa-

ment Ethics: (J. Philip Hyatt, in Memoriam), ed. James L.

Crenshaw and John T. Willis (New York: KTAV Publishing

House, 1974), pp. 173-87; Crenshaw, "Prolegomenon," pp.

20-22.

The analysis of Proverbs IIb, therefore, turns out

to have direct relevance to the problem of establishing

historical continuity to wisdom and therefore of being able

to speak meaningfully of 'wisdom' at all. An inquiry into

one work will not resolve these problems, but it may point

the way to a means of resolving them; or, it may show that

no resolution is possible at all. Here, the wide-spread

assumption that the Proverb material reflects a process of

collection becomes pivotal to the argument.¹ What we are

trying to do is address the problem of wisdom in a method-

ologically minimal way.² Clearly, if we can speak

^lEissfeldt, Maschal, pp. 45-52; McKane, Proverbs,

pp. 10-22; Crawford H. Toy, A Critical and Exegetical Com-

mentary of the Book of Proverbs, Internatonal Critical

Commentary, vol. 16 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,

1899), pp. vi-viii; Helmer Ringgren, "Sprüche," in Sprüche;

Prediger; das Hohe Lied; Klagelieder; das Buch Esther,

trans. and ed. Helmer Ringgren, Artur Weiser, and Walther

Zimmerli, Das Alte Testament Deutsche: Neues Göttinger

Bibelwerk, vol..16, 2d rev. ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and

Ruprecht, 1967), pp. 7-10; Berend Gemser, Sprüche Salomos,

Handbuch zum Alten Testament, 1st series, vol. 16, 2d rev.

and expanded ed. (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck],

1963) , pp. 10-11; R. B. Y. Scott, The Way of Wisdom in the

Old Testament (New York: Macmillan Company, 1971), pp. 51-

59; Otto Plöger, "Zur Auslegung der Sentenzensammlungen des

Proverbienbuches," in Probleme Biblischer Theologie:

Gerhard von Rad zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Hans Walter Wolff

(Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1971), pp. 402-16; cf. Skladny,

Spruchsammlungen; cf. Hermisson, Spruchweisheit.

²Norman K. Gottwald helped clarify the logic and

methodology at this point in his "Response" in the same

session to my "Social Considerations in Locating the Wise

of the Mashal Literature," paper presented to the Section

on the Social World of Ancient Israel, Society of Biblical

meaningfully of wisdom at all, and if any literature re-

flects the existence of an identifiable social group in a

clear and unambiguous social milieu, it has to be the four

mashal "collections" in Proverbs: Skladny's A, B, C, D.¹

If these do not pass such a test, then the presumption

would be against any work passing such a test. If we can-

not ground our inferences, at least for Hebrews, here, then

it is unlikely that we can ground them socio-historically

at all. On the other hand, if we can demonstrate socio-

historical coherence within this material, then the weight

of the argument swings the other way. We are thereby en-

titled to infer such grounding for similar or related

materials--by form, context or world-view. Can we project

enough of the taken-for-granted world from this literature

to decide the question? I submit that we can, and that it

supports the postulation of an identifiable social group as

its source and matrix.

To show such a group, we have to show three things.

First, we must show that they perceived themselves to be a

group, that they had a sense of self-identity. Second, we

would have to show that they formed a network of trans-

Literature-American Academy of Religion annual meeting,

San Francisco, 28-31 December 1977.

¹Spruchsalmmlungen, p. 6.

mission whereby that sense of identity was preserved well

beyond the lifetimes of individual members of the group

through certain identity-giving symbols (here, religious

and linguistic, at least in their expression). Third, we

have to show that there is a 'grammar' underlying their

world-view. That grammar represents a consistent set of

assumptions or symbolic interpretations of the world that

gives structure to what they say about it. The grammar is

not the world-view; it is a higher-order consistency from

which coherence of world-views derives.

We argue, in effect, that for Proverbs IIb all

three criteria can be met. To do this, we have to under-

take the subjective analytic proposed above. We seek to

project the taken-for-granted world out of the material

using certain norming parameters--space, time and in a

sense word. These are ineluctable phenomenological struc-

tures. They ground and are expressed through the grammar.

How do these people locate themselves within space and time

as they perceive them; how does word become the expression

of that location? If no group provides the matrix, if the

material is atomic and derived from a variety of diverse

social milieux as some suggest, then the attempt to pro-

ject should fail. Coherence should be lacking. Behind the

obvious inconsistencies and rhetorical peculiarities of the

material would lie nothing more specific than the general

Hebrew cultural grammar.¹

Can we find a subjective interpretation of space

and time which makes objective sense? We argue yes. If

so, then evolutionary hypotheses make sense on that basis,

but are also subject to critique on that basis. In other

words, while the world-view may change, the grammar must be

preserved. To change the grammar of the message is to ob-

literate the message. Its forms of expression, its prac-

tical presentation may change, but the grammar on me-

thodological grounds cannot. From a Structuralist point

of view, structure must be preserved (i.e., the grammar),

because only in terms of such a continuous synchrony is any

communication (here, historical coherence, continuity and

unity of expression and interpretation) possible at all.

In effect, to allow the grammar to change is to undermine

the possibility of sociality beyond any hope of restoration

on some other ground. Thus, what we are undertaking is a

species of sociological and phenomenological Structuralism,

though linguistic Structuralists may balk at the use of the

¹Erhardt Güttgemanns, "Generative Poetics," ed.

Norman R. Petersen, trans. William G. Doty, Semeia 6

(1976), pp. 181-213; Brian W. Kovacs, "Philosophical Founda-

tions for Structuralism: Grounding the Generative Poetics

of Erhardt Güttgemanns," paper presented to the Consulta-

tion on Structuralism of the American Academy of Religion

and the Society of Biblical Literature, San Francisco, 28-

31 December 1977.

term.¹

We contend that the outcome of the analysis, a

clear grounding of wisdom and certain hypotheses concern-

ing wisdom, is self-justifying and -validating. The up-

shot for evolutionary theories is that those which do not

preserve the structure, the grammar, are ruled out of

court. This happens to the von Rad hypothesis: we submit

that it is grammatically untenable because it does not pre-

serve socio-structural synchrony in the subjectively struc-

tured world of space and time. The evolutionary theories

¹Güttgemanns, pp. 198-213; Kovacs, "Philosophical

Foundations for Structuralism"; Schutz and Luckmann, Struc-

tures of the Life-World; Gottwald, "Biblical Theology or

Biblical Sociology?" pp. 42-57; Gottwald and Frick, pp.

110-19; Paul Ricoeur, "Biblical' Hermeneutics," Introduction

by Loretta Dornisch, ed. John Dominic Crossan, Semeia 4

(1975); Daniel Patte, What is Structuralist Exegesis?

(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976); Daniel Fatte, "Universal

Narrative Structures and Semantic Frameworks: A Review of

Erhardt Güttgemanns "Generative Poetics,'" paper presented

to the Consultation on Structuralism of the American Academy

of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature, San

Francisco, 28-31 December 1977. The sociological side of

this methodology was detailed in my paper "Contributions of

Sociology to the Study of the Development of Apocalyptic:

A Theoretical Study," paper presented to the Consultation

on the Social World of Ancient Israel of the American

Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature,

St. Louis, October 1976; also my "Toward a Phenomenology of

History in Sociological Theory," paper presented to the

Mid-South Sociological Association meeting, Monroe,

Louisiana, 3-5 November 1977. A theoretically important

exegetical word-study that deals with spatio-temporal issues

in wisdom is John R. Wilch, Time and Event: An Exegetical

Study of the Use of ^ceth in the Old Testament in Comparison

to Other Temporal Expressions in Clarification of the Con-

cept of Time (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1969).

of Skladny and Schmid are not ruled out, but require fur-

ther proof. The phenomena they point to, to show develop-

ment are intrinsic to the grammar in a number of cases,

and therefore are invariant. The remaining evidence tends

to be insufficient to prove the case except as a philosoph-

ical assumption.

We begin with a minimal enterprise: to show that

certain structurally norming dimensions of experience,

phenomenologically understood, can be inferred from what

must incontrovertibly be regarded as wisdom if anything is.

We infer only what emerges through this socio-structural

approach. Our conclusion is hardly earth-shattering, for

we do not drastically revise the postulated social matrix

for this literature. We do show its compositional co-

herence, at least in terms of its structural grammar. That

coherence, however, has direct application to the problem

of how we are to speak of wisdom at all. From such minimal

analysis comes the possibility of a ground—group with

identity, continuous existence, grammar—for talking mean-

ingfully about the continuity and development of what are

otherwise apparently diverse and incommensurable phenomena.

If the sociological argument stands, then we have a com-

paratively powerful, historically-evidenced basis for making

valid and clear statements about 'wisdom.'

CHAPTER II

THE DEFINITION OF WISDOM

So far, we have spoken uncritically of 'the wise,'

'wisdom' and 'wisdom literature.' We have not yet at-

tempted to specify the relationship which might obtain

between the wise person and his wisdom, whether it be as

a system of thought or a body of literature. What sorts

of meanings lie behind these terms? Here we need to be

careful for we should not resolve critical issues in wis-

dom research by definition. We do not wish to assume

what we should only conclude after thorough study. Still,

cursory examination or simple reflection will show that

'wise' and 'wisdom' are by no means univocal. Not only

can they refer to entirely different classes of people or

entities (when indeed they may be said to refer at all),

but they can be used as quite different analytical cate-

gories.

'Wise' can mean whatever the equivalent Hebrew

term hākâm meant. The meaning of the English term becomes

a function of the historical analysis of language, in-

corporating the vagaries, ambiguities and multiplicities,

even contradictions, of the Hebrew. 'Wise' may refer to

one system of thought, or another. It may refer to one

or more groups of people in the ancient world, or it may

designate their writings. It may serve as a term of con-

venience within the discipline to identify a discrete

group of writings which otherwise defy ready categoriza-

tion. It may designate a broad social force whose inter-

play with other forces helps explain the general dynamic

patterns of Hebrew history. 'Wisdom' may stand for a

particular intellectual ideal, or style of life, which

some group of writings may be deemed to reflect. The

evidence educed to establish the meaning of 'wise' in one

of these senses may be entirely irrelevant in deciding

another.

While a meticulous author may successfully manipu-

late the same word in several different senses without

material ambiguity, at least for himself, certainly we

need to clarify the alternatives in such a broad and dis-

perate realm of discourse. We should locate our position

clearly within it both to be intelligible and to be valid.

Two basic questions provide the basis for our

terminological and typological discussions. (1) When we

refer to Proverbs IIb as 'wisdom' and its author-editor as

'wise,' what do we mean? (2) What justifies our regarding

Proverbs IIb, not to mention the other mashal collections,

as wisdom? First, we shall ask how 'wisdom' may function

as a defined theoretical category. We shall list

alternatives, some albeit quite obvious. Under certain

rubrics, we shall need to consider the scholarly contri-

butions which represent or summarize the options under

that mode of approach. In the next chapter, we shall turn

to a wisdom typology. A number of these categories re-

flect distinctively different settings, literary forms,

and patterns of life and thought within "wisdom." Rather

than treat them either as a function of particular me-

thodologies or presenting them in the form of a history of

scholarship, we shall treat them systematically. These

distinctions will be used to differentiate types of wisdom.

This discussion should help us decide what meanings and

types of wisdom are, or could reasonably be, relevant to

the study of aphoristic wisdom and the mashal literature.

We recognize that the distinction between definition and

type is somewhat arbitrary. Still, it may prove to be

useful for analytical clarity and intelligibility.

As a scholarly term, 'wisdom' serves a number of

theoretical and practical ends. The list which follows is

intended to incorporate or represent the most important

of these. Important uses will require some discussion and

develop at the risk of digression. Given the present

stage in the development of wisdom studies, we have to

show how it is possible to talk about wisdom in this ma-

terial before we can begin to talk about wisdom there.

1. Wisdom is a field of study. In this view,

whatever wisdom is, it is a distinct phenomenon in Hebrew

history and religious experience, as well as in Hebrew

literature. Therefore, one can distinguish it as an as-

pect of Hebrew life and culture to be studied and reported

upon. This sense of wisdom is obvious; its presupposi-

tions, less so. It assumes that wisdom is sufficiently

distinct yet internally coherent that one can study it as

a subdisciplinary specialty. Setting boundaries in a

discipline is rarely easy, especially in recent studies of

wisdom which find evidence of it in prophecy, myth, his-

tory and priestly-legal material.¹ Wisdom used in this

sense tells us something about the self-identification of

scholars, a legitimate concern, but not about wisdom as a

historical phenomenon.²

2. Wisdom is a body of literature. The tern may

function either as a description--to relate works with

affinities of form and content--or as a convenient term, a

name, to associate works with certain traditional relation-

ships. Thus, Canticles is sometimes included as wisdom

¹Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influ-

ence," p. 129, n. 1; Whybray, Intellectual Tradition,

p. 1, n. 1; Crenshaw, "Prolegomenon," pp. 1-13.

²Crenshaw, "Wisdom," pp. 226-27.

literature because of its traditional attribution to

Solomon, its apparent secularism, and its lack of fit with

any other category of Hebrew scripture. As a description,

wisdom entails that there is something common to these

works which transcends the obvious diversity.¹

3. Wisdom is a system of thought. Whether this

system is a theology, sacrally founded and ordered, or a

“philosophy,” in the non-anachronistic sense of secular

and ordered, systematic and consistent, remains to be

demonstrated. Most attempts to define wisdom fall some-

where within this rubric. This sense is potentially one

of the most restrictive. It may exclude those writers and

works which adopt wisdom motifs but employ them in the

service of their own theological ends.²On the other

hand, it is potentially the most powerful way of using

'wisdom.'

“A coherent system of thought” closely accords with

some commonsense definitions of wisdom. Since our sources

are principally literary, we would expect them to express

¹Roland E. Murphy, Introduction to the Wisdom

Literature of the Old Testament, Old Testament Reading

Guide, vol. 22 (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical

Press, 1965); Scott, Way of Wisdom, pp. 19-22.

²Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influ-

ence," p. 133; Crenshaw, "Prolegomenon," pp. 1-13; Cren-

shaw, "Wisdom in the Old Testament," pp. 954-55.

an orientation toward life which can be readily and sys-

tematically understood (i.e., learned) and intelligibly

communicated (taught).¹We might, without undue violence,

subsume much of the history of wisdom study under this

rubric. We shall find, however, that there is often some

ambiguity between wisdom in this sense and wisdom in the

sense of one of the categories following below: e.g.,

between wisdom as conceptual system and wisdom as a pattern

of behavior. Wisdom seen as conceptual system--system of

thought--is the sense which follows most naturally from

our attempt to project a world-view from the literature,

though we shall have to deal with other approaches to

wisdom as well.

We should consider the alternative kinds of defi-

nitions offered when wisdom is taken as a conceptual system

and pay some attention to the scholarship underlying each

of these alternatives. Among the terms which recur in

such discussions are "knowledge," "understanding" and "ex-

perience."² The wise man recognizes the patterns that

develop in his experience. He objectifies these patterns

¹Ernst Würthwein, Die Weisheit Ägyptens und das

Alte Testament: Rede zur Rektoratsübergabe am 29. Novem-

ber 1958, Schriften der Philipps-Universität Marburg, no.

6 (Marburg: N. G. Elwert Verlag, 1960).

²Crenshaw, "Prolegomenon," pp. 3-9, 36-37;

Whybray, Intellectual Tradition, pp. 6-14.

into a more encompassing description.¹He "knows how" to

apply this description to interpret and respond to novel

situations. Consider the interesting double-entendre in

the English word "experience." To undergo something is to

experience it: it is the occurrence of a single event.

To have undergone a wide range of diverse occurrences is

also called experience. To know how to deal with a wide

variety of often-novel situations is experience. Com-

petence can be experience.

a) Wisdom as Geistesbeschäftigung. Jolles'

work with basic literary forms could certainly be classi-

fied with wisdom as form below. On the other hand, his

work provides the theoretical foundation for many subse-

quent theological studies in biblical wisdom. These build,

implicitly or explicitly, from the assumption that there is

a pattern of human conceptualization that corresponds

uniquely to each basic form. Wisdom represents a particu-

lar use of man's capacity to create his reality through

language.²

Jolles' three terms for the basic functions of

¹Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, pp. 13-27; Schmid,

Wesen and Geschichte der Weisheit, pp. 79-84.

²Jolles, Einfache Formen, pp. 218-19.

language are erzeugend, schaffend and deutend.¹ These

correspond to archetypal social roles: Bauer, Handar-

beiter and Priester.² To give a word to something, a

thing or an event occurring in nature, is to create. It

becomes an independent existent through the word. The

word not only names by direct reference to a specific

situation, but it creates new applications beyond the an-

ticipation and power of the word's user. Superstition

reflects our attempts to do something effective about the

power of the word. Not only is the word potent, but it

organizes and structures the world of experience: not

erfüllen now but dichten. The reality which language

creates not only gives us direct access to history--what

we might call objectified experience--but it virtually

builds a separate reality, poetically. We can summon it

to mind, understand it and use it as understanding. The

world of poetry is independent of the existence of the

factitious world of experience. Finally, language gives

meaning. It is recognition and thought (erkennen and

denken). It structures life's patterns, helping one to

interpret new aspects of existence. Analogies and simi-

larities are perceived through language. Understanding,

¹Jolles, Einfache Formen, pp. 9, 15.

²Jolles, Einfache Formen, pp. 9-15.

then, is a linguistic process.¹

Each spiritual task in human life (as Geistes-

beschäftigung) calls up a corresponding elementary form

of speech event: legend, saga, myth, riddle, saying,

"Kasus,"² memoire, fable and joke.³ While fable and

riddle are regarded as also being characteristic forms in

the study of Hebrew and ancient Near Eastern wisdom,⁴

Jolles' analysis of the saying or Spruch form in particular

seems to have had the greatest influence on scholarly

studies in wisdom especially those which treat wisdom as

somehow related to "experience."⁵

Suffice to say that Jolles regards the saying as a

popular high-order abstraction from experience which so

tersely objectifies repeatedly experienced situations that

¹Jolles Einfache Formen, pp. 13-18.

²Case-in-point, legal case, situation--the novel

falls under this rubric.

³Jolles, Einfache Formen, pp. 218-22, passim.

⁴Hans Meinhold, Die Weisheit Israels in Spruch,

Sage und Dichtung (Leipzig: Verlag von Quelle und Meyer,

1908), pp. 13-21; Crenshaw, "Wisdom," pp. 239-47; Brian W.

Kovacs, "Reflections on Ancient Hebrew Riddles, Fables and

Allegories," paper presented to the Seminar on the Form

Critical Study of Wisdom, Society of Biblical Literature

annual meeting, Chicago, 30 October-2 November 1975,

⁵Von Rad, certainly in his Old Testament Theology,

1:355-459, and probably in Weisheit in Israel; perhaps

Schmid in his Wesen und Geschichte der Weisheit; cf.

Hermisson, Sprüchweisheit, pp. 29-34.

it is instantly intelligible. Its truth and application

to one's situation is immediately obvious. It recreates

the situation that led to its first utterance.¹ Since his

influence in Germanistic and linguistic studies is so

great, though perhaps somewhat idiosyncratic, we may sus-

pect other emphases to owe something to his work as well

wisdom as pragmatic and worldly-wise (the concern for ob-

jectified experience over systematic speculation; applica-

tion to life), wisdom as popular in use and form of ex-

pression, wisdom as secular (experience is general and re-

created; opposed to myth), wisdom as universal (the Spruch

is not culture bound), wisdom as immediate intuition (Jolles

in accord with Grimm), wisdom as knowledge objectified by

and expressed in language.²

Since Jolles recognizes that a saying must origi-

nate with a specific individual and a particular situation

¹Jolles, Einfache Formes, pp. 128-29.

²Walter Baumgartner, Israelitische und Alt-

orientalische Weisheit, Sammlung Gemeinverständlicher

Vorträge und Schriften aus dem Gebiet der Theologie and

Religionsgeschichte, vol. 166 (Tubingen: Verlag von J. C. B.

Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1933); Johannes Fichtner, Die Alt-

orientalische Weisheit in ihrer Israelitisch-Jüdischen

Ausprägung: eine Studie zur Nationalisierung der Weisheit

In Israel, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestament-

liche Wissenschaft, vol. 62 (Giessen: Verlag von Alfred

Töpelmann, 1933); Zimmerli, "Struktur," pp. 177-204; Gese,

Lehre und Wirklichkeit, pp. 7-11, 42-50; von Rad, Weisheit

in Israel, pp. 13-27; Whybray, Intellectual Tradition, pp.

6-14, 75-76; Gemser, "Spiritual Structure," pp. 138-49.

before it can be re-formed and re-formulated in popular ap-

plication, his influence cannot be dismissed because a

scholar also recognizes the theological nationalism of ben

Sirah, the Wisdom of Solomon and IV Maccabbees through a

theory of the theologizing of wisdom. On the contrary,

Jolles' interpretation of the saying readily lends itself,

in fact invites, treatment in terms of an evolutionary

theory of history, especially one with elements drawn from

Hegelian dialectic. Thus, secular and practical wisdom

based on international models is re-formed and re-formu-

lated gradually to suit its new Israelite setting--re-

applied to experience a la Schmid—acquiring an appropri-

ate theological cast.¹

b) Wisdom as know-how, savoir-faire. Fichtner

defines wisdom:

Weisheit ist die Kunst, das Leben in jeder Beziehung

und in alien Lagen wie ein Meister zu führen. Das

setzt voraus, dass überall eine von Menschen zu

erfassende Gesetzmässigkeit herrscht, nach der dem

jeweiligen Verhalten ein bestimmtes Ergebnis ent-

spricht. Diese Gesetzmässigkeit.meint der Weise im

praktischen Leben des Tages, im Beruf, ira Verkehr

mit den Menschen, überall beobachten zu können:

mit einer Regelmässigkeit, die dem Beobachter als

Gesetzmässigkeit erscheint. . . . Aus seinen

Beobachtungen formt der Weise Ratschläge allgemeiner

Lebenserfahrung und Weltklugheit. --Weiter sieht er,

dass das Gemeinschaftsleben von dem einzelnen die

¹Schmid, Wesen und Geschichte der Weisheit, pp.

145-96.

Anerkennung der in der Gemeinschaft geltenden

sittlichen Norm fordert. Von ihren Geltungsrecht

innerlich erfasst erklärt er Unglück und Verderben

als Folge der Übertretung der Norm, Glück und

Gelingen als Folge normgemässen Handelns.¹

The wise so often saw this retribution which social norms

demanded that they conceived of it as a governing order.

Fichtner postulates a theologizing of wisdom in time,

"ohne freilich ihren Zusammenhang mit der übrigen alt-

orientalischen Weisheit völlig zu verleugnen."²

Baumgartner points out that the Hebrew wise did

not develop systematic philosophy like the Greeks' but

“praktische Lebensweisheit. Weise ist, wer seine Leben

so einrichtet, dass es zu einem guten Ende führt."³ He

adds:

Freilich was wir sonst im Alten Testament als

spezifisch israelitisch kennen, tritt hier auffallend

zurück: Sinai-Offenbarung und Gottesbund, Israels

Erwählung und heilige Geschichte. Ja, von Israel als

Volk ist überhaupt kaum die Rede. Die Chokma wendet

sich an den Einzelnen, nicht ans Volk. Sie unter-

scheidet nicht Israel und die Heiden, sondern Weise

und Toren; und diese Unterscheidung geht mitten durch

das eigene Volk hindurch.⁴

c) Wisdom as anthropocentric counsel, erfahrungs-

gemäss. Zimmerli followed on the work of Fichtner and

¹Fichtner, Altorientalische Weisheit, p. 12.

²Fichtner, Altorientalische Weisheit, p. 59.

³Baumgartner, Weisheit, p. 1.

⁴Baumgartner, Weisheit, p. 2.

Baumgartner with his classic study,'"Zur Struktur der alt-

testamentlichen Weisheit"¹ Taking Proverbs as a starting

point, he finds that the archetypes of the wise man and the

fool represent alternative total patterns or styles of life

(Gesamtlebenshaltung), which resolve the question of life,

rightly and wrongly respectively. Neither the answer nor

the question are in themselves interesting for purposes of

our interpretive understanding. Rather, we are concerned

with the kind of prior understanding, presupposition

(Vorverständnis) or preconception (Vorentscheidung) which

everywhere runs throughout and informs the wise' total

pattern of life.²

Zimmerli does not present a simple definition of

wisdom's preconception of life. He does, however, set out

a number of characteristics that together typify wisdom.

First, it is anthropocentric; it is concerned with human

possibilities.³ "Sie behält ihren Schwerpunckt im ein-

zelnen, ungeschichtlichen Menschen, nach dessen Glück sie

fragt.”⁴ Second, though man is autonomous, he is a creature

¹His revision of this 1933 position falls under a

slightly different classification below.

²Zimmerli, "Struktur," p. 177.

³Zimmerli, "Struktur," p. 178.

⁴Zimmerli, "Struktur," p. 178.

and bound to the order of the creator.¹ Third, in Israel,

wisdom tends to depart from its aristocratic international

origins and become democratized. It becomes the property

of the people.²Fourth, the admonitions of wisdom carry

authority, and they guide man through the "profane world."

This “authority” is not that of law or command; it is im-

personal while authority in the strict sense is personal.

The power of wisdom lies in its counsel (Rat, ^cēsāh).³

Fifth, wisdom is a summation of experience upon which the

advisee is to reflect, and from that reflection to act:

'grundliche Überiegung der 'erfahrungsgemäss' sich ein-

stellenden Folgen."⁴

Der Schwerpunkt liegt also hinter dem Wortlaut der

Anweisung in der Begründung, in den Erfahrungssatz,

der von dem Menschen einkalkuliert werden soll, den

er überlegen, aus dessen Überlegung heraus er

handeln soll. Das konkrete Handeln ist im Grunde

freigegeben.⁵

Thus, Zimmerli calls attention to the existence of

two characteristic wisdom forms side by side, the simple

saying (Aussage) and the motivated admonition (Mahnspruch,

Mahnung). The first is obviously counsel. The second

¹Zimmerli, "Struktur," pp. 179-80.

²Zimmerli, "Struktur,” p, 181.

³Zimmerli, "Struktur,” pp. 181-88.

⁴Zimmerli, "Struktur," pp. 188-89.

⁵Zimmerli, "Struktur," p. 188.

acquires its power through its assessment of consequences

on the basis of experience. That is its authority.¹

Es ist überhaupt kein Gehorsam von Wille zu Wille,

sondern ein freies Verfügen des Hörenden auf Grund

der ihm aufgewiesenen Zusammenhänge und Gesetz-

massigkeiten.²

Sixth, even in religious matters, wisdom thought

begins with man's possibilities and his interests. Yahweh

does not appear as the imponderable authoritarian creator.

He is viewed from man's context in terms of his effect on

human activities.³ Thus,

Auch die Begründungssatze der Mahnungen . . .

lassen eine letztgültige Berufung auf gesetzte

Ordnung vermissen und orientieren sich am ein-

zelnen Ich und seinen Vortei1.⁴

Seventh, Zimmerli finds the "better"-sayings (tôb-

min) quite significant. The wise did not hold a view of

absolute good in spite of the paired opposites (Zwillinge

--wise and fool, rich and poor, good and evil) so common

to the literature. Absolute good would imply clear-cut

duties for the wise. Rather, they compared possible values

and calculated outcomes. They considered advantages and

disadvantages. Zimmerli, therefore, takes over Fichtner's ,

¹Zimmerli, “Struktur,” pp. 188-92.

²Zimmerli, “Struktur,” p. 188.

³Zimmerli, "Struktur," p. 192.

⁴Zimmerli, "Struktur," p. 192.

term "eudaimonistic" to describe this calculation and self-

determination (selbst-verfügen).¹ The naively optimistic

attitude of Proverbs reflects the perspective of normative

(international) wisdom, which asks the question, "Wie

steigere ich mein Dasein durch Glück, und Leben?”²

Job and Ecclesiastes, however, call the mēden agan

of normative wisdom into question when they pose the ques-

tion how man secures his existence in its negative form,

"Wie bewähre ich mich vor Unglück, vor all vor vorzeitigen

Tod?"³ They concern themselves with the limits of man's

control over his destiny. Divine retributive justice still

acts in areas of life where man is powerless. They do not

reject the wisdom question. They do not curse God and die.

Nor do they see these limits as a direct conflict between

divine justice and human possibility, thereby negating the

wisdom hierarchy of values:⁴

Der Weiseempfindet keinen Bruch zwischen seiner

Einstellung und der Gottbedingtheit der Welt. Die

Ansprüche Gottes und der Menschen brauchen nicht in

Konflict zu geraten. Sein Glaube ist es vielmehr,

dass in der göttlichen Weltordnung für des Menschen

Lebensverlangen aufs beste gesorgt ist, dass der

eigentliche Glücksanspruch des Menschen im bereit-

willigen Einflügen in die göttliche Weltordnung voll

¹Zimmerli, "Struktur," pp. 192-94, 203.

²Zimmerli, "Struktur," p, 198.

³Zimmerli, "Struktur," pp. 198-99.

⁴Zimmerli, "Struktur," pp. 194-204.

befriedigt wird. Auch Gott kommt zu seinem Recht,

wenn der Mensch (auf dem richtigen Wege) sein

Glück sucht. Und ebenso umgekehrt: Auch der

Mensch kommt am allerbesten und sichersten zu

seinem Glück, wenn er Gott fürchtet.¹

Last, the fundamental orientation of wisdom is

a-historical because its fundamental concern is to under-

stand all of reality rationally, in its diversity and com-

plexity ("der naive Optimismus und die Geschichtlosigkeit

des Lebens als notwendige Ausstrahlung dieser rational-

istischen Grundhaltung").²

As developed by Zimmerli and later summarized by

Schmid, this perspective on wisdom could be characterized

as rationalism, which could therefore well be sub-category

d). Schmid summarizes this view succinctly:

Utilitarisch, eudämonistisch, rational, ursprünglich

profan, später religiös, geschichtlos, überzeitlich:

das sind die Attribute, welche die Weisheit während

der letzten dreissig Jahre zu tragen hatte.³

What intellectual debt--if any--Baumgartner, Fichtner and

Zimmerli might owe to the work of Jolles would be difficult

to establish. They continue to see wisdom as founded on

common human experience and oriented toward “secular” ends.

Wisdom is knowledge; it is learned by and communicated as

language. For them, the archetype of wisdom seems to be

¹Zimmerli, “Struktur,” p. 203.

²Zimmerli, “Struktur," p. 204.

³Schmid, Wesen und Geschichte der Weisheit, p. 3.

the saying. Von Rad's work proceeds from this view. He

himself expressly acknowledges Jolles' contribution to his

work.¹

e) Wisdom as gnomic apperception. In his earlier

studies, predating Weisheit in Israel, von Rad speaks thus

of wisdom:

Wie alle Völker, so verstand auch Israel unter

"Weisheit" ein ganz praktisches, auf Erfahrung

gegründetes Wissen von den Gesetzen des Lebens

und der Welt. . . . Dieses Ausgehen von ele-

mentaren Erfahrungen ist das Charakteristische

fast für alle ihre Lebensäusseruncen. In alien

Kulturstufen steht ja der Mensch vor der Aufgabe,

das Leben zu bewältigen. Zu diesem Zweck muss er

es kennen und darf nicht ablassen, zu beobachten

und zu lauschen, ob sich in der Wirrnis der Gescheh-

nisse nicht doch da und dort etwas wie eine Gesetz-

mässigkeit, eine Ordnung erkennen lässt.²

. . . The means of laying hold of and objectifying

such orders when once perceived is language. . .

Undoubtedly [the Pairs of Opposites] are to be

understood as primitive attempts to mark off certain

orders and tie them down in words.³

Here we find unmistakable parallels with Jolles.

Remembering that sayings represent normative wisdom, we

may continue with von Rad:

Now, when we bear in mind that every people expended

a great deal of trouble and artistry in the formation

¹Von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 1:421-22.

²"Die Ältere Weisheit Israels," Kerygma und Dogma:

Zeitschrift für Theologische und Kirchliche Lehre 2

(1956) :54-72; cf. his Old Testament Theology 1:418.

³Von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 1:418.

of this kind of Wisdom literature, and that gnomic

apperception is in fact one of the most elegant

forms of human thinking and a weapon in the

struggle for spiritual content in life, it will

be apparent that there are two completely dif-

ferent forms of the apperception of truth for

mankind--one systematic (philosophical and theo-

logical) and one empirical and gnomic. Each re-

quires the other. Where the one employed by the

Wisdom literature is wanting, men are in danger

of reducing everything to dogma, and indeed of

runing off into ideological fantasy. Empirical

and gnomic wisdom starts from the unyielding pre-

supposition that there is a hidden order in things

and events--only, it has to be discerned in them,

with great patience and at the cost of all kinds

of painful experience. And this order is kindly

and righteous. But, characteristically, it is

not understood systematically--and therefore not

in such a way as to reduce all the variety ex-

perienced and perceived to a general principle of

order. . . . As Jolles says, conceptual thinking

cannot possibly apprehend the world to which

gnomic thinking applies itself. Wisdom examines

the phenomenal world to discern its secrets, but

allows whatever it finds to stand in its own

particular character absolutely.¹

To von Rad, the growing scepticism of Job and

Qoheleth does not represent a repudiation of wisdom.

Their conflict is only intelligible from wisdom's pre-

suppositions about the world. Thus in this respect, he

follows Zimmerli.²

f) Wisdom as humanism. One finds quite a

different approach from the fore-going definitions and

¹Von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 1:421-22,

²Von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 1:441-59;

Zimmerli, "Struktur," pp. 198-204.

descriptions of wisdom in this section when one turns to

the work of Rankin. His basic operating concept is

humanism.¹

The Wisdom literature may be called the documents

of Israel's humanism, not in the sense of a re-

jection of the supernatural, or even as intending

a concern chiefly with man's welfare, but because

its general characteristic is the recognition of

man's moral responsibility, his religious indi-

viduality and of God's interest in the individual

life.²

All wisdom writings concern themselves with the

ordinary individual--even when wisdom becomes hypostasized

into an intermediary being between God and man.

Because the interest of the Wisdom books is of

this nature, they yield not merely a vast body of

moral teaching but complete the foundation of

thought upon which a theology could be built.

. . . They [the wise] are the rationalists of

Hebrew thought and religion.³

While prophetic and priestly thought took only

the community into account, the wise looked at a person's

peace, welfare and happiness in the context of family

and community. In wisdom thought, attention is paid to

the basic motives behind human conduct: "gratitude,

¹O. S. Rankin, Israel's Wisdom Literature: Its

Bearing on Theology and the History of Religion; the Kerr

Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, Glasgow, 1933-36

(Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, n.d.), pp. 1-9.

²Rankin, p. 3.

³Rankin, p. 3.

friendship, love, hate, wealth, reputation."¹ "Wisdom is

the ability to assess truly the values of life."²

Weinfeld, in his studies of the relationship be-

tween Deuteronomy and wisdom, takes over the term

"humanism" from Rankin, following in the tradition of

S. R. Driver, Delitzsch and Cheyne.³

The humanistic ideology which characterizes

sapiential teaching scrutinizes all matters

from the human point of view and consequently

seeks those ends which will prove to be for

"man's good."⁴

. . . The conventional sapiential view identi-

fies wisdom with the knowledge and understand-

ing of nature's laws. . . ⁵

Weinfeld approves Rankin's view that "the social

ideas of Proverbs are, properly speaking, distinctly

sapiential ideas, based on the concept of the 'equality

of men,' which in turn derives from the sapiential concept

¹Rankin, p. 4.

²Rankin, p. 4.

³Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic

School (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972); Moshe Weinfeld,

“The Orgin of the Humanism in Deuteronomy," Journal of

Biblical Literature 80 (September 1961): 241-47; Moshe

Weinfeld, "Deuteronomy--the Present State of the Inquiry,"

Journal of Biblical Literature 86 (September 1967): 249-62;

C. M. Carmichael, "Deuteronomic Laws, Wisdom, and His-

torical Traditions," Journal of Semitic Studies 12 (1967):

198-206; Jean. Malfroy, "Sagesse et Loi dans le Deuteronome:

Études," Vetus Testamentum 15 (1965): 49-65.

⁴Weinfeld, Deuteronomy, pp. 308-9.

⁵Weinfeld, Deuteronomy, p. 257.

of the 'Creator of man' predominating in wisdom litera-

ture."¹In this respect, scholars in this tradition

approach a view which we shall not discuss, wisdom as

creation theology g). Continuing, Weinfeld contends that

this humanistic ideology is international. Still, he

argues that a special kind of theologizing process in

Israel led to deuteronomic thinking. The yir’at yahweh

upon which wisdom is then said to be grounded reflects a

growing conflict with the conventional sapiential view

that wisdom is universal knowledge:

The sapiential authors of these dicta apparently

wished to say . . . that man's wisdom lies in his

moral behaviour. They realized that the human

mind could neither fathom the mysteries of creation

nor acquire universal knowledge . . . and that the

only wisdom man could aspire to was that which per-

tained to human affairs, i.e. Lebensweisheit and

not Naturweisheit.²

The ideology upon which the humanistic ethic is founded is

thus theologized and circumscribed. The deuteronomists

combined this new humanism with Torah.³

The application of the term "humanism" to wisdom

tends to shade together several different conceptual

¹Weinfeld, Deuteronomy, p. 295.

²Weinfeld, Deuteronomy, p. 258.

³Weinfeld, Deuteronomy, pp. 158-319; Weinfeld,

"Humanism in Deuteronomy," pp. 241-47.

categories. "Rationalism" (Rankin) and "ideology"

(Weinfeld) suggest a system or body of thought which

unites all of wisdom, as we have discussed above.¹ But,

“moral responsibility” and "moral behaviour" reflect wis-

dom as ethos: that wisdom distinguished by a certain

pattern of action.² The more, since there seem to be

severe limitations to the wise' ability to know. Wein-

feld also seems to use “wisdom,” "sapiential," and

"humanism" as theological categories to unite common

strands out of seemingly diverse intellectual movements

and divers social groups.³

h) Wisdom as the perception of a divine or supra-

mundane universal order. This approach to understanding

wisdom takes its point of intellectual departure from

Egyptian wisdom and its doctrine of maat. Gese quotes

Frankfort's dismissal of eudaimonistic-pragmatic explana-

tions of wisdom:

The usual comment on this type of advice is

totally inadequate. It is neither a rule of

¹Rankin, p. 25; Weinfeld, Deuteronomy, p. 189;

cf. Whybray, Intellectual Tradition, pp. 1-14.

²We shall deal with wisdom as behavior or ethos

below. Of course, one can only infer what behavior was

historically from evidence, generally literary what. has

been said about the supposed behavior.

³Weinfeld, Deuteronomy, pp. 158-89.

good conduct, nor a plan for making a man popu-

lar and likely to gain advancement--in fact,

can think of no behavior more likely to get one

into trouble.¹

Here, Frankfort refers to Kagemni's counsel not to eat

until a greedy man is sated nor drink until the drunkard

has taken his fill. His and Gese's remarks reflect a

general dissatisfaction with the rational-pragmatic inter-

pretation.²

Frankfort argues that we have read a modern con-

trast back into history. We distinguish worldly savoir-

faire from religiously motivated ethical behavior. The

Egyptian perceived no distinction. He lived in a world

suffused by a single order that was at once social, ethi-

cal and cosmological:

The Egyptians recognized a divine order, estab-

lished at the time of creation; this order is

manifest in nature in the normalcy of phenomena;

it is manifest in society as justice; and it is

manifest in an individual's life as truth. Maat

is this order, the essence of existence, whether

we recognize it or not.

The conception of Maat expresses the Egyptian

belief that the universe is changeless and that

all apparent opposites must, therefore, hold each

other in equilibrium. Such a belief has definite

consequences in the field of moral philosophy. It

puts a premium on whatever exists with a semblance

¹Henri Frankfort, Ancient Egyptian Religion: An

Interpretation, Cloister Library of Harper Torchbooks

(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1948), p. 71; Gese, Lehre

und Wirklichkeit, p. 9.

²Gese, Lehre und Wirklichkeit, pp. 7-11.

of permanence. It excludes ideals of progress,

utopias of any kind, revolutions, or any other

radical changes in existing conditions. It al-

lows a man "to strive after every excellence

until there be no fault in his nature," but im-

plies, as we have seen, harmony with the estab-

lished order, the latter not taken in any vague

and general way but quite specifically as that

which exists with seeming permanence.¹

Order, maat, is no impersonal force. That would

be a modern concept. But, deviation from order is also no

act of rebellion. Disharmony brings about the inevitable

intervention of some deity in an act of retributive jus-

tice, but the operation of act and consequence is not

automatic. The world is permeated by a profound religious

order. It is man's religious and ethical responsibility

to recognize this order and to put himself in harmony with

it. Thus, authority becomes significant.²

Gese expressly applies the analogy of maat to

wisdam in Israel. There, he finds the notion of order,

not pragmatism:

Wir müssen uns auch hier im Alten Testament vor

der eudämonistischen Interpretation hüten, wenn

wir nicht auf Grund der uns eigentümlichen

Scheidung von innen and ausseren Erfolg, Mass-

stäbe an die Weisheitslehre herantragen wollen,

die ihr--zumindest in ihrem Ursprung--wesentlich

fremd sind. Vielmehr wird hier in der Weisheit

¹Frankfort, Ancient Egyptian Religion, p. 64.

²Frankfort, Ancient Egyptian Religion, pp. 64-71,

passim.

auf Grund der Erkenntnis einer der Welt inne-

wohnenden Ordnung gesagt, lass der Fleissige

durch sein Tun reich, der Faule arm wird; und

ebenso wird der Gerezhte Erfolg, der Ungerechte

Misserfolg davontragen. Wir könnten fast von

einer naturgesetzlichen Weise sprechen, in der

sich die Folge aus der Tat ergibt.¹

Gese notes the Unverfügbarkeit of this order in

both Egypt and Israel. Man is inescapably bound to the

fundamental order that gcverns the world. Act and result

are inextricably bound together (Tat-Ergehen-Zusammenhang)

in human action. Man is utterly incapable of interposing

himself in this complex.²

Israel differs from Egypt. It breaks through the

fateful working out of this process (schicksalwirkende

Tatsphäre). Yahweh is independent of this order. We do

find royal ideology in wisdom; the king is the guarantor

of order. But, in the same way that Yahweh can act freely

with respect to the king, so Yahweh is completely free from

the order's jurisdiction. Israelite wisdom is not rigidly

determinist. Job emphasizes Yahweh's freedom with respect

to his created order, and strengthens the implicit double

standard in Hebrew wisdom: that wisdom is nothing with

respect to Yahweh. Job however accepts the fundamental

premise of order which typifies Hebrew wisdom. Its

¹Gese, Lehre und Wirklichkeit, pp. 34-35.

²Gese, Lehre und Wirklichkeit, pp. 44-45.

solution leads us again into wisdom thinking.¹ Gese's

concluding sentence reflects the paradox of Hebrew wisdom:

Die grossartige und tief religiöse altori-

entalische Weisheit ist in Israel aufgenommen

und bewältigt worden, die Bindung an meta-

physische Ordnungqn wurde durch den Glauben an

Jahwä überwunden.²

In sum,

. . . The wisdom literature of Israel--like that

of Egypt--seeks above all to discover the order

that is inherent in the world and human life,

making it possible for man to accommodate himself

reasonably to this order. This inherent order,

however, is righteousness. That is to say, the

Hebrew s^edaqâ corresponds in function to the

Egyptian concept of m3^ct, "truth," or better

"righteousness," "orderly management."³

i) Wisdom as the knowledge of authoritative

divine will. Gese's view of wisdom, in terms of order,

the relationship of act and result, and the freedom of

Yahweh, over against the anthropocentric-eudaimonistic

definitions, has steadily gained ground in wisdom studies.

Both von Rad and Zimmerli have substantially revised their

positions to respond to this line of reasoning

¹Gese, Lehre und Wirklichkeit, pp. 42, 45-78.

²Gese, Lehre und Wi.rklichkeit, p. 78.

³Helmer Ringgren, Israelite Religion, trans.

David E. Green (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966), pp.

133.

⁴Von Rad in his Weisheit in Israel compared to the

views expressed in his Old Testament Theology and "Ältere

Gemser was one of the first to recognize the im-

plications in Gese's proposals. His article on the

"Spiritual Structure of Biblical Aphoristic Wisdom" did

not propound a drastically new definition of wisdom so

much as pose certain problems that implied redefinition.¹

First, he asked, with what authority does wisdom

teaching confront its hearers? For Gemser, as for

de Boer,² ^cēsah is not discussible advice:

The counsels of the wise are not advice offered

without obligation to the free discussion and de-

cision of the addressed, they claim to be listened

to and followed up and put into practice.³

Second, from what does this teaching derive its

authority? If Gese be right, authority derives from

divine order, permeating and interpenetrating the struc-

ture of the world.⁴ Von Rad points out that the search

for order is inherent in language itself:

Weisheit Israels"; Zimmerli in "Place and Limit" as op-

posed to his earlier "Struktur."

¹pp. 138-49.

²P. A. H. de Boer, “The Counsellor,” in Wisdom in

Israel and in the Ancient Near East: Presented to Pro-

fessor Harold Henry Rowley, ed. Martin Noth and D. Winton

Thomas, Vetus Testamentum Supplements, vol. 3 (Leiden:

E. J. Brill, 1955), pp. 42-71.

³Gemser, "Spiritual Structure," p. 146..

⁴Gese, Lehre and Wirklichkeit, pp. 33-45; Gemser,

"Spiritual Structure," p. 142.

Parallel and intertwined with this universal

ancient belief in an impersonal, yet authoritative

world-order was the conviction that wisdom was a

prerogative and gift of the gods; wisdom and word,

intelligence and speech were even, in Egypt as well

as in Babylonia and Ugarit, thought of as personal

divine beings. No wonder that in ancient Israel

with its fundamental belief in a personal, even one

personal Deity wisdom was seen as one of the most

essential qualities of God, and the teachings of

wisdom as the expressions of his will.¹

Third, if all have equal authority, how does the

counsel of the wise differ from the words of prophets or

the torah of priests? The fact that these groups are dis-

tinct implies a clear difference in the types of authority

appropriate to and held by each. Gemser quotes himself in

reply, analyzing the semantic role of the motivating

clauses:

"The motive clauses with their appeal to the common

sense and to the conscience of the people disclose

the truly democratic character of their laws, just

as those (the motivations) of the religious kind

testify the deep religious sense and concentrated

theological thinking of their formulators."²

Motivations are a pedagogic device. “They are appropriate

to what is being taught; they are not an appeal to ex-

perience, nor evidence of one. We wonder, however, whether

Gemser has replied to precisely the question he set

¹Gemser, “Spiritual Structure,” p. 147.

²Gemser, “Spiritual Structure,” p. 148 quoting

from his "The Importance of Motive Clauses in Old Testa-

ment Law," in Copenhagen Congress Volume, Vetus Testa-

mentum Supplements, vol. 1 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1953),

p. 63.

himself. This distinction must derive from didactic in-

tent and from setting, suggesting some unstated assump-

tions about the nature and objective of wisdom. Still,

Gemser clearly stated his intent to pose questions, not

necessarily to answer them, except perhaps by implica-

tion.¹

j) Wisdom as artful life-mastery in the context

of a divinely created and ordered world. In response to

the growing emphasis on authority, theology, and divine

order, Zimmerli has modified some of his views on wisdom

thought, though not so much perhaps as Gemser has sug-

gested. Zimmerli continues to emphasize wisdom's anthro-

pocentrism. He points out, as Baumgartner had long

before, that "Wisdom has no relation to the history between

God and Israel."²While people and king appear as socio-

logical elements in wisdom, one misses there even a

theologizing of the obvious Solomonic connection with a

possible covenant theology.³

¹Gemser, "Motive Clauses," pp. 50-66; Gemser,

"Spiritual Structure," pp. 138-49.

²Zimmerli, "Place and Limit," p. 147; Baumgartner,

Weisheit, pp. 1-2.

³Zimmerli, "Place and Limit," p. 147; Crenshaw,

"Prolegomenon," p. 2.

Zimmerli raises to central importance a point he

had made in his earlier article. "Wisdom thinks resolutely

within the framework of a theology of creation.”¹ This

theology, however, is not based on an immutable order or

an instruction to trust in Yahweh.

Wisdom is per definitionem tahbūlôth, ‘the art

of steering,’ knowledge of how to do in life, and

thus it has a fundamental alignment to man and

his preparing to master human life.²

Zimmerli repeats the importance of history as he

finds it in the mashal. The saying (Aussagewort) appre-

hends the elements of experience, defining and delimiting

them ("establishing them").³ The admonition applies what

is thereby understood to man's life-situation. It tells

him how to behave. It shows him how to gain his life

"with respect for the surrounding world of order, even the

order of the divine world.”⁴ “Wisdom shows man as a being

¹Zimmerli, "Place and Limit," p. 148; cf. Gerhard

von Rad, "Das Theologische Problem des Alttestamentlichen

Schöpfungsglaubens," in Werden und Wesen des Alten Testa-

ments: Vorträge Gehalten auf der Interhationalen Tagung

Alttestamentlicher Forscher zu Gottingen vom 4.-10.

September 1935, ea. Johannes Hempel, Friedrich Stummer, and

Paul Volz, Beihiefte zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestament-

liche Wissenschaft, vol. 66 (Berlin: Alfred Töpelmann,

1936), pp. 138-47.

²Zimmerli, "Place and Limit, p. 149; Gese, Lehre

and Wirklichkeit, p. 47.

³Zimmerli, "Place and Limit," pp. 150-51.

⁴Zimmerli, "Place and Limit," p. 151.

who goes out, who apprehends through his knowledge, who es-

tablishes, who orders the world."¹"Wisdom seeks to be a

human art of life in the sense of mastering life in the

framework of a given order in this life."²

Its theology of creation emphasizes the subordina-

tion of the order of the world to the will of Yahweh.

Even Qoheleth operates from the presuppositions of wisdom,

and sets the bounds of wisdom before its creator. The

attempt to master life can turn into utter foolishness

before Yahweh.

Through his sapiential encounter with the reality of

the world Ecclesiastes caught sight of the freedom of

God, who acts and never reacts. He feels this free-

dom of God as a painful limitation of his own impulse

to go out into the world by wisdom and to master the

world. Nevertheless he holds unswervingly fast to

the creator, who alone has power to allot and to

dispose of the times.³

Qoheleth sharpens the creation theology and sets the

bounds of anthropocentric wisdom; he accepts what is pos-

sible within those limits.

Zimmerli rejects any attempt to equate wisdom's

authority with that of apodictic law or prophetic word. A

tension remains between creation theology and the anthro-

¹Zimmerli, "Place and Limit," p. 150.

²Zimmerli, "Place and Limit," p. 155.

³Zimmerli, "Place and Limit," p. 157.

pocentric mastery of life; Qoheleth puts this tension in

sharp relief. Wisdom is counsel. The sage convinces the

hearer through argumentative persuasion and by evidence.¹

Counsel affords a certain margin of liberty and of

proper decision. Certainly we cannot say that

counsel has no authority. It has the authority of

insight. But that is quite different from the

authority of the Lord, who decrees.

So the weighing of the different possibilities

always belongs to the behaviour of the wise man.²

Zimmerli seems to reject much of the Egyptian analogy.

In doing so, he restates, with important modifications,

the position he set out earlier. Life-mastery is now

divinely conditioned.

k) Wisdom as self-understanding in relation-

ship. Like Zimmerli, Crenshaw is suspicious of the at-

tempt to define or redefine wisdom as a system of thought

on the basis of the Egyptian analogy. He argues that,

while the same motifs may appear, the entire context of

any proposed wisdom statement determines the "nuances" of

its meaning. Meaning is inseparable from context. "Wis-

dom" may serve different analytical purposes, referring to

a literature, a tradition that could be called paideia, or

a system of thought as hiokmāh. Here, Crenshaw moves

¹Zimmerli, "Place and Limit," pp. 155-58.

²Zimmerli, "Place and Limit," p. 153.

toward a typology which he makes part of his definition.¹

Crenshaw stresses the disparate character of wis-

dom thought. It has many settings and serves many objec-

tives. The conflict we observe over definition may

reflect attempts to bring too much together within the

confines of too narrow an intellectual space. He pro-

poses:

Wisdom, then, may be defined as the quest for

self-understanding in terms of relationships with

things, people, and the Creator. This search for

meaning moves on three levels: (1) nature wisdom

which is an attempt to master things for human

survival and well-being, and which includes the

drawing up of onomastica and study of natural

phenomena as they relate to man and the universe;

(2) juridical and Erfahrungsweisheit (practical

wisdom), with the focus upon human relationships

in an ordered society or state; and (3) theo-

logical wisdom, which moves in the realm of the-

odicy, and in so doing affirms God as ultimate

meaning. . . .²

1) Wisdom as a demythicized will to knowl-

edge. Responding to recent directions in wisdom study,

von Rad presents a revised statement of his views in

Weisheit in Israel. Like Crenshaw, von Rad emphasizes

the secondary position of the term wisdom. It is "ja in

¹Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influ-

ence," p. 130, cf. n. 4.

²Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influ-

ence," p. 132.

den Quellen keineswegs verankert."¹ Rather, it is a

category which has been derived through research and is

subject to revision and redefinition. From Proverbs

1:1-5, he points out the large vocabulary used by the

Hebrews to get at the idea or approach to life which we

have subsumed under a single concept. Von Rad also recog-

nizes that the construction of a social reality, implied

in Jolles' approach to language, cannot be limited to

wisdom. Any social group defines a reality for itself.

Typically, in fact, one is confronted with the demands of

alternative but competing world-views for his allegiance.

While such perspectives have been tested by time for their

stability and their validity, they necessarily simplify

and generalize in their portrayal of "reality" or "what is

so.”²

A certain self-knowledge, a certain ordering and

interpretation of prior experience, a certain perspective

on the world stands behind every experience of reality.

"Voraussetzungslose Erfahrungen gibt es ja nicht.”³ Since

the experience of counter-realities is a threatening one,

Weltanschauungen alternately struggle against one another

¹Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, p. 19.

²Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, pp. 26, 384.

³Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, p. 13.

and seek to encompass conceptually what they do not yet

adequately include. Certainly, "wisdom" is found in the

attempt to order and comprehend experience, and do this

within some literary form. This effort can be found in

virtually every culture. Our dilemma is that we must

either find what commonalities of thought--not just social

methodology--bind together the phenomena we call in the

abstract "wisdom," or we must abandon the term altogether

as some scholars would have us do.¹

We should recognize that we perceive these phe-

nomena, and our own reality, through highly abstract con-

cepts which the Hebrew did not employ. His real and im-

mediate world grasped him in a way and with a directness

and intimacy we can only begin to appreciate if we use the

:most meticulous methodology. Von Rad believes that he can

identify elements of thought which unite wisdom and justify

our use of the term.

We search in vain for some method or some faculty

of the human mind which constituted wisdom for the Hebrew.

Wisdom is a charismatic gift of openness, receptivity,

active awareness of the evidences of a truth inherent in

the created order of the world. It is not some technical

means of manipulated dead matter; that view is strictly

¹ Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, pp. 13-20.

modern. The wise trust creation and believe it worthy of

that trust. Nevertheless, "Der Weg, wie der Weise zu

seinem Wissen gelangt, bleibt in Dunkeln, aber in einem

verheissungsvollen Dunkel."¹ Without a commitment of

trust, nothing worthwhile can be accomplished. The cre-

ated order, however, rewards trust. He is the fool who

misplaces his trust or withholds it entirely.

Der "Tor" war doch nicht einfach ein Schwachkopf,

sondern ein Mensch, der sich gegen eine Wahrheit

stellte, die ihm in der Schöpfung entgegentrat,

der sei es aus welchen Gründen, sich einer Ordnung

nicht anvertraute, die für ihn heilsam wäre, die

sich aber nun gegen ihn wendet.²

The basic human search for knowledge and pattern

in the world (Erkenntniswille) has been cut free of that

spirituality which perceives the world in terms of myth-

ology and immanent powers. For the Hebrew,

Es handelt sich um einen Erkenntniswillen, der

eine hellwache Ratio auf entmythisierte Welt

richtete. Aber, nur scheinbar kam Israel mit dieser

Entmythisierung der Welt dem modernen Weltver-

ständnis nahe, denn dieser radikalen Verweltlichung

der Welt entsprach die Vorstellung von einem ebenso

radikalen Durchwaltetsein dieser Welt von Jahwe.

also die Vorstellung von der Welt als einer

Schöpfung Jahwes.³

Von Rad argues that wisdom is discursive and

¹Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, p. 377.

²Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, p. 379.

³Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, p. 378.

dialectic. As wisdom thought developed, it became clear

that the impediments and defeats of human life would have

to be reconsidered. Thus, we find a "theologizing of

wisdom." All the old questions are re-ordered in terms of

a new theological groundwork. For the act-consequence-

relationship or synergistic view of life, other wise came

to emphasize the creation, in which Yahweh was hidden from

man and the divine will remained at times only a secret.

Both sides of this discussion agreed that the creation was

the field of divine action within which Yahweh revealed

or concealed himself, his will and his law. The discussion

centered on how to explain an order in which the ordering

will might remain hidden and how to explain a relationship

with Yahweh, who might conceal himself in his creation.

The will to knowledge is common to both.¹

Wisdom is dialectic in its emphasis on man's re-

latedness.

Der Mensch--iminer sing es um den Einzelnen--sah

sich wie eingebunden in einen Kreis der mannig-

fachsten Bezugsverhältnisse nach draussen hin, in

denen er einmal Subjekt, einmal Objekt war.

Sprachen wie gelegentlich von den Aufbruch des

Erkenntniswillens Israels auf die Gegenstände seiner

Umwelt hin, so war das eben dock nur die eine Seite

der Sache. Ebensogut könnte man sagen, dass sein

Erkenntniswille einer Provokation gegenüber erst

antwortete, dass er also erst nachzog, indem er

sich in der Zwangslage sah, sich auf Verhältnisse,

¹Von Rad, WeisheöOpfungsglaubens," pp. 138-47.

ja Bewegungen seiner Umwelt einzustellen, die

mächtiger waren als der Mensch. . . . Aber diese

Bewegungen der Umwelt . . . . liefen nicht in

einem beziehungslosen Draussen nach einem fremden

Gesetz ab; nein, sie waren dem Menschen in un-

endlicher Beweglichkeit ganz persönlich zu-

gekehrt. . .¹

Ohne zu einer Gesamtschaudurchstossen zu können,

kreiste das Denken der Weisen doch immer um das

Problem einer Phänomenologie des Menschen.

Freilich nicht des Menschen an sich, sondern um

eine Phänomenologie des in seine Umwelt einge-

bundenen Menschen, in der er sich inner zugleich

als Subjekt und als Objekt, als aktiv und passiv

verfand. Ohne diese Umwelt, der er zugekehrt ist,

und die ihm zugekehrt ist, war in Israel ein

Menschenverständnis überhaupt nicht möglich.

Israel kannte nur einen bezogenen Menschen;

bezogen auf Menschen, auf seine Umwelt, und nicht

zuletzt auf Gott. Auch die Lehre von der Selbst-

bezeugung der Schöpfung ist durchaus als ein unge-

bunden Welt zu verstehen.²

If man is related to a personally perceived world,

even "nature," this world is not torn by a confrontation

between Yahweh and some personalized evil. Herein lies

Job's problem. He must account for life's evils and

hiddenness within a monistic view that Yahweh stands

within creation. This belief in a related and personal-

ized creation becomes wisdom as it is given verbal and

literary expression on the basis of experience. The

office of the wise man is to formulate his experience and

to communicate it. Thus, in restating his position,

¹Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, p. 383.

²Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, p. 400.

von Rad takes cognizance of new emphases on order and the

personal nature of creation. He also stresses the role

of subjectivity in the interpretation of experience, a

point important to understanding the relationship between

the wise man and his wisdom.¹

m) Wisdom as an existential understanding.

Würthwein has detailed the implications of order in the

Egyptian setting that could be applied with qualifications

to Israel.²Wisdom seeks to comprehend the world of ex-

perience as orderly and intelligible. The existential

understanding or preconception includes:

1. Das Leben verläuft nach einer bestimmten Ordnung.

2. Diese Ordnung ist lehr- und lernbar.

3. Dadurch ist dem Menschen ein Instrument in die

Hand gegeben, seinen Lebensweg zu bestimmen und

zu sichern. Denn

4. Gott selber muss sich nach dieser Ordnung,

diesem Gesetz richten.³

The last point raises a central issue for Hebrew wisdom:

what is the relationship of Yahweh to the orderliness the

wise seem to have found within their experience?

In sum, there are clearly many different ways in

which one may take wisdom to be a system of thought. This

¹Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, pp. 364-405.

²Weisheit, Weisheit Ägyptens.

³Würthwein, Weisheit Ägyptens, p. 8.

approach to defining wisdom has been a dominant theme in

wisdom research. In spite of differences in emphasis,

and some significant developments in the history of

scholarship, certain themes recur, though with greater or

lesser stress.

Wisdom presupposes the orderliness and intel-

ligibility of experience, when it is taken to be a system

of thought. As a creation of Yahweh and as the field of

his action and his interaction with men, the experiential

world is on balance worthy of religious trust--this,

despite all its disappointments. Wisdom is open and hope-

ful, though not necessarily naively so. The wise do not

accept the synthetic view of life uncritically. They are

fundamentally concerned with stating exactly what sort of

relationship might obtain between act and consequence

that would reflect the basic justice of the world, in

terms of the context of action. Most scholars argue that

the wise increasingly emphasize the freedom of Yahweh

within his creation and the limits of human knowledge in

the face of divine wisdom to resolve this problem. The

dilemma of theodicy is unavoidable.¹

The wise are principally concerned with the world

¹Skladny, Spruchsammlungen; Schmid, Wesen and

Geschichte der Weisheit, pp. 144-201.

of their experience. Wisdom does not mean systematic

reflection or abstract system-building for the Hebrews.

They live in a world of relationships; the wise seek to

give coherent expression to them. Wisdom is anthropo-

centric or phenomenological because it is concerned with

man's interrelatedness and because it has and must have

an intense subjective (i.e., conscious, personal) com-

ponent. Wisdom amounts to the mastery of life. The sage

does not necessarily seek the happy life, but he does seek

to understand life's patterns and structures. He intends

to act coherently, masterfully and "artfully" with respect

to them. Because these patterns derive from Yahweh as

creator, they are neither impersonal nor mechanical. In

what way they are personal, especially apart from Yahweh,

remains to be seen.

The wise are in-the-world. Their knowledge is

derived from and specifically applicable to experience.

Schmid carefully points out that their “worldliness” says

nothing by itself about their view of history.¹ The ex-

isting Hebrew wisdom literature, for whatever reason,

shows remarkably little evidence of Heilsgeschichte or

institutional theology, including nationalism, in its

¹Schmid, Wesen and Geschichte der Weisheit, pp.

5-7.

early and middle periods. The wise believed that their

wisdom could be taught. The records of the wise therefore

contain an inevitable didactic element. The wise taught

with the authority of their experience in pursuit of har-

mony with the created order. While on-going discussions

among the wise seem demonstrable, their teachings had at

least quasi-religious authority.¹

The applicability of such a general description

to Proverbs IIb remains one of the objectives of our re-

search. It should already be apparent that "world-view"

as we use it here has particularly close affinities with

wisdom perceived as a system of thought or conceptual

system. It ties in as well with Zimmerli's notion of pre-

conceptions (Vorverständnisse) and with von Rad's "world-

view" and "phenomenology."²Other notions of wisdom as

well, however, may prove to have relevance.

4. Wisdom is disciplined action or a pattern of

behavior. In this sense, wisdom may be either a) an

ethic or a moral code, or b) an etiquette. In either

sense, this category, except by way of emphasis, is more

¹Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, p. 399; Gese, Lehre

und Wirklichkeit, p. 35.

²Zimmerli, "Struktur," p. 177; von Rad, Weisheit

in Israel, p. 400.

ideal than actual. Whatever we may know about the actions

of the wise has been learned indirectly through what they

say about action. We have their ethic implicit in their

admonitions. We infer judgments and patterns of conduct

from their descriptions of experience. We also have cer-

tain portraits of the ideal wise man. What relationship

these values bear to the actual actions of the wise is

virtually impossible to say, and only then as the product

of a theoretical and interpretive reconstruction based on

their apparent thought system and social location. Evi-

dence from other types of literature, whether prophetic or

priestly or other, is sparse, sometimes polemical, and

rather too general to establish a clear pattern of behavior

among the wise. Precisely because our sources are lit-

erary, it is both easier and more logical to seek common

ground in a body of thought than in action. This is true

even if what actually were to have distinguished the wise

in their socio-historical context were a pattern of con-

duct, ethic or etiquette.¹

In the wisdom literatures of Israel and Egypt,

there is a distinct tradition of courtly and social eti-

quette. The wise man is reserved, cool of temperament,

¹Rankin, pp. 1-76; Weinfeld, Deuteronomy, pp.

282-97.

deliberate in his actions. He avoids open conflict,

especially with superiors. While he knows how to manipu-

late wrath when necessary, even that of the king, he

avoids surrendering to his own passions. He is eloquent

when it is needed; he is learned in the ways of the royal

court. He knows how to express his opinion at the most

opportune moment. He does not submit himself to the con-

trol of others, particularly financially, except in his

calling. He is committed to learning. He is judicial in

thought and temperament, suggesting that his vocation is

more administrative than purely scribal. Within his pro-

fession, he observes his responsibilities carefully. In

Egypt, it is expressly said that he pay proper respect to

the instruments of his calling, the tools of the scribe.

He recognizes a certain obligation, which we shall call

noblesse oblige, toward those less fortunate them he, ex-

cept where their misfortune results from folly. Finally,

he delights in his mental agility within his chosen pro-

fession.¹We should therefore consider the possibility

¹Hilaire Duesberg and Paul Auvray, trans. [and

ed.], Le Livre de Proverbes, La Sainte Bible: Traduite en

Français sous la (Direction de l’École Biblique de Jérusalem,

2d ed. rev. (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1957); Willam McKane,

Prophets and Wise Men, Studies in Biblical Theology, vol.

44 (Naperville, Ill.: Alec R. Allenson, 1965), pp. 15-47;

Ronald J. Williams, "Scribal Training in Ancient Egypt,"

Journal of the American Oriental Society 92 (1972): 214-21;

Hellmut Brunner, Altägyptiscne Erziehung (Wiesbaden: Otto

that the wise recognized one another, not by thought nor

by social or occupational affiliation, but by some common

discipline.

5. Wisdom is an attitude toward life, a disposi-

tion.or intention. Elements of a quasi-psychological

understanding cf wisdom can already be seen in the opti-

mistic viewpoint with which it is credited. Further, we

have Rylaarsdam's distinction between optimistic and pessi-

mistic wisdom. The former is that of Lebensweisheit; the

latter is found in reflective and theodically oriented

wisdom.¹

Pedersen has attempted to understand wisdom in

attitudinal terms. It is a form of consciousness, a

faculty of the mind:²

Harrassowitz, 1957), pp. 32-48, 65-80; Lorenz Dürr, Das

Erziehungswesen im Alten Testament und in Antiken Orient,

Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatisch-Agyptiscnen Gesellschaft,

vol. 32, no. 2 (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrich'sche, 1932), pp. 20-

22, cf. 5-14, 58-66, 71-73; cf. Les Sagesses du Proche-

Orient Ancien: Colloque de Strasbourg, 17-19 Mai 1962,

Bibliotheque des Centres d'Études supérieures specialisés:

Travaux du Centre d'Études Supérieures Specialisé d'Histoire

des Religions de Strasbourg (Paris: Presses Universitaires

de France, 1963); William F. Albright, “A Teacher to a Man

of Schechem about 1400 B.C.,” Bulletin of the American

Schools of Oriental Research, no. 86 (April 1942), pp. 28-31.

¹J. Coert Rylaarsdam, Revelation in the Jewish

Wisdom Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1946).

²Johannes Pedersen, Israel: Its Life and Culture,

Wisdom is a property of the soul or, rather, a

faculty, an ability to produce, a skill in shap-

ing the very thought which yields the right

result. . . . Wisdom is essential in the making

of a soul. If a man lacks wisdom, then he has

no heart. . . . Wisdom is the faculty of the

whole of the soul, just as the will is the direc-

tion of the whole of the soul.¹

While European psychology regards action as ex-

ternal to the soul--the end product of ideation, feeling,

volition and resolution--the Hebrew emphasis on the unity

of the soul entails that mental processes are unified.

Actions are implicit in mental activity. There is no

dualism of thought and action. Actions trace the soul's

movements, hence the Hebrew notion of "ways."

The action and its accomplishment are a matter

of course, once the thought is there. . . . As

soon as the thought is fixed, the action is at

once a matter of course. This kind of fixed

thought the Israelite calls ^cēsā, counsel.²

. . . Wisdom . . consists in the very possession

of the "insight" out of which one creates the

power to make counsels that persist. . . . The

wisdom of God consists in his irresistible fulfill-

ment of what he has in his mind. Wisdom is the

same as blessing: the power to work to succeed.³

. . . Characteristic is such a word as hiśkīl,

which at the sane time signifies to have under-

trans. A. Møller and A. I. Fausbell in collaboration with

the Author, 4 parts (London: Oxford University Press, 1926-

1940; reprint 1959), pp. 127 f., 198.

¹Pedersen, Israel, p. 127.

²Pedersen, Israel, p. 128.

³Pedersen, Israel, p. 198.

standing, insight, energy and the production of

good results. Sometimes stress may be laid so

strongly on the inner activity that the thought

of outward action is eclipsed (e.g. Deut. 32, 29).

But as a rule the idea of the totality prevails

so strongly that it means to be wise and happy,

and we are not able to say where the emphasis is

laid.¹

Rather than speak of attitude, we could perhaps

more accurately say that for Pedersen wisdom is a form of

consciousness or subjectivity. It is a type of inten-

tionality or disposition without which the entire personality

is irremediably distorted.² Thus aspects of von Rad's posi-

tion in Weisheit in Israel fit within this analytical cate-

gory: specifically, his phenomenology of wisdom.³

Without doing great violence to the concept, one

might also amend the notion of order from a sought-for

structure in the world of experience to a type or dimension

of consciousness. If it be too much to say that the wise

are systematic in their approach to comprehending reality,

their drive toward understanding (Erkenntniswille) is at

least structured and orderly. One might also find a psy-

chological equivalent of the mythic confrontation between

order and chaos: the conflict between the will to deal

coherently with experience (wisdom) and the passionate

¹Pedersen, Israel, p. 198.

²Pedersen, Israel, pp. 198 ff.

³Esp. pp. 39-41, 400.

devotion (read: surrender) to forces within experience,

subjectively and objectively (folly).¹

In a sense, terms like "rational," "pragmatic,"

and "eudaimonistic" are far more satisfactory as attitudinal

or psychological categories than as descriptions of wisdom

thought, especially because of the danger of anachronism or

cultural misinterpretation. Again, with von Rad and

Pedersen, we should pay attention to the subjective and

intentional dimensions of wisdom. The notion of world-

view implies a perspective toward and (dialectic) rela-

tionship with the world.

6. Wisdom is a social or transsocial ideal. Under

our subsequent rubric, wisdom typology, we shall briefly

note the portraits of the ideal wise man offered in Tobit,

ben Sirah, Ahiikar and elsewhere. At least part of our

problem specifying what wisdom really is comes from the

fact that wisdom often takes on an idealistic character

which is difficult to compass under thought, attitude or

ethos.

The ideal wise man is not superhuman, though such

a concatenation of virtues in any one person is highly im-

probable. The wise person enjoys a divine charism which

¹Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, pp. 364-405.

is attributable to his virtue, not to any specific good

deed or deeds. If von Rad is right that the Joseph story

is wisdom, then these figures assume epic proportions. The

postulated doctrine of retributive justice figures prom-

inently here. The importance of the wisdom equation of

good with wise and evil with folly can hardly be over-

stated. Exactly what is it about the act which calls forth

the appropriate consequence? The disharmony between the

act and the established order of the world, it is often

asserted, leads inevitably to harsh results, even ruin.

The wise are not depicted as faultless paragons of im-

peccable morality, however, nor is the fateful choice among

evils unknown to them. Retribution seems to be tied to what

we shall come to call "character" or "disposition" and in-

clude under the rubric of intentionality. Still, the in-

choate idealistic dimension to wisdom cannot be ignored.

Wisdom as a social ideal--reflecting the aspirations and

ideology of a class or caste--stands in constant tension with

wisdom as a realized intentionality, a formal system of

thought, and a disciplined pattern of conduct.¹

¹Gerhard von Rad, "Josephsgeschichte and Ältere

Chokma," in Congress Volume [of the International Organi-

zation for the Study of the Old Testament]: Copenhagen,

1953, Vetus Testamentum Supplements, vol. 1 (Leiden: E. J.

Brill, 1953), pp. 120-27; von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, pp.

355-63; von Rad, Old Testament Theology 2:301-15; Crenshaw,

"Wisdom," pp. 135-37; George W. Coats, "The Joseph Story

and Ancient Wisdom: A Reappraisal," Catholic Biblical

7. Wisdom is the distinctive property of a

specific social group. Something of this category is al-

ready present in the attempts of Zimmerli, Gese and others

to reduce the conflicts between optimistic and pessimistic

wisdom to family disputes.¹

. . . Gegenüber dieser Annahme einer Zweigesichtig-

keit der Weisheit ist es wohl verständnisvoller,

in dieser Gegensätzlichkeit eine Auseinandersetzung

innerhalb der Lehre der Weisheit zu suchen, die

beiden Gruppen historisch aufeinander zu beziehen

und im Prediger eine späte Ausbildung der

ursprünglich "optimistischen" Weisheit zu finden.²

Gese expressly rejects any thought of Standesethik

in either Egyptian or Hebrew wisdom. They are "eine Lehre

für die Erziehung eines jeden im Volke,"³ not the instruc-

tions of a restricted social group. Gese seeks for the

origins of Israelite sayings within popular or folk wisdom.⁴

If this view should prevail, then any relationship between

Quarterly 35 (July 1973):285-97; George W. Coats, From

Canaan to Egypt: Structural and Theological Context for the

Joseph Story, Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series,

vol. 4, ed. Bruce Vawter (Washington, D.C.: Catholic Bibli-

cal Association of America, 1976).

¹Zimmerli, "Struktur," pp. 177-204; Zimmerli,

"Place and Limit," pp. 146-58; Gese, Lehre und Wirklichkeit,

pp. 21-45; Robert Gordis, Poets, Prophets, and Sages: Es-

says in Biblical Interpretation (Bloomington: Indiana

University Press, 1971), pp. 160-97.

²Gese, Lehre und Wirklichkeit, pp. 1-2.

³Gese, Lehre and Wirklichkeit, p. 30.

⁴Gese, Lehre und Wirklichkeit, pp. 29-31.

the wisdom literature and a particular social class be-

comes purely adventitious. That a literature, especially

an oral one, requires literature-preservers to transmit it

on is a historical and social necessity, not a statement

of affinity.

The last point may be an untenable distinction.

Are we not only permitted but entitled to draw conclusions

or inferences about the relationship between a literature

and the identifiable social group which worked to preserve

it and transmit it on? Do groups, with any significant

frequency, involve themselves in preserving works that lack

some salience or affinity for them? Moreover, the evidence

educed by much modern scholarship seems to support a rela-

tionship. First, the popular origin of even some of the

wisdom writings, e.g., the sayings collections, can easily

be denied. Formal, rhetorical and theological considera-

tions seem to bar folk origin for virtually all of the

wisdom literature, even that long regarded as popular or

as Sippenweisheit.¹ Second, even apart from the question

¹Roland E. Murphy, "The Interpretation of Old Testa-

ment Wisdom Literature," Interpretation 23 (July 1969):

289-301; R. B. Y. Scott, "Priesthood, Prophecy, Wisdom, and

Knowledge of God," Journal of Biblical Literature 80 (March

1961):1-15; Hermisson, Spruchweisheit, pp. 15-52; Gordis,

Poets, Prophets, and Sages, pp. 160-97; von Rad, Weisheit

in Israel, pp. 39-53. See Erhard Gerstenberger, Wesen und

Herkunft des "Apodiktischen Rechts," Wissenschaftliche

Monographien zum Alten and Neuen Testament, vol. 20

of absolute origin, the wisdom material was adopted, used

and preserved by a fairly restricted social group.¹ Appli-

cation seems a legitimate basis for inference. Third,

McKane and others find a distinct social group, the

“hi^akamîm," for whom these writings would have had peculiarly

appropriate relevance. Whether this group is identical with

or directly related to the scribal class remains to be

seen.²

Once popular origin and application are called into

question, resolving the social location of wisdom becomes

all-important to understanding it. For McKane, wisdom is

clearly the product of a restricted social class.

(Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1965) , pp. 117-30.

Cf. William F. Albright, "Some Canaanite-Phoenician Sources

of Hebrew Wisdom," in Wisdom in Israel and Ancient Near

East, pp. 1-15; Christa Bauer-Kayatz, Studien zu Proverbien

1-9: Eine Form- und Motivgeschichtliche Untersuchung unter

Einbeziehung Agyptischen Vergleichsmaterials, Wissenschatt-

liche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament, vol. 22

(Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1966); Christa

Bauer-Kayatz, Einführung in die Alttestainentliche Weisheit,

Biblische Studien, vol. 55 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener

Verlag, 1969), pp. 13-21; Henri Cazelles, "Les Debuts de la

Sagesse en Israel," in Sagesses du Proche-Orient Ancien,

pp. 27-40.

¹McKane, Prophets and Wise Men; Wolfgang

Richter, Recht und Ethos: Versuch einer Ortung des

Weisheitlichen Mannspruches, Etudien zum Alten und Neuen

Testament, vol. 15 (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1966) , pp. 183-

92; Hermisson, Spruchweisheit, pp. 15-52.

²McKane, Prophets and Wise Men; McKane, Proverbs,

pp. 1-208.

[Wisdom] is empirical in its spirit, with an

emphasis on intellectual rather than ethical

values and so well adapted to the hard realities

of statecraft and government. Its practitioners

were therefore pre-eminently an elite who were

in the higher echelons of government and adminis-

tration and . . . the literature of this wisdom

was directed particularly towards the training

of statesmen, diplomats and administrators in the

schools whose educational discipline was shaped

to this end.¹

The wisdom literature is, for the most part,

a product not of full-time men of letters and

academics, but of men of affairs in high places

of state, and the literature in some of its forms

bears the marks of its close association with

those who exercise the skills of statecraft.²

Their posture in life, the intellectual position

whereby they conduct. the business of state, is best de-

scribed as humanism, according to McKane. They are edu-

cated and disciplined to “attain to such a mental grasp

and delicacy of judgment as to be consistently clear

thinkers, perceptive policy-makers and incisive men of

action, poised between the extremes of impetuousity.and

indecision.”³

Interestingly, McKane expressly disagrees with

von Rad, holding that the wise are well aware of a possible

conflict between wise counsel and the Word of Yahweh.

Their world was not amenable to religious assumptions or

¹McKane, Prophets and Wise Men, p. 17.

²McKane, Prophets and Wise Men, p. 44.

³McKane, Prophets and Wise Men, p. 46.

black-and-white analysis.¹

In their professional capacity they thought it

right to challenge the encroachment of religious

authority on their sphere of responsibility, for

they argued that they had to reckon realistically

with the world as it was and not as it ought to

be.²

Gordis, too, locates wisdom within a social elite.

He shares Gese's view that, behind apparent disagreements

within wisdom, lie highly significant shared understand-

ings.³

. . . Wisdom Literature . . . was fundamentally

the product of the upper classes in society, who

lived principally in the capital, Jerusalem. Some

were engaged in large-scale foreign trade, or were

tax-farmers. . . . Most of them were supported by

the income of their country estates. . . . This

patrician group was allied by marriage with the

high-priestly families and the higher government

officials. . . .

. . . The upper classes were conservative in

their outlook, basically satisfied with the status

quo and opposed to change. Their conservatism ex-

tended to every sphere of life and permeated

their religious ideas as well as their social,

economic and political attitudes. What is most

striking is that this basic conservatism is to be

found among the unconventional Wisdom teachers as

well. Though they were independent spirits who

found themselves unable to accept the convenient

assumptions of their class that all was right

with the world, they reflect even in their revolt

the social stratum from which the had sprung

or with which they had identified themselves.⁴

¹McKane, Prophets and Wise Men, pp. 53-54.

²McKane, Prophets and. Wise Men, p. 47.

³Gordis, Poets, Prophets, and Sages, pp. 160-63.

⁴Gordis, Poets, Prophets, and Sages, pp. 162-63.

In Gordis' view, the wise are pre-eminently

teachers in the academies in the larger cities. They seek

to educate the scions of the wealthy, those with the

leisure and resources to enjoy learning. Their aim is

selective, even if they coopted some gifted few from the

poor, for they trained their students for the exigencies

of upper class life. Their ethic reflects that objective.

They retained retributionism, having no strong motive for

rejecting it, but their leisure offered them the oppor-

tunity to develop a sceptical literature. Despair is a

peculiar vice of the well-to-do. The presence of scepti-

cism in wisdom merely reinforces the likelihood of its

location among the social elite. The summum bonum of life

is achieving practical success and economic prosperity.

The utilitarian and prudential wisdom ethic offers the

best means to attain that goal.¹

Hermisson also sets wisdom within the school. He re-

gards the skills of reading and writing as far more widely

distributed than Gordis or some other scholars, though not

universal. He notes the presence of works like Sinuhe and

the Succession Narrative in the literatures of the ancient

Near East. They could hardly have been intended for a few

select readers, let alone deposition in musty archives,

¹Gordis, Poets, Prophets, and Sages, pp. 160-97.

While advanced training might have been restricted to high

administrators and public officials, skilled artisans and

argicultural supervisors doubtless required some minimal

literacy to carry out their duties effectively.¹

Hermisson thinks that an academic setting for wis-

dom is indisputable. Wisdom is didactic and pedagogic,

though non-wisdom works like romances and travelogues may

have emanated from the same group. Some sort of

Standesethik seems unavoidable. Hebrew wisdom is intended

to be broad and general in its application. It is not

aimed at some particular favored group.²

If the wisdom writings strictly understood are

centered within a delimitable social group and if they

constitute merely one aspect of their social life, perhaps

even relatively unimportant in historical context, then our

understanding of wisdom changes materially.³

¹Hermisson, Spruchweisheit, Fp. 113-36.

²Hermisson, Spruchweisheit, pp. 94-96; Richter,

Recht und Ethos, pp. 183-92; Kovacs, "Class Ethic?'

³As we examine the world-view underlying and im-

plicit in Proverbs IIb, we shall have to evaluate its

social location carefully. The disagreements here are

astounding: from popular to elite; from common oral tra-

dition, later codified, to the artistic product of indi-

vidual reflection; from reflection to didactic material

for academic reflection.

8. Wisdom is a social force. We mentioned earlier

von Rad's view that 'wisdom' is a unifying analytical ab-

straction. It brings together what was far less unified

in historical context and what the Hebrews perceived far

more concretely as well.¹Going beyond von Rad, we might

argue that wisdom is to be distinguished neither by some

specific sets of views nor by location in some determin-

able social setting. Rather, wisdom represents a broad

social movement of successively different groups with a

variety of views, all attempting to achieve a common

series of social goals, some explicit and some implicit.

What justifies calling something wisdom is the scholar's

subsequent determination that this writing, idea or group

contributed to a broad attempt to reach certain social and

intellectual objectives within the context of Hebrew his-

tory.²

When wisdom is understood as humanism or as the

quest for a certain kind of knowledge, this analytic cate-

gory may come into play. There are certainly sound philo-

sophical reasons for arguing that one may be able to name

what he cannot define. Some perceived patterns have no

universally common elements. Wittgenstein proponed the

¹Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, p. 19.

²Scott, "Knowledge of God," p. 11; Rankin, pp. 1-4;

Weinfeld, Deuteronomy, pp. 162-64.

notion of 'game' as a classic case in point.¹ Perhaps the

search for a specific social group or some determinable

point of view violates Whitehead's Fallacy of Misplaced

Concretion.²Because we can discern a pattern and have

given it a name for analytical purposes, we incorrectly

assume that the concept has or stands for some reality

beyond that pattern. The pattern exists only as an in-

ference, a hermeneutic interpretation, of the researcher.

We search for more reality in the term than is justifiably

there. In a sense, we approach Moore's Paradox of Analysis

from another direction here. Perhaps we can classify as a

scholarly interpretation what we cannot define independent

of that interpretation.

We are not saying, however, that we cannot clearly

and unambiguously determine, let alone state, the position

of a particular group or individual at a particular time.

That task is potentially independent of the other. His-

torical evidence can be sorted. Conclusions can be drawn,

apart from inferring that certain works or movements have

a socio-historical affinity which we may attribute to them.

¹Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations,

trans. G. E. M. Anscombe, 3d ed.; New York: Macmillan

Company, 1958), pp. 67, 77, 108.

²Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An

Essay in Cosmology, Academic Library of Harper Torchbooks

(New York: Harper & Row, 1957), p. 11.

Two points follow, if this category is not to be

reduced to one of the others. First, wisdom may be dis-

tinguishable as a succession of individuals, schools or

groups whose overlapping views developed and changed

through time, even radically. "Social force" may be un-

derstood as historical movement. Second, the relationship

which sustains this movement is a role in the intellectual,

political and social economy of the time. Its identifica-

tion and its implications are what the historian qua his-

torian must state fully. This category and the next are

closely associated.

9. Wisdom is a theological concept or theological

movement. The two senses are related. In the former,

wisdom is one aspect of the total divine revelation to

Israel. Wisdom thought and wisdom movement are the means

of its revelation. What is important however is the theo-

logical significance of wisdom for the Hebrews understand-

ing of their relationship to Yahweh.¹ In the latter sense,

what unites wisdom is its place within God's progressive

revelation of himself to his people. The views of the

wise constitute one aspect of an adequate theology. The

wise are united by their quest to comprehend what is in

¹Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influence,"

pp. 129-42; Crenshaw, “Prolegomenon,” pp. 1-45; Schmid,

Wesen and Geschichte der Weisheit, pp. 1-7.

fact only one aspect of the divine revelation.¹

Both senses generally entail that wisdom is being

understood in terms of a theology of the Hebrew scriptures.

Wisdom, and the revelation received through the wisdom

movement, thereby play a part in some kind of theologizing

by the investigating scholar. The historical research

functions as theological interpretation, hermeneutic. We

cannot properly raise nor hope to deal with the issue of

the validity of Old Testament theology. We find these

approaches in both Jacob and Eichrodt, who each discuss

the wisdom movement under the rubric “the wisdom of God.”²

For Jacob, wisdom as a concept expresses "the

universality of [God's] knowledge and the omnipotence of

his deeds."³ In practical terms, “the wisdom of God

shines in his works and mainly in the creation whose order

and harmony are a clear witness to it.”⁴ Wisdom is closely

related to discernment of good and evil, discrimination and

¹Edmond Jacob, Theology of the Old Testament, trans.

Arthur W. Heathcote and Philip J. Allcock (New York: Harper

& Row, 1958) , pp. 118-20, 251-53; Walther Eichrodt, Theology

of the Old Testament, trans. J. A. 3aker, Old Testament

Library, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961,

1967), 2:80-92, 490-95.

²Jacob, p. 118; Eichrodt, Theology of the Old

Testament, 2:80.

³Jacob, p. 118.

⁴Jacob, p. 118.

the art of success. Personified, this wisdom which "reigns

in nature should also preside over God's directing of human

life."¹

This wisdom movement also has theological signifi-

cance for Jacob:

By regarding man independently of all national

attachment, as a creature governed by certain

elementary laws quite well summarized by the

term righteousness, the wisdom movement affirms

the universality of God in opposition to the

restrictions which the covenant and the law,

manifestations of a jealous God, ran the risk

of introducing. However, . . . it is the

legalist current which ended by absorbing the

wisdom current. . . . ²

Eichrodt argues that wisdom functions to enable

Israel to assimilate what it has learned from other nations

to the needs of its own special revelation. At its best,

wisdom provides a link between all men's quest for truth

¹Jacob,. p. 119.

²Jacob, p. 119. Elsewhere.(p. 253), Jacob continues:

“. . . Moses never succeeded in ousting Solomon com-

pletely; by deliberately taking the great syncretist

king as their patron, the wisdom writers set out to

strike a universalist note which will allow Judaism

to become, despite the barrier of the torah, a

missionary religion.

The wise, as dispensers of knowledge under its

cognitive aspect, but especially under its practical

aspect, are one of the channels through which God's

presence is communicated to men, and even though

their person itself lacks the religious prestige at-

taching to the king, to the priest and to the prophet,

they are none the less a sign, in view of the time

when all men will be taught by the author of all

wisdom (Jer. 31.34; Is. 54.13)."

and the Old Testament understanding of God.

Yet this assimilation to alien truth did in-

deed conceal dangers. The more important the

divine Wisdom discernible in Nature became, the

easier it was to suppose that from that starting-

point one could arrive at a rational understand-

ing of God accessible even to the heathen. And

the greater the confidence that wisdom could

achieve this goal, the more quickly were men

ready to expect from her a solution to the rest

of life's riddles as well.¹

Early wisdom was unprejudiced in its borrowing;

the Hebrews awoke to the realization that other nations had

a share in the deposit of truth. This awareness challenged

chauvinism and "ossification" of the intellect.²Yet, this

assimilation ignored "the necessary differences between

the basis in morals in Israel and other nations."³ Later

wisdom, rising when Israel was a theocracy under Persia,

was selective, choosing those elements in keeping with

Israel's own nature and refusing to surrender their cul-

tural heritage. This "new flowering of wisdom" includes

Proverbs 1-9, Job, Qoheleth, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch and

the Wisdom of Solomon. Eichrodt is most interested in

this later, specifically hebraized, wisdom, in which "the

concept of wisdom has been radically expanded."⁴

^lEichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 2:87.

²Eichrodt, Theology of the Old' Testament, 2:82.

³Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 2:82.

⁴Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 2:83.

Wisdom has become either hypostasized or extended

to "the purposes and order discernible in the cosmos."¹

As a vehicle of revelation, this wisdom ran many of the

same risks as the earlier. The impetus for it, Eichrodt

believes, may have come from the artistic exaggeration of

wisdom diction and from the search of the wise for an

authority to rank with the prophetic Word and the Spirit

of God.²

This literature does criticize its own potential

excesses Job 28 counters the belief that one can attain

total comprehension of Wisdom from creation.

. . . . God's wisdom is not placed in its entirety

within Man's grasp for him to read off from the

works of creation alone. Because Man can discover

only traces of Wisdom, but never Wisdom herself,

therefore there remain riddles in the course of

the universe which Man cannot plumb, but can only

accept in awe and adoration before the all-wise

Creator.³

Equation of the fear of God with the beginning of

wisdom, the yr't-yhwh, means not simply beginning but "its

chief ingredient, its essence, its germ.⁴ Strictly speak-

ing, wisdom belongs only to Yahweh. In its most developed

hypostasis, Wisdom becomes indistinguishable from Spirit.

¹Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 2:83.

²Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 2:86.

³Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 2:88.

⁴Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 2:89.

They "easily combine to form a homogeneous concept," which

gets in the way of clear explication.¹ These writers never

developed a systematic organization of hypostases.

10. Wisdom is a mythos. Like Jolles, Schmid sets

forth the view that wisdom is something quite different

from myth.² It has a different view of history and another

perspective on man's relationship to the world. Certainly

this position is consistent with the widely accepted posi-

tion that at the least wisdom and myth have nothing to do

with one another; they may even be perceived as somewhat

antagonistic modes of thinking. Hypostatic wisdom suggests,

and personified wisdom virtually requires, some sort of

mythos to explain its relation to Yahweh, to creation and

to man.³

Ringgren carefully distinguishes hypostasis from

personification. Hypostasis means attributing some sort of

independent existence to the attributes, elements or char-

acteristics of a divine being. Personification goes beyond

hypostasis by giving those entities personal characteristics.

A hypostasis is not necessarily a personification. An

^lEichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 2:91.

²Jolles, pp. 75-103, 124-40; Schmid; Wesen und

Geschichte der Weisheit, pp. 3-5.

³Schmid, Wesen und Geschichte der Weisheit, pp.

79-84.

example of the kind of personification that might derive

from an unknown mythos is I Enoch 42:1-3. Wisdom searched

the earth for a hospitable place to dwell among men. She

found none, and returned to heaven where a special seat was

made for her. Unrighteousness, on the other hand, found

satisfactory lodging on the earth.¹ We should remember,

though, that I Enoch is late, dating sometime after 94 BCE.

Rankin typifies the dominant view that such personifica-

tions derive from Persian, Greek and other foreign influ-

ence (the Iranian Amisha Spentas?), and are prima facie

evidence of lateness.²

Recently, Christa Bauer-Kayatz' study of Proverbs

1-9 has called this position into question. She argues

that at least Proverbs 8 is clearly dependent on Egyptian

influences. Maat exists hypostasized much earlier in

Egypt than the proposed Greek or Persian forebears of

hypostasized or personified Hebrew Wisdom. Further,

Egyptian scribal influences go back in Israel to early

times. Scribes presumably brought both Egyptian patterns

of scribal training and the international classics with

them to their new posts in Israel. Their literacy,

¹Helmer Ringgren, Word and Wisdom: Studies in the

Hypostatization of Divine Qualities and Functions in the

Ancient Near East (Lund: Håkan Ohlssons Boktryckeri, 1947),

pp. 133 ff.

²Rankin, pp. 222-64.

administrative duties and linguistic fluency would have

given them access to wide-ranging foreign intellectual and

theological developments. To restrict the hypostasizing

and personification of wisdom to post-Exilic times lacks

sound historical foundation. Such figures could appear

quite early among the Hebrews. If Kayatz' analogy with

Maat is valid, then we must include in it as well the pos-

sibility of some Hebrew analogue to the Egyptian mythos

that incorporates Maat.¹

Albright and Cazelles both look to Canaanite pre-

cursors of Hebrew Wisdom. Albright opines that Proverbs

"teems with isolated Canaanitisms.² The rare "hikmt,"

which appears three times in Proverbs 1-9, may be analogous

to the Phoenician Milkot, "Queen," and therefore the name

of a deity.³ The seven-pillared house resembles a third-

millennium structure that was very late dedicated to

Cyprian Aphrodite. The precursor of the Wisdom figure in

Proverbs 1-9 may well be a Canaanite goddess, according to

Albright.⁴

¹Kayatz, Studien zu Proverbien 1-9; Kayatz,

Einführung, pp. 70-92.

²Albright, "Canaanite-Phoenician Sources," p. 9.

³Albright, "Canaanite-Phoenician Sources," pp. 8-9;

cf. Cazelles, "Sagesse en Israel," p. 37.

⁴Albright, "Canaanite-Phoenician Sources," p. 9;

Patrick W. Skehan, Studies in Israelite Poetry and Wisdom,

Both Albright and Cazelles point out the Ugaritic

application of "hikm" to El. "Thy command; O El, is wise,

Thy Wisdom lasts for ever, A life of good fortune is thy

command."¹ Proverbs 8:22-24 may reflect Canaanite imagery:

El created Wisdom before conquering the dragon or estab-

lishing his house.² Such an analysis, if valid, clearly

requires an underlying mythos.

While the evidence for Canaanite influence is not

great, the Egyptian parallels cannot easily be dismissed.

Both Gese and Schmid have emphasized the analogy of maat

to the Hebrew sidqh, righteousness.³ The opposition of

divine order and primeval chaos in and of itself suggests

mythic motifs. We cannot quickly dismiss the notion of

wisdom mythos.⁴

The next two analytical categories are closely re-

lated to methodology. The two are distinct in about the

same way form and content are. In practice, the distinction

Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series, vol, 1

(Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America,

1971), pp. 9-14.

¹Albright, "Canaanite-Phoenician Sources," pp. 7-9;

Cazelles, "Sagesse en Israel," pp. 35-39.

²Albright, "Canaanite-Phoenician Sources," p. 7-

³Gese, Lehre und Wirklichkeit, pp. 11-21, 29-50;

Schmid, Gerechtigkeit, p. 68.

⁴Schmid, Wesen und Geschichte der Weisheit, pp.

144-55.

tends to be less obvious. Obviously an adequate discus-

sion of either would involve us in a lengthy methodological

discussion. We must instead be brief.

11. Wisdom is a series of motifs. In this sense,

we may speak of the priestly and prophetic adoption of

wisdom imagery. The metaphor, image or phrase may be

typical of wisdom writings; the nuance remains unswervingly

prophetic, priestly or historical. The spread of motifs

seems to show intellectual influence, but only to the ex-

tent that the image can still be considered wisdom in

nature if not origin.¹The generally unresolved question

of motif study in wisdom is, what relationship obtains

between a motif and its borrower? Was the image still

identifiably part of a larger wisdom mode of thought and

perception, or had it become so much a part of the in-

herited conglomerate that its wisdom origins were no longer

discernible to nor intended by its users?

Even a partial list of such motifs would have to

include the Zwillingformen (Antitheses), the passionate

versus the cool man, the reserved and silent man, the Wis-

dom-figure, the ‘yšh zrh or foreign woman, the sagacious

¹Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influence,"

pp. 133-34; McKane, Proverbs, pp. 5-6; cf. Hermisson,

Spruchweisheit, pp. 88 n. 3, 43; Whybray, Intellectual

Tradition, pp. 71-72.

100

king, the charismatic interpreter of dreams, the grateful

dead, the angel-companion, the conflict of evils, the

divine wager (God and the Advocate), the ryb or Joban

(i.e., theodical) lawsuit, the suffering innocent, the

scribal Standesethik, father and son/teacher and pupil,

the satire of occupations, Weltschmerz, the resigned man,

the wise courtier, the man of low estate shown favor be-

cause of his virtue, the debate or Streitgespräch concern-

ing good and evil, "deus disponit," the callow youth, and

what we shall call below the “proprieties.”¹

12. Wisdom is a collection of forms. Essentially

the same questions apply here as for motifs. Granted that

some forms seem to have indisputable wisdom settings and

applications, however defined, what does it mean when a

form has both wisdom and overtly non-wisdom applications?

Some wisdom forms would be fables, riddles, numerical and

alphabetical sayings, rhetorical questions, admonitions,

instructions, ironic sayings, disputations over injustice

¹The elaboration of these motifs complements the

theological and form-critical analyses of von Rad in

Weisheit in Israel and Schmid in Wesen and Geschichte der

Weisheit; see also Preuss, "Weisheitsliteratur," pp. 393-

417: Michael V. Fox, “Aspects of the Religion of the Book

of Proverbs,” Hebrew College Annual, vol. 39 (Cin-

cinnati: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion,

“Widow, Orphan, and the Poor in Ancient Near Eastern Legal

and Wisdom Literature,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 21

(1962) :129-39; Schmid, Gerechtigkeit.

101

or Streitgespräche and the ryb, the mashal, apothegms,

maxims, proverbs, by-words, blasons populaires, "wellerisms,"

perhaps romances and novellas, perhaps summary-appraisals,

certain types of drama, tiwb-mn sayings, 'šry sayings, bny

sayings, Wisdom mythoi and satires.¹

13. 'Wisdom' is the English equivalent of the

Hebrew root *hikm. Suffice it to say that terms in dif-

ferent languages seldom if ever have the same semantic

field--cover the same range of meanings--or serve the same

syntactic functions. The equation is one of convenience.

Other terms both in Hebrew and English share important ele-

ments of the same semantic field. In the wisdom litera-

ture, some terms appear with striking frequency; others

have undeniable technical applications. Von Rad points

out, however, the virtual impossibility of adequately com-

prehending the common intellectual ground of the wise

through a study of their vocabulary.

Zweifellos liesse sich eine Reihe von Begriffen

zusammenstellen, deren Verwendung in den Lehrüber-

lieferungen besonders auffällt; aber es wäre u. E.

ein aussichtloses Unterfangen, über eine Analyse

¹Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, pp. 41-73; Johannes

Schmidt, Studien zur Stilistik der Alttestamentlichen

Spruchliteratur, Alttestamentliche Abhandlungen, vol. 13,

no. I (Münster: Aschendorffschen Buchhandlung, 1936);

Crenshaw, "Wisdom," pp. 229-62; A. Taylor, The Proverb

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931).

102

ihrer spezifischen Inhalte and über die Art ihrer

Verwendung zu einigermassen tragfähigen Erkenntnissen

zu gelangen. Die überlieferungsgeschichtliche

Betrachtung alttestamentlicher Texte hat uns gezeigt,

wie innerhalb gewisser Traditionsströme kultischer,

rechtlicher oder didaktischer Art gewisse Begriffe

zwar in grosser Zähigkeit durchgegeben werden, weil

sie terminologisch konstitutiv waren, dass sie aber

damit eine grosse Beweglichkeit ihrer Bedeutung

verbindet.¹

Both Barr and Nida have raised serious questions

about the validity of Begriffsgeschichten for this kind of

historical study. It is extremely doubtful that the person

using the term even knew the historical background of the

term he used, much less its scientifically accurate lin-

guistic history. Consider, for example, the Cratylus.

Further, people do not consider the entire semantic field

of a term when they use it for a specific purpose. Ex-

traneous non-functional meanings are not prima facie rele-

vant, except perhaps in a certain psychological sense which

has doubtful historical application. People select a term

on the basis of its functional meanings: the way people

are actually using the word at that time. They seldom

consider the peculiarities of its intellectual, conceptual

or linguistic history, even when these are known.²

¹Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, p. 25.

²James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961); James Barr, "Hy-

postatization of Linguistic Phenomena in Modern Theological

103

To counter these objections, some scholars have

turned to semasiology. They argue that the relevant

semantic field should be regarded as that used in a par-

ticular body of literature, usually the Old Testament.

For biblical study, the pertinent senses of a word are

those actually used by biblical writers in the language.¹

This approach is valid if one accepts one of two proposi-

tions. Either there is a common determinable religious

history and tradition in which a given word had a particu-

lar intended special application, or there is a common the-

ology uniting disparate works for which this term is rele-

vant. At least for wisdom, we do not see how the former

can be asserted with confidence. Fohrer, for example, has

shown how the technical terminology of wisdom varies among

different works.²The second proposition reflects the

Interpretation," Journal of Semitic Studies 7 (1962):85-

94; Eugene A. Nida, "Implications of Contemporary Linguis-

tics for Biblical Scholarship," Journal of Biblical Litera-

ture 91 (March 1972):73-89.

¹Cf. James Barr, "Semantics and Biblical Theology--

A Contribution to the Discussion," Congress Volume: Uppsala

1971, International Organization for Old Testament Study,

Vetus Testamentum Supplements, vol- 22 (Leiden: E. J. Brill,

1972), pp. 11-19; Whybray, Intellectual Tradition, pp. 74-76.

²Georg Fohrer, "Die Weisheit im Alten Testament,"

Studien zur Alttestamentlichen Theologie and Geschichte

(1949-1966), Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die Alttestament-

liche Wissenschaft, vol. 115 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter and

Company, 1969), pp. 243-74.

104

issue of Old Testament theology, stated in another form.

Von Rad adds another important objection that also

applies to this discussion of semasiology.

Es ist eine Tatsache, dass Israel auch in seinen

theoretischen Reflexionen keineswegs nit einem

einigermassen präzisen Begriffsapparat arbeitet.

Es war an der Herausarbeitung ordentlich definierter

Begriffe erstaunlich wenig interessiert, denn es

verfügte über andere Möglichkeiten, eine Aussage zu

präzisieren, z. B. den Parallelismus membrorum, der

jeden redlichen Begriffsanalytiker zur Verzweiflung

bringen kann.¹

Still, if we cannot expect Begriffsgeschichten to

give us an adequate understanding of wisdom thought, an

understanding of the technical terminology of wisdom and

the semantic field of *hikm orients us within the linguistic

setting of the wisdom writers, perhaps locating some neces-

sary uncertainties as well. Table 1 in the Appendix pre-

sents a summary of this semantic data.².

¹Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, p. 25. Von Rad of-

fers Proverbs 8:12 as an example. The roots are *hikm,

*^crm, *yd^c and *zmm.

²Tables 2-6 in the Appendix present related

semantic data and interpretations; see Fohrer, "Weisheit

im Alten Testament," pp. 243-74; von Rad, Weisheit in

Israel, p. 75.

CHAPTER III

A WISDOM TYPOLOGY

The proverb collections, if that is what they are,

constitute only one of a number of different wisdom forms

that have been proposed or identified. Their postulated

location within the scribal schools or, alternatively,

within the professional literature of government officials

stands alongside a variety of possible settings for wisdom

thought and forms of expression. The-historical develop-

ment from individual mashal to general collection is hardly

less difficult to establish than the history of wisdom

generally.

Gese, Gemser, Schmid and others have challenged

accepted theories of wisdom's origins. They raise ques-

tions about such accepted concepts as folk origins for

wisdom, scribal mediation, theologization, democratization

and nationalism.¹ Albright, Ringgren, Cazelles, and Bauer-

Kayatz raise doubts about the accepted criteria for dis-

tinguishing early wisdom from late. They have suggested

alternative scenarios for the historical development of wisdom

¹Gemser, "Spiritual Structure," pp. 138-49; Schmid,

Wesen und Geschichte der Weisheit, pp. 1-7; Gese, Lehre

und Wirklichkeit, pp. 7-11.

105

106

which make relating different kinds of wisdom in terms of

some postulated historical process an often precarious

affair.¹It would, therefore, be helpful to have some

idea of the other kinds of wisdom, as well as the social

settings that seem appropriate to them.

Such a typology provides us with a standard of com-

parison. Some kinds of wisdom seem so drastically unlike

the mashal literature that it is difficult to know what the

common ground might be, except in the most general of terms.

Such a situation might develop, for example, if wisdom were

in fact not a single body or system of thought but a group

of historically-related or similarly-oriented social groups.

From the linguistic analysis above, we might have to con-

cede instead that the Hebrews applied the terms 'wisdom'

and 'wise' to a variety of distinct social-phenomena. Still,

we should allow for the possibility that other types of wis-

dom may have close affinities to the mashal, though they

may lack the specific two-line mashal form.

The typology may also establish limits to the al-

ternatives we may plausibly propose for the mashal litera-

ture. Barr's objection to certain kinds of linguistic

¹Albright, "Canaanite-Phoenician Sources," pp. 1-15;

Ringgren, Word and Wisdom, p. 49; Helmer Ringgren, Israelite

Religion, trans. David E. Green (Philadelphia: Fortress

Press, 1966), pp. 126-50, passim; Cazelles, "Sagesse en

Israel," pp. 27-40; Bauer-Kayatz, Proverbien 1-9.

107

conjecture applies to wisdom study in some important

respects. He argues that some scholars are too hasty in

postulating new meanings for known terms on the basis of

comparative linguistics and Begriffsgeschichten. We look

for unknown meanings of perfectly acceptable words, rather

than attempting to construe a syntax whose awkwardness may

be a reflection of the inadequacy of our grammatical un-

derstanding. As a result, if some Hebrew words bore any-

thing like the possible range of meanings that scholars

have seriously proposed for them at one time or another,

they would have been incomprehensible and semantically use-

less to the speakers of the language. Hebrew would have

been hopelessly inefficient as a means of communication.

Mutual understanding would have been an impossibility.¹

Similarly, there is a practical limit to the

varieties of wisdom that could have existed historically.

Israel could have supported only a limited number of com-

peting wisdom groups or parties, for economic, social, re-

ligious and intellectual reasons.²Equally, 'wisdom' can

¹Barr, "Linguistic Phenomena," pp. 85-94; Barr,

"Semantics and Biblical Theology," pp. 11-19; Barr, Se-

mantics of Biblical Language; Nida, "Implications," pp.

73-89.

²Gordis, Poets, Prophets, and Sages, pp. 160-97;

Dürr, Erziehungswesen; Brunner, Altägyptische Erziehung;

Albright, "Teacher to a Man of Shechem" (!) ; Williams,

"Scribal Training," pp. 214-21; Urbach; Scott, "Priesthood,"

pp. 1-15; Gerstenberger, Wesen and Herkunft, pp. 117-30;

108

compass only so large a semantic field before, as Barr

contends, it becomes effectively vacuous.¹

One cannot make sense of the mashal literature

apart from other kinds of wisdom. Together, they must

make social—as well as intellectual and theological—

sense.

The following list of types is intended to sketch

the range of wisdom and its possible settings. Certain of

these types—scribal, folk and royal wisdom--are especially

important for understanding and locating the proverb litera-

ture. The proverb could have originated in the popular

aphorism. The king's wisdom may have formed its archetype;

the royal court may have been its patron. It may have been

put together into collections, to be preserved as the in-

tellectual or didactic property of scribes. Priests,

Richter; Recht and Ethos, pp. 183-92; Hermisson, Spruch-

weisheit, pp. 15-52; McKane, Prophets. and Wise Men; McKane,

Proverbs, pp. 10-22; see Peter R. Ackroyd, Exile and Restora-

tion: A Study of Hebrew Thought of the Sixth Century B.C.,

Old Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster Press,

1968); Anson F. Rainey, The Scribe at Ugarit: His Position

and Influence, Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences

and Humanities, vol. 3, no. 4 (Jerusalem: Israel. Academy

of Sciences and Humanities, 1968); Morton Smith, Palestinian

Parties and Politics That Shaped the Old Testament (New

York: Columbia University Press, 1971); compare also the

notion of partisanship within a socially restricted milieu

developed in Paul D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic (Phila-

delphia: Fortress Press, 1975); also, Duesberg and Fransen,

Scribes Inspirés; Gammie, "Pedagogy."

¹Barr, "Linguistic Phenomena," pp. 85-94; Barr,

"Semantics and Biblical Theology," pp. 11-19.

109

prophets and government administrators may all have shared

the training of the academy. They may all have shared its

heritage and traditions, if not its theology.

Precisely because of the difficulties in trying to

relate different kinds of wisdom to one another historically,

our list is not ordered by any assumptions about historical

sequence or some process of evolution. Some types share

many characteristics; we shall try to place them as near

one another as practical.

Our list, however, is neither a history nor a sur-

vey of contemporaneous types. In some cases, we could

properly debate whether those types are wisdom, or whether

in fact they ever existed at all, e.g. apocalyptic wisdom.

Types differ in importance and in the level of confidence

we may assert on their behalf. Finally, this list cannot

be exhaustive; we hope that it is reasonably comprehensive.

With these caveats in mind, we offer the following list of

possible wisdom types.

1. Isolated entities. Here, we refer to wise

animals or plants, not in the context of fables, that ap-

pear within works that otherwise lack any overt wisdom

character. The classic instance of this type is the tree

of knowledge ^csi hd^ct tiwb wr^c in the J creation story.

If the account does not derive from wisdom historiography,

then the nature of the image and its relation to the story

110

remain obscure. If tiwb wr^c refers to discernment rather

than being a meristic reference to "everything,"¹ it would

support von Rad and Stoebe, who give the paradise account

a decided Promethean character. 'Man takes upon himself

the "former" divine authority and the responsibility for

¹Elsewhere, tiwb wr^c may be taken for hendyadis. It

simply means "everything" or "anything"--the totality of

elements or aspects. Best support for this interpretation

comes from Deuteronomy 1:39, II Samuel 13:22, Genesis 31:

24 and 29, and Genesis 24:50. The expression has no special

technical meaning. It is a merism: the essence is ex-

pressed through its extremes. While the term's association

with the mn-^cd form supports this line of argument, other

uses weigh against it. While the tree of life may be a

doublet or theological reinterpretation, in the present

redaction it stands as counterpart to the tree of knowl-

edge; the former is a common wisdom image. Among the

other occurrences, I Kings 3:9 is embedded in a royal wis-

dom context; II Samuel 14:17 is the wisdom of the wise

woman. II Samuel 13:22 and Genesis 31:24, 29 would leave

their protagonists speechless if taken meristically; they

call for the interpretation of non-judgmental or neutral

behavior. The same consideration applies in Genesis 24:50,

where Laban avoids passing any judgment on a word stated to

have come from Yahweh. Isaiah 5:20, 23 clearly refers to

ethical or legal judgment; II Samuel 19:36, the powers of

judgment and discernment. Leviticus 27:12 involves the

decision of a priest. For Stoebe, the term is neither ex-

pressly ethical nor intellectual. It reflects a charac-

teristically J image for the power of self-decision and

self-determination. Von Rad on the other hand amplifies

the element of hubris, while emphasizing the noetic dimen-

sion of the tale. Note also the obvious paronomasia of

^crwmym (Genesis 2:25, *^cwr, naked) and ^crm (Genesis 3:1,

*^crm, crafty, cunning). Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, pp.

189, 205, 379-86; von Rad, Old Testament Theology 1:141;

Hans Joachim Stoebe, "Gut and Böse in der Jahwistischen

Quelle des Pentateuch," Zeitschrift für die Alttestament-

liche Wissenschaft 65 (1954):188-204; Luis Alonzo-Schökel,

“Motivos Sapienciales y de Allianza en Gn 2-3," Biblica 43

(1962):295-316; D. J. A. Clines, "The Tree of Knowledge and

the Law of Yahweh (Psalm XIX)," Vetus Testamentum 24

(January 1974):8-14.

111

determining whether something is good for himself or not.

Man's knowledge is not at issue; rather, man decides him-

self what is good.¹ The snake makes a dangerous sly in-

terlocutor; note the charism of speech. He obviously

knows enough about the tree (trees?) and about Yahweh to

use that information to his own cunning ends. He exceeds

all other creatures in his slyness. The J writer has

united a mythic, cultic figure with the notion of practical

cunning.² These two motifs seem isolated in the account.

Still, they may contribute to a wisdom or wisdom influenced

historiography or epic/royal wisdom tale.³ We might also

mention in passing, since it appears in an overt wisdom

context, the enigmatic figure of Tobias' dog, Tobit 5:16.

¹Gerhard van Rad, Genesis: A Commentary, Old

Testament Library (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1961),

p. 94; cf. Ivan Engnell, "'Knowledge' and 'Life' in the

Creation Story," in Wisdom in Israel and Ancient Near East,

pp. 110-17; Susumu Jozaki, “The Tree of Knowledge of Good

and Evil: Its Theological Implications,” in Kwansei Gakuin

University Annual Studies, vol. 8 (October 1959), pp. 1-18;

E. A.. Speiser, Genesis: Introduction, Translation, and

Notes, Anchor Bible, vol. 1 (Garden City: Doubleday &

Company, 1964), pp. 21-28.

²Von Rad, Genesis, pp. 85-91; von Rad, “Alt-

testamentlichen Schöpfungsglaubens,” pp. 138-47; Odil

Hannes Steck, “Genesis 12:1-3 and die Urgeschichte des

Jahwisten,” Probleme Biblischer Theologie, pp. 525-54;

John A. Bailey, "Initiation and the Primal Doman in

Gilgamesh and Genesis 2-3," Journal of Biblical Literature

89 (June 1970):137-50.

³Engnell, "Creation Story," pp. 102-19.

112

2. Wise women. Twice in II Samuel--each time in

connection with Joab--we come across references to wise

women. They are competent in speech; they can analyze a

situation and achieve some sort of intelligent compromise

that had formerly appeared unattainable. The first is the

wise woman of Tekoa. She presents David with a parabolic

legal case in order to show him the political consequences

of banishing his son. Though she appears at Joab's be-

hest, she herself artfully arranges a succession of pleas

that wheedle a self-condemnatory judgment from David.¹

The wise woman of Abel beth-Maacah saves her city from

Joab's troops. The city has offered sanctuary to Sheba

in his attempt to resist Judah's domination of Israel.

Joab has the city under siege; ramparts against the walls

bode swift victory. The wise woman offers compromise:

not Sheba, but Sheba's head cast over the wall. She ap-

parently convinces the city to accept the agreement through

her wise counsel.² In both cases, Joab's identification

¹The account is interrupted by the woman's paean of

the king's insight—“the king is like the angel of God to

discern good and evil” (14:17)--and concluded by her

panegyric of his royal wisdom--"my, lord has wisdom like the

wisdom of the angel of God to know all things that are on

the earth" (14:20).

²Significantly, in appealing to Joab, the woman

quotes a popular aphorism, "let them but ask counsel at

Abel” (20:18). Thus, the community is a by-word for its

sagacity, but also for its pragmatic insight: "and so

113

with or participation in the events is evident.

In the context of II Samuel, the figure of the

wise woman may be a motif of the Deuteronomic historian,

or it may be a motif deriving from his source at this

point. The latter seems the more likely. Whichever, the

image itself appears to be a folk figure. The wise woman

comes from the country. She possesses native shrewdness

and rhetorical ability. She uses her "wisdom" or her

counsel or skillful "wisdom techniques."¹ No association

with any organized wisdom movement can or should really be

inferred from such a figure.

One can readily search for other such women, though

their association with the image of the wise woman has to

be inferred. One thinks of the "cunning" of Naomi or

Rebekah, though neither is an anonymous figure. There is

a reference in Jeremiah to women skilled (*hikm) at mourn-

ing:² this passage probably belongs with skilled artisans

below. In Judges 5:29, the women of the Court are referred

to as wise women who can intuit the meaning of ominous

events.³ The context is obscure and isolated; perhaps the

they settled a matter" (20:18). "Then the woman went to

all the people in her wisdom" (20:22).

¹De Boer, p. 60.

²9:17 ET, hhikmt.

³“Her wisest ladies make answer, nay, she gives

answer to herself.” De Boer, p. 59.

114

reference should be classed with royal wisdom. Other re-

mote candidates for the rubric of wise woman might be

Abigail, Judith, Esther (!) and Huldah.

3. Skilled artisan or competent ritualist. Es-

pecially in the later chapters of Exodus, the P writer

consistently predicates "wisdom" in speaking of the skill

of artisans.¹Ezekiel has a reference to wise/skilled

sailors and repairers of leaks.² On the other hand, both

II Isaiah and the interpolator in Jeremiah describe idols

that have been made by clever (wise) craftsmen.³ Isaiah

3:3 also has a cultic tinge, although Lindblom has doubts.⁴

Jeremiah's skilled mourners may belong here.⁵ Except lin-

guistically, wisdom in this sense is wisdom by courtesy,

since it seems to have no association with either a form

of wisdom thinking or some social movement.

4. Folk or popular wisdom. If wisdom be a funda-

mental psychological or spiritual propensity of man (a

¹Fohrer, "Weisheit;" pp. 254-55.

²Johannes Lindblom, "Wisdom in the Old Testament

Prophets," in Wisdom in Israel and Ancient Near East, p.

194. Ezekiel 27:8, 9.

³Lindblom, pp. 193-95. Isaiah 40:20; Jeremiah 10:9.

Cf. Fohrer, "Weisheit," pp. 254-55.

⁴P. 194.

⁵Lindblom, p. 194. Jeremiah 9:16.

115

Geistesbeschäftigung) insofar as he is human, so that he

formulates insights derived from experience into concise,

expressive and highly metaphorical statements which give

the world a semblance of system and order, then wisdom is

by definition essentially a folk or popular phenomenon.¹

Apart from such an argument, however, some wisdom forms

seem to reflect a popular Sitz-im-Leben even though they

may later have been modified to serve other purposes.

Certain sayings—some “proverbial phrases,”

rhetorical questions and metaphors—are either expressly

cited from popular usage or have such striking imagery and

refinement of phraseology that folk origins must be as-

sumed. The latter criterion, as Eissfeldt has noted, rests

on the somewhat shaky ground of subjective judgment and

individual sensitivity, particularly to differences in

tone and style between the passage and the larger work

within which it is embedded. Eissfeldt develops a list of

thirteen sayings which are introduced by formulae that

seem to attest to their popular currency.² Four are ex-

pressly designated a mashal.³ The others begin with such

phrases as ^cl-kn y’mrw, dbr ydbrw br'šh l'mr, and ky

¹Jolles, pp. 124-40. Cf. von Rad, Weisheit in

Israel, pp. 13-27.

²Eissfeldt, Maschal, pp. 45-52.

³I Samuel 10:12; 24:14; Ezekiel 12:22; 18:2 f.

116

'mrw.¹ Such formulae constitute no absolute guarantee, of

course, that the author or redactor did not originate the say-

ing and set it in a formulaic context for his own purposes.

Indeed, the saying may well have acquired its proverbial

currency through such, or other, use by the author or re-

dactor himself.

In addition, Eissfeldt finds some sixteen other

sayings that seem to be proverbial.² He also believes

that a number of one-line popular aphorisms were expanded

whether by parallelismus membrorum, constructive expan-

sion, or the addition of an illustrative image--to fit the

later and more literary two-line mashal form. Such ex-

panded sayings may then have found their way into the dis-

courses of wisdom thinkers. If nothing else, the very fact

that so many of these collected sayings could have become

proverbial, popular, attests to the probability that some

or many came from the folk milieu and not the later

¹Genesis 10:9; II Samuel 5:8; 20:18; Ezekiel 9:9

(“Man kann freilich mit Grund bezweifeln, ob alle von den

Propheten als sprichwörtliche Redensarten des Volkes

angeführten Worte esauch wirklich sind: diese Formeln

haben die Propheten vielleicht selbst geprägt.” [Eissfeldt,

Maschal, p. 45 n. 8]); 18:25, 29; 33:17; 33:10; 37:11;

Zephaniah 1:12; Isaiah 40:27. cf. Jeremiah 33:24; Ezekiel

8:12; 11:3, 15; so Eissfeldt, Maschal, p. 46 n. 2.

²P. 46. Genesis 16:12; Judges 8:2, 21; 14:18;

I Samuel 16:7; II Samuel 24:15 (see 9:8; 16:9; I Kings 18:

21; 20:11; Isaiah 22:13 (see I Corinthians 15:32); 37:3

(see Hosea 13:3; Isaiah 66:90; Jeremiah 8:22, 20; 12:13;

23:28; 51:58 (see Habakkuk 2:13); Hosea 8:7 (see Proverbs

22:8); Qoheleth 9:4.

117

writer's artistic imagination.¹ Whether Eissfeldt is con-

vincing when he argues that the simpler one-line saying

antedates the refined two-line mashal form remains to be

seen. While attractive, the contention that literary forms

become expanded and more baroque with use both suggests a

potentially anachronistic analogy out of European Ro-

manticism and a suspiciously simple evolutionary hypothesis.

Distinguishing originally popular material within

wisdom collections seems a precarious activity. Without a

continuous running literary context, judgments made about

tone and style appear too subtly aesthetic to be reliable.

Readily identifiable popular aphorisms share cer-

tain characteristics. They tend to be terse, usually a

single line, sometimes without internal balance between

their parts. Thus, the bounds of folk wisdom are in-

timately tied up with the question, what is a mashal?

Such folk sayings are brief and pointed comments on

human behavior and recurrent situations. They make

frequent use of metaphor and comparison. Sometimes

they take the form of rhetorical questions to show

that something is absurd or impossible. A large

proportion of Old Testament colloquial proverbs

have a distinctly scornful tone, implying a devia-

tion from social norms.²

^lEissfeldt, Mashal, pp. 45-52.

²R. B. Y. Scott, Proverbs; Ecclesiastes: Introduc-

tion, Translation, and Notes, Anchor Bible, vol. 18 (Garden

City: Doubleday & Company, 1965), p. xxvi.

118

The term 'mashal' appears not only in the context

of scornful by-words (the discouraging prospect of becoming

the proverbial victim of some disaster) and blasons popu-

laires,¹ it is also used to refer to Spottlieder, prophetic

oracles and even ecstatic visions.² Though the latter are

not wisdom in any conventional sense, some scholars argue

for a root meaning of *mšl which would encompass both the

proverb and the oracle. Thus, the mashal can reflect the

attempt to establish a rule or order to existence, a

theourgic ritual or spell which has later become metaphori-

cal, a basic sense of "to be like" (resulting in both

theourgy and metaphor), or a fundamental sense of "parable"

or "metaphor" which led to such diverse use and meanings.³

We should be mindful of Barr's caveat. Even if

¹Taylor, pp. 97-109; A. S. Herbert, The 'Parable'

māšāl in the Old Testament," Scottish Journal of Theology

7 (1954):180-81.

²J. Schmidt, Stylistik; Crenshaw, "Wisdom," pp.

229-39; A. R. Johnson, "Māšāl," in Wisdom in Israel and

Ancient Near East, pp. 162-69; Allen Howard Godbey, "The

Hebrew Māšāl," American Journal of Semitic Languages and

Literatures 39 (November 1922 through July 1923): 89-108.

³Johnson, pp. 162-69; Hans-Peter Müller, "Mantische

Weisheit und Apokalyptik," in Congress Volume: Uppsala

1971, pp. 268-93; McKane, Proverbs, pp. 1-10. Claus

Westermann makes an important methodological and biblical

theological contribution in his "Weisheit in Sprichwort,"

in Schalom: Studien zu Glaube und Geschichte Israels;

Alfred Jepsen zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Karl-Heinz Bernhardt,

Arbeiten zur Theologie, 1st. s., vol. 46 (Stuttgart: Calwer

Verlag, 1971), pp. 71-85.

119

linguistic history should ultimately support the inference

that a common meaning of the term 'mashal' serves to unite

early folk wisdom with a folk or cultic theourgy, that

fact alone would not prove that the two were regarded as the

same or as closely related by those who used the term. We

may exclude the Spottlied, oracle and theourgic spell from

folk wisdom (1) because folk wisdom in the strict sense is

readily distinguishable from them on the basis of both form

and content without significant overlap or ambiguity, (2)

since these forms are neither typically nor commonly as-

sociated with wisdom elsewhere, (3) since 'mashal' is used

to refer specifically to proverbs in a narrower sense (in-

cluding, however, extended poetic compositions in meta-

phoric or parabolic style) in superscriptions to Proverbs,

and (4) because the distinction between proverb and oracle/

spell is so compelling on common-sense conceptual grounds

in the absence of conclusive evidence to the contrary.¹

For those who argue that proverbs concisely sum-

marize experience, the aphorism at I Samuel 10:12 is a

parade example. Saul's (unfortunate?) ecstatic experience

among the band of prophets at Gibeah becomes proverbial:

¹McKane, Proverbs, pp. 1-33; Scott, Proverbs;

Ecclesiastes, pp. 3-9; cf. Fohrer, “Weisheit,” pp. 254-62;

cf. Crenshaw, "Wisdom," pp. 229-39; see J. Schmidt, Stylistik;

Eissfeldt, Maschal.

120

"Is Saul also among the prophets?" Hgm š'w1 bnb'ym?¹ In

Genesis 10:9, we find what Taylor would call a proverbial

phrase, a partial saying that can be adjusted to suit the

situation, with a historical allusion.² Scott finds a

number of proverbs of consequence, proverbs of analogy and

colloquial sayings among the prophets. He would include

Amos' rhetorical questions under the rubric of folk wisdom.³

Folk wisdom can also be found as riddles and fables,

not just proverbs. In Judges 14:14, a riddle, a counter-

riddle, and their solution form the basis of a tale about

Samson.⁴ According to Scott, the Samson riddle is

¹"And who is their father?" implies that the proverb

is complimentary neither to Saul nor the prophetic band and

suggests the ostensive folly of incongruous associations

(or, demeaning) and misperceived metiers. We might also

include I Kings 20:11 and I Samuel 24:13 ET.

²Taylor, pp. 184-200.

³Scott, Proverbs; Ecclesiastes, pp. xxvii-xxviii.

Compare Hans Walter Wolff, Amos’ Geistige Heimat, Wissen-

Schaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament,

Vol. 18 (NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1954);

Lindblom, pp. 192-204. Jeremiah 31:29; Ezekiel 18:2;

Hosea 4:9; Jeremiah 23:23. Scott also notes the parallel

between Isaiah 10:15 and Ahikar vii.

⁴Samson proposes a riddle to the thirty companions

at his wedding, thinking of a swarm of bees that he found

in a lion he had killed. The Timnahites must answer this

virtually unsolvable riddle:

"Out of the eater came something to eat,

Out of the strong came something sweet." (v. 14)

Extracting the solution from Samson's wife, the guests are

able to counter with

"What is sweeter than honey?

What is stronger than a lion?" (v. 18)

121

improbably difficult for the guests to decipher without

aid. Their counter-riddle, however, seems singularly ap-

propriate to the setting. The account is set in "humble

surroundings" suitable to folk wisdom. The difficulty of

the first riddle and the missing answer to the second

suggest that the riddles may have been adapted to this

context, strengthening the argument in favor of their folk

origins. Later, the riddle clearly also becomes a form for

Court entertainment, e.g., Solomon and Sheba, the tale of

Darius' three body-guards.¹

The riddle is not automatically a popular form. It

implies that the proponent of the riddle have some symbolic,

parabolic or metaphorical understanding of a situation that

the solver is trying to discover. The world has meanings

which are not immediately apparent in experience but which

the agile and attuned mind may uncover. Thus, the world of

experience consists of layers, of-which the everyday

Presumably, they mean "love between the sexes" in what is

by contrast with the fore-going a rather transparent riddle.

Samson rejoins,

"If you had not plowed with my heifer,

You would not have found out my riddle." (v. 18)

Scott, Proverbs; Ecclesiastes, p. xxix; see James L. Cren-

shaw, "The Samson Saga: Filial Devotion or Erotic Attach-

ment?" Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

86 (Fall 1974):470-504: J. Sturdy, “The Original Meaning

of ‘Is Saul Also Among the Prophets?’ (I Samuel X:11, 12;

XIX:24)," Vetus Testamentum 20 (April 1970): 206-13.

¹Crenshaw, "Wisdom," pp. 239-45.

122

meaning or interpretation is only the first and most super-

ficial. Where the riddle can be solved through reflection,

the solver is reaching for an attainable insight for which

experience ought to have prepared him. The riddle is a

vehicle which suggests a radical reinterpretation of the

meaning of things. The solver gains new insight into the

deeper significance of his experience by solving the

riddle.

The riddle, however, may be beyond easy solution.

It may be the means of communicating arcane insight or

interpretation. From the riddle alone, the solver, really

an initiate, learns only his inability to discern the true

or basic significance of things. As proponed, the riddle

confronts one with his ignorance. When the initiate is

given the key to solving the riddle, the plain meaning of

things is transformed. The symbolic understanding of the

world transcends its apparent meaning. The solution of

the riddle provides the initiate entree to an elite group

of cognoscendi. They possess a secret knowledge which is

only made available to those who prove themselves worthy.

Insight is the key. The riddle distinguishes the elite

few who have insight from that mass which does not. Thus,

the riddle may function to preserve secrets rather than

reveal them. When it does, it represents the establishment

of an intellectual or "gnostic" elite. The wisdom form is

123

the technical means for differentiating members from non-

members.¹

In analyzing the fable, Scott contends:

The fable combines features of the riddle and the

parable. A "fable" in the strict sense is an

imaginative tale in which the actors are animals

or inanimate objects such as trees (which may seem

to be alive because of movement and sound when a

wind is blowing) endowed with human speech. Often,

as in Aesop's fables, the story conveys a message

or carries a moral for human behavior.²

The requirement of speech over parabolic intent appears

rather strict. The tree of knowledge seems scarcely less

fabulous than the serpent, though neither would be folk

wisdom. Further, we question the animistic motivation im-

plied by Scott's parenthesis. Balaam's ass seems to be a

legitimate fable, incorporated into a more elaborate tale,

which points up Balaam's bullheadedness.³ Jotham's Fable,

¹ Kovacs, "Reflections"; Hans-Peter Müller, "Der

Begriff 'Rätsel' im Alten Testament," Vetus Testamentum 20

(October 1970): 465-89; Elli Köngäs Maranda, "Theory and

Practice of Riddle Analysis," Journal of American Folklore

84 (January-March 1971): 51-61; Elli Köngäs Maranda and

Pierre Maranda, Structural Models in Folklore and Trans-

formational Essays, Approaches to Semiotics, vol. 10, ed.

Thomas A. Sebeck (The Hague: Mouton, 1971); Benjamin R.

Foster, "Humor and Cuneiform Literature," Journal of the

Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University 6

(1974): 78; compare L. Makarius, "Ritual Clowns and Sym-

bolic Behavior," Diogenes 69 (1970): 44-73.

²Proverbs; Ecclesiastes, p. xxix.

³When his poor, but fabulous (!), beast is re-

peatedly struck for thrice discomfiting Balaam on account

of the angel of Yahweh whom Balaam either fails to notice

124

in Judges 9:7-15, is a fable which is clearly used

polemically, though it has perhaps been adapted to the

occasion.¹ Jehoash's Fable depicts the self-puffery of a

thistle that seeks for its son the hand (branch?) of the

daughter of a cedar of Lebanon; it is trampled by a wild

beast.² Ezekiel is a goldmine of fabulous entities, ex-

tended metaphors and "allegories."³ Scott notes in

particular the fabulous creatures which appear in Ezekiel

17:1-10. It seems to be a fable or allegory of Exile that

has been expanded and explicated, if not written, by the

prophet. It is expressly termed a 'mashal."⁴

or more likely is not meant to see, the animal must speak

out to call his master's attention to this most out-of-

character behavior. "Was I ever accustomed to do so to

you?" Balaam's answer is a profoundly brief, "No," a

concession which makes a parabolic point. The angel in-

cidentallyis 1śtin lw, for his adversary. Numbers 22:21-35.

¹It trades on the irony of a bramble asked to reign

as king over the trees; the tree which has no special gift

that it finds more rewarding than the offer of rulership

not only cannot offer the other trees security and protec-

tion, it is itself a dangerous source of potential fire.

"If in good faith you are appointing me king over you, then

come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, let fire come

out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon" (v.

15). Abimelech poses such a danger to Israel.

²II Kings 14:9. Since the application to Amaziah

in respect of his conquest of Edom and desire to meet with

Jehoash (presumably to demand fealty or tribute) is quite

inexact, the fable may be in origin folk, applied later

and derivatively to the case at hand.

³Meinhold, pp. 13-21, q.v.

⁴Scott, Proverbs; Ecclesiastes, pp. xxix-xxx

125

Unlike the riddle, the fable reveals its own in-

terpretation. Defined strictly, the fable requires a

final parabolic interpretation which gains poignance from

its application to the life-situation of the hearer. While

the hearer may initially miss the application, by the end

of the story, he should not be in doubt. In fact, this

sort of fable makes emotionally charged situations ac-

cessible by interpreting them in a more emotionally distant

and objective way. Having made sense of an objective, even

humorously preposterous situation, the hearer can make the

same interpretation of an experience with which he is in-

tensely involved. The fable permits one to say by indirec-

tion what cannot often be said fully and coolly directly.

It can, therefore, be polemical, since it is intended to

change one's understanding of a situation.

On the other hand, because it is self-revealing, it is

not the property of some gnostic elite. There is no secret

(v. 1); see Crenshaw, "Wisdom," pp. 245-47; Ronald J.

Williams, "The Fable in the Ancient Near East," in A

Stubborn Faith: Papers on Old Testament and Related Sub-

jects Presented to Honor William Andrew Irwin, ed. Edward C.

Hobbs (Dallas: .SMU Press, 1956), pp. 3-26; Erwin Leibfried,

Fabel (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1967); Hugo Gressmann, Israels

Spruchweisheit im Zusammenhang der Weltliteratur, Kunst and

Altertum: Alte Kulturen im Lichte Neuer Forschung, vol. 6

(Berlin: Verlag Karl Curtius, (1927)); Edmund I. Gordon,

“Animals as Presented in the Sumerian Proverbs and Fables:

A Preliminary Study,” Drevnij Mir (Moscow: n.p., 1962),

pp. 226-49; W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), pp. 150-212.

126

noesis; no special key is required. All who hear the

fable understand. The story is accessible to everyone;

it is open.¹

Less strictly understood, the fable shades into

a variety of other forms which have in common an extended

metaphor which reinterprets the situation of the hearer.

It may, in particular, lack a parabolic resolution. Re-

interpretation may appear solely through the appropriation

of the fabulous in the story. The fabulous stands for,

and reinterprets, what is mundane. Still, the meaning is

readily intelligible to all who listen; it reveals, it

does not conceal. The fable in all its forms is a rein-

terpretation--a wisdom--that is potentially close to the

people. The riddle, by virtue of its implicit inaccessi-

bility, anticipates the development of a social elite or

in-group to whom and to whom only this noesis is available.

In that sense, the fable stands closer to popular wisdom

than the riddle. Whether, however, these Hebrew riddles

and fables are folk and not literary contrivances is less

certain. In their present context, most have been adapted

to serve literary, and sometimes polemical, ends. The

accessibility of a wisdom form to popular comprehension

does not assure that popular instances of such forms have

¹Leibfried; Meinhold, pp. 13-21.

127

been preserved. In fact, the trend of present scholarship

is to question systematically whether any preserved wisdom

material can be popular or folk.

5. Royal wisdom. One way to establish a relation-

ship among the divers types of wisdom thinking and

materials is to postulate a historical process of democ-

ratization. For such theories, royal wisdom is the first,

and key, link. One who is wise knows how to govern: an

essential part of wisdom is the capacity to execute the

tasks of imperial justice, administration and governance

well. The king seeks to pass on his wisdom and experience

to his heir.

In practice, wisdom cannot be so confined. Life

is unpredictable. The king is not the only person with

administrative responsibilities. All possible successors

to the throne and the sons of high courtiers must be

trained to rule the land and serve the king. That many

documents drawn from international wisdom, especially

those from Egypt, apparently deal with courtly training

and advice ostensibly conferred by the grand vizier or

even the king himself supports this view. In Israel,

Solomon is the first and foremost of wisdom's patrons,

himself sage in ruling and in administering justice.¹

¹R. B. Y. Scott, "Solomon and the Beginnings of

128

Samson, the riddle-maker, judged Israel. The woman of

Tekoa offers paeans to David's wisdom; she compares it to

that of a divine emissary in knowledge and judicial dis-

cernment. Hezekiah's men collect proverbs.¹Court offi-

cials have duties that could be connected with wisdom be-

ginning with the time of David and Solomon.² Ahithophel's

counsel ranks with consulting the divine oracle.³ Yahweh

works through the conflict of counsels to separate Israel

and Judah. Yahweh himself the source and archetype of

royal wisdom finds wisdom in his Council.⁴ Royal and

near-royal epic heroes possess wisdom: Danel, Adam, Noah,

Joseph, Moses, Solomon aid Daniel.⁵ Whatever the actual

historical location and development of Hebrew wisdom,

Wisdom in Israel,” in Wisdom in Israel and Ancient Near

East, pp. 262-79; in the same place, Martin Noth, "Die

Bewahrung von Salomos GöttlicherWeisheit," pp. 225-37;

Albrecht Alt, "Israels Gaue unter Salomo," Kleine Schriften

Geschichte des Volkes Israel, vol. 2 Munich: C. H.

Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1953). pp. 76-89; Norman W.

Porteous, "Royal Wisdom," in Wisdom in Israel and Ancient

Near East, pp. 247-61; cf. Margaret Pamment, "The Succession

of Solomon: A Reply to Edmund Leach's Essay 'The Legitimacy

of Solomon,'" Man 7 (December 1972): 635-43.

¹Scott, Proverbs; Ecclesiastes, pp. xxx-xxxv.

²Scott, Proverbs; Ecclesiastes, p. xxxi; Noth,

"Bewahrung," p. 226; McKane, Prophets and Wise Men, pp.

15-47; Scott, “Beginnings,” pp. 262-79.

³McKane, Prophets and Wise Men, pp. 55-62.

⁴De Boer, pp. 4.271; cf. Noth, “Bewährung,”

p. 235.

⁵See Ezekiel 14:14, 20.

129

effective governance, sound administration and judicial

discernment have traditionally been deemed wisdom. Im-

portant royal and court figures are therefore adjudged to

have possessed such wisdom, though that judgment may be

that of a much later writer or historian; in the case of

Solomon, for example, of the deuteronomic historians.¹

If Solomon greatly expanded the Hebrew monarchy

in pomp, power and hegemony, especially at a time when its

expansion could not readily be checked by powerful and

jealous neighbors, then the need for an elaborate court

bureaucracy would be evident. Trade and economic records

would have to be kept. Imperial correspondence in all the

official languages must be attended to. Ambassadors,

emissaries, tradesmen, officials, all must report and be

instructed, and those instructions carefully and politi-

cally orchestrated. Since the king has chosen to marry

into the good graces of the Egyptians, the niceties of

court etiquette must be emulated and observed. The con-

quered territories must be governed. Levies must be

supervised so that submission is assured. The corvee

requires detailed administration.²

The social and situational incentives to expand

¹Scott, "Beginnings," pp. 262-79.

²McKane, Prophets and Wise Men, pp. 15-47; Porteous,

pp. 247-51; Scott, Proverbs; Ecclesiastes, pp. xxx-xxxiii.

130

royal wisdom from the confines of a favored few to a

rather large administrative class would support the democ-

ratization process. This is true however much the glories

of early Hebrew history may have been exaggerated to serve

later political purposes. The basic exigencies still re-

main. Didactic materials must be produced. Writing,

therefore scribal training at no less than an elementary

level, is the sine qua non of competent administration.

The administrator must be in harmony with the royal order;

he must be just and competent in his discernment and in

distinguishing cases.¹ Later, with the Exile or perhaps

even before it, would come the weakening of royal influ-

ence. Disillusionment follows. Speculative wisdom de-

velops, and the wisdom movement moves away from the court

and the aristocracy to locate in independent schools.

These serve the needs of a more complex and de-centralized

society in which the middle-class plays an important social

role.²

Especially for Egypt, this scenario is very attrac-

tive. The major impetus for democratization would come

during the Middle Kingdom. Our reading of Egyptian sources,

¹McKane, Prophets and Wise Men, pp. 23-45.

²Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, pp. 84, 133; Walter

Brueggemann, In Man We Trust (Richmond: John Knox Press,

1972), pp. 64-103.

131

however, may be too credulous, weakening the foundation of

the analogy. Where the material attributed to the early

wise viziers even exists--much does not and much of the

rest is fragmentary--the attributions should be regarded

as at best traditional. The "Instruction for King Meri-

kare" reveals striking blunders on the part of his pharaonic

teacher. It seems rather out of character--and culture--

for pharaoh himself to admit mistakes so baldly. The

possibility that this text is polemical or apologetic,

therefore pseudonymous, cannot be dismissed.¹ The "Instruc-

tion of Amenemhet" raises undeniable difficulties. It is

the purported teaching of a dead pharaoh to his son and

heir to the throne. The attribution must be pseudonymous.²

¹James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts

Relating to the Old Testament, 2d corrected and enlarged

ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955), pp. 414-

18. John A. Wilson edited and translated the Egyptian

material presented here., Cf. James B. Pritchard, ed., The

Ancient Near East: Supplementary Texts and Pictures Re-

lating to the Old Testament, Consisting of Supplementary

Materials for "The Ancient Near East in Pictures" and

"Ancient Near Eastern Texts" (Princeton: Princeton Univers-

ity Press, 1969), Section VI. The Egyptian material was

not revised for the third edition, which revisions are the

substance of the Supplement.

²Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 418-

19. Note Wilson's introductory remarks: "The specific

historicity of the text has been challenged, on the grounds

that a dead king is offering the advice. . . . [B]ut the

text is historical in its applicability to the times"

(p. 418). The question, however, is the difference be-

tween the literal activity of the pharaoh and his figura-

tive activity and what such a difference might mean in

132

The later sebayit, Egyptian instructions, come generally

from obscure officials.¹ Thus, the evidence for royal

wisdom and for a democratization process in Egypt are in-

tensely problematical. Analogy with Egypt forms the basis

for postulating a democratization process in Israel.

We may add the general observation that any in-

struction committed to writing would seem to be aimed at

some kind of preservation and at an audience significantly

larger than one. While it is not altogether implausible

that a father should communicate his experience and ex-

pertise in government to his heir in written form, the

fact of the writing plus its preservation in scribal

circles would suggest that the original intent was far

broader, and the setting therefore an artifice. Two

aspects of content further support this observation.

First, there are references to a scribal Standesethik, to

humility and circumspection in the face of superiors (and

who is superior to the pharaoh?), and to conventional wis-

dom imagery.² In the "Prophecy of Nefer-rohu," we find a

literary-historical interpretation and socio-structural

reconstruction.

¹See Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp.

420-25; cf. McKane, Proverbs, pp. 90-150.

²Kovacs, "Class-Ethic"; Crenshaw, "Prolegomenon,"

pp. 20-22; Hermisson, Spruchweisheit, pp. 94-96.

133

pharaoh learned in the scribal arts.¹ Nevertheless, the

paeans to scribal learning and its preservation, to ad-

ministrative shrewdness, and to reading and learning from

the fathers are singularly important to the scribal school.

Conventional wisdom imagery appears: the distinction be-

tween the wise man and the fool, noblesse oblige, the son-

father relationship for that of pupil and teacher² (the

paradigm for the pharaoh and his son, rather than vice

versa?).³

Second, many scholars have remarked about the al-

most "Macchievellian" tone to many of the instructions.

Yet, some scholars have argued that these wily calculations

are far more appropriate to distanced intellectual reflec-

tion about how rulers act than they are pragmatically

¹Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 444-46.

²Cf. J. W. McKay, "Man's Love for God in Deu-

teronomy and the Father/Teacher-Son/Pupil Relationship,"

Vetus Testamentum 22 (October 1972): 426-35.

³See Jean Leclant, "Documents Nouveaux et Points

de Vue Récents sur les Sagesses de L'Égypte Ancienne,"

in Sagesses du Proche-Orient Ancien, pp. 5-26; in the same

work, Baudoin van de Walle, "Problemes Relatifs aux

Methodes d'Enseignement dans l'Égypte Ancienne," pp. 191-

207; Duesberg and Fransen; McKane Prophets and Wise Men,

pp. 13-54. E.g., Ptah-hotep 510 ff., 575 ff.; Merikare

35 ff., 45 ff., 50 ff.; Ani iii 5 ff., 13 ff. (foreign

woman!), vii 20 ff.; Amenemopet chs. 6, 9, 11, 13 (!),

17, 20; Onchsheshonqy col. 7; 8:2-10. For Onchsheshoqy,

see S. R. K. Glanville, Catalogue of Demotic Papyri in

the British Museum, vol. 2: The Instructions of

^cOnchsheshonqy (British Museum Papyrus 10508), pt. 1:

134

useful advice on how to proceed as a ruler:

Fill not thy heart with a brother, nor know a

friend. Create not for thyself intimates--there

is no fulfillment thereby. [Even] when thou

sleepest, guard thy heart thyself, because no

man has adherents on the day of distress.¹

He who is rich does not show partiality in his

[own) house. He is a possessor of property who

has no wants. . . . Great is a great man when his

great men are great. Valiant is the king posessed

of courtiers; august is he who is rich in his

nobles.²

Note the following excerpt from Ptah-hotep:

If thou hearest this which I have said to thee,

thy every project will be [better] than [those of]

the ancestors. As for what is left over of their

truth, it is their treasure—[though] the memory

of them may escape from the mouth of men--because

of the goodness of their sayings. Every word is

carried on, without perishing in this land forever.

It makes for expressing well, the speech of the

very officials. It is what teaches a man to speak

to the future, so that it may hear it, what pro-

duces a craftsman, who has heard what is good and

who speaks to the future--and it hears. . . .³

Those whose profession requires them to work in the

presence of the powerful, and be subject to their whims and

fancies, want to understand the principles which govern the

Introduction, Transliteration, Translation, Notes, and

Plates (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1955).

¹Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 418

(Amenemhet).

² Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 415

(Merikare).

³Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 414.

135

exercise of great power so that they may conform their

lives and their decisions to that pattern, minimizing

though not eliminating the chance of misstep. The ruler

possesses free discretion: he has little need to under-

stand its principles and structure. The royal bureaucracy,

what we may loosely call the bourgeoisie, have a great

stake in that structure and those principles. Moreover,

their vulnerability, hence alienation, may be reflected

in what they write as a kind of amorality. One who cannot

escape the influence of absolute power must submit to it;

whether it be just, and how it might be so, is quite be-

side the point.¹

On the basis of these considerations, we can apply

Egyptian analogies to Israel only with great caution, re-

gardless of how direct the path of Egyptian-Hebrew influ-

ence may seem to be, since the relationship between royal

wisdom and the Sitze-im-Leben of its ostensive texts remains

obscure.

The Egyptian materials do, however, suggest

¹ Niccolo Macchiavelli, The Prince, trans. Luigi

Ricci, rev. by E. R. P. Vincent, The World's Classics,

vol. 43 (London: Oxford University Press, 1968); Baldesar

Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, trans. Charles S.

Singleton, Anchor Books (Garden City: Doubleday & Company,

1959). See W. Lee Humphreys, "The Motif of the Wise

Courtier in the Old Testament," unpublished Th.D. disserta-

tion, Union Theological Seminary, 1970; and Susan Niditch

and Robert Doran, "The Success Story of the Wise Courtier:

A Formal Approach," Journal of Biblical Literature 96

(June 1977): 179-93.

136

important themes in royal wisdom.¹ The king's wisdom con-

sists of formal scribal training, judicial discernment

between right and wrong, successful administration, ency-

clopedic or encompassing knowledge, and concord with the

harmonizing order of maat. In Egypt, the king functions

as the guarantor of order, maat (or, as a goddess Maat),

in his capacity of law-giver. He not only vanquishes the

chaotic force of isf.t, but he establishes a reliable and

fruitful natural order:²

I was the one who made barley, the beloved of the

grain-god. The Nile honored me on every broad ex-

panse. No one hungered in my years; no one thirsted

therein. . . . Everything which I had commanded was

¹Hellmut Brunner, "Die Weisheitsliteratur" in

Handbuch der Orientalistik, ed., Bertold Spuler, vol. 1:

Ägyptologie, pt. 2: Literatur (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1952);

Georges Posener, De la Divinité du Pharaon, Cahiers de la

Société Asiatique, vol. 15 (Paris: Imprimérie Nationale,

1960); Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods: A Study of

Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society

and Nature, Oriental Institute Essay (Chicago: University

of Chicago Press, 1948); Georges Posener, Littérature et

Politique dans l'Égypte de la XII^e Dynastie, Bibliothéque

de l'École des Hauces Études, no. 307 (Paris: Librairie

Ancienne-Honoré Champion, Éditeur, 1956); Rudolf Antes,

Lebensregeln und Lebensweisheit der Alten Ägypter, Der

Leipzig Alte Orient, vol. 32, no. 2 (LelPzig: J. C. Hinrich'sche

Buchhandlung, 1933); Friederich Wilhelm, Freiherr von

Bissing, Altägyptische Lebensweisheit, Die Bibliothek der

Alten Welt: Reihe der Alte Orient (Zurich: Artemis Verlag,

1955). Compare also Henri-Irénée Marrou, Histoire de

l'Éducation dans l'Antiquité, 6th rev. and expanded ed.

(Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1965); Siegfried Morenz,

Ägyptische Religion, Die Religionen der Menschheit, vol.

8 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 1960).

² Morenz, Ägyptische Religion, pp. 117-43.

137

in the proper place.¹

About Maat, Schmid comments:

Die Weisheit setzt nicht eine ewige, ideale,

metaphysische Ordnung voraus, der sich der Mensch

nur zu unterziehen hätte, sondetn behauptet, dass

durch weises Verhalten Weltordnung überhaupt erst

konstitutiert and realisiert wird. Weisheitlichem

Verhalten wohnt eine sehr zentrale, Kosmos

schaffende Funktion inne, es hat teil an der

Eteblierung der (einen) Weltordnung.²

We do not find Mesopotamian materials which sig-

nificantly clarify the issue of royal wisdom. Although a

number of proverbs have been found in Sumerian and

Akkadian collections, their place in royal or scribal wis-

dom is less clearly established, especially since the

attributions have frequently been lost. One instruction

purports to relate the counsel Sharuppak, survivor of the

flood, gave his son Ziusudra: clearly the setting of a

legend.³ Lambert labels some proverb collections "popu-

lar.”⁴ We question whether any collection can in the

strict sense be considered popular, particularly at this

¹Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 419

(Amenemhet).

²Schmid, Gerechtigkeit, p. 51. "Die Weisheit zielt

auf Maat, auf die Eingliederung des menschlichen Verhaltens

in die alles umfassende Weltordnung: wer recht lebt,

steht in Einklang mit der Weltordnung" (p. 50).

³Pritchard, Ancient Near East, pp. 158-59. Robert

D. Biggs, editor and translator.

⁴Lambert, pp. 216-82, passim.

138

historical remove. The same difficulty applies to fables.

As against either popular or royal wisdom, the

Mesopotamian evidence best fits the scribal and specula-

tive categories which follow. Certainly in Mesopotamia,

as in Ugarit and elsewhere, one can establish the royal

ideology of order: the king serves as the earthly vice-

roy of that "gray Eminence" who has laid out a cosmic

order that confines and restrains the powers of chaos.

The king's law-giving word supports that order, harmonizes

his land and his people with it, and thereby guarantees

both justice and an auspicious Nature which is reliable

in its cycles and bountiful in its harvests. The applica-

tion of this ideology to wisdom specifically becomes con-

vincing only when, as in Egypt, we find wisdom and a royal

setting together.¹

¹Schmid, Gerechtigkeit, pp. 24-65; Frankfort,

Kingship, p. 6; Humphreys, pp. 58-60. On these issues more

generally see also Edmund I. Gordon,,"A New Look at the

Wisdom of Sumer and Akkad," Bibliotheca Sacra 17 (1960):

122-52; Edmund I. Gordon and Thorkild Jacobsen, Sumerian

Proverbs: Glimpses of Everyday Life in Ancient Mesopotamia,

Museum Monographs (Philadelphia: University Museum of the

University of Pennsylvania, 1959); J. J. A. van Dijk, La

Sagesse Suméro-Accadienne: Recherches sur les Genres

Littéraires des Textes Sapientiaux, avec Choix de Textes,

Commentaires Orientales, vol. 1 (Leiden: E. J. Brill,

1953); F. R. Kraus, "Altmesopotamisches Lebensgefühl,"

Journal of Near Eastern Studies 19 (1960): 117-32; Samuel

Noah Kramer, “Sumerian Wisdom Literature: A Preliminary

Survey," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental

Research, no. 122 (April 1951): 28-31; Samuel Noah Kramer,

"Sumerian Similes: A Panoramic View of Some of Man's

Oldest Literary Images," Journal of the American Oriental

139

There is more to this discussion than the obvious

hazards of an analogy. Ultimately, one is compelled to

ask how wisdom came into Israel. If wisdom is to be as-

sociated with the royal court in social location and de-

velopment, then what is its relationship to the royal

ideology? Theses of divine order, maat/sidqh, and democ-

ratization strongly support the argument that wisdom en-

tered Israel through high scribal officials brought in

under an internationalist king to organize a highly

literate and relatively non-parochial administrative elite.

The theories also establish a convenient relationship among

three kinds of wisdom: royal, scribal and speculative.

On the other hand, we can question what may be in-

ferred about royal wisdom from our Egyptian and Hebrew

sources. Further, the proximity between royal ideology

and scribal wisdom depends on both snowing that scribes

Society 89 (January-March 1969): 1-9; S. Langdon, "Babyl-

onian Proverbs," American Journal of Semitic Languages and

Literatures 28 (1912): 217-43; S. Langdon, Babylonian Wis-

dom: Containing the Poem of the Righteous Sufferer, the

Dialogue of Pessimism, the Books of Proverbs and the Sup-

posed Rules of Monthly Diet (London: Luzac and Company,

1923); T. Eric Peet, A Comparative Study of the Litera-

tures of Egypt, Palestine, and Mesopotamia: Egypt's Con-

tribution to the Literature of the Ancient World, Schweich

Lectures of the British Academy, 1929 (London: Humphrey

Milford at the Oxford University Press for the British

Academy, 1931); Åke W. Sjöberg, "In Praise of Scribal Art,"

Journal of Cuneiform Studies 24 (1972): 127-31; Benjamin R.

Foster, "Wisdom and the Gods in Ancient Mesopotamia,"

Orientalis 43 (1974): 344-54.

140

adopted the ideology as an explanation of their own ac-

tivities and that the order-chaos motif correctly repre-

sents this ideology in its royal and scribal forms.

To the former: in both Egypt and Israel, we

suspect that later writers elaborated received traditions

about royal wisdom in order to serve the needs of their

social class and their academies. Thus, wisdom motifs may

well have been read back into a royal mythos and its im-

plicit ideology. Both may thus have been quite inde-

pendent of scribal wisdom, except as a later coloration.

Cosmic elements of the mythos would shade over into the

postulated creation or cosmic order emphasis of wisdom,

suggesting more affinity between royal myth/ideology and

wisdom than should be considered the case.

To the second: the order-chaos mythos is common

throughout the ancient Near East. It is typically as-

sociated with the king as the guarantor of order. That

administrative classes would give due service to this view

should be expected. Whether the view can be invoked to

explain their ethos and Weltanschauung is another matter.

Here, we must distinguish between manifest and latent

world-views. One may say out of social necessity--with

entire conviction--what one's actual pattern of living

and acting belies. The distinction between wisdom as a

form of thought and wisdom as a form of conduct is by no

141

means idle, especially in arguing this hypothesis.

Finally, we recognize that different models of

royalty functioned in the ancient Near East. In Egypt,

the pharaoh is divine or potentially divine; he is the

guarantor of Maat. He participates in and confirms the

interpenetrating cosmic order. Strong value is placed

on the status quo, although the stability of the political

system and the Egyptian social economy can easily be

exaggerated. The scribal ideal predominates. Later,

eternal life becomes an important focus of all Egyptian

thought, wisdom included. It is both an objective of one's

life and an important ethical consideration.

For the Mesopotamian, eternal life is that unat-

tainable characteristic which distinguishes a god from a

mere mortal. The king is not regarded as divine. Porteous

argues that the executive responsibilities of the

Mesopotamian monarch are far greater. He has a more de-

tailed responsibility for the day-to-day matters of gov-

ernmental administration. The king maintains order by

right administration, which thereby assures nature's

bounty.

In Israel, Porteous contends, the king is charged

with maintaining a covenant relationship between the people

and Yahweh, a relationship which antedates the institution

of the monarchy itself. As in Mesopotamia the king is not

142

perceived as divine. Eternal life does not figure into

the ethical equation. It does distinguish man from god,

though that is perhaps not the primary difference. Since

the institution of the Hebrew monarchy is, in many re-

spects, closer to that of Mesopotamia than Egypt, adopting

Egyptian royal wisdom as the paradigm for the introduction

of wisdom into Israel, for its social location and for

its pattern of subsequent development, would seem a

perilous enterprise except where specific supportive

evidence can be found.¹ A brief examination of the tra-

ditional association of Hebrew wisdom with the monarchy

seems to be in order at this point.

Studying the Davidic history, Noth finds two

strands to traditions about government. In one, David is

led by oracles. He continually inquires of Yahweh what he

should do. In the other, his wisdom is almost divine;

note the paean of the wise woman from Tekoa. David acts

on the basis of his own understanding. Significantly, his

counsellor Ahithophel speaks with oracular wisdom.

Divinely founded wisdom takes the place of the oracle

per se. To receive Ahithophel's counsel is as if one had

consulted the oracle of Yahweh.²

¹Porteous, "Royal Wisdom," pp. 247-61.

²Noth, "Bewährung," pp. 225-37.

143

Solomon, however, becomes the Hebrew paradigm of

the wise king:

In alledem spürt man die geistige Luft der

salomonischen Zeit. Es ist nicht wahrscheinlich,

dass erst eine späte Überlieferung diese im

einzelnen verschiedenen and in mehreren lit-

erarischen Quellen auftretenden, aber in der

Grundlage übereinstimmenden Züge zusammengetragen

habe für die Erzählungen über die spätdavidisch-

salomonisch-nachsalomonische Zeit. Vielmehr

haben wir es offenbar zu tun mit der Atmosphäre

dieser Zeit, wie sie wirklich war.¹

Noth's view is that of many scholars. Solomon's

association with wisdom represents the working together

of a number of different strands of tradition, as well as

free-floating legend, principally by the deuteronomic

historians. The material they use does not appear to

derive from annals. It is not contemporary with the

events it reports. What has already become tradition has

been expanded and developed to serve the historians'

literary, historical and theological purposes. Yet, so

many consonant strands of tradition cannot be without any

historical foundation: there must be a basis for Solomon's

special relationship to the development of wisdom. The

accounts cannot spring alone from Solomon's administrative

competence, discernment and adroit leadership. He would

seem to have been the patron of some sort of wisdom,

¹Noth, "Bewährung," p. 237.

144

whether royal counsellors, scribal schools or court wisdom

forms.¹

I Kings 3:3-15 bases Solomon's wisdom on a Re-

quest Theophany at Gibeon.² The king pleads his ignorance,

like that of a child who does not know how to go out or

come in. "Give thy servant therefore an understanding

mind to govern thy people, that I may discern between

good and evil."³ Pleased with this request (framed in

persuasive speech!), Yahweh also confers on Solomon the

riches, power and longevity which he did not request.

Wisdom derives therefore from a theophanic experience.

Over against this Request Theophany at Gibeon stands the

clearly deuteronomic theophany of 9:1-9. Noth argues that

it was written to set off the other, therefore older and

received, tradition.⁴

¹Scott, "Solomon," pp. 262-79; McKane Prophets

and Wise Men, pp. 15-62.

²"Ask what I shall give you" (v. 5).

³Note the tiwb-r^c of administration, the power of

command, v. 9.

⁴Noth, "Bewährung," pp. 226-28; Scott, .

"Beginnings," pp. 264-65. Noth identifies two strands

to traditions about governance. In one, David is led

by oracles. In the other, his wisdom is almost divine,

a charism. He acts out of his own 'charismatic' un-

derstanding. Ahithophel speaks with oracular wisdom.

The charism of divinely-founded wisdom comes to

145

The Gibeon Theophany serves to introduce a tale

of Solomon's judicial insight, the Two Harlots.¹In their

present form, the two belong together, particularly be-

cause of the inclusio of 3:28. The Gibeonite setting of

the theophany, however, suggests that each has an inde-

pendent history. The second part, the Tale of the Two

Harlots, can be found in a number of other cultures, though

always later and with a. somewhat different situation. The

most notable version comes from India. Originally, two

wives may have been fighting over preference in the eyes

of their husband or over inheritance rights. Gressmann

argues that the tale has been recast to give both women

the same external appearance--rather than one virtuous and

one evil and grasping wife--in order to make the decision

more difficult, and therefore more perspicacious.²

substitute for the oracle. Solomon, in his dream, selects

the latter, charismatic, wisdom through a direct theophany.

The oracular word thus becomes the word of command founded

on insight and discernment. Yahweh directs human judgment

to attain his ends. Hence, Absalom neglects Ahithophel's

sound counsel (!) and Rehoboam rejects the advice of the

elders for his younger advisors. (Pp. 231-37.)

¹Noth, “Bewährung," pp. 228-29.

²"Im Alten Testament wäre also mit Rücksicht auf

das üble Verhalten der einen der beiden Frauen die

Geschichte aus dem Milieu des Hauses eines Mannes

mit mehreren rechtmässigen Gemahlinnen in das Milieu

eines Dirnenhauses verlegt worden, and zwar

beide Frauen, da ja die Erzählung notwendig das

gleiche aussere Erscheinungsbild für beide Frauen

voraussetzte, das die Entscheidung des Streitfalles

so schwer machte." (Noth, "Bewährung," p. 229)

146

Noth remarks that the customary procedures of Hebrew law

and Near Eastern legal practice are ignored. A formal

oath is not sworn to seek resolve contradictory testimony;

divine judgment is therefore not invoked, not even by

oracle, lot or other means. Instead, the king's wisdom

becomes a divine charism whereby he stands above estab-

lished legal practice. He possesses the insight to re-

solve the case decisively:¹

Zwar ist diese Weisheit eine "göttliche Weisheit",

d.h. ein Geschenk Gottes, wie alles, was ein Mensch

hat; von Gott gegeben ist; aber sie ist doch nun

“in” Salomo, sie ist rein Besitz, mit dem er wirken

kann, and sie erübrigt ein "Befragen" Gottes in

Einzelfällen der Rechtsfindung.²

According to Scott, a common theme underlies this passage:

“Wisdom as the insight to distinguish right from wrong,

with the resulting ability of a judge to render true

justice.”³

Under the rubric of "wisdom as intellectual

brilliance and encyclopedic knowledge, especially of the

world of nature other than man," Scott includes both the

summary of Solomonic wisdom in 5:9-14 and the account of

the visit of the Queen of Sheba.⁴ The passages, he argues,

¹Noth, "Bewährung," pp. 230-32.

²Noth, "Bewährung," p. 232.

³Scott, "Beginnings," p. 270; italics deleted.

⁴Scott, "Beginnings," p. 271. Sheba: ch. 10.

147

are post-deuteronomic.¹ While the deuteronomic material

does not glorify Solomon beyond his building of the Temple

and his judicial sagacity--it presages his defection from

Yahweh-worship, glorification is the sign of a separate

and, here, later source. For the Queen of Sheba, wisdom

obviously encompasses courtly magnificence and ritual

majesty. Riddles and interrogations form a vital part of

the meeting, reminding one of the Three Young Guardsmen

as well as the tasks Pharaoh posed for Sennacherib and

Ahiikar. An actual practice of royal or court wisdom would

appear to underlie such accounts.²

I Kings 4:29-34 (ET) sets forth a paean to

Solomon's wisdom which makes specific reference to a

variety of types of wisdom, including encyclopedic knowl-

edge:

And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding

beyond measure, and largeness of mind like the sand

on the seashore, so that Solomon's wisdom surpassed

the wisdom of all the people of the east, and all

the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all

other men, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman,

Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his fame

was in all the nations round about. He also uttered

three thousand proverbs; and his songs were a

thousand and five. He spoke of trees, from the cedar

that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of

the wall; he spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and

of reptiles, and of fish. And men came from all

¹Scott, "Beginnings," p. 271.

²Scott, "Beginnings," pp. 271-72.

148

peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from

all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his

wisdom.

This, as we have already implied, is grandiose language

indeed. Significantly, Scott argues, this description of

courtly magnificence can be matched only in Esther,

Daniel 1-6, and Chronicles. The first two he regards as

midrashic tales, prominently treating wise men at court.

The last gives the Davidic court equally extravagant

treatment.¹

The quantity of proverbs and songs should be re-

garded simply as large round numbers (like the "Thousand

and One Nights"). The term wydbr, "uttered," should not

be construed as meaning that Solomon is merely a collector;

Noth contends that Solomon himself invents and composes

innumerable songs and proverbs.² The plants and animals

are synechdochic. Presumably, Solomon compiles onomastica

along the lines of the Egyptian Ordnungswissenschaft. He

exceeded the bounds of the conventional list-wisdom form

by treating the materials poetically. This late and

rather legendary glorification of Solomon lets us conclude

little about its actual historical character.³

¹Scott, 'Beginnings," p. 267.

²Noth, "Bewährung," pp. 225-29.

³Noth, Bewährung," pp. 225-37; Scott, "Beginnings,"

149

Scott's third and final rubric in this discussion

is "Wisdom as the ability of the successful ruler," a

wisdom which is hardly unique to Solomon. When moribund

King David charges his son to deal with the father's

friends and enemies and appeals to Solomon's wisdom, the

account basically serves as a pre-deuteronomic introduction

to the account of the summary executions.¹ While the ac-

counts of Solomon's dealings with Hiram of Tyre contain

two references to Solomon's wisdom, one may belong to

deuteronomic editorial material thematically derived from

the Gibeon Theophany while the other may go back to the

pre-deuteronomic material.² This sort of royal wisdom,

however, is a far cry from proverbs.

The superscriptions to Proverbs are evidence of a

sort. Scott notes that the references in 1:1 and 10:1 are

vague and indeterminable: they could refer to a literary

style or convention. Claims for authorship only gain

credibility from the passage in I Kings cited above,

which is basically late folklore. Since Proverbs 25:1

already looks to Hezekiah ascriptions to Solomon may not

pp. 271-72; Gerhard von Rad, "Hiob XXXVIII and die Alt-

ägyptische Weisheit," in Wisdom in Israel and Ancient Near

East, pp. 293-301.

¹Scott, "Beginnings," pp. 270-71.

²Scott, "Beginnings," pp. 270-72.

150

be a particularly early convention. The allusion to the

"men of Hezekiah" is important, however, because it would

seem to lack ulterior motive.¹

. . . this is first-rate evidence that an organized

literary wisdom movement existed at Hezekiah's

court and under his patronage. The king's men

transcribed, published, or carried forward from

tradition a collection of maxims which, in this

later editorial title, are designated "proverbs of

Solomon." There is a double ambiguity: just as

the phrase may or may not indicate-authorship, so

it may or may not imply that the association of

proverbs with the name of Solomon existed before

Hezekiah's time. The significant point is that

such an association did exist at that time, when

a literary wisdom movement and a court scribal

establishment were to be found at Jerusalem under

royal patronage.²

The appearance of the wise as a distinct social

class coincides with Isaiah and Hezekiah, in this view.

Notably, Hezekiah was the first post-Solomonic king to be

sole ruler of Israel. He appears to have set in motion a

national revival, following the lines of his legendary

predecessor. The Chronicler credits Hezekiah with cleans-

ing the Temple and restoring the grandeur of its worship,

an excellent comparison with Solomon. The writer expands

on the military prowess with which the writer of Kings

already credits him, pointing up the peace, admiration,

¹Scott, “Beginnings,” pp. 272-74.

²Scott, "Beginnings," p. 273.

151

tribute, riches and honor which graced his reign.¹

Far more important, by any standard, are the

pictures of the Hezekian monarchy found in Isaiah. They

are contemporaneous for one thing. More important, they

are entirely incidental to Isaiah's own interests. From

this material, Scott elicits three important parallels

with Solomon:

(i) intercourse with Egypt, with resulting strong

Egyptian political and cultural influence on the

Jerusalem court; (ii) unusual prominence in the

scene of horses and chariots as the basic military

arm, and as a symbol of glory; (iii) the power and

influence at court of organized "Wisdom"; in this

case not so much in the person of the king as in

"the wise" as a professional group. . .²

Not only does Isaiah speak of the wise as an or-

ganized group, but his recorded sayings include clear uses

of wisdom forms (parables, rhetorical questions), re-

flecting his occasional adoption of the role of wisdom

teacher. Scott speculates that Proverbs 25:1 reflects a

literary renaissance in Israel. After the fall of the

North, Judah becomes the repository of Hebrew thought.

Traditions are recorded and reshaped so that they will

not be lost; the fall of Israel has made people conscious

of the potential fragility of their traditions. Note also

¹Scott, "Beginnings," p. 275.

²Scott, "Beginnings,' p. 276.

152

the attribution of a psalm to Hezekiah in Isaiah 38:9-20.

After Solomon, Hezekiah is the only king to have literary

associations, both with psalms and with wisdom.¹

Scott asks why Deuteronomy 17:14-20 has been

written. "It is a well-known principle of law that a

practice is not forbidden by law unless the situation

demands it."²Manasseh, he argues, surpassed Solomon only

in cruelty and oppression. Hezekiah seems the obvious

alternative object: subsequently, kings are to be forbidden

to pattern themselves after Solomon. Though the latter is

never mentioned in the passage, the allusion is transparent.

Further, while Solomon had the misfortune not to have a

copy of the law to study(!), hereafter kings must be well-

read in the law. They are commanded to be literate: by

implication Solomon was not! If such a tradition existed,

it would support the lateness of I Kings 4:29-34 (ET) as

well as the late development of a wisdom class associated

with the royal court and its patronage. Since the deutero-

nomic code likely post-dates Hezekiah, the application is

¹Scott, “Beginnings,” pp. 276-79; Johannes Fichtner,

Gottes Weisheit: Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament,

ed. Klaus Dietrich Fricke, Arbeiten zur Theologie, 2d

series, vol. 3 (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1965), pp. 18-26;

see Whybray, Intellectual Tradition, pp. 18-21 e.s.

²Scott, "Beginnings," p. 279. In studies of

scientific methodology, T. H. White is often credited for

"What is not forbidden is compulsory" (!).

153

logical.¹

Scott concludes:

though general historical considerations do not

preclude, but rather favour, the connection with

Solomon of the origins of literary wisdom in

Israel, the ostensible biblical evidence for this

in the first Book of Kings is post-exilic in date

and legendary in character. . . . The first real

impact of Egyptian wisdom on Israel, with evident

results in Hebrew literary production, seems to

belong to the reign of Hezekiah. . . . If "proverbs

of Solomon" were so called before this time, there

is no substantial evidence to show when and how

this came about. . . . The tradition seems to have

been cultivated deliberately by Hezekiah as part

of his grandiose plans to restore the vanished

glories of Solomon's kingdom, for in Hezekiah's

reign appear the first clear evidences of Hebrew

Wisdom as a significant literary phenomenon.²

If proverbs were not the actual products of royal

wisdom, it is safe to say that they must have received

royal patronage. In them, therefore, we may expect to

find evidence of royal ideology, though not to the ex-

clusion of the authors' own views of the world. For that

ideology at least wisdom had several meanings other than

Lebensklugheit. More, if the interest in proverbs and

proverb-collections belongs to a comparatively late period

in the Hebrew monarchies, perhaps to the time of Hezekiah,

then the somewhat more expansive views of wisdom, including

even legend, may well have formed part of the authors'

¹Scott, "Beginnings," pp. 272-79.

²Scott, "Beginnings," p. 279.

154

intellectual milieu. Finally, on the basis of the chaos-

order mythos, one would expect wisdom to be predicated of

the king by analogy to the wisdom of Yahweh and his

divine council. Noth contends, however, that this is not

the case.¹The Solomon stories are the earliest that deal

even indirectly with Yahweh's wisdom. There, the orienta-

tion is strictly toward man's sphere of existence. Yahweh

teaches, he gives wisdom, he makes one wise in the same

way that he is said to make one rich or confer prosperity.

Only in relatively late materials do writers speak of wis-

dom as the gift per se of Yahweh. When the reference is

to God himself, and to his wisdom, the sources tend to be

rather late. Most often, then, they speak of Yahweh as

he who created everything "with wisdom." Only in Daniel

do we finally encounter wisdom as the possession of God in

the most general sense. A few older passages do mention

wisdom in the vicinity of' Yahweh, (Umgebung) without

predicating it of him directly--the divine analogy of the

wise woman of Tekoa, the “spirit of wisdom and understand-

ing” which enlightens the messianic king, and the wisdom

of the divine council.²

¹Noth, Bewährung," p. 235.

²Isaiah 11:2; "Ratsversammlung Gottes" in Job 15:

8 and Proverbs 30:3. Noth, "Bewährung," pp. 234-35.

155

Es ist ganz deutlich, dass man im Alten Testament

nur sehr zögernd das Prädikat der "Weisheit" Gott

zugesprochen hat, dass man abgesehen von ganz späten

Stellen gelegentlich die Schöpferweisheit Gottes

ausgesagt, in übrigen aber an einer Reihe von

Stellen die Weisheit nur so zu Gott in Beziehung

gesetzt hat, dass sie als eine Gabe Gottes

gepriesen wurde wie andere Gaben Gottes auch, die

von Menschen empfangen werden; auch dies letztere

vorwiegend in späten Stücken der alttestamentlichen

Literatur.¹

In sum, the king, his court, and the royal

ideology provide a setting which serves, at least poten-

tially, to bring together a number of subtypes of wisdom.

Royal wisdom is not whole cloth. The evidence even raises

questions about the royal setting of certain forms or sub-

types. Traditionally, the royal court appears as the

cradle and then patron of wisdom. Royal wisdom is crucial

to the democratization theory, which holds that wisdom

began in the king's search for the principles of effective

and reliable governance in which he educated his heir.

The needs of an expanding empire made administrative edu-

cation of the aristocracy necessary. Increasing social

complexity both forced the issue of merit, opening educa-

tion and administrative rank up to a "middle class," and

led to further expansion of education. It could no longer

remain the exclusive property of the elite. Wisdom repre-

sents the Standesethik of the school; it becomes less

¹Noth, "Bewährung," p. 235.

156

imperial and elitist as its social milieu changes from

the royal house to the decentralized school. Royal wisdom

evolves into democratic wisdom. For democratization,

Egypt is the model.

Such a thesis would be compatible with wisdom's

origination or early association with the divine council.

Noth finds it lacking in Israel.¹ Moreover, the analogy

between Israel and Egypt is weak. The evidence for a

personal wisdom of administration that formed the basis

of the king's education of his heir is doubtful. Early

royal wisdom in Israel becomes an inference from late and

legendary material.

Finally, royal wisdom encompasses subtypes whose

relationship with one another is obscure. Which of these

subtypes do we mean? How do thy relate to one another

historically? We have seen how problematic these issues

are.

A list of subtypes, drawn from our discussion,

would have to include:

a) Royal oracular wisdom

b) Judicial discernment, the wisdom of the wise judge

c) Effective governance, sound administration

d) Royal ideology

¹Noth, “Bewährung,” pp. 232-35.

157

e) Imperial guarantor of maat/order

f) Imperial bureaucracy, international scribalism

in royal service, bureaucratic Standesethik

g) Ordnungsweisheit, the wisdom of lists

h) Wisdom of the royal council

i) Wisdom forms of court etiquette (e.g., riddling

exchanges between monarchs or their emissaries)

j) Insight of a royal counsellor

k) Patron of the school and its forms and ethos

1) Patron of wisdom forms, literature, aesthesis

m) Royal stylistic conventions of poetry and speech

6. Epic Wisdom. The epic wisdom category holds

importance for our discussion because it forms an essential

part of the bridge von Rad builds between wisdom and

apocalyptic. If we are interested in locating any wisdom

Weltanschauung within theories of wisdom's evolution, the

von Rad hypothesis implies significant elements are to be

derived from the "structure" of wisdom. The term "epic"

should be taken in its broadest sense, as "heroic" or even

"ideal." There now rages a dispute within wisdom studies

whether what we would include in this wisdom type should

properly be considered wisdom at all.

Crenshaw, in his article on the problem of deter-

mining wisdom's influence on historical literature, sets

out five criteria that should be met before asserting the

158

presence of some kind of wisdom. First, there is con-

formity with definition, a problem we have already dis-

cussed. Second, the material must display "a stylistic

or ideological peculiarity found primarily in wisdom

literature."¹Common cultural expression or experience

does not count. Third, one must explain the nuance: how

are the wisdom elements actually used in the literary and

historical context of the work. Fourth, one must be con-

tinually aware of the predominant negative attitude toward

wisdom evidenced in much of Hebrew literature. Last, the

usage should make sense in terms of what we know of wis-

dom's historical development.²

While Hermisson dismisses Crenshaw's argument,

calling it "superficial" on the basis of an entirely off-

hand reference to I Kings 13,³ he actually takes a more

moderate position than his disagreement would suggest.

Setting out from von Rad's work relating history and wis-

dom to various Geistesbeschäftigungen à la Jolles,

¹Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influence,"

p. 132.

²Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influence,"

pp. 130-35.

³Hermisson, Spruchweisheit, pp. 88 n. 3, 46; Hans-

Jürgen Hermisson, "Weisheit and Geschichte," in Probleme

Biblischer Theologie, p. 148 n. 17. Yet, compare Noth,

"Bewährung," p. 237 (!).

159

Hermisson concedes that a basic consideration in wisdom

study is where to draw bounds.¹In fact, his discussion

of the Succession Narrative and Isaianic wisdom argues

for an integration of wisdom motifs and its presupposi-

tions quite consistent with an appreciation of the

problems of nuance and history, though he weighs them

differently from Crenshaw in the end.²

At the risk of over-simplification, these criteria

might well be summarized in terms of the problem of nuance.

Though a writer may draw on motifs, language and ideas

that otherwise seem related to one or another type of wis-

dom, the ultimate criterion is how he adapts these ma-

terials to serve his own artistic and intellectual objec-

tives. Wisdom imagery is not per se wisdom thought, let

alone wisdom as a social class, force or movement. Further,

that so-called "wisdom" which consistently appears in a

wide range of otherwise non-wisdom contexts becomes sus-

pect; it is hardly good evidence for either wisdom influ-

ence or wisdom thought.

What we are calling "epic Wisdom" raises these

issues in two ways. First, there is the question whether

¹Hermisson, Spruchweisheit, pp. 14-36, esp. 29;

Hermisson, "Weisheit und Geschichte," p. 147.

²Hermisson, "Weisheit und Geschichte," pp. 136-54;

cf. Hermisson, Spruchweisheit, pp. 113-33.

160

the hero or ideal figure should be considered a wise person

tout court, in the strictest application of the term. Is

his or her insight into experience or discernment of

justice in an ambiguous conflict situation patterned on

one of the established models of the wise person? Insight,

shrewdness, discernment, whether native, acquired by

training, or received by divine charism, all are not in

themselves specific characteristics of wisdom thought nor

traits or virtues of the wisdom movement alone. Prophets,

priests and patriarchs, no less than the wise, display such

virtues. We must be cautious not to confuse the technical

sense of 'wisdom' with the adjectival. He who is wise is

not perforce a sage; a sage, however, is surely a wise

person. All parts of the portrait must be weighed against

the motifs, images, forms and thought of incontrovertible

wisdom. One has to account for any deviations, contends

Crenshaw. Thus, while von Rad can provide an elaborate

list of wisdom themes in J's Joseph narrative, Crenshaw

educes a number of non-wisdom elements. He points to

nuances that conflict with accepted understandings of wis-

dom.¹

Second, one has to deal with the problem of how

this portrayal is used. Is a wise person being depicted in

¹Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influ-

ence," pp. 135-37.

161

the context of a non-wisdom historiography? Even if

Joseph is an archetypal wise man, what role does the ac-

count play in the whole J cycle? Are we to make J a

wisdom writer or his work wisdom literature because the

J school incorporates the figure of an epic wise man into

its history? When Hermisson contends that wisdom and non-

wisdom thought intermingle in the Succession Narrative or

Isaiah's oracles, he may expand our understanding of the

message underlying those specific works, but at the con-

siderable expense of dulling the analytical precision of

'wisdom' as a category of literary historical research.¹

About the Succession Narrative, Hermisson concludes:

Es bleibt abschliessend zu bemerken, dass der

Autor der Thronnachfolgegeschichte wirkliche

Geschichte darstellen wollte, nicht etwa ein

weisheitliches Lehrbuch schreiben. Der Einwand,

den man gegen weisheitliche Einflüsse auf die

Thronnachfolcegeschichte geltend machte, dass

hier als Vertreter der Weisheit zT recht zwie-

lichtige Gestalten auftreten, dass der Rat des

Weisen gerade keinen Erfolg hat (Ahitophel!) u.

dgl., könnte gegen eim Lehrbuch sprechen, nicht

gegen eine Geschichtsdarstellung im weisheit-

lichen Horizont. Als Geschichtsschreiber muss

man den Autor wohl mit den Massstäben seiner

eigenen Welt messen darf ihm dann nicht

vorrechnen, in welchem Mass er geschichtliches

Geschehen stilisiert hat. Denn es ist gerade

das Mass, das ihm Erkenntnis von Geschichte

ermöglicht hat.²

¹Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom influ-

ence, pp. 135-37; Hermisson, "Weisheit und Geschichte,"

pp. 136-54.

²Hermisson, "Weisheit und Geschichte," p. 148.

162

Hermisson makes a clear and valid decision about

where to draw the boundaries of 'wisdom'--it is, in part,

a scholarly choice about the descriptive use of technical

vocabulary. In addition, however, he uses the term to

distinguish peculiar characteristics of this account over

against other Hebrew historiography. It shows concern

for natural causality, without reference to the other-

worldly. It examines individuals and their relationships,

instead of groups, community or the nation. It is in-

terested in the behavior, action and reaction of people.

There is a balance between an order established by Yahweh

and Yahweh's position above that order in attaining his

own ultimate objectives.¹ Still, the notion of a wisdom

"horizon" or "influence" seems disturbingly unspecific.

The assertion requires at least that the wise have existed

as a distinct social group with an identifiable world-

view, which could form an influence or horizon, no later

than the time of the Narrative's author. This is no idle

thesis.

The same line of argument applies to von Rad's

analysis of the Joseph story. Such a refined and sys-

tematic artistic composition virtually demands organized,

refined and systematic thought to support it. Von Rad's

¹Hermisson, "Weisheit und Geschichte," pp. 153-54.

163

position, like Hermisson's, requires the comparatively

early existence in Israel of organized groups of wisdom

thinkers, whether they be in the royal bureaucracy, an

academy associated with the royal court, or in various

decentralized schools composed of people from a range of

social strata. Such elaborate compositions require not

only a refined and stable religious and intellectual

atmosphere which provides the coherent world-view in terms

of which the materials have been drawn together, they re-

quire a sophisticated audience to appreciate them. It

must be knowledgeable in that implicit and underlying world-

view and its symbolism. Its appreciation must lead to

preservation as well as the literary activity that produced

them.¹

If we argue for influence rather than horizon, the

problem becomes even more complicated. What relationships

obtained between the writer and those “influences”? Are

social groups merging or diverging? Is this work the

unique product of a literary genius, an admissible but

historically unilluminating possibility? Did the author

consciously borrow from a competing intellectual movement,

or are the parallels strictly unconscious or inadvertent,

the products of the demands of literary form and content?

¹See Hermisson, Spruchweisheit, pp. 113-33.

164

Proof of intellectual dependence is notoriously difficult

to establish, far more so than literary dependence. It is

difficult to specify how much similarity must exist before

the argument of influence becomes plausible.

The quote from Hermisson above also points up the

problem of form. Clearly there is no such thing as a mere

assemblage of facts; every composition purporting to report

factual occurrences operates under some set of guiding

principles which determine what is to be reported and what

is to be excluded. To call the Narrative “history” leaves

open the question, what kind? Is it propaganda, novella,

court apology, annal? One of the basic objectives of form

criticism is to bring us nearer the Sitz-im-Leben of the

document. What is wisdom-history and where is it to be

located?¹

Again, what is the scenario for the evolution of

a setting for such apparently refined forms? We cannot

hope to resolve here the question of whether there existed

an epic wisdom or wisdom historiography in ancient Israel.

The discussion, however, points up the interdependence of

various lines of inquiry within wisdom research.

¹In particular, see R. N. Whybray, The Succession

Narrative: A Study of II Samuel 9-20; I Kings 1 and 2,

Studies in Biblical Theology, 2 series, vol. 9 (Naperville,

Ill.: Alec R. Allenson, 1968); cm. Crenshaw, "Wisdom,"

pp. 259-62.

165

The views of von Rad, Hermisson and Whybray, among

others, require some kind of organized group--which the

former two would regard as wisdom--set sharply at variance

with the literary and historical reconstructions of Noth

and to a lesser degree Scott. These views seem to re-

quire the importation of an organized scribal bureaucracy,

based on the Egyptian model, during the reign of Solomon.

Certainly, it would be the simplest line of explanation.

Our inability to reach to reliable contemporary

sources leaves the situation open to considerable specu-

lation, pro and con. Not only could the argument shift

the date of the proverb collections and subcollections

nearly three hundred years backward, but such an early

wisdom would compel us to read them through different eyes.

These historic epics would effectively counter the view

that early Hebrew wisdom was profane and non-covenantal,

that it gradually became more theologized and nationalized

during and after the Exile. The reinterpretation

becomes even more drastic if we follow some scholars and

add to the Succession Narrative and the Joseph Story the

Second Creation Account (J), the Tales of Moses as Judge,

and the epic Hero Daniel.^l Even if the proverbs belong to

¹Chs. 1-6. Danel? Cf. "The Tale of Aqhat," Aqht

A, in Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 149-52 ff.

166

another wisdom group and even if they therefore display

an entirely different perspective on the world, they

would have to be seen in dialogue with these other com-

peting forms of wisdom. Most important, the Joseph Story,

through divination, its possible connection with the

Egyptian "Tale of Two Brothers,"¹ and the charism of an

elaborately active and single-minded deity, would bring

together both wisdom and myth, sage and priest, teaching

and cult. It would seriously undermine the contention

that the proverbs tend to be neutral or somewhat hostile

toward the cult. We would have to see the proverb collec-

tions coming from a milieu in which some wisdom groups at

least concerned themselves with mythos, national heroes

and historical events of religious significance (Heils-

geschichte!).²

Because of these inescapable historical implications,

it is curious that the battle over wisdom historiography

seems to be fought out entirely on the ground of content:

whether certain motifs or forms are so specifically as-

sociated with wisdom that when a certain number of them

appear together in the same context the passage should

properly be denominated wisdom. We submit that the

¹Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 23-25.

²Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, pp. 378-86, 391.

167

historical consequences are relevant to such judgments,

especially since the determination is to some extent

semantic in terms we have argued above. It is a matter

of judgment at what critical level one may validly apply

a particular technical term. Even having stipulated the

evidence, scholars disagree.

Consider, for example, the "Instructions of

Amenemope" and the parallel in Proverbs (22:17 ff.).

Scholars have argued, with some persuasiveness, that the

Egyptian material as is is prior, that the Proverbs

passage as is is prior, or that some Semitic or Egyptian

Vorlage must be invoked to explain both texts. Only when

Albright and Cerny all but ruled out a later date for the

Egyptian text and then Williams showed that the Instruc-

tion's stylistic peculiarities are consistently Egyptian

was the issue basically concluded.¹ Precisely how much

¹Irene Grumach, Untersuchungen zur Lebenslehre des

Amenemope, Münchener Universitätsschriften Philosophische

Fakultät, Münchener Ägyptologische Studien, vol. 23, ed.

Hans Wolfgang Müller (Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1972),

p. 3 n. 9; Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 421-

25; Hugo Gressmann, "Die Neugefundene Lehre des Amen-em-

ope und die Vorexilische Spruchdichtung Israels," Zeit-

schrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 1 (1924):

273-96; Marion Hiller Dunsmore, "An Egyptian Contribution

to the Book of Proverbs," Journal of Religion 5 (1925):

300-08; Hubert Grimme, "Weiteres zu Amen-em-ope und

Proverbien," Orientalische Literaturzeitung 28 (1925): 57-

62; F. Ll. Griffith, "The Teaching of Amenophis the Son of

Kanakht, Papyrus B.M. 10474," Journal of Egyptian Arche-

ology 12 (1926): 224-39; Ludwig Keimer, "The Wisdom of

168

evidence is required to demonstrate direct literary de-

pendence was at issue in this instance: a judgment of

value or method to which the enumeration of specific

parallels was not in and of itself decisive. The his-

torical consequences of such judgments are substantial.

Whybray and Hermisson do not sufficiently explore

the historical consequences of their positions. Whybray

argues that the Succession Narrative is a dramatization

of various proverbs, proving its' wisdom background. And

in a later work he argues against the early existence of

Amen-em-ope and the Proverbs of Solomon," American Journal

of Semitic Languages and Literatures 43 (1926): 8-21; D. C.

Simpson, "The Hebrew Book of Proverbs and the Teaching of

Amenophis," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 12 (1926): 232-

39; W. O. E. Oesterley, The Wisdom of Egypt and the Old

Testament in the Light of the Newly Discovered “Teaching

of Amenemope” (New York: Macmillan Company, 1927); František

Lexa, "L'Analyse Littéraire de l'Enseignement d'Amenemopet,"

Archiv Orientáni 1 (1929): 129-239. R. O. Kevin, "The Wisdom of

Amen-em-Apt and its Possible Dependence upon the Hebrew

Book of Proverbs," Journal of Oriental Research 14 (1930):

115-57; Albrecht Alt, “Zur Literarischen Analyse der

Weisheit des Amenemope,” in Wisdom in Israel and Ancient

Near East, pp. 16-25; Etienne Drioton, "Le Livre de

Proverbes et la Sagesse d'Amenemope," Sacra Pagina: Mis-

cellanea Biblica Congressus Internationalis Catholici de

re Biblica, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovanien-

sum, vol. 12-13, bk. 1 (Gembloux: Editions DuCulot, 1959),

pp. 229-41; Ronald J. Williams, "The Alleged Semitic Origi-

nal of the Wisdom of Amenemope," Journal of Egyptian

Archeology 47 (December 1961): 100-06; B. Couroyer, "L'Origine

Egyptienne de la Sagesse d'Amenemope," Revue Biblique 70

(1963): 208-24.

169

a specific social class of the wise!¹Could such a milieu

of proverbial wisdom have arisen and stabilized itself to

such a degree by this time? Could it exist in such a form

that this writer could draw upon it intelligibly to arti-

culate his Solomonic court apologetic early in that King's

reign? What is the pre-history of the “cultural and pro-

fessional circle to which the author belonged?”²

Von Rad, in similar fashion, avoids the earliest

history of organized scribal wisdom.

Der Zeitraum, dessen litararische Hinterlassen-

schaft wir befragen, beginnt mit dem Aufkommen

einer Schulweisheit in der frühen Königszeit. Das

Vorhandensain einer älteren Sippenweisheit soll

nicht grundsätzlich bestritten werden, ihr Vor-

handensein ist von vornherein sogar höchst wahr-

scheinlich. Sie ist aber ihrerseits ein so schwer

bestimmbares Phänomen, dass unsere Untersuchung von

ihr als einem Gegenstand suí generis keine Notiz

nimmt. Zudem hat sich die Annahme eines Zusammen-

hangs zwischen ihr und der Schulweisheit als frag-

würdigerwiesen. Grundsätzlich sei hier schon

fortgestellt, dass wir in diesem Zusammenhang .

unsere Aufgabe nicht darin sehen, hinter die

Lehrdichtungen des Sprüchebuches zurückzufragen,

ob sich vielleicht da und dort Formen einer viel

alteren Weisheit abzeichnen. Wir nehmen die

Stoffe so, wie sie von den Sammlern dargeboten.

¹R. N. Whybray, The Succession, Narrative: Study

of II Samuel 9-20; I Kings 1 and 2, Studies in Biblical

Theology, 2d series, vol. 9 (Naperville, Ill.: Alec R.

Allenson, 1968); Whybray, Intellectual Tradition; Her-

misson, "Weisheit and Geschichte," pp. 137-48. Cf. R. N.

Whybray, "Some Literary Problems in Proverbs I-IX," Vetus .

Testamentum 16 (October 1966): 482-96 and his Wisdom in

Proverbs: The Concept of Wisdom in Proverbs 1-9, Studies

in Biblical Theology, vol. 41 (Naperville, Ill.: Alec R.

Allenson, 1965).

²Whybray, Succession Narrative, pp. 1-9.

170

werden, and in dieser Gestalt haben wir Grund,

sie als Schulweisheit zu verstehen.¹

Ought one so to limit a study of “Weisheit in Israel”?

Can we understand a work in its present form without

making judgments about its social and historical back-

ground? In other words, can we study school wisdom with-

out asking where the school came from? We submit that an

important dimension to our understanding would thereby be

lacking, especially when working with such terse, seemingly

independent and often ambiguous writings as the mashal

literature.

Thus, we would add to Crenshaw's criteria a final

one. Explanations of nuance and comparisons of content

must rest upon a sound socio-historical foundation. At

least, they should not conflict with what is already known,

particularly when the latter has more certainty or con-

viction than the former. They should not require histori-

cal or social conditions or processes, alterations in our

understanding of the socio-historical matrix, that are

intrinsically improbable. We would submit that "improbable"

can often be defined with sufficient (scientific) pre-

cision.

These remarks do not apply merely to the wisdom

type of epic, ideal hero or (heroic) historiography. The

¹Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, p. 24.

171

same considerations apply to prophetic wisdom, especially

in terms of the organization and stabilization of wisdom

schools with refined systems of thought. When wisdom is

connected to apocalyptic, rabbinism, sadduceanism, or

priestly religion, the same kind of necessary, logical

historical scenario seems appropriate, though in terms of

wisdom's subsequent development instead of its origins.

The socio-historical matrix, and the fundamental social

processes at work in history, must be plausible, realistic

and consistent. It should conform as well to what we know

of human nature and the parameters of social organization,

particularly the conditions and time frames that operate

in the formation and evolution of social structures.

Possible candidates for epic wisdom include:

a) Adam. In connection with the J creation ac-

count, we have already mentioned the trees and the serpent.

Pfeiffer has suggested that these function as symbols

within a wisdom text.¹ Originally, knowledge is the dis-

tinctive prerogative of Yahweh; man is like the animals,

in no way lord of creation. The story's theme is Promethean.

¹Thus, Genesis 1-11, though principally P, reveals

a second Edomite source S, which has close affinities with

Job. S is staccato and disparate in style. While S is

early, perhaps from the Solomonic era, it has suffered late

accretions (e.g., the Melchizedek episode). Its influence

on Hebrew literature tends to be late and Exilic, first

appearing in Ezekiel 28, 32; II Isaiah; then Deuteronomy.

172

Man steals knowledge in an attempt to achieve equality

with god. He evokes the unlimited power of Yahweh in

response.¹

Engnell revives the search for wisdom, studying

both creation'accounts traditio-historically. The Adam

figure is variously Urmensch, Urvater and sacral Urkönig.

The two accounts form part of the P-narrative or Tet-

rateuch; they stand in dialectical relationship to one

another that is ultimately indivisible into documentary

trees. While the narrative is not wisdom in the strictest

sense, it evidences wisdom themes. Its view of nature is

fundamentally negative,² “the earth and its vegetation are

cursed, the lot of offspring is hard work, pain, destruc-

tion and death.”³ The hieros gamos and sacred king sacri-

fice are turned on their heads in an anti-Canaanite polemic.

Wisdom. means vitality or procreation: one cannot have

eternal life and also procreate without then being a god.

Adam's divinity must therefore be limited with respect to

Yahweh. Adam's power of command is profoundly demonstrated

¹Robert H. Pfeiffer, "Edomite Wisdom," Zeitschrift

für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 3 (1926) :13-25;

his “A Non-Israelite Source of the Book of Genesis,” Zeit-

schrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 7 (1930):

66-73; and his "Wisdom and Vision in tne Old Testament,"

Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 11

(1934): 93-131.

²So also Pfeiffer.

³Engnell, "Creation Story," p. 118.

173

by the naming of the animals.¹

Alonso-Shökel also sees a noetic concern under-

lying the J narrative of creation which he thinks derives

from wisdom influences, over and above the obvious fabulous

entities in the work. He cites a concern with developing

an understanding of man, of his good and evil. The work

reduces Yahweh to a human level, a character in a story.

The fundamental questions of life and being are posed.

Wisdom forms are repeatedly appropriated: mashal,

melisiah and hiidah. While other, heilsgeschichtlich,

themes predominate, the wisdom formulation of the work,

albeit rather late, is evident.²

b. Moses. Certain wisdom heroic themes recur in

the Moses stories--concern for fine speech, judicial

sagacity, sound administration, oracular relationship with

Yahweh and the like—but any association with wisdom would

seem to be extreme.³

c. Joseph. Von Rad sets Joseph up as the arche-

typal wise man. He is an adroit speaker, humble, a com-

petent administrator whatever the assigned task; he

^lEngnell, “Creation Story,” pp. 103-19.

²Alonzo-Schökel, "Motivos," pp. 295-316.

³Malfroy; Weinfeld, "Humanism in Deuteronomy,"

pp. 241-47; Weinfeld, Deuteronomy, passim.

174

understands the signs which symbolically present Yahweh's

will. He engages in divination and interprets symbolic

dreams in accord with the will and understanding of Yahweh.

He triumphs over adversity by self-discipline and ac-

ceptance/submission. He devises clever schemes to attain

his, and Yahweh's, goals. Joseph knows the ways of the

royal court, behaving impressively in the Court of Pharaoh

and ingratiating himself by his speech, his insight and

his observance of court etiquette.

Divination gives an interesting dimension to the

concept of knowledge. Yahweh is ultimately above all human

knowledge. He may make use of any person, any setting, to

achieve an order, an objective, that he has determined by

his will. Implicit here is internationalism and super-

naturalism of a high order: everything bends to Yahweh's

will. Inscrutability and ineffability are mixed through

with the inevitable, inexorable. Yet, while Joseph cannot

see into all Yahweh's plans, he has a divine charism which

enables him to detect and interpret the divine signs, i.e.

dream-interpretation and divination. Joseph makes use of

every opportunity, no matter how adverse it may seem.

Joseph's fidelity to Yahweh and his confidence in the

reliability and rectitude of Yahweh's plans constitute im-

portant elements of his wisdom. Humility, know-how and

initiative gain for him every superior's favor. Von Rad

175

contends that, for J, Joseph represents the quintessential

wise man; he stands for an ideal. The narrative forms al-

most a single unified account, molded to the author's

guiding purpose and the high-point of J's literary art.¹

To this portrait, Crenshaw dissents.

. . . it is a strange model of education that has

as its hero one who has not been trained at a

school, and a peculiar propaganda for courtly wis-

dom that has the ruler choose a man as his counselor

on the basis of his "spiritualistic" qualifications.²

Consider also Joseph's distinct lack of tact toward his

brothers both in the initial dream story and when he con-

ceals his identity from his brothers. He is highly emo-

tional, "passionate." Crenshaw cites a formidable number

of non-wisdom themes in the narrative: (1) special revela-

tion, theophany; (2) dreams and divining cup as mediating

devices; (3) sacrifice; (4) genealogy; (5) kashrut; (6) the

tax account during the famine; and (7) elements of Heils-

geschichte.³

d) Daniel. If Joseph follows the paradigm of the

wise man, Daniel can certainly not be excepted. Divination,

¹Von Rad, "Josephsgeschichte," pp. 120-27; his

Weisheit in Israel, pp. 67-69, 257-58.

²Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influ-

ence," p. 137.

³Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influ-

ence," p. 137. Cf. Noth, "Bewährung," p. 232.

176

the triumph over adversity through loyalty and savoir-

faire, divine charism, oracle wisdom, dream interpretation,

court etiquette, royal counsellor motif, eloquent speech,

the overarching but unknowable plan of Yahweh to which the

hero may gain some limited access by interpretation of

signs given him by Yahweh, all these mark both tales. This

commonality of archetype forms an important bridge for von

Rad from wisdom to apocalyptic.¹

Were it not for the von Rad hypothesis and its

emphasis on Joseph and Daniel, the latter would be a com-

paratively poor prospect for epic wisdom. First, the ob-

jections Crenshaw raises to Joseph apply with even greater

force to Daniel. Many of the themes cited can hardly be

considered incontrovertibly those of wisdom, either apart

or in conjunction with one another. Second, the two works

are separated by an enormous social and cultural gulf,

reflecting the years that separate their composition.

Again, Crenshaw's notion of nuance applies. Do these

motifs have the same essential meaning in and to a society

whose circumstances and presuppositions are so drastically

different? The Joseph story borrows themes and situations

from international literature. Its protagonist is omni-

competent. Foreigners appear in a compassionate light,

¹Von Rad, Old Testament Theology 2: 301-15;

von Rad, "Josephsgeschichte," pp. 120-27.

177

where suitable. Daniel lacks any formal association with

wisdom beyond the paradigm figure, whose competence is

principally that of dream-interpretation. The story is

intensely nationalistic, even ethnocentric, which thereby

restricts Daniel's capacity to function and presents his

relationship to king and court as at best distant. Von

Rad really constructs his bridge over the relationship

of a divine charism. Is the divine charism of an epic

figure, particularly when limited to favor and a skill at

interpretation, wisdom? Disciplined conduct and stead-

fast trust in divine action are certainly not alone wis-

dom virtues. Third, in spite of the fact that the work

falls during a period when wisdom manifests itself in

literary and speculative form, perhaps in response to the

dissolution of a social institution or class, Daniel does

not evidence such wisdom. To use our earlier distinction,

the use seems more adjectival than technical.

Taking the von Rad hypothesis into careful con-

sideration, however, Daniel cannot so easily be dismissed.

The evidence goes beyond the paradigm, even with its ex-

panded understanding of the nature of wisdom and the wis-

dom figure, i.e., charism. Von Rad argues that a certain

understanding of time, a certain historiography and a

specific kind of dualism accompany this paradigm.¹ We

¹See Wisdom in Israel, pp. 337-63.

178

cannot deal adequately with the hypothesis here. In

looking at the broader implications of our study, we would

return to this argument and see whether the evidence of

Proverbs offers any support. Von Rad's position is a

logical extrapolation from the kind of developmentalism

we shall want to consider underlying much of wisdom re-

search.

e) The Succession Narrative, as "wisdom his-

toriography." Earlier, we listed some of the elements

which Hermisson thought represented a wisdom strand.¹

Whybray finds many of the same: the role of the coun-

sellor and counsel, morally-neutral wisdom, retribution-

ism, Yahweh depicted as the guide and determiner of human

destiny, natural causation (i.e., inner-worldly), and a

de-emphasis of the cult. The work, he argues, was written

shortly after these events take place. Its style is

novelistic. It Is really a form of propaganda, intended

to explain and support the Solomonic claim to the throne.

He calls it “a dramatization of proverbial wisdom.”²

First, it parallels the themes that appear in

proverbs, as noted. Second, the account draws on typical

¹Spruchweisheit, pp. 11-36; "Weisheit and Ge-

schichte," pp. 136-54:

²Succession Narrative, p. 75. He quotes Duesberg's

characterization, a comedie humaine (p. 79).

179

proverb forms and devices--simile,¹ comparison,² Zwillings-

formen, rhetorical contradictions,³ and wisdom motifs.⁴

Ultimately, Whybray summarizes the correspondences he

finds between the Book of Proverbs and the Succession

Narrative under three headings: wisdom and folly, the

education of children, and the king. Various minor topics

complete a sort of fourth category.

Under the first rubric, Whybray subsumes "patience

and the control of temper,"⁵ "prudent consideration before

taking action," "the ability to learn from experience,"

“avoidance of treacherous companions,” "humility versus

pride and ambition," and the exploitation of wise speech.⁶

¹E.g., the proverb at II Samuel 14:14.

²Tiwb-mn form.

³Inconsistent advice or counsel: explicit juxta-

posed inconsistencies.

⁴She-bear robbed of cubs, death, knowledge, wis-

dom, love and hatred, father and son. Whybray, Succession

Narrative, pp. 82-83.

⁵E.g., Absalom silently awaits an opportunity to

revenge Amnon's rape of Tamar.

⁶A number of speeches in the account illustrate

proverbial themes. Joab faces the dilemma of a faithful

courtier who must tell the king what he needs but does not

wish to hear. Joab does not know how his counsel may be

received--with admiration and reward or with distaste and

vindictiveness. The situation also illustrates the wise'

propensity for juxtaposing alternative or contradictory

counsel when no definitive answer is possible. Whybray,

Succession Narrative, pp. 87-88.

180

Under the second, Whybray adduces the repeated concern of

the Narrative with David's relationship to his children,

their ultimate downfall,¹ and the father's "broken heart."

David failed in discipline, mûsār, by failing to control

his children. Under “ideal king,” Whybray refers to a

number of the aspects, of royal wisdom we have already

mentioned: the king's own wisdom, his duties (i.e.,

justice) and his relationship to Yahweh, a God whose pur-

poses go beyond man's freedom and power to determine or

manipulate events, and the king's good courtier. That

last category is a miscellany, including "friendship and

enmity, idleness, rich and poor, humility, death, evil

companions, quarrels, man's insecurity, messengers, old

age, pride, treachery and loyalty."²

Again, Crenshaw raises the problem of using ‘wis-

dom’ in reference to such material. He argues that the

basic criteria have not been met. Nuance is certainly

problematic; there are historical difficulties.. The

Narrative shows in a bad light a number of people who

ought, ex hypothesi, to appear in a favorable light in a

wisdom setting. These include David and Solomon them-

selves, not to mention the exalted and legendary figures

^lAmnon, Absalom, Adonijah.

²Whybray, Succession Narrative, pp. 88-95.

181

of Ahithophel and Hushai. For wise men, they are all,

but especially the latter, remarkably ineffectual and dis-

turbingly treacherous.¹

As we have before, we may ask whether the lengthy

catalogue of emphases constitutes, prima facie, wisdom.

Crenshaw says no. Many are commonplaces of Hebrew think-

ing, e.g., retributionism. Others represent a dubious

interpretation of the intention underlying the text, e.g.,

David's dealings with his children (is the issue really

discipline?). Still others are the sine qua non of any

discussion of the human situation, e.g., death, evil com-

panions, quarrels, old age. Finally, Whybray sometimes

seems careless of the layers of the narrative. Wise

women accounts may represent an entirely different type

of wisdom whose presence does not argue for the wisdom

character of the document as a whole.²

f) Other epics and historiographic settings:

Ruth, Esther, Tobit, Job, Noah, the King of Tyre, Danel.

We mention the first two because of their novelistic

style and purpose. Tobit is a fabulous tale involving

such figures as the grateful dead, a divine charism, a

¹Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influence,"

pp. 137-40.

²Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influence,"

pp. 137-40.

182

disguised angel (disguised divine purpose!), a mysterious

dog, a woman possessed by a demon, and a certain measure

of albeit magical savoir-faire. Ezekiel 14 ranks Job and

Noah with Danel.

The Joban drama, not epic in its present form,

belongs with speculative wisdom; perhaps one could rank

the framework tale with the epics. This fabulous tale

seems to confirm a form of retributionism, which is in

itself hardly distinctive of wisdom. The figure of the

divine wager, however, is fascinating. The rîb or

Streitgespräch is important, though it is not a wisdom

form exclusively. Job's apparent virtue and piety are

significant, especially if the story really should have

Edomite roots.¹ Like a true epic hero, Job is a super-

human figure who is brought near sub-human suffering by

arbitrary divine action; by divine action he is restored

to epical estate, at least in the Rahmenerzählung.

Whether possible charism or the fabulous character of the

epic, at least the frame narrative, makes it wisdom on

that account, might be debated.

In sum, epic wisdom deals with a hero, perhaps

tragic, who displays virtues characteristic of one who is

wise. That virtue may consist in part of a divine charism

whereby the person's heroic virtues place him or her in

¹Cf. Pfeiffer, “Edomite Wisdom,” pp. 13-25.

183

conformity with the divine will; God then acts to protect

and favor that person in proportion to his faithfulness,

submission and disciplined conformity. Such a charism

gives the hero insight, albeit limited, into the divine

plan, particularly in the form of divination or dream in-

terpretation. Only exceptionally do the wisdom virtues of

the hero manifest themselves in literary form (Job?);

rather, what literary expression they receive tends to be

in the form of the underlying historiography of which the

epic may form a part. Thus, we-may distinguish (i) epic

wisdom from (ii) wisdom historiography as sub-categories

of this wisdom type. The latter most frequently appears

in the Hebrew literature as novellistic style or a

novella-genre embedded within a more conventional interpre-

tive historical account.

7. The Counsellor. More in motif than in office,

the ‘counsellor’ stands intermediate between royal and

scribal wisdom. On the one hand, the pharaoh's epic

counsellor, Joseph, takes over the king's administrative

duties, acting on his behalf and in his name. The

counsellor seems to have held an official position in the

Israelite royal court, as in the Egyptian, to advise both

king and court. Other counsellors may have held office

in the queenly retinue. Absalom, for example, becomes

entangled in the advice of Ahithophel and Hushai.

184

Rehoboam takes counsel from groups of advisers.¹

On the other hand, precisely because of his learn-

ing and sociopolitical astuteness, the counsellor must be

closely associated with scribal learning and the estab-

lishment of the scribal schools. In office, the counsellor

would be the ultimate scribe: at once wise in the ways of

the world, politics, and religion yet also intimately

familiar with the day-to-day operations of the administra-

tion as executed by scribal bureaucrats. To counsel, he

must be in touch with activities of principal interest to

scribes. Indeed, the ethic of the counsellor seems to be

that of the ideal scribe when he functions as a high ad-

ministrator: Standesethik.

"Counsel," de Boer shows, is closely related to

wisdom and knowledge. It pertains to the future with

virtually the sense of an oracle. Counsel is an authorized

decision; it leads to salvation, victory, recovery or

security. Since "’b" and "’m" are applied to the counsel-

lor and his counsel, de Boer argues that herein lies the

basis of the so-called hypostasis of wisdom:

I wonder whether one can uphold theories on

hypostatization and even on personification. Wis-

dom has been, for the period over which we have

information, similar to the word of the prophet,

the oracle of the priest. A wise word, counsel,

¹And the callow youth mislead him!

185

implies a counsellor, just as prophecy implies a

prophet. Wisdom in Job (xxviii) is pictured as

divine counsel, and hence every true counsellor

is a figure with religious authority. Wisdom in

Proverbs (viii) is Jhwh's counsellor denominated

with her action, counsel, the wise word which is

life–giving. There is, as far as I can see, no

trace of speculation over unity and distinction

in the world of God. A pluriformity is taken for

granted. Jhwh's court numbers dignitaries, even

older than his kingship. At the same time the world

of God can be considered a unit.¹

Here, de Boer points out, is the function of the divine

council: to carry out the word of Yahweh and to put his

plans into action, even to the point of overturning worldly

wisdom.²

We should be careful here to distinguish between

the wisdom type of the counsellor and wisdom defined as

advice. In the former case, we are dealing with a dis-

cernible, even stock, figure or role that may or may not

be related to any formal wisdom movement or wisdom thought.

While Ahithophel and Hushai represent the counsellor figure,

there is little in the account that would entitle us to

associate them with any wisdom thought, world-view, social

class or movement. The issue becomes more complicated

when the figure is used in the context of a framework, as

for example in an instruction, but the figure or role is

not per se the instruction. Indeed, the latter often

¹De Boer, pp. 70-71.

²De Boer, pp. 42-71.

186

appears as a genre embedded within a larger work of dif-

ferent genre with which the counsellor might in fact be

associated.

In the latter case, wisdom defined as advice, we

are dealing with wisdom as savoir-faire or Lebensklugheit,

knowledge of how to live well, that is convincing because

and only because it works. Its authority is pragmatic,

its utility. Whether literary wisdom is to be taken as

advice or whether members of a wisdom group or movement

perceived their ideology to be advisory¹ is quite a

separate question from whether counsellors give advice. To

wit, is the advice that they give wisdom? And, is wisdom

what advice-givers give? We are therefore still left with

establishing a bridge from the counsellor figure to other

types of wisdom, if such a bridge can in fact be built.

8. Prophetic wisdom. Consistent with attempts

to find wisdom influences at work within other movements

and genres, some scholars have argued that a kind of

prophetic wisdom or wisdom influence on prophecy can be

identified. Here, we are not interested in the evidence

from prophetic literature for a growing wisdom class; here,

¹Which is most unlikely on sociodynamic grounds,

since ideologies are authoritative, legitimate and de-

finitive interpretations of why things are the way they

are (therefore, authoritative hermeneutic).

187

we are concerned with influence, borrowing or integration

of wisdom and prophetic world-views. Since the evidences

for wisdom thought patterns are drawn from such incon-

trovertible representatives of prophecy as Amos and

I Isaiah, our search for prophetic wisdom must be carried

out with circumspection.

Fichtner dismisses a few slight verbal suggestions

of wisdom in the eighth century prophets, arguing. that

these are strictly later additions. Also, the relation-

ship between prophetic oracles and blasons populaires

lacks any real significance.¹

On Amos, however, Wolff differs with Fichtner.

He argues that Amos comes out of a tradition of tribal

wisdom.² Amos uses its forms and themes to frame, articu-

late and express his messages. Where parallels exist

between Amos and I Isaiah, they evidence the common origin

of both in a special form of folk wisdom, tribal wisdom

(Sippenweisheit), not in any borrowing from the former by

the latter. Supporting his position, Wolff points to such

forms and patterns of thought as the rhetorical questions

¹Johannes Fichtner, Gottes Weisheit: Gesammelte

Studien zum Alten Testament, ed. Idaus Dietrich Fricke,

Arbeiten zur Theologie, 2d series, vol. 3 (Stuttgart:

Calwer Verlag, 1965), pp. 9-43.

²Hans Walter Wolff, Amos', pp. 51-52; Samuel

Terrien, "Amos and Wisdom," in Studies in Ancient Israelite

Wisdom, pp. 448-55.

188

which Amos poses to establish a cause-and-effect relation-

ship in 3:3-6 and 8. Amos also makes use of comparisons

and analogies with foreign countries. The woe-oracle

recurs: like Whedbee,¹ Wolff wants to make this a dis-

tinctive wisdom form. Amos' Zahlensprüche which begin the

book, the oracles against the nations, are also an adapta-

tion of what seems to be a typical wisdom form.

The way in which Amos uses the admonition (Mahnrede)

is decisive in Wolff's estimation. Such sayings are

founded on an understanding of consequences, therefore on

experience. The apodictic form is not the exclusive prop-

erty of the priest; it is a form typical of tribal wisdom

that has persisted to and beyond the time of Amos. Here,

Wolff finds Gerstenberger's study of apodictic law quite

persuasive.²

Wolff also looks at content for supportive evi-

dence. Amos' viewpoint is indifferent to the cult, even

in conflict, and his perspective is internationalistic.

Amos stresses "nkh," straightforwardness, honesty, recti-

tude; I Isaiah does as well. He also emphasizes right

order and right action, concern for the unfortunate in

¹J. William Whedbee, Isaiah and Wisdom (Nashville:

Abingdon Press, 1971), pp. 111-26, 149-53.

²Gerstenberger, Wesen and Herkunft, q. v.; Wolff,

Amos', pp. 5-36.

189

society (noblesse oblige) and the ascetic life. He uses

antinomies, Zwillingsformen, which contrast rich and poor.¹

Fichtner argues that the wisdom elements found in

I Isaiah cannot be adequately explained by any confronta-

tion that may exist between him and the wise. He uses the

technical vocabulary of wisdom, adopts the parable and

proverb forms,² and emphasizes divine counsel. Together,

these suggest some common background. Fichtner hypothe-

sizes that I Isaiah once belonged to a wisdom group, but

departed it at the time of his call.³

Es scheint mir daraus hervorzugehen [i.e., from

Isaiah's double position as opponent and partici-

pant of wisdom], dass Jesaja vor seiner Berufung

zum Propheten dem Stande der “Weisen” angehört hat

und in der Welt der Chokma, wie sie uns in den

Sprüchen der Männer Hiskias (Spr. 25-29) und etwa

in den Kapiteln 10-22 des Spruchbuches entge-

gentritt, gelebt hat. In der Berufung—die dadurch

eine ganz besondere Note bekäme, wenn sie an Jesaja

als einen Weisen ergangen wäre!—wird ihm deutlich,

dass er sich von der bis zum gewissen Grade un-

verbindlichen Weisheit und ihren Ratschlägen zu

trennen habe und sich als Gottes Bote senden lassen

müsse mit dem eigenartigen Auftrage, so zu reden,

dass die Menschen in all ihrer (menschlichen!),

Weisheit seine Botschaft nicht begreifen, obwohl

sie vernehmen.⁴

¹Wolff, Amos', pp. 37-52.

²Whedbee, pp. 23-79.

³Fichtner, Gottes Weisheit, pp. 18-26.

⁴Fichtner, Gottes Weisheit, pp. 24-25.

190

Isaiah has to counter the smug and self-secure

attitude of established wisdom, which has led the nation

away from reliance on Yahweh to concern for royal grandeur

and involvement in international alliances. Hermisson

agrees in part. He argues that Isaiah certainly is no

wise man in his view of history, but he does synthesize

two quite different Hebrew traditions.¹ To the extent

that these arguments establish the existence of a synthesis

of wisdom and prophecy, or an adoption of wisdom modes of

thought and expression within Hebrew prophecy, we may

speak of a prophetic wisdom type.

9. Hypostatic wisdom. Our discussion of this

wisdom type need only make reference to our earlier exami-

nation of wisdom and mythos, above.² Under this rubric,

we include both (i) hypostatic wisdom and (ii) personi-

fied wisdom. The former includes wisdom as the divine

¹Hermisson,. "Weisheit and Geschichte," pp. 149-

54. As an aside comment to this discussion, we should

perhaps mention Ezekiel’s plaint, “Ah Lord God! they are

saying of me, ‘Is he not a maker of allegories?’” (20:49

ET). Apparently, he is being taken for a 'proverb-maker'

(*mšl noun and verb), but the passage is obscure.

²We should keep in mind the possibility that we

do not have here an elaboration or exaggeration of wisdom's

role, particularly as a late result of theological and

hermeneutic evolution, but an implicit and perhaps much

earlier polemic against hieros gamos based on those very

cultic images and myths. Cf. Proverbs 22:14.

191

ordering principle whereby Yahweh created the world, and

which may also bind Yahweh with its principles of order.

To the extent that Maat and sidqh are equivalents, and

righteousness is the principle of order, world-ordering

righteousness may be included with hypostasis even though

it constitutes an inference from the material. Gese's

argument for the Egyptian analogy is in many respects an

argument for an early metaphysical principle, hypostasis,

in Israel, though his defense of wisdom's authority per se

does not of itself imply hypostasis.¹ The latter includes

both early² and late³ arguments for a wisdom goddess. In

either case, we should distinguish the presence or in-

ference of a wisdom entity, being or (metaphysical) prin-

ciple from a system of thought, even if the latter should

emphasize the concept of order.⁴

¹Gese, Lehre and Wirklichkeit, pp. 11-50.

²Bauer-Kayatz, Albright; Cazelles (?).

³Rankin.

⁴Ringgren, Word and Wisdom; Wilhelm Schencke, Die

Chokma (Sophia) in der Jüdischen Hypostasenspekulation:

ein Betrag zur Geschichte der Religiösen Ideen in Zeit-

alter des Hellenismus, Videnskapsselskapets Skrifter: II.

Hist.-Filos. Klasse 1912, vol. 6 (Kristiana: Jacob Dybwad,

1913); Albright, "Canaanite-Phoenician Sources," pp. 1-15;

Bauer-Kayatz, Studien zu Prov. I-IX; Cazelles, "Debuts de

la Sagesse," pp. 27-40; Rankin, pp. 222-64.

Von Rad associates the development of the figure

of Wisdom with important changes in hermeneutic perspec-

tive and self-understanding:

"Mit der Königszeit war ja die Epoche einer

192

10. Speculative wisdom. Under this heading, we

include the largest body of wisdom writings, those which

represent some sort of systematic reflection on life.

gewissen Individualisierung angebrochen, in der

man viel angelegentlicher als in der Phase des

archäischen Jahweglaubens nach dem Anteil des

Einzelnen an Jahwe fragte. Der ältere Jahwe-

glaube war aber auf diese vom Individuum aus

gestellte Frage im ganzen wenig gerüstet, denn

auch der Dekalog und verwandte Gebotsreihen waren

keine Hilfe im Dickicht des Einzellebens und

wollte das ja auch gar nicht sein. Diese

Verselbständigung des Individuums mit all den

Fragen, die damit aufstanden, lässt sich anhand

vieler alttestamentlicher Texte einigermassen

verfolgen . . . . Einen Beitrag, gewiss nicht den

unwichtigsten, zur Bewältigung der anstehenden

Fragen lieferten die Weisen in der Lehre von der

Selbstoffenbarung der Schöpfung. Bei ihrem Versuch

einer Aufhellung der den Menschen umgebenden

Wirklichkeit waren sie in der Tiefe der Schöpfung

auf ein Phänomen gestossen, dem eine eminente

Aussagekraft zu eigen war. Die Schöpfung hat

nicht nur ein Sein, sie entlässt auch Wahrheit!"

(Weisheit in Israel, pp. 214-15)

"In dieser Hinsicht könnte die Lehre von der sich

manifestierenden Urordnung gerade als ein Modell-

fall weisheitlichen Tradierens angesehen werden.

Niemand wird sich vorstellen, dass sie eines Tages

von einem originellen Kopf zum erstenman ausge-

sprochen oder gar von Ägypten übernommen wurde.

Ihre Wurzeln sind auch in Israel alt. Sie liegen,

wie wir sahen, in der Grundüberzeugung, von der

schon die älteste Erfahrungsweisheit ausgegangen

war: Es ist eine Ordnung in den Dingen und Abläufen,

und diese Ordnung ist kein Geheimnis, sondern sie

verkündigt sich selbst, womit sich die Lehre nahe

mit Vorstellungen des Hymnus berührt, denen zufolge

sich die Herrlichkeit der Schöpfung verkündet.

Neu daran war zunächst dies, dass diese Ordnung,

die in der älteren Erfahrungsweisheit im Wesent-

lichen noch unkritisch vorausgesetzt war, nun selbst

zum Gegenstand einer eindringenden theologischen

Ausgestaltung wurde." (Weisheit in Israel, p. 221)

193

Precisely because of its size and diversity, it would be

difficult to detail exhaustively the literatures and

world-views that fall under this rubric. Speculative

wisdom is generally used to refer to that literature

which grows out of individual thought and reflection

about the world and one's relationship to it. Whatever

wisdom may be--movement, social force, Weltanschauung--

speculative wisdom is the literature of its maturity.

Wisdom seeks to give a theological and ideological

underpinning to itself, especially when its setting in

the Hebrew social world changes drastically, with Exile

and later restoration. It is no longer enough just to

be. In fact, being, as the older wise understood it,

may no longer be possible at all. What does it mean to

be'wise; what sort of wisdom is possible? Increasingly,

wisdom becomes the output of individual thinkers setting

forth their own specific and peculiar understandings of

wisdom and being wise. Wisdom becomes more individual

and personal. The literature loses its fragmentary and

anonymous character. Forms expand, become baroqued.

Thought is expressed at length, coherently, rather than

briefly, tersely, ambiguously, enigmatically, when a

coherent statement be made at all. The implicit be-

comes increasingly explicit. Thought becomes syste-

194

matic and ordered. In this light, much of the

Hebrew wisdom literature is that of speculation. As

wisdom turns to literary expression, it becomes

literary.¹

The various now-redacted materials of Proverbs

have a place here. Each of the mashal books and the

initial series of hortatory discourses are arguably works

of speculation, wisdom expression or ideological self-

interpretation. Job, as a coherent dramatic work, belongs

here. Qoheleth is the very archetype of speculative wis-

dom. We must also include ben Sirah, the Wisdom of

Solomon, and Tobit.

This section includes both the sceptical litera-

ture² and that of rising religious nationalism. Most of

these works make extensive use of proverbs and extended

proverbial verse forms, most notably Qoheleth. His use is

¹Crenshaw, "Prolegomenon," pp. 22-35; von Rad,

Weisheit in Israel, pp. 245 e.s. Speculative wisdom, the

literature of reflection, can arguably be considered the

logical, even necessary, outgrowth of a theological crisis

in wisdom: see Schmid's Wesen and Geschichte der Weisheit;

Zimmerli, "Struktur," pp. 193-99; Aarre Lauha, "Die Krise

des religiösen Glaubens bei Kohelet," in Wisdom in Israel

and Ancient Near East, pp. 183-91; James L. Crenshaw,

"Popular Questioning of the Justice of God in Ancient

Israel," Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

82 (1970): 380-95.

²Johannes Pedersen, Scepticisme Israélite, Cahiers

de la Revue d'Histoire et de Philosophie Relgieuses,

Publiés par la Faculté de Théologie

195

so extensive, and often contradictory, that some scholars

despair of finding any logical outline that will unify

and explain the book as a whole.¹Suffice to say that it

is this material above all that scholars appeal to in

establishing what constitutes the body of wisdom as a

system of thought or (reconstructed) world-view. The

prominence of sceptical literature in the middle period

and nationalistic writings in the later eras has led to

a number of postulated social or intellectual processes:

theologization, the break-down of the doctrine of retri-

bution, democratization, rationalization, privatization

and the like. In most cases, the mashal books of Proverbs

are taken to be normative wisdom, against which the specu-

lative sceptics are reacting but which later wisdom theo-

logians in modified form reaffirm.²

11. Apocalypyic wisdom. If von Rad has raised a

number of provocative historical and methodological ques-

tions by suggesting that the Joseph story be regarded as

some sort of wisdom, he has raised an even greater storm

¹Cf. Addison G. Wright, "The Riddle of the Sphinx:

The Structure of the Book of Qoheleth," Catholic Biblical

Quarterly 30 (July 1968): 313-34.

²John F. Priest, "Where is Wisdom to be Placed?"

Journal of Bible and Religion 31 (October 1963): 275-82;

cf. Murphy, “Interpretation,” pp. 289-301; von Rad, Old

Testament Theology 1: 355-459.

196

by contending that the wisdom movement has an unlikely

issue. He calls into doubt the traditional view that

prophetic modes of thinking are preserved in early

Judaism by apocalyptists. He carefully considers the

historiographic principles of both wisdom and apocalyptic,

concluding that the latter would represent a drastic in-

version of the basic prophetic understandings of time,

history, anthropology, theology and will that only wisdom

could form the logical and socio-logical precursor of

apocalyptic. While prophecy is thoroughly theological,

apocalyptic--like wisdom--is largely devoid of any theology.

For prophecy, saving history is now. Apocalyptic devalues

the present and projects the saving history into the dis-

tant future. It concerns itself instead with an esoteric

knowledge, a noesis. Its view of the world is interna-

tional, even cosmic, in scope. Like wisdom, it is time-

less because of its expansiveness: ordinary time is ut-

terly devalued in the face of a majestic but overwhelming

temporal dualism.¹

¹"The task of . . . priestly theology . . . consisted

in linking the saving history with Creation, in

drawing Creation towards the saving history, because

this was the real position where this theology stood.

The theological thinking of wisdom ran in exactly

the opposite direction. It stood before the world

as Creation, and its task was to find a connexion

from there with the saving history, that is, with

that revelation of Jahweh's will which was pre-

eminently turned towards Israel. Its thesis ran:

197

Like much speculative wisdom of the later period,

apocalyptic is basically pessimistic. The cause is inner-

worldly: the nature of man and of his national orders

bears the corrupt and corrupting seed of human/national

in order to understand Creation properly, one has

to speak about Israel and the revelation of God's

will granted to her. The rational determination to

acquire knowledge which first caused wisdom to

direct her attention to the world certainly saw

many wonders in it, but it also saw that its real

secret evaded her. . . . We should be justified in

saying that only here was the demand to face up to

Creation in its whole unmythological worldliness

made upon Israel. But what was the connexion be-

tween Creation and Jahweh's will for revelation,

of whose totality and penetrating power none had

better knowledge than these same teachers of wis-

dom? Their theology masters this tremendous problem

not only by relating the cosmic wisdom which is un-

attainable by natural knowledge to Jahweh's revela-

tion which comes to man, but also even by identi-

fying them! The word which calls man to life and

salvation is the same word as that which as wisdom

already encompassed all creatures at Creation. It

is the same word which God himself made use of as a

plan at his creation of the world. . . . The ‘No’

in Job XXVIII could not have come as a windfall to

merely occasional questioning; it sums up the total

of a long endeavour after knowledge of the world."

(Von Rad, Old Testament Theology 1: 450-51)

"Will man hier von einer Soteriologie sprechen,

so wäre es freilich eine, die in dieser Ausformung

vom Standpunkt der traditionellen Vorstellungen vom

Kultus and von den geschichtlichen Heilssetzungen

fast als häretisch erscheinen könnte. Denn hier

wird das Heil nicht von ether Deszendenz Jahwes in

die Geschichte hergeleitet und.nicht von irgendeiner

menschlichen Vermittlung, sei es von Mose oder David

oder einem der Erzvater, sondern von bestimmten

Urgegebenheiten der Schöpfang selbst. Damit scheint

eine theologische Spannung gegenüber dem tradi-

tionellen Jahweglauben aufgebrochen, wie sie schärfer

kaum gedacht werden kann. Wohl, wir sahen die Lehrer

198

destruction. The wisdom to understand the world apocalyp-

tically is a charism: it is a divinely blessed attempt to

understand and systematize the rules governing the world,

even the universe, however esoteric they may be. One

prominent means to this comprehension is the interpreta-

tion of dreams.¹

The appearance of wisdom legoumena within apocalyp-

tic has been noted by various scholars. Little study of

them has been made outside of their relevance to debates

about the von Rad hypothesis.² Clearly, wisdom language,

forms and patterns of thinking seem to appear in certain

apocalyptic works. What theological and literary role do

they play? What is their socio-historical role? Even if

we come to reject the von Rad position, the question of

apocalyptic wisdom deserves careful study. The argument

for wisdom influence on apocalypticism ought to be at

dann auch, etwa bei Sirach and in der sogenannten

Apokalyptik, mit der Geschichte, ja mit der Weltgeschichte

beschäftigt. Die Kompetenz der Weisen, die Zukunft zu

deuten, hat diesen Stand in später Stunde noch einmal in

einen Horizont neuer Aufgaben gestellt. Aber so riesen-

haft die von der Apokalyptik erstellten Geschichtsent-

würfe sind--die spezifische Bedeutung als eines Bereiches

einmaliger heilsbegründener Setzungen konnte der Geschichte

auch da nicht mehr zuerkannt werden." (Von Rad, Weisheit

in Israel, p. 399)

¹Von Rad, Old Testament Theology 2: 306-07; von Rad,

Weisheit in Israel, pp. 358-59.

²Wied; Osten-Sacken.

199

least as strong as for many of the types of wisdom we

have considered and stronger than some. Yet, of apocalyp-

tic wisdom, we know little.

12. Legal or rabbinic wisdom. a) Gordis traces

the development of the Sadducees and Sadduceic modes of

thought from the wisdom schools.

There are important individual differences among

the various products of the Wisdom schools, but

underlying them all is the outlook which later

crystallized as Saduceeism. This explains the

absence of some of the most characteristic in-

sights of Biblical thought, such as the concept

of God in history, the passion for justice in

society, the union of national loyalty with the

ideal of international peace, the recognition of

freedom as an inalienable human right, the un-

ceasing dissatisfaction with the world as it is,

because of the vision of what it can be.¹

Like the Sadducees who follow, the wise are members

of the social elite: wealthy, privileged, self-confident

and assured. They have the leisure to invest in the

academy. While they seek to learn and to teach their

young "how to live in a hard-headed, imperfect world, rich

in pitfalls and temptations for the unwary," they approach

life with the fundamental conservatism of the wealthy.²

Those who speculate recognize the imperfection and limita-

tions of human wisdom, leading to insoluble issues in

¹Gordis, Poets, Prophets, and Sages, p. 188.

²Gordis, Poets, Prophets, and Sages, p. 160.

200

life. Their consequent scepticism, however, is intellec-

tual, for they make no effort to change the world or the

social order nor do they project such change into the

future. They can accept life as it is. The lower classes,

without economic, social and political security, are im-

pelled to action or to a theology of radical social trans-

formation (apocalyptic, prophecy). They form the ulti-

mate core of Pharisaism.

“As the summum bonum in life and the reward of

moral conduct, the wisdom writers universally set up

practical success, in which economic prosperity is central.

Wealth is uniformly regarded as a great good and poverty

as an evil."¹

The wisdom moral code presupposes free will,

like the Sadduceean ethic, "not by the theological dif-

ficulty involved in justifying reward and punishment if

men's actions are determined, but by the psychological

need to validate their superior social and economic

status."²

For Gordis, then, late wisdom gradually shades

into the Sadduceean movement. While present canonical

wisdom literature precedes the development of the

Sadducees per se, the latter have a fundamental

¹Gordis, Poets, Prophets, and Sages, pp. 172-73.

²Gordis, Poets, Prophets, and Sages, p. 181.

201

intellectual, theological and socio-economic relationship

to the former.¹Thus, we can postulate and look for a

Sadduceean wisdom, to the extent it may have survived

Pharisaic and later rabbinic attempts to eradicate such

thought and literature. We may hypothesize a sectarian

type of wisdom.

b) It has been traditionally assumed, though

never proven, that the decline of prophecy coincides with

the rise of apocalyptic, which preserves prophecy's in-

terpretation of the world and of experience in the con-

text of a changed social milieu. The prophetic word can

no longer be spoken openly because it has become a word

of judgment against foreign oppressors; prophetic dualism

and ethics persist.

Wisdom and priestly law have a natural congeni-

ality. Both seek order. Both seek to understand the

world as a consistent system which is derived from and

expresses the nature of god. As wisdom becomes increas-

ingly associated with revealed, rather than discovered

wisdom, as the transcendence of god gains significance,

as wisdom becomes increasingly nationalistic, it begins

to accept many of the premises of priestly-legal thought.

Exile set the latter free from a purely ritualistic

¹Gordis, Poets, Prophets, and Sages, pp. 160-97.

202

milieu. The development of the synagogue and Torah in-

struction makes priestly-legal thought, as proto-rabbinism,

eminently compatible with wisdom. A democratized academy,

the school, might even be the basis for the evolution of

the synagogue: teaching rather than sacrifice becomes

the form of worship and religious self-expression. This

thesis tends to be more implicit than explicit in wisdom

research

c) Where connections with legal modes of think-

ing have been sought, they have often been in the pre-

cursors of wisdom and law rather than their ultimate de-

velopment in early Judaism. The best example of this is

Audet's attempt to trace both law and wisdom back to

Sippenweisheit. Both go back to the pre-monarchic pre-

settlement family milieu in which the knowledge of how

to live well was passed down in the family as instruction

through quasi-legal maxims. Parental admonition has

virtually the force of law, albeit casuistic. The dis-

tinction between apodictic and casuistic law, in light of

the motivated admonition, can be taken as evidence for a

Sippenweisheit that gave birth to both a form of legal

thinking and a form of, initially, folk wisdom. This

common social base would then provide a natural foundation

¹Crenshaw, "Prolegomenon," p. 25; Audet.

203

for the later reunification of law and wisdom in rab-

binism. Thus, one may search for an association of

wisdom and law both in early wisdom and in its late

successors.¹

Some New Testament scholars are now tentatively

seeking evidence for the continuation of wisdom forms of

thought and expression in later Judaism and early Chris-

tianity. Stendhal’s postulation of a Matthaean school

is one such instance.² Again, rabbinic modes of thought

and interpretation would seem to be a necessary bridge

for this thesis. The problem of the ultimate dissolution

or reformation of wisdom is certainly worthy of more

study and analysis than it has received.

13. Scribal wisdom; schools.

The wisdom of the scribe depends on the opportunity

of leisure;

and he who has little business may become wise.

(ben Sirah 38:24)

This quote demonstrates how natural it is to equate wise

man with scribe. When we speak of wisdom as the specific

intellectual and cultural property of a definable social

¹Gerstenberger, Wesen und Herkunft; Audet; cf.

Richter, Recht und Ethos; Hermisson, Spruchweisheit, pp.

81-92.

²Krister Stendhal, The School of St. Matthew and

Its Use of the Old Testament, With a New Introduction by

the Author, American Edition (Philadelphia: Fortress

Press, 1968).

204

group, the wise, the almost invariable assumption would

be that we are referring to the scribes. Not surpris-

ingly, therefore, Duesberg and Fransen have devoted them-

selves to a massive study of Hebrew wisdom that is really

a comparative literary and social history of “the in-

spired scribes.”¹ Since wisdom means their way of life,

no further definition is necessary. Wisdom amounts to

reflection on life from the scribal point of view, even

if its theological implications are by no means class-

bound.

The equivalence is natural enough. Ben Sirah has

laid out many of the accepted reasons. The scribe is the

preserver of written traditions from all segments of

society. He mediates the oral and written interpretations

of his time, culture, people and community. He has the

training and the occasion to examine received literature,

ferreting out all their meanings. Thus, he has the in-

tellectual apparatus to penetrate the arcana of discourse

and render them intelligible. This reflection on the

implicit and explicit meanings of things is second nature.

He travels. He serves the great, in their courts, their

bureaucracies, their every venture; he administrates.

Only the scribe has the leisure as well as the freedom to

¹Les Scribes Inspirés, q.v

205

pursue the literary arts, to learn and refine sophisticated literary

devices. Life's order depends on peasants and artisans, but the

wise contribute judgment, understanding and intellect.¹

¹Ben Sirah contrasts the scribe with the life and

social role of skilled laborers in 38:31-39:11 (JB):

"All these put their trust in their hands,

and each is skilled at his own craft.

A town could not he built without them,

there would be no settling, no travelling.

But they are not required at the council,

they do not hold high rank in the assembly.

They do not sit on the judicial bench,

and have no grasp of the law.

They are not remarkable for culture or sound

judgement, and are not found among the

inventors of maxims.

But they give solidity to the created world,

while their prayer is concerned with what

pertains to their trade.

It is otherwise with the man who devotes his soul

to reflecting on the Law of the Most High.

He researches into the wisdom of all the Ancients,

he occupies his time with the prophecies.

He preserves the discourses of famous men,

he is at home with the niceties of parables.

He researches into the hidden sense of proverbs,

he ponders the obscurities of parables.

He enters the service of princes,

he is seen in the presence of rulers.

He travels in foreign countries,

he has experienced human good and human evil.

At dawn and with all his heart

he resorts to the Lord who made him;

[H]e pleads in the presence of the Most High,

he opens his mouth in prayer

and makes entreaty for his sins.

If it is the will of the great Lord,

he will be filled with the spirit of under-

standing,

[H]e will shower forth words of wisdom,

and in prayer give thanks to the Lord.

He will grow upright in purpose and learning,

he will ponder the Lord’s hidden mysteries.

He will display the instruction he had received,

206

Ben Sirah sets out a late but humane and ideal-

istic account of scribal life.¹ Khety's "Satire on the

Trades" is its Egyptian counterpart.² Sjöberg presents

a Mesopotamian reflection, "In Praise of Scribal Art."³

Literary endeavor requires a high order of

literacy: acquaintance with the stylistic conventions

and standard terminologies, assimilation of traditional

forms, verbal creativity and flexibility, aesthetic sensi-

tivity in terms of accepted canons, logical thinking

within the framework of established patterns of valid

reasoning, familiarity with classic literatures, and

knowledge of alternative ways of life and the interpre-

tations of life upon which they are grounded. Few have

the time and means to undertake such learning in any

society, let alone in the near-subsistence early agrarian

taking his pride in the Law of the Lord's covenant.

Many will praise his understanding,

and it will never be forgotten.

His memory will not disappear,

generation after generation his name will live.

Nations will proclaim his wisdom,

the assembly will celebrate his praises.

If he lives long, his name will be more glorious

than a thousand others and if he dies,

that will satisfy him just as well.

¹Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, pp. 309-36.

²Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 432-

34. Cf. “In Praise of Learned Scribes,” immediately

preceding, pp. 431-32.

³Q.v.

207

societies of the ancient Near East. Such sophistication

could not have been wide-spread in Israel. Certainly,

on analogy with Egypt, we may expect that rudimentary

literacy may have gradually become fairly widespread among

tradespeople, artisans and overseers, though probably

limited to the reading, writing and reckoning skills es-

sential to their occupations. Further, literacy in terms

of oral standards is likely far more common than written

literacy.¹ Still, the scribes were the custodians of

writing, the people in the social position to be literary

and transmit literature. For precisely these reasons,

we should not hastily equate wisdom with scribal thought

in general.

In Egypt, there existed advanced schools offering

specialized training for apprentice scribes who had

completed their basic education in writing and literature:

particularly for specialists in cult (priestly scribes)

and for future high courtly officials.² Analogous special

advanced schools may well have existed in Israel, though

we lack positive evidence of them.³ Thus we should not

¹Williams, "Scribal Training in Ancient Egypt,"

pp. 214-21; Brunner, Altägyptische Erziehung, pp. 38-55,

passim.

²Hermisson, Spruchweisheit, p. 105; Brunner,

Altägyptische Erziehung, pp. 10-105.

³Hermisson, Spruchweisheit, pp. 122-33; Gammie,

“Israelite Pedagogy.”

208

set scribes in general against the posited authors and

custodians of specialized literatures. Certain common

professional standards and training drew them together

--though to what degree remains imponderable--professional

jealousies to the contrary notwithstanding.

For Israel, it is probably fair to credit the

scribes with being the preservers and transmitters of

various literatures--prophetic, priestly-cultic, his-

torical, no less than wisdom. Whether they were at all

a homogeneous group, to what extent competing scribal

schools of thought may have existed, are questions that

relate to establishing an intelligible intellectual and

literary history for the Hebrew documents which come down

to us. In other words, even if Hebrew wisdom thought is

obviously grounded most extensively and securely to the

exclusion of (some) other wisdom types in the scribal

class, we must still specify in what that wisdom con-

sisted and how it was related to a scribal life whose

interests evidently extended much beyond the bounds of

wisdom, however defined. While the permeation of litera-

tures of vastly different sorts by wisdom motifs, forms,

and vocabulary cannot be disputed, what does that mean?

Is wisdom dependent on, say, prophetic pleas for social

justice, or deuteronomic humanism? Is wisdom their source?

Or are these elements part of the professional milieu of

209

the scribe-writer or scribe-copyist/scribe-redactor that

serve an independent artistic goal?¹ The breadth of

scribal competence can be demonstrated by Papyrus

Anastasi I. One Hori, an Egyptian scribe, writes his

colleague, Amenemope (!), sarcastically implying the

latter's low level of professional competence. Hori in-

terrogates his friend with wide-ranging questions and

problems assuredly drawn from the scribal curriculum.

In form, the letter may imitate a sort of comprehensive

examination given senior students at or near the conclu-

sion of their formal studies--a basic test for admission

to the guild.² The document has several important im-

plications. Whether fictitious in situation or genuine,

the letter underscores the scribal sense of humor and

irony: wit and sarcasm constitute valid artistic and

pedagogic devices. If our sense of humor be less than

theirs, in addition to the inevitable cultural differ-

ences and their consequences, then our view of their

world is liable to strange distortions. The letter

evidences the variety of skills--mathematical, geographic,

logistic, literary--the competent scribe should command.

¹Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influ-

ence," pp. 129-42.

²"An Egyptian Letter: A Satirical Letter," in

Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 475-79.

210

It further demonstrates the place of questions (and the

dialogue?), and the master's role as interlocutor, in

scribal pedagogy. While we have no immediate analogue

of this document in the Hebrew Bible, some scholars sug-

gest that the interrogatory form may have been adapted

to other ends in the Yahweh speeches of Job 38-40 and

Amos' rhetorical questions.¹We cannot entirely dismiss

the possibility that some materials are organized as

answers to such (unstated) interrogatories, thus ex-

plaining their disconnected and "oriental" logic.

If wisdom is not scribal thought per se, then

what is scribal wisdom? If wisdom as a system of thought

had its principal setting among scribes, the question

virtually reduces to "What is wisdom?" We are back at

the beginning, even considering the other analytic cate-

gories of wisdom. The problem, however, is not in-

herently circular and can be stated in another way.

While the scribes dealt with many varieties of

written material, most of these served other ends. The

scribe's relationship to documents of commerce could best

be described as impersonal. The goods were never his;

his role in the transaction was that of recorder and

perhaps legal advisor. His power consisted of technical

¹Von Rad, "Hiob XXXVIII," pp. 293-301; Wolff,

Amos', pp. 5-12.

211

acumen, expertise; not of wealth, nor capital, nor com-

mercial guile. We could multiply the example.

In court, the scribe's function consisted in

advising the king. Presumably court scribes were the

custodians of the royal annals, therefore recorders and

councillors of historical precedent. In Egypt and

Mesopotamia, certainly, they kept alive the ancient

tongues--though not without error and misunderstanding--

and their literatures. These men also handled all cor-

respondence, thus requiring fluency in languages, both

diplomatic and national, and expertise in their legal,

political, and commercial terminologies and forms. Again,

however, their power in court did not consist of the de-

cisive word, but in their ability to influence the king

(or local ruler) by structuring his decisions.

The instructions of the scribal schools are rife

with admonitions anent courtly conduct. Lofty speech,

knowledge of court etiquette, reserve in non-essentials

(influence used too frequently is soon dissipated), and

decisiveness with insight in important concerns, all

typify the pre-eminent concern of scribes as councillors

with finely honing the skills they needed to affect the

royal decision process.¹ The subtleties of courtly

¹De Boer, pp. 42-71; Humphreys; Gammie, "Israel-

ite Pedagogy."

212

admonitions and aphorisms remind one of Machiavelli's

"The Prince" or Castiglioni's “The Courtier,”¹ although

we should not press the comparison. Just as these

Renaissance works appealed to a small literate "middle-

class" which stood outside but sought to influence the

formal processes of political decision-making of their

time, so, too, did ancient scribal works on the court and

courtier. "The Prince," we might add, was written by a

courtier, at once polemical and ironic, to explain (to

his fellows) how a ruler governs (the ruler perforce al-

ready knows). We may also transmute Frankfort's dictum

about proverbs: a prince would be the most implausible

and impossible of rulers who followed without qualifica-

tion his courtiers' judgments about how he should act,

pace Machiavelli.

We note a caveat. We must keep the description

of scribe as "staff"--councillor, advisor, historian,

linguist, archivist--appropriate the historical setting.

Terms like "administration," "staff," and especially

"bureaucracy" have acquired special connotations in

modern social history. Bureaucracy as presently con-

stituted, with its distinctions between "line offices"

and "staff offices" and its hierarchical structures of

¹Q.v.

213

power and communication, grew out of, among others,

generalization of Prussian military organization to non-

military objectives.¹ While the efficient and effective

devolution of power as legitimate authority entails some

essential commonalities of organization, we should recog-

nize that such terms are strongly metaphorical, rather

than simply descriptive, and treat them with due caution.

Using this argument, however, we can begin to give useful

meaning to "scribal wisdom."

First, we may state the matter negatively, by

exclusion. Where wisdom serves other ends inconsistent

with the life-situation and world-view of the scribe, even

though the scribe may have been the preserver of that

literature and even though the author may have been a

master scribe, the term 'scribal wisdom' is inappropri-

ate. Thus, prophetic-wisdom and torah- or priestly-

wisdom form distinct kinds of wisdom, even if the higher

priestly and prophetic echelons were trained in scribal

academies. Wisdom themes in prophecy and priestly writ-

ings do not bespeak scribal influence unless, the specific

¹Cf. Max Weber's organization theory laid out in

vol. 1 of Economy and Society. The allusion to Prussian

military authority structures I associate with a series

of lectures given by Arthur Vidich on contemporary

American sociological theory in the Spring of 1969 at

the Graduate Faculty of Social and Political Science of

the New School for Social Research in New York City.

214

scribal setting is implicit. Similarly, poets, fiction

writers, and speculative thinkers may have been drawn

from the ranks of scribes, but we regard the creative

work of individual authors as independent except inso-

far as the specific situation of scribal life comes

through.

These remarks should be taken semantically, with

respect to establishing a usable definition of scribal

wisdom, and not sociologically. We do not contend that

an author can absolutely transcend his culture and social

background in the pursuit of some abstract goal such as

wisdom. We do argue that 'scribal wisdom' should not be

redundant but delimit a distinct and identifiable set of

phenomena. This approach allows for 'the possible exis-

tence of scribal schools in which wisdom forms, thought

and motifs can be either organized into a specialized and

detailed world-view not shared by scribes in general or

put at the service of what that group regarded as superior

values and objectives. In both cases, while scribalism

is the sine qua non of literary work, it may not be evi-

denced, except perhaps trivially, in the work or the

world-view. It is taken for granted; the emphasis lies

elsewhere.¹

¹See my "Contributions" for the theoretical foun-

dations of this argument, which ultimately derives from

215

For example, if von Rad is right that the Joseph

epic is wisdom, one would most probably regard it as

scribal because of the theme of the counsellor, the im-

portance of courtly etiquette, the emphasis on speech,

the connection between intentionality and outcome under

divine direction, and the suggestion of a certain savoir-

vivre.¹ This argument becomes still more compelling with

respect to Ahiikar and Daniel 1-6.² On the other hand,

Ruth, Esther, Tobit, Moses, Adam, the Tyrian king may

display elements of epic wisdom, but the scribal ele-

merits are trivial (Esther) or absent.

The most important exclusion is royal wisdom.

The orientations of the world-views and their relation-

ships to the use of power are entirely different. The

king rules with insight and the power of effective judg-

ment; the scribe knows and imparts his knowledge. The

word of the king is virtually equivalent to the deed

itself; the courtier must take care with his speech that

the ruler be attracted to the proposed point of view.

The king mediates conflicting interests by compromise

the concept of taken-for-granted reality of Schutz and

Berger-Luckmann, q.v.

¹Von Rad, “Josephsgeschichte,” pp. 120-27.

²Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, p. 359; von Rad,

Old Testament Theology 2: 301-15.

216

decisions; the courtier only speaks when he can be

reasonably sure of the security and effectiveness of

his position, and he does not cross his superiors nor

those with greater power and influence. The king seeks

sage and competent men to advise him; the courtier has

expertise with which to advise his lord. The wisdom ap-

propriate to each should be quite different.

This distinction may help explain why both in

Israel and Egypt the attribution of formal instructions

to kings remains suspect. The Egyptian "royal" sebayit

and the Hebrew tradition of Solomonic wisdom compositions

both rest on materials much more congenial with scribal

than royal wisdom--instructions, aphorisms and riddles

were the teaching devices of the scribal schools.¹

These academies used and preserved the royal instructions

in Egypt. We suggest therefore that in Israel and

probably in Egypt traditions of royal wisdom as the in-

sight to judge and govern and the power of decision were

expanded to include literary and encyclopaedic wisdom--

which properly was set in the scribal academies--to as-

sert and legitimate the role of scribal expertise and

academic learning in government. It justified the cen-

trality of scribal wisdom in important aspects of the

¹Williams, "Scribal Training in Ancient Egypt,"

pp. 214-21; cf. Schmid, Wesen und Geschichte der Weisheit.

217

culture, particularly within the government.

Second, we may characterize scribal wisdom posi-

tively. At its most basic, 'wisdom' is what characterizes

the good scribe. Therefore, scribal wisdom sets out the

ideals and the world-view of the academies for the scribal

profession. Certain motifs distinguish scribal wisdom:

the wise courtier, the passionate-impetuous person versus

the person of self-discipline, the rich versus the poor,

the 'way of life,' the callow youth, the fool, the strong

tower or fortified city, the man in surety.

Similarly, as thought, this wisdom carries a

strong scribal ethic--Standesethik. Class-ethic may be

either open or closed with respect to the world. It may

refer to (1) a distinctive world-view common to a group;

(2) an in-group morality which values actions differently

depending on whether the agent and the context are within

or outside the group; or (3) a professional code of

ethics. Scribalism tends to be fairly open toward the

world, though the fool rejects instruction and stands

beyond the pale.¹ Both the passage from ben Sirah above²

and the Instruction of Khety³ show the sharp revaluation

¹Kovacs, "Class Ethic," pp. 173-87.

²38:31-39:11.

³The Sebayit of Khety son of Duauf, "The Satire

218

of the scribal world that we would call 'in-group

morality,' albeit a comparatively paternalistic one. The

Egyptian sebayit show repeated evidences of scribal prac-

tices. The relative absence of such references in simi-

lar Hebrew works will be grounds for further discussion.

Still, there are evidences of courtly etiquette and

scribal discipline which suggest elements of such a pro-

fessional code. Thus, scribal wisdom presents a world-

view with an open class-ethic which is distinguishably

scribal in any of several senses.¹

For the present stage of the discussion, however,

the analytic category of form provides the most useful

perspective on scribal wisdom. It includes:

a) Instructions. The Egyptian instructions

generally begin with a brief Rahmenerzählung which sets

out the conditions which led to the writing of the docu-

ment. The earliest carry attributions to viziers and

kings. They purport to be documents of courtly instruc-

tion intended exclusively or specifically to educate the

crown prince. We mentioned earlier that certain incon-

sistencies cast doubt on the attributions: instructions

from a dead pharaoh (though perhaps in a vision), scribal

on the Trades," in Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts,

pp. 432-34.

¹Kovacs, "Class Ethic," pp. 173-87.

219

class-ethic directed at a lower official. By the time of

the sebayit of Amenemope, perhaps 1200-1100 BCE, the

Rahmenerzähldngen credit middle-level officials, holding

obscure or indeterminate positions. The late instruc-

tions in Egypt, for example Onchsheshongy, suggest a

still broader perspective.¹ We might infer that the

audience has a changing relationship to its classics over

these centuries. Heredity begins to weigh less in the

scales of scribal advancement and merit more; scribal

ranks are filled from widening circles of potential candi-

dates. If so, we should take invidious comparisons of

other professions or crafts with scribal life as rather

thinly-veiled threats rather than hortatory devices.

Following the statement of setting, these in-

structions generally state the purpose and objective of

their teaching in a series of infinitives, paratactically

and asyndetically related. The texts of the instructions

appear random--the organizing principle, if there be any,

does not involve bringing together logically-related

situations in a systematic progression or argument. Ad-

monitions and aphorisms, however, are not entirely inde-

pendent but do frequently form short thematically-related

units. Certain of the later sebayit, Amenemope and

¹McKane, Proverbs, pp. 51-150.

220

Papyrus Insinger, are divided into chapters or stanzas,

but on stylistic grounds. The instructions usually close

with a summary statement asserting the value of their

teaching.¹ Ani, however, concludes with a dialogue be

tween father and son (master and pupil) in which the

father remonstrates with his recalcitrant son and affirms

the youth's educability.² It also follows a wisdom

pattern (compare the Egyptian "Dispute Over Suicide"³

and the Akkadian "Dialogue Between a Master and His

Servant"⁴) of concluding paradoxically with what may be

a play on weaning or the psycho-logic of man's natural

drives.⁵ From Mesopotamia, we possess the Sumerian

¹F. W. von Bissing, Altägyptische Lebensweisheit,

Bibliothek der alten Welt (Zurich: n.p., 1955); Pritchard,

Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 421-25; Griffith; Schmid,

Wesen und Geschichte der Weisheit, pp. 8-84; František

Lexa, Papyrus Insinger: Les Enseignements Moraux d'un

Scribe Égyptien du Premier Siècie apres J.c., 2 vols.. (Paris:

L’Librairie Orientalist Paul Geutnner, 1926), 2: 40-74.

²Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 420-

21, see Wilson's introductory remarks; Schmid, Wesen und

Geschichte der Weisheit, p. 218.

³Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 405-07.

⁴Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 437-38.

⁵Cf. Ronald J. Williams, "Reflections on the

Lebensmüde," in Trudy 25. Mezdunarodnego Kongressa

Vostokovedov: Moskva 9-16 Avgusta 1960 (Moscow: Izdate-

lystvo Vostocnoj Literatury, 1962), 1: 88-95; Ronald J.

Williams, "Theodicy in the Ancient Near East," Canadian

Journal of Theology 2 (1956): 14-26; Morenz, Ägyptische

Religion, pp. 69-84; Sagesses du Proche-Orient Ancient,

q.v.; Eberhard Otto, Der Vorwurf an Gott: Zur Entstehung

des Ägyptischen Auseinandersetzungsliteratur, Vorträge

221

"Instructions of Shuruppak,"¹ the "Counsels of Wisdom,"²

and collections of miscellaneous proverbs.³ The form

appears briefer but the evidence is admittedly limited.

The key question, for our present inquiry, is whether

Proverbs or any of its parts is an instruction in form--

a question we shall defer for the moment.

The instruction must assuredly have had its

Sitz-im-Leben in the scribal academies. In Egypt, the

instructions were used to teach writing and the standards

of the profession. Anywhere from a few lines to several

pages (columns) of material would be copied each day ac-

cording to the student's ability and level in the school;

much must have been committed to memory. Since some of

the materials were written in now-archaic forms of the

der Orientalischen Tagung in Marburg, Ägyptologische

Fachgruppe, 1950 (Hildesheim: Gebr. Gerstenberg Verlag,

1951); Eberhard Otto, "Die Religion der Alten Ãgypter,"

in Handbuch der Orientalistik, ed. Bertold Spuler, Series

I: Der Alte und der Mittlere Osten, vol. 8: Religion,

Pt. 1: Religionsgeschichte des Alten Orients, Fasc. 1

(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1964), pp. 1-75; Eberhard Otto, "Der

Mensch als Geschöpf und Bild Gottes in Ägypten," in

Probleme Biblischer Theologie, pp. 335-48; Aksel Volten,

"Ägyptische Nemesis-Gedanken," in Miscellanea Gregoriani:

Raccolta di Scritti Publicati nel i Centenario dalla

Fondazione del Pont. Museo Egl. (1839-1939) (Rome: Max

Bretschneider, n.d.), pp. 371-79.

¹Pritchard, Ancient Near East, pp. 158-59.

²Pritchard, Ancient Near East, pp. 159-60.

³Pritchard, Ancient Near East, pp. 157-58; Lam-

bert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature.

222

language, instruction must have depended on rote memory

and outright duplication of a master model. In fact, we

know these instructions because of their pervasive preser-

vation in student copies, however maladroit. The educa-

tional program in general must have been fairly constant

throughout the ancient Near East as well as through time.

Children of six to eight entered lower schools for ele-

mentary instruction lasting perhaps six years. Though

the curriculum was wide, only the written portions, the

instructions survive. The schools were small; the sys-

tem was that of a master scribe instructing some few

apprentices whom he had accepted. In the lower schools,

training of a specific technical kind may have been pro-

vided for skilled artisans and over-seers who would need

rudimentary literacy and mathematical competence in their

work. Some students would continue in higher schools,

perhaps organized by professional specialties, from their

early teens to their majority. Here they were assigned

the most rudimentary scribal tasks as true apprentices.

In the lower schools certainly, and probably in both, the

discipline was strict; the day was long; physical punish-

ments were often threatened and sometimes invoked (but

Ani's conclusion!). One's education resulted in employ-

ment as a journeyman in some minor state position until

his mid-twenties when he became elegible for regular

223

appointment.¹ The system's paternalism is reflected in

its technical terminology of 'father' for 'teacher' and

'son' for 'student.'

Historically, the schools seem, at least in Egypt,

to have first been associated with the pharaonic court--

to train princes and the sons of high officials. The

school of the court began and seems to have remained in

the palace itself. From this institution developed

scribal institutions committed more to recruitment by

merit which trained future officials of all kinds. These

academies, both lower and higher, appear to have been de-

centralized: they existed in every major community.²

Although we know virtually nothing about Hebrew

pre-exilic educational institutions, many scholars are

inclined to follow the Egyptian model for both organi-

zation and history.³ Ostensibly, the instructions are

hortatory—the admonition, Mahnspruch, with a motivation

clause, far predominates over the Aussage--and the

Rahmenerzählungen frequently appeal to initiatory settings.

¹Brunner, Altägyptische Erziehung.

²Brunner, Altägyptische Erziehung, pp. 10-55.

³See Gammie, "Israelite Pedagogy."

⁴Gerstenberger, Wesen und Herkunft; Richter,

Recht und Ethos; Berend Gemser, “The Importance of the

Motive Clause in Old Testament Law,” in Adhuc Loquitur,

pp. 96-115; Rudolf Kilian, "Apodiktisches und Kasuis-

tisches Recht im Licht Ägyptischer Analogien,” 185-202.

224

Thus, they may have been used or originated as material

for scribal professional initiation rites. In Ahiikar,

which should perhaps be treated under another heading

anyhow, the setting is paradoxical, since in some versions

the instructions constitute a judgment on Ahiikar's nephew

and heir who then expires in shame.¹

b) Letters. The schools adopted various au-

thentic and fictional letters to their didactic purposes,

so that students might become familiar with epistolary

forms and as settings for various academic problems. A

few letters praise the wisdom of scribal life, hence

forming the functional complement of instructions. Other

letters, like Hori's "satirical" composition, serve as

vehicles for scribal reflection and may be based on the

forms of the academy.²

c) Annals; histories. Since the scribes kept

the royal archives, they must be the custodians and com-

posers of official histories. While history-writing

itself cannot be regarded as wisdom, at least not without

Zeitschrift 7 (1963): 185-202; Anders Jørgen Bjørndalen,

"'Form' and ‘Inhalt’ des Motivierenden Mahnspruches,"

Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 82

(1970): 347-61; Hermisson, Spruchweisheit, pp. 137-86.

¹Cf. McKane, Proverbs, 156-82.

²See Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp.

431-34, 475-79; see Pritchard, Ancient Near East, pp.

623 ff.

225

leaving 'wisdom' a hopelessly vague concept, such adapta-

tions as the novella can be considered artistic or

polemical wisdom forms. Advocates of novella-wisdom base

their position on the use of historical or quasi-histori-

cal materials to achieve a literary purpose. What ap-

pears to be simple historiography becomes on examination

something quite different. The author reports conversa-

tions, feelings, by-play about which he could not possibly

have been informed. The historical figures become pro-

tagonists in a literary creation designed to portray types

of character and their (inevitable?) consequences in life.

There is some interest in intentionality. The character

types and the theory of retribution seem to be somehow

beholden to wisdom categories.¹ Also, to some extent,

"art for art's sake" may arguably be regarded as strictly

a view of scribal wisdom. J's story of Creation would

rank as a rather speculative wisdom adaptation of his-

tory;² the Succession Narrative may polemically assert

the validity of Solomonic succession while criticizing

the behavior of its cast.³ In Exilic and post-exilic

¹But see Klaus Koch, “Gibt es ein Vergeltungs-

dogma im Alten Testament?” Zeitschrift für Theologie and

Kirche 52 (1955): 1-42; Kovacs, "Intentionality."

²Alonzo-Schökel, "Motivos," pp. 295-316.

³Whybray, Succession Narrative.

226

times, there certainly seems to have been a fashion of

adopting traditional stories to literary ends. Job (de-

pending on one's date for the work), Ruth, Esther, Daniel

1-6 could have been later scribal contributions to the

novella or historically-grounded form [other possibilities:

Jonah, Tobit, Ahiikar (mentioned in Tobit!)].¹

d) Epics; portraits of the 'Wise Scribe.' This

form overlaps with the novella to the extent that the

latter's subject becomes a heroic figure based on the

idealization of his scribal character: Joseph, Daniel

1-6, Ahiikar. Since the form is virtually co-extensive

with the epic wisdom we discussed earlier, we need add

only a few further remarks. These character studies can

go a long way toward filling in the gaps in our knowledge

of that scribal wisdom not closely identified with the

academies and their pedagogic, even if the portraits they

present form a projected ideal rather than simple descrip-

tion based in actual experience, but only to the extent

that we can locate these compositions with assurance in

scribal wisdom circles.

Ahiikar offers few problems in this respect; its

pervasiveness in the ancient Near East (copies were found

¹Whybray, Succession Narrative, pp. 96-116.

²Schmid, Wesen and Geschichte der Weisheit, pp.

85-143; McKane, Proverbs, pp. 152-53, 156-82.

227

at Elephantine though the setting is Assyria) attests its

popularity and probably the salience of its depiction in

professional circles. Thus, we may infer broad common-

alities among international scribes that justify a cer-

tain amount of argument from analogy from one culture to

another.¹ That an instruction (perhaps two) forms an

integral part of the epic, while the epic itself seems to

be too intricate to dismiss as Rahmenerzählung (i.e.,

windowdressing for the teachings), may imply that our

understanding of the instruction form is inadequate.

Here the scribe is a high courtly advisor. The image

reinforces inferences from the admonitions and aphorisms.

The scribe depends entirely on the influence of his ad-

vice; power rests with the king. Character (intention-

ality) ultimately brings its own reward, and such per-

sonality is sufficiently innate that even the wisest of

men cannot succeed in overcoming its deficiencies by the

most intimate of associations and instructions. Further,

such association works to the detriment of the sage; he

becomes caught up in the working out of "retribution."

Since the adviser's power is his word, he is vulnerable

to counsels phrased more craftily (if not more elegantly),

to intrigue, to manipulation of the king's good will. In

¹Schmid, Wesen and Geschichte der Weisheit, pp.

85-143; McKane, Proverbs, pp, 152-53, 156-82.

228

the face of invincible royal wrath, the only hope rests

in hiding until the mood changes and the king is again

open to wise counsel. Still, the sage possesses the re-

sources of friends and associates upon whom he may depend.

He also has his wits, and the knowledge that justice will

work itself out in time. The passionate impetuous fool

will get his come-uppance. Importantly, the sages stand

in for royalty in the international games of wisdom:

scribal wisdom is credited to royal patrons. These games

are interesting in themselves because of the association

of riddles and outrageous word-play with wisdom. Notably,

the games display striking visual realism which gives

substance to the humor, unlike the impossibly inconsistent

visions of many apocalyptists: the images are based in

the hilarity of sensible men systematically going about

doing the absurd. The notion of wisdom as game or cam-

petition among wise scribes acts as an important foil to

treatments of wisdom as the purely aesthetic or didactic

product of scribal reflection.¹

¹Foster, "Humor," pp. 69-86; Edwin M. Good,

Irony in the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster

Press, 1965); Sheldon H. Blank, "Irony by Way of Attri-

butions," Semitics 1 (1970): 1-6; D. F. Payne, "A Per-

spective on the Use of Simile in the Old Testament,"

Semitics 1 (1970): 11-125; James G. Williams, "Comedy,

Irony, Intercession," Semeia 7 (1977): 135-45; Hans-Peter

Müller, "Mythos, Ironie und der Standpunkt des Glaubens,"

Theologische Zeitschrift 31 (January-February 1975): 1-13;

Johannes Hempel, "Pathos und Humor in der Israelitischen

229

The Joseph and Daniel stories, as we noted earlier,

are problematic. They are not similar enough to Ahiikar

in either form or content for the comparison to be de-

cisive in determining whether they should be considered

scribal or wisdom. Indeed, one appeals to the same ele-

ments of the stories in judging both aspects of the

problem: if they treat of a projected ideal scribal

figure, then perforce they are also wisdom. If they are

not scribal, the professional elements being secondary or

purely coincidental, they certainly are also not wisdom.

As the comparison of von Rad's and Crenshaw's views sug-

gested, the decision must be made at least partly on the

relative weights the reader gives various elements in

the stories.¹ We submit that two questions decide the

issue.

First, what relationship existed between scribal

wisdom and the cult? If we find that the wise regarded

priestly practices with a distaste approaching on

hostility, then the repeated elements of conventional

religious practice in both stories would conflict with

Erziehung," 'in Von Ugarit nach Qumran: Beiträge zur

Alttestamentliche and Altorlentailische Forschung (Otto

Eissfeldt zum 1. September 1957), Beihefte zur Zeit-

schrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, vol. 77

(Berlin: Verlag Alfred Töpelmann, 1958), pp. 63-81.

¹Von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 2: 300-13;

von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, pp. 355-63; Crenshaw, "Method

in Determining Wisdom Influence," pp. 135-37.

230

the views of scribal wisdom. On the other hand, if

right cultic practice is the sine qua non of advancement

in wisdom, if one cannot become wise who does not prac-

tice the conventions of the faith (international scri-

balism: the practice of his country?), then these ele-

ments reflect scribal wisdom thought; one could not

appeal to them in deciding the matter of wisdom.

Second, what relationship governs the influence

of Yahweh upon the life and success of these heros

(Crenshaw--"spiritualizing”)?¹ Both Joseph and Daniel

enjoyed a divine charism, but based on what? If inten-

tionality looms sufficiently large in scribal wisdom as

against purely formal instruction, then Joseph's lack of

formal instruction may diminish in significance. On the

other hand, if the charism be founded in Yahweh's plans

for the history of a people, scribal wisdom seems to be

ruled out. Our conclusions in the study of aphoristic

wisdom will apply directly to both these questions.

e) Word-games; riddles. If the Ahiikar setting

applies, then we may locate verbal competitions and games

in scribal wisdom as a kind of professional play, not

scribal preservation of a folk genre. That these forms

are associated with wisdom would hardly be worth disputing.

¹Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influ-

ence," p. 137.

231

A series of numerical sayings follows the Agur collection

near the end of Proverbs; another can be found at 6:16-

19 in the midst of one of the admonitory discourses (in-

struction?). These sayings may well be the answers to

riddles whose question form has not been retained but

can presumably be projected directly from the response.¹

Several of the wisdom psalms seem to have

originally been in riddle—or numerical-form.² Many

scholars regard acrostic psalms to be wisdom by defini-

tion. The acrostic "Psalm of the Good Wife" which con-

cludes Proverbs strongly counters the supposed misogyny

of the wise. Whether the standards set for woman here

are any more stringent or confining than those the wise

men set for themselves remains to be seen. Psalm 119,

'torah-wisdom" demonstrates the elaborate--albeit some-

what tedious--lengths to which wordplay can be carried

by sheer formalization. It should also remind us of the

sophistication we may expect to find in wisdom word-play.

¹W.M.W. Roth, Numerical Sayings in the Old Testa-

ment: A Form-Critical Study, Vetus testamentum Supple-

ments, vol. 13 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1965).

²Sigmund Mowinckel, "Psalms and Wisdom," Wisdom

in Israel and Ancient Near East, pp. 205-24; Roland E.

Murphy, "A Consideration of the Classification 'Wisdom

Psalms,'" Congress Volume [of the International Organi-

zation for the Study of the Old Testament]: Bonn, 1962,

Vetus Testamentum Supplements, vol. 9 (Leiden: E. J.

Brill, 1963), pp. 156-67; von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, pp.

189-228, 71; Crenshaw, "Wisdom," pp. 247-53.

232

On the other hand, whether these should he labeled

'scribal' is less clear. For formal word-play and

riddles found in Proverbs, the matter hinges on whether

one attributes the book as a whole specifically to

scribal wisdom, since there is nothing in the sayings or

their collection which is conclusive.

One might infer a common scribal background to

these forms from their presence in such diverse litera-

tures: proverb "collections," psalmbooks, history,

prophecy (the numerical sayings and rhetorical questions

of Amos, e.g.). While the writers betook themselves to

different professional specialties, the forms they

learned in their apprenticeship continued to hold fascina-

tion for them as rhetorical devices through which they

could express their concrete ideas. This sort of argu-

ment, although eminently plausible, seems rather devious

in the absence of clear evidence for an original scribal

setting in the materials themselves.

Further, the problem appears in vocabulary.

'Hiydwt' and 'mlysiwt' may indicate either riddles and word-

plays, or scoffing and derision.¹ The only times the two

words appear together in the Hebrew Bible are in Proverbs

1:6 where they seem to be in synonymous parallel and at

¹Müller, "Rätsel," pp. 465-89; Crenshaw, 'Wisdom,"

pp. 239-45; Kovacs, “Reflections.”

233

Habakkuk 2:6 where they are joined together for intensifi-

cation but with their other meanings:

Shall not all these take up their taunt against

him, in scoffing derision of him, . . .

A woe-oracle sequence follows based on a catalogue of

injustices. Mlysih is used nowhere else. Hiydh occurs

frequently with respect to Samson's riddle. In Psalm 49:4

ET and Ezekiel 17:2 the word parallels mšl. Both are

special uses. The former suggests a musical play:

I will incline my ear to a proverb;

I will solve my riddle to the music of the lyre.

Whatever hiydh is, music applies to its sense and resolu-

tion. In the latter, the term refers to the "Fable of

the Cedar of Lebanon." Ezekiel, moreover, is notoriously

replete with fabulous entities used in a quite prophetic-

visionary manner. To treat the visions of Ezekiel as

wisdom would leave that term utterly vacuous. Psalm 78:2

has the same terminological parallel, but the sense is

closer to Numbers 12:8. Hiydh seems to mean the mystery

of divine word and deed in history. The first unveils

the mighty deeds of Yahweh in history by rehearsing the

accounts of his works; the second involves a Yahweh speech

asserting the directness of his communication with Moses

and implies the clarity of his acts. The two uses in

I Kings 10:1 and II Chronicles 9:1 place the term in a

context of royal wisdom that still reminds us of Ahiikar.

234

The Queen of Sheba intends to test Solomon's wisdom and

insight by proposing hiydwt to him. The problem of mean-

ing here is no less acute than with mšl; the range is

similarly wide.¹ The same situation obtains with fables--

especially since the figure of the Greek Aesop invites so

many interesting analogies.

We had best accept a more minimal stance in ac-

cord with the evidence. Certainly the scribal wise de-

veloped competitive verbal games. Riddles, word-plays,

fables, all are common forms to many segments of society

that were adopted by some scribes to their own special use.

f) Encyclopaedias: word-lists. To some extent,

one must credit the quantities of, mostly multi-lingual,

onomastica from Egypt and Mesopotamia to the scribal ef-

fort to keep alive accurate knowledge of "dead" languages

as well as the proper symbolics and terminology of their

own. Thus, they must have been encyclopaedic vocabulary

lists, thematic rather than comprehensive, verbal in

structure and not logical. Von Rad argued at one time

that such lists lay behind the Yahweh speeches of Job 38-

41, and perhaps ben Sirah 43, Psalm 148, the Hymn of the

Three Young Men; he later doubted this theory.²

¹Müller, "Rätsel," pp. 465-89.

²Von Rad, "Hiob XXXVIII," pp. 293-301; von Rad,

235

Though we lack Hebrew onomastica in the biblical

materials, the process suggests a scribal perspective

with all its implications. They demonstrate an attempt

to order and make sense of the world through naming, the

use of the word. To name an entity is the first essen-

tial step in perceiving it adequately as an individual and

describing its characteristics. Also, lists of things

reflect a concern with nature, with entities of experience,

broadly understood. The step to creation theology then is

short: to give nature and order cosmogenic intelligibility.

The god-listings fit such extrapolation.¹ A seemingly

superficial activity therefore may generate profound im-

plications; they permit us to include onomastica in scribal

wisdom.

g) Codes of Decisions. Gemser, in his analysis

of the role of the motive clause in Hebrew law, makes the

suggestion that at least some aphorisms may have been used

as legal summaries. He accepts at face value the humanism

of Hebrew law. He finds that motive clauses, technically

Begrundungssätze, sharply increase in frequency in the

later codes. Since he accepts some kind of covenant re-

newal ceremony, he argues that the oral and popular nature

Old Testament Theology 1: 413-18; von Rad, Weisheit in

Israel, pp. 288-92.

¹Von Rad, "Hiob XXXVIII," pp. 293-301.

236

of these recitations required social and theological re-

flection to justify and explain the laws as read. Hebrew

codes are motivated because, unlike other ancient Near

Eastern law-codes, they alone were of and for the people.

Tw^cbh sanctions indicate the cultic nature of this law.

He then suggests that early prophecy, wisdom, and law have

a common origin in inspired law-givers of the community

or tribe. As in some other cultures, proverbs constituted

catch-summaries of legal principles and case-decisions.

At the conclusion of a legal argument, the pleader would

summarize his case with an accepted proverb, a legal

maxim. Unsurprisingly, then, tw^cbh-sayings concerning

identical issues appear in legal and proverbial biblical

contexts. Some laws give a most aphoristic appearance in

style and their balanced poetic form, using two-line

structure.

While one may not wish to go so far as admit a

quasi-popular nature to law or wisdom, nor find common

history to three so different social groups, yet the sug-

gestion that aphoristic wisdom at least partly stems from

attempts to summarize cases in succinct generalities sets

out a plausible ground for composing certain kinds of

aphorisms. In Mahnsprüche, Begrundungssätze are common.

¹Gemser, “Motive Clause,” pp. 96-115.

237

One can readily imagine scribes coining maxims in pleasing

but traditional form to help them negotiate the mazes of

commerce, politics and the law. The later instructions

in Egypt, however, possess far fewer Mahnsprüche in favor

of Aussagen. In the four great mashal-collections, only

C has significant numbers of motivated sayings. Still,

the setting is eminently plausible and proposes a con-

text for certain proverb forms.¹

h) Codes of ethics. In Egypt, the sebayit

typically included references to the scribal art and its

ethical code. While distinct codes did not exist, it

seems to have been an important sub-form, which follows

from its use in the school. Overt statements of such

codes cannot be found in Hebrew wisdom much before the

above passage from ben Sirah. Whether such a code may

be inferred from other evidence is one of the questions

to occupy us in our analysis of collection of B.

i) Ideologies. Narrowly understood, this form

refers to explicit paeans to scribal wisdom. "In Praise

of the Scribal Art"² and "In Praise of Learned Scribes"³

both display this concern to set in detail the legitima-

¹Gemser, "Motive Clause," pp. 96-115; Bjørndalen,

pp. 347-61; Skladny.

²Sjöberg, pp. 127-31.

³Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 431-32.

238

tions of the profession. The value and meaning of scribal

life is explored and explained. The "Satire on the Trades"¹

and the "Song of the Harper"² state the matter more nega-

tively, though in quite different senses. The former justi-

fies scribal life at the expense of other occupations. The

latter suggests a pessimistic evaluation of all learning,

not unlike the more speculative musings of Qoheleth. The

passage from ben Sirah is strongly ideological, as demon-

strated by the decidedly idealistic cast to its "ethic."

Ideology is not to be sharply distinguished from

a professional code; elements of each may, as in the cited

passage, appear together. We treat it separately because

it can be important to differentiate the ethical and

ideological dimensions of a given writing. Thus, ap-

parently ethical statements may recur, not to re-assert

their moral imperatives, but to serve some value-end. The

weight of their meaning rests in the valued perspective

toward life which they justify and affirm. The difference

may seem abstruse here when stated in abstract terms, but

it will prove important to our argument later, e.g., in

terms of noblesse oblige and neo-naturalism.

¹Pritchard, Ancient sear Eastern Texts, pp. 432-34.

²Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 467.

239

j) Other forms. Like all groups, the scribes

not only preferred certain forms of their own inven-

tion or elaboration, but they turned other forms to their

purpose, as we suggested was the case with riddles and

word-games. In Egypt, we find two prophecies with im-

portant scribal elements and a wisdom dimension: "The

Admonitions of Ipu-Wer"¹ and the “Prophecy of Nefer-

rohu.”² The latter is proleptic, looking toward

resolution of the woes then besetting the land; it, and

perhaps the other, is therefore taken to be anachronistic.

In these, the triple affiliation, scribalism, wisdom,

prophecy, clearly appears. Both decry the decline of

morals, the collapse of order, and the impotence of

government. They plead for justice and reform; the

moral dimension stands at the forefront. To raise fur-

ther the issue of wisdom and prophecy would lead us too

far afield; however, we take note of the form.³Whether

aphorisms should be regarded as separate form in the

sense of Aussage collections, remains problematic

since it is in Proverbs that we find a distinction be-

tween instructions or admonitory discourses and simple

¹Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 467.

²Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 444-46.

³Cf. von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, pp. 359-60.

240

sayings-collections, at least in principle.¹ (Gordon

attributes the Sumerian proverbs collections to [scribal]

collocations of folk wisdom, however he does not argue

the problem at length nor in detail.²) Thus, there per-

sists the more basic issue whether the mashal-collections

in Proverbs, which have few Mahnsprüche, should be re-

garded as in any sense products of specifically scribal

wisdom. The analysis below should help clarify the re-

lationship between the aphoristic literature and scri-

balism, but we should not prejudge the matter by now

isolating an aphorism-collection form in scribal wisdom.

If we simply equate scribalism with wisdom, then

a history of the profession in Israel can be written,

although it remains somewhat speculative. The evidence

for scribal development alone, however, is rather meager.

The Golden Age of Solomon, which we discussed anent royal

wisdom, may have seen the establishment of an educated

administrative class founded on the Egyptian model and

trained by imported Egyptian leadership (if Elihoreph is

an Egyptian name).³ The legend of Solomon's wisdom

¹Crenshaw, "Wisdom," pp. 229-39; McKane, Proverbs,

pp- 1-208.

²Gordon, "New Look," pp. 122-52.

³McKane, Prophets and Wise Men, p. 28; Scott,

"Beginnings," pp. 261-68.

241

could then be traced to his patronage of the academies,

perhaps by the kind of attribution one finds in Ahiikar.

The attractive feature of this theory, in addition to the

fact that it preserves a historical element in the bibli-

cal record, is that it establishes a linear and temporal

relationship among royal learning or wisdom, the ^csih of

counselors, and the traditional learning of the schools

and professional scribes. We argued, however, that royal

wisdom has an entirely different relationship to power

and its use than does either counsel or scribal wisdom.

The latter, however, have much in common with each other.

Recently, Scott has again underscored the caution

with which we should approach the superscriptions that

attest Solomonic wisdom, since their historical relation-

ship to the texts that follow is completely indetermin-

able.¹ From a strictly institutional point of view, we

know that David and Solomon already had men in offices

called "sopher," "scribe," and “mazqir”--remembrancer or

recorder. There is a possible reference to the office

in the Song of Deborah, "wmzbwln mškym bšbti sfr," but the

passage is doubtful.² The offices are mentioned regularly

from Hezekiah's time on, though the precise duties involved

¹Scott, "Beginnings," pp. 272-79.

²McKane, Prophets and Wise Men, pp. 15-22.

242

can only be speculated upon.¹ McKane contends that they

were royal advisors, and implies that the term "sopher"

takes on a special sense like the English "Governmental

Secretary." They were among the śarim, the cabinet of

the king. The ^csih of Hushai and Ahithophel shows the

learning and insight, thus hikmh with divine sanction,

that accompanied their rise to position.²

While the prophets adopted a polemical stance

against the advice of royal counselors, McKane also points

out how they used the language of wisdom to their pur-

poses.³ Whether the wise and scribes can be distinguished

in this polemic is unclear. In Isaiah 19:11 ff., the wise

are obviously the advisors of Pharaoh, and wisdom assumes

a distinctly royal coloring. Elsewhere, the wise seem to

be set as a distinct class, who possess however both hikmh

and ^csih, against prophets, priests, mighty men, the

wealthy. The prophet and the priest and the wise man ap-

pear in Jeremiah 18:18.

Then they said, "Come, let us make plots against

Jeremiah, for the law shall not perish from the

priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word

from the prophet. . . ."

¹McKane, Prophets and Wise Men, pp. 23-36; Scott,

"Beginnings," pp. 274-79.

²McKane, Prophets and Wise Men, pp. 23-47.

³McKane, Prophets and Wise Men, pp. 41-42.

243

Three classes are distinguished, with the wise having

^csih. The wise, in these passages, seem to have secular

advice to offer; theirs is a practical judgment of ex-

pediency that is in conflict with proper reliance upon

Yahweh. While scribes are not mentioned, ^csih is the coun-

selor's attribute. These men seem to occupy positions

where they pan offer influential advice. The phrase,

"wise in their own eyes," suggests a play on the wisdom

view that arrogance can go hand-in-hand with folly.¹ One

might, then, infer from the pharaonic reference that the

wise and the scribal class are identical.

Yet, Jeremiah 8:8-9 raises doubts:

How can you say, "We are wise,

and the law of the Lord is with us"?

But, behold, the false pen of the scribes

has made it into a lie.

The wise men shall be put to shame;

they shall be dismayed and taken;

lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord

and what wisdom is in them?

Compare Jeremiah 2:8.

The priests do not say, "Where is the Lord?"

Those who handle the law did not know me; . . .

Lindblom thinks that the first informs the second--that

the scribes are not to be regarded as identical with the

wise but rather as the transmitters and scholars of the

law who have falsified it. They are therefore "those who

¹McKane, Prophets and Wise Men, pp. 63-112; cf.

Whybray, Intellectual Tradition, pp. 6-54.

244

handle" in the second quotation. Thus, by late in the

monarchic period, the wise and the scribes were separate

classes. Indeed, one group of professional scribes had

become so identified with torah-study that they formed a

distinct and recognizable social group, as they most cer-

tainly did in a later time when Ezra was a scribe of the

Law.¹

The issue becomes still more complicated when we

consider the passages of reinterpreted wisdom, where wis-

dom is what Yahweh used to order creation:

It is he who made the earth by his power,

who established the world by his wisdom,

and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.

(Jer. 10:12)

These quotations point up the difficulties that

follow attempts to infer about one social group from the

documents of another, and competing, perspective. Fur-

ther, one scarcely knows how to take these few remarks--

do they represent a "family feud," in-house radicalism

that at once evokes and assuages guilt (if there were

guild prophecy), or avidly competing contradictory views

of reality?

We do better to work from within, to evoke the

setting from content analysis of documents if possible.

Thus, we shall address the question of setting and

¹Lindblom, pp. 192-204.

245

scribalism in our analysis below. We can say that Isaiah

and Jeremiah attacked that practical view of life, which

centered in the royal councils, that sought to cope with

conflicting social and political pressures by relying on

the collective judgments of pragmatic rationality alone.

No counsel established on purely human wisdom can prevail

against the divine word (spoken, presumably, by the

prophet). The ultimate example which refutes attempts to

build social histories from these prophetic oracles is the

relationship of Jeremiah to his scribe Baruch. Should we

infer a group of professional scribes associated with the

prophetic guild? Or, is the relationship entirely per-

sonal? Is Baruch the faithful amenuensis or the deeply

committed friend, counselor and historian, who preserves

and edits? One can only speculate.¹

¹In addition to mentioning the royal offices of

"sopher" and "mazgir,' the deuteronomic historian also

credits the royal council with recognizing the importance

of the law-code found in the Temple, reading it over, and

bringing it to Josiah's attention. On his order, they

seek the (wise?) prophetess Huldah's validation of the

document. Apparently this diligence of the śarim did not

much redound to their credit in the eyes of Jeremiah. The

Chronicler makes mention of a scribal family at Jabez. He

locates scribes in the military and among the Levites, and

expands the other offices of the cabinet. A reference in

Psalm 45:1 ET is metaphorical:

". . . I address my verses to the king;

my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe."

The text appears to be a royal wedding song. It introduces

the term mhyr, which occurs only four times in the Hebrew

Bible: here, in the Amenemope parallel, of Ezra (“skilled

in the law of Moses”), and in an Isaianic oracle of promise

(mahir seideq). It means at least scribal competence and

perhaps legal facility (i.e., in torah).

CHAPTER IV

THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK OF PROVERBS

Proverbs without question is a composite work;

still, our use of the term "collection" to refer to

certain blocks of sayings within the Book somewhat begs

questions of structure, form and composition. The say-

ings are diverse; a multiplicity of forms and sub-forms

appears. The motifs are no less diverse than the themes,

whether overtly expressed or merely implied obliquely.

Some sayings are known from international wisdom (i.e.,

they appear in substantially the same form in other

cultures or are "quoted" in the truly international works

of wisdom). Foreign sages are quoted, and scholars have

discerned at least one foreign work in Hebrew dress

(the sebayit of Amenemope). The composite depth of

Proverbs is an open question, since layers of material

can be seen: within the larger "collections" one finds

smaller thematic blocks; other sections are unified by

form; similar and duplicate sayings recur. Further, the

Book has been given a measure of structural and thematic

unity by prefixing a preface and motto, use of super-

scriptions, and segregation of materials by form.

246

247

Clearly, editors composed and redacted the Book

from a wide variety of resources. To speak of editors

and their schools, however, still leaves us far from

understanding their motives, the interpretation and use

they gave the Book--not to mention its constituent parts,

and their contribution to the artistic unity of the work.

To the extent that certain groups of the wise demanded

that the sage be steeped in the authoritative and tradi-

tional words of his fore-bears, the poet-sage could draw

extensively upon the intellectual, artistic and verbal

resources of his class while remaining in every sense an

artist and author in his own right.

In other words, among a class which lays great

stress upon learning some formally-defined and -refined

literature--whether oral or written is immaterial--and

which uses a highly sophisticated and stylized mode of

expression, the question of composition is a murky one.

In such a case, as with Proverbs, interpretation, rather

than the evidence alone or as such, becomes quite diffi-

cult. For this reason, we shall not pursue the tangled

skein of structure at great length--a vital question,

it would nonetheless lead us far afield from our principal

concerns. Rather, we shall sketch the location of II-B

in Proverb's larger apparent structure, and respond to

certain questions which fundamentally affect the

validity of our approach.

248

Superficially, Proverbs presents the appearance

of the instruction form. It begins with a superscrip-

tion that could be interpreted as the Rahmenerzählung,

generally quite brief, which sets the occasion for the

teaching; the Rahmenerzählung appears most consistently

in the Egyptian sebayit. The next five verses state the

purpose of the book in a series of paratactic infinitive

phrases (construct form); the infinitive is implicit in

the second half of the 3 plus 3 synonymous parallelism

but expressed in v. 2. V. 5. is the exception, employing

imperfects with jussive force in both halves. A similar

statement of purpose follows none of the other super-

scriptions, so these verses may have been intended to

apply to the entire work. V. 7 states the motto of the

work:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge:

fools despise wisdom and instruction.

The preface and motto set out the purpose in the

technical vocabulary of wisdom. The terms are not defined,

but rather reinforced by the repetition of functional

substitutes. They rehearse wisdom's most fundamental be-

liefs. Wisdom is a discipline that can be intelligibly

stated in words. Wisdom can be learned and taught, and

therefore manifested in a pattern of sensible and prudent

conduct. The simple can learn wisdom's caution, but the

youth especially (?) is amenable to instruction in wisdom.
249

The wise man can amass learning and further guidance in

conduct. The word is the instrument of teaching and

learning.¹ V. 6 then focusses on the role of sayings

in instruction. The Amenemope section duplicates a

portion of that work's statement of purpose, though the

infinitives appear only briefly toward the end in the

Hebrew version, in preference to an imperative series.

From 1:8, the first nine chapters are given over

principally to a series of hortatory discourses in which

imperatives and vetitives figure importantly, though by

no means exclusively. The exact number of discourses

depends upon what strictures are employed to distinguish.

them, especially since several seem otherwise to be quite

short. It is possible to reduce the number to seven, to

reach the number of pillars in wisdom's house in 9:1, but

the reduction is necessarily speculative.² Overtly,

there are some twelve whole or partial blocks of instruc-

tion plus a number of independent blocks of material con-

joined. Most begin with a vocative, bny or rarely bnym,³

followed by an injunction in the imperative to hear at-

tentively these words (of the father-teacher) and work to

¹Würthwein, Weisheit Ägyptens, p. 8.

²Skehan, Studies, pp. 9-45.

³Prov. 4:1; 5:7; 7:24; 8:32.

250

retain them diligently--or conversely not to forget them

--and concluded by some statement of purpose, consequence,

or motivation.¹

The terms 'b and bny presumably reflect the tech-

nical language of the school in which the master addressed

his apprentice, and was addressed in turn, in familial

terms, apparently reflecting the ideal of intimacy and

obedient respect that bound or ought to have bound them

together. Occasionally the mother, 'm, is mentioned

which does not however argue in favor of a Sippenweisheit

interpretation of this hortatory wisdom. De Boer has

shown that this term too can have a (school) wisdom

application.² Moreover, the teaching for King Lemuel

(Proverbs 31:1-9). is explained as issuing from his mother:

mś’ ‘sr-yšrtw ‘mw.

To the extent that instructions were utilized by

some social caste, for example a hereditary scribal or

official class, these familial terms could have served a

dual function. Schmid’s paradigm traces Egyptian wisdom

back to a patriarchal setting in which these words would

have had their literal meaning The technical later

¹Bjørndalen; pp. 347-61; Whybray, "Literary

Problems," pp. 482-96; Whybray, Wisdom in Proverbs;

N. Habel, “The Symbolism of Wisdom in Proverbs 1-9,” In-

terpretation 26 (1972): 131-56; Richter, Recht und Ethos,

pp. 46-47.

²De Boer, pp. 62-71.

251

derived as the transmission of wisdom and the institu-

tion of the school came to be divorced from the (royal or

aristocratic) family.¹ Brunner argues for a progressive

democratization of the Egyptian school. He contends that

originally the apprentice bound himself to a master as a

kind of adopted son. The familial terms applied to the

personal and intimate relationship of chosen teacher and

student who lived together and worked together in a non-

institutional setting. As the later school grew and

formalized these relationships, while recruiting from a

far wider and less nepotous circle, the familial terms

became technical.² Thus, analogy would lead us to con-

clude that the instructions of chapters 1-9 belong to a

teaching setting, and perhaps to the school. The terms

alone may be literal, or metaphorical i.e., technical),

or for the caste both.

The discourses are brief but tend to be themat-

ically consistent, if not unified, hence composed of

multi-lined sayings and. admonitions. While some dis-

courses are largely composed of individual two- or four-

line sayings connected together by a common idea or phrase,

others consist of much larger syntactic unities. For

¹Schmid, Wesen and Geschichte der Weisheit, pp.

8-84; cf. Brunner, Altägyptische Erziehung, pp. 1-55.

²Brunner, Altägyptische Erziehung, pp. 10-32.

252

this reason, it is difficult to establish with certainty

the relationship of what otherwise seem to be independent

blocks of material that intrude into the framework of dis-

courses. These include the extended references to personi-

fied and hypostatic wisdom as well as the extended metaphor

of the "foreign woman," the 'yšh zrh. Two factors fur-

ther complicate the question, one theoretical and the

other an artifact of translation.

First, the characterizations of the foreign woman

seem to involve some inconsistencies so that none of the

four major interpretations offered is free of diffi-

culties: the foreign woman is a common prostitute, hence

the passages reflect the pragmatizing asceticism of the

wise and the Hebrew concern for controlled sexuality; she

is the hierodule, so the wise like the prophets inveigh

against allegiance to foreign-originated cults of sexu-

ality; she is foreign, perhaps legally the Hebrew's wife,

and is attacked out of late Hebrew national exclusivism;

or, she is Astarte, or some other fertility goddess,

humanized and personified, and the imagery is intended to

support Hebrew yahwistic exclusivism. Personified wisdom

¹McKane, Proverbs, pp. 262-412; Gustav Boström,

Proverbiastudien: die Weisheit and das Fremde Weib in

Spr. 1-9, Acta Universitatis Lundensis, Nova Series,

Lunds Universitets Årsskrift, Ny Följo, Avdelningen 1:

Teologi, Juristik och Humanistika Ämnen, vol. 30, no. 3

(Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup, 1934); Habel, pp. 131-56.

253

is obviously a foil to the foreign woman, whether wisdom's

figure be original to these passages or a later addition;

so, the two interpretations and their textual and tradi-

tion history are closely intertwined. The last case

could be used to support the argument for an early Hebrew

wisdom rnythos, deriving from a Canaanite wisdom goddess

Hokmot.¹ If Wisdom is a polemical figure directed

against the fertility cult, it can also be fairly early

(i.e., early to middle monarchy), derived either by

direct analogy or by extension from Egyptian hypostatic

wisdom.² Bauer-Kayatz rejects the speculation of Rankin

and others that Wisdom is a Persian figure derived from

one of the Amesha Spentas: with Egyptian influence, the

figure need not be late.³

Second, English translations like the RSV and JB

use feminine pronouns liberally, begging the question

which passages actually demand it. Ringgren distinguishes

hypostasis (treating a characteristic of a deity as an in-

dependent agency) and personification (giving it the

¹The unusual form hikmwt appears in 1:20 and 9:1,

at 14:1 (of women? construct), in the discourse section

24:7, and in the wisdom psalm 49:3 (4).

²Albright, “Canaanite-Phoenician Sources,” pp.

1-15; Kayatz, Studien zu Proverbien 1-9; Boström,

Proverbiastudien:

³Kayatz, Studien zu Proverbien 1-9; Rankin, pp.

222-64.

254

attributes of a person).¹ Personified wisdom appears

irrefutably only in 1:20-33; 8:1-31 and 9:1-6. These

passages seem to be independent of the discourses.²

Four: l-9 demands at most hypostasis;³ certainly the

personification of RSV and JB is excessive. The foreign

woman and Wisdom as person are interpretive cruces.

The discourses, however, are not prima facie post-

Exilic. They have classic instruction form and could

conceivably have originated in a Hebrew (monarchic)

scribal milieu influenced by Egyptian didactic techniques.

Conversely, there is no reason why that milieu need be

monarchic since doubtless scribal activity continued in

Judah after the Kingdom's fall as the sine qua non of

effective domination. In sum, the Wisdom figure of these

sections cannot be used to prove conclusively any thesis

about the date of Proverbs 1-9 (and by inference the rest

of the Book) on the basis of present knowledge--let alone

prove the hypothesis that wisdom is generally late.

Seams are prominent in the text, both MT and LXX.

The last discourse concludes with 8:36. Nine:1-6 presents

¹Ringgren, Word and Wisdom; Schencke.

²8:32-36 is an embedded incomplete (?) discourse

independent of the Wisdom image.

³Though the verbs in Vv. 8-9 may not even require

that much: ntn, mgn, hibq.

255

the Wisdom figure and her (astral?) house (related to

ch. 8, presumably). Vv. 7-12 are a collection of unre-

lated sayings, except v. 11 (in the first person!)

which ostensibly belongs to v. 10 but may actually belong

with v. 6. Vv. 13-8 are an isolated passage on the

foreign woman with no clear tie to the preceding verses.

This assemblage of diverse and unrelated materials here

(as elsewhere) suggests a seam, which is confirmed by

the superscription at 10:1, as does the addition of

sayings in the LXX at vv, 10 (1), 12 (3) , and 18 (4

additions).

Chapters 10-5 are composed exclusively of

dystichs, most of them showing antithetic parallelism,

and the majority in 3 plus 3 rhythm. The LXX has a

number of additions scattered through this collection.

Fourteen:1 may be a reference to personified Wisdom if

one is prepared to emend nšym to tśym or delete it

metris causa. As it stands the verse would support the

motif of the good wife and counter the otherwise

misogynic picture of wisdom. The emendation of bnth to

b'ytn then gets rid of the double verb problem (an

emendation necessitated by emendation, let us note) and

produces interesting syntax. As is, there is no personi-

fication, and personified Wisdom appears nowhere else in

collections A through D.

256

In support of this point, we note that the

foreign woman ('yšh zrh or nkryh), apparently the ante-

cedent (?) and foil of Wisdom, is at most suggested at

20:16 and 27:13. Both passages are difficult; both deal

with surety for foreigners. Both are intelligible with-

out, and context seems to support no, reference to the

foreign woman. Hence, the four mashal collections make

no clear reference to either figure, and most probably

make none at all.

In collection A, 14:13 clashes with the supposed

naive optimism of the antitheses. Fifteen:25 is a key

saying for those who seek some doctrine of immortality,

apart from Sheol, at least for the righteous. Whatever

poetic structure unites collection A, the content and

themes of the sayings appear quite random except for

short groups of aphorisms and the unity offered by catch-

words.

Collection B differs from A in form, shifting

from antithetic to synonymous and synthetic parallelism.

Evidence of the change appears to some extent in chapter

15, and from 16 on antithetic parallelism is uncommon.¹

Otherwise, the two-line balanced form with 3 + 3 meter

predominating continues. The LXX also evidences a seam

¹See Appendix, Table 7.

257

through a series of omissions and a different sequence of

verses from 15:27 to 16:10. Collection B does not begin

unmistakably with 16:1, although that is the point com-

mentators almost invariably choose. Their decision is

probably dictated by the fact that the verse asserts the

intervention of Yahweh between intention and deed.¹ This

theme recurs with some emphasis in B, while A seems to

put forth the conventional doctrine of retribution; wit-

ness the distinction between the two collections drawn by

Skladny.² Not only does the LXX's mingling of these

early verses of chapter 16 with the end of chapter 15

raise some questions about this division, but the decline

of antithetic parallelism and the presence of several Yah-

weh sayings toward the end of 15 in the MT along with the

continuing pattern of catch-words and assonance all sug-

gest considerable imprecision in the precise point of

division between the two collections.

In the LXX, 16:6 appears as 15:27a; 16:7, as

15:28a; 16:8 and 9, as 15:29a-b. Fifteen:31 is omitted

entirely, along with 16:1-3. A few LXX MSS give 16:1

followed by ben Sirah 3:18, generally with a star and

obelus. The LXX then gives a saying not found in MT,

¹See Appendix, Table 8.

²Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, pp. 7-46.

258

then 16:5, then two more unique sayings, 16:4, followed

by 16:10 et seq. without further notable disruption.

For Scott, this fluidity evidences the hand of a redactor,

hence the transitional section should be treated with

care. He argues that a yahweh-redaction has inserted a

section exalting the active power of Yahweh to precede

the undisturbed king passage, and that certain king-

sayings have been transformed into references to Yahweh.¹

While the LXX does not present the primordial text, it

does evidence a different tradition without a long be-

ginning block of yahweh-maxims. The following two verses

precede 16:10--the first is unique and the second follows

16:4 MT which we give for comparison:

He who seeks the lord finds knowledge in accord with

righteousness;

and the ones who seek it rightly will find peace.

All the lord's works are in accord with righteousness,

but the unrighteous will come into the evil day.

Yahweh has made everything to its purpose,

even the wicked for the evil day. [B.K.]

This evidence, however, is amenable to more than

one interpretation. First, while the LXX provides clear

indications of separations in the text, by dislocations

¹Scott, Proverbs, pp. 16-27; Scott, Way of Wisdom,

pp. 48-71; R. B. Y. Scott, "Wise and Foolish, Righteous

and Wicked," in Vetus Testamentum Supplements, vol. 23

(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973), pp. 146-65. See Appendix,

Table 9.

259

and especially through the sites where a number of

additions to the text were permitted to appear together,

Gerleman has shown that the translator of Proverbs had

distinct poetic and philosophic interests that limit the

usefulness of the LXX as evidence against the MT.¹The

LXX substitutes more acceptable Greek poetic forms for

Semitisms which, in excess, would be unpalatable to the

Hellenic reader. For example, the translator signifi-

cantly reduces the number of instances of synonymous

parallelism. Where the MT is obscure, he often substi-

tutes proverbs from his own milieu or he provides a

harmonizing line from his own repertoire. He also is

inexact in his translation, using Greek technical

terminology, dikaiosunê especially, in place of more

neutral alternatives. From his practices, Gerleman con-

cludes that the translator, while not necessarily a

Stoic himself, must have had sympathies with the stoic

point of view and its modes of expression. Insofar as

the material and his own superseding religious commitment

allowed, he conformed his translation to a quasi-stoic

point of view. Thus, we should be chary about postulating

¹Gillis Gerleman, Studies in the Septuagint,

vol. 3: Proverbs, Asta Universitatis Lundensis, Nova

Series, Lunds Universitets Årsskrifts, Ny Följo, Avdelnin-

gen 1: Teologi, Juristik och Humanistika Ämnen, vol. 52,

no. 3 (Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup, 1956).

260

alternative manuscript traditions, even when we assume

that some alternatives must have existed though they

remain unknown to us, on the basis of the LXX. The

Syriac and Targums offer no help in this matter since

they seem to be derived from the LXX; other versions are

no less derivative.

Second, there is a poetic unity to the materials

that is too easily overlooked--it certainly has not been

adequately studied. Vv. 29-33 at the end of chapter 15

almost certainly form a distinct unit.¹Lb of v. 28 is

echoed in vv. 30, 32; 16:1, 5. Sidyq in v. 28a parallels

sidyqym in v. 29b. While the evil mouth pours out evil

in 28b, the prayers of the righteous are heard according

to 29b--parallel structure. The root ^cnh may form an

inclusio in v. 28 and 16:1--or the term could refer both

backwards (to v. 23) and forwards, if the B collection

were to begin still further back. Catch-words include

also mwsr, yhwh, *sm^c, *rs^c, twkhit, and hikmh. “Eyes”

and “ears” are in parallel in vv. 30-1. There could

conceivably be a play on the terms "heart," "life" and

“spirit” which successively conclude the first stichoi

of vv. 30-2--further all three have an introspective con-

cluding stich, especially vv. 30 and 32. V. 33 shares

¹See Appendix, Table 9.

261

four catch-words backwards. Forwards, it shares yhwh

with the succeeding block in 16; ^cnwh echoes m^cnh in

16:1, ^cynyw in v. 2 (?), and m^cnhw in v. 4. Interest-

ingly, the phrase yr't yhwh mwsr parallels 16:6b's

wbyr't yhwh swr mr^c (note the chiastic play of consonants

from mwsr). Further, 15:33 can be interpreted in line

with the active role of Yahweh in 16:1--especially since

33b is a verbless stichos. This view is reinforced if

mwsr is in construct and not paratactic (Beer so emends¹)

relationship with hikmh; kbwd would then be an understood

reference to the divine. Also significant is the fact

that while 15:23, 24, 30, 31, 33; 16:3-7 are synonymous,

15:25-9, 32; 16:1-2 (!), 9 are antithetic (16:8 is a

tiwb-nn saying). Yahweh-sayings appear at 15:25-6, 29,

33 and in the first nine verses of chapter 16 with the

curious exception of v. 8.²

Since the first LXX 'dislocation follows 15:27,

and since 15:28 anticipates 16:1 in somewhat "secular"

fashion (the distinction between thought and deed, the

balance between plan of heart and speech), we could be-

gin collection B as early as 15:28 on solid poetic

¹BH³ [G. Beer, "Libros Iob et Proverbiorum" in

Biblia Hebraica, ed. Rud. Kittel, P. Kahle, A. Alt and

O. Eissfeldt, 3d ed. (Stuttgart: Württembergische

Bibelanstalt, 1937), pp. 1173.]

²See Appendix, Table 8.

262

grounds. Certainly, the collections also are joined by

catch-words, so this kind of reasoning is never certain

--especially since the fortuitous assonance between ends

of collections is far easier to contrive by judicious

editing than the fortuitous paronomastic assemblage of an

entire work of divers sayings. I could also see a

plausible argument for beginning B with 15:23 since it,

too, anticipates 16:1 and is the verse one can relate to

v. 28 by assonance. Its notion of the proprieties of

time would be a hint of the active role to be assigned

Yahweh. The assonance structure of these verses is some-

what looser than those at the end of the chapter, so

somewhat weaker and more ambiguous; thus there is little

more than the possibility in favor of any still earlier

separation, and the evidence of the LXX against it.

Third, and finally, we have a block of ten

yahweh-sayings in the MT. On the basis of Occam's Razor,

no advantage accrues to us from postulating unnecessary

redactions. Whether there is a difference in the implicit

world-view between the Yahweh-sayings and the rest of the

collection, is a question for the next chapter to answer.

In favor of the integral relationship of these sayings to

collection B¹ are the patterns of parallels and

¹Aside from trying to explain why a redactor who

otherwise chose to scatter his additions and revisions

263

paronomasia which bind them together and the terms and

concepts which cannot be a re-write of some earlier say-

ing (e.g., of the king).¹ To the former, we point to

the elaborate structure of catch-words and assonances

that continues from those noted above. V. la and v. 2a

are chiastically related (‘drm m^crky; drky-'yš). The

word m^cnh is echoed in assonance in three following verses

(vv. 1-4). Vv. 2-4 begin kl-gl-kl and v. 5ab has kl.

Other catch-words and word-plays: *kwn, hisb, r^c, drky-

‘yš, qm, lb, yhwh, 'dm. Vv. 5a, 6b., and 7a are a cycle

dwelling on relationships with Yahweh (abomination,

reverence, pleasure). Vv. 4, 5 and 6, 7 are virtually

synonymous, with the b stichoi of the last two carrying

forward themes from the first two sayings. V. 8 is far

less closely tied in poetically with the yahweh-sayings,

having perhaps the slightest of similarity of sound be-

tween 7ba and 8ba, but it anticipates the vocabulary of

the king-sayings by suggesting the catch-words sidqh and

mšpt, and it may play on dividing by inference the

hendyadys of v. 6--thematically, it constitutes an ex-

tension of the reasoning in v. 7 (defining šlm) and a

randomly through the text chose to assemble a block of

sayings before this group of king-sayings and this group

only--let alone explain why the secondary source, the LXX,

is evidently more disrupted than the MT primary.

²See Appendix, Table 10.

264

qualification on the king-sayings. We should also not

miss the periodic pattern of twb-mn sayings which this

verse begins (about every ten sayings).¹Sayings which

involve concepts only applicable to Yahweh include vv.

1-4 (determiner of acts, creator, establisher of plans,

weigher of the spirit), 6 (the language is all but cultic

and technical), 7b (?), and 9.

We would argue, therefore, that the shift in

sayings like 16:9 LXX (16:4 MT) is a creature of the

philosophical commitments of the translator made possible

by the shift of technical vocabulary (dikaiosunê for

lm^cnhw, e.g.) from which any retroduction is exceedingly

hazardous. To shift many of these sayings from profane

to sacred or vice versa, in Hebrew, is no less compli-

cated than simply writing new sayings to serve the pur-

pose. In a potentially ambiguous phrase like v. 7a, the

term yhwh or mlk gives the phrase its impact: syntactic

identity is not semantic identity. A single author may

use this shift as a poetic device, and indeed the

writer(s) of these sayings use this device of catch-

phrases repeated (shorter duplications). Duplication can

serve artistic ends and is of itself proof only that a

phrase is "stock" not that it has been somehow edited

¹See Appendix, Tables 11 and 12.

265

post facto. This argument's principal force is to

poetry, like that of Proverbs, where the phrases are

terse and therefore ambiguous and open to multiple mean-

ings. Meaning depends on precise syntactic relations;

each word contributes a high proportion of the saying's

meaning.

The seam between B and the Amenemope section is

clear, by virtue of the literary dependency of 22:17-

23:12 on the Egyptian work. Dbry-hikmym may be a super-

scription. The Hebrew shortens the original consider-

ably, hebraizes it, and uses the brief portions selected

out of sequence. How one is to get thirty chapters or

sayings, even by using the nondependent portions which

follow, is not clear. Twenty-three:13-4 are found in

Ahiikar. Twenty-three:15-24:22 includes a series of

discourses addressed repeatedly to bny but without the

formulaic pattern of the early chanters of Proverbs. The

hortatory form of the admonition is used frequently, and

the sections are of moderate length. The vetitive '1

with a motivation clause (often beginning ky) recurs.

The foreign woman is suggested (23:27-8) as is hypostatic

wisdom (24:2-7). The theology is somewhat more pragmatic,

at least on the surface, in this section. Witness the

following:

266

Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let

not your heart be glad when he stumbles;

lest the Lord see it, and be displeased,

and turn away his anger from him. (24:17-18)

Vv. 21-2 express similar cautions toward dealings with

Yahweh and with the king, "and who knows the ruin that

will come from them both?" At 24:22, the LXX adds five

sayings and then appends 30:1-14, the sayings of Agur.

The MT has a new superscription and some eleven-and-a-

half verses of admonition and development of the theme of

the sluggard. Thirty:15-31:9 follows in the LXX.

The superscription at 25:1 in the MT, even though the

relationship of superscription to text remains imponder-

able, is a crux interpretum. We earlier reviewed Scott's

arguments on Solomonic wisdom versus Hezekiah: it is far

easier both historically and sociologically to imagine an

established traditional scribal wisdom late in the period

of the Judean monarchy than under Solomon himself--if

only because of the difficulty of forming a solidified

didactic (school or oral) teaching in the space of a

single (originating) monarchy.¹The verb *^ctq is a

hapax in the sense of “copy,” which does not help clarify

what the superscription intends:

These also are Solomonic proverbs which the

men of Hezekiah, King of Judah, copied. (B.K.)

¹Scott, “Beginnings,” pp. 262-79; Scott, “Wise and

Foolish,” pp. 146-65.

267

The LXX has for the first part "hautai hai paideiai[!]

Salomōntōs hai adiakritoi," which reflects some of the

tendencies noted by Gerleman.

Collection C begins with a series of king say-

ings; it starts with only a single reference to God in

the first stichos, using the infrequent term 'lhym. This

fact is an interesting counterpoise to the thesis of a

yahweh-redacticn at work in the block from 16:1 (or 15:

33). C differs from the other four major mashal collec-

tions in its use of longer groups of thematically-

affiliated sayings. The meter and the number of lines

composing a saying vary considerably. The parallelism

continues synonymous and synthetic; two-line sayings are

by no means entirely absent. Vetitives and imperatives

with motivational clauses occur, especially toward the

beginning of the collection. B and C have the only use

of the school vocative bny, each only once, at 19:27 and

27:11. C is distinguished by its frequent references to

the king, to courtly behavior and paradoxically, by its

use of agricultural, husbandry and natural language. In

fact, the collection closes with a block of such ma-

terials.

D differs from C in returning to the preferred

two-line form; like A, it predominates in antithetic

parallelism. Like the seam between A and B, the seam

268

here is identified by the change in form. Unlike the

former, at the beginning of chapter 28, there are no

LXX dislocations or added sayings to point up the

change. Collection D, though fairly unremarkable as to

form, does present some departures from the other collec-

tions in content. It includes four torah-sayings at 28:4,

7, 9 and 29:18; only A, at 13:14, among the four collec-

tions has a similar reference (there, however, as twrt-

hikm which JB and RSV both give as "teaching," obscuring

the-term).¹ References to law are not uncommon in the

opening discourse passages; there is a single use in the

concluding psalm (31:26 recalls the mention in A). The

discourses, use twrh for the instruction of the father or

mother which the student must retain.² In 28:3, there is

a reference to natural evil; 28:13 may indicate a view

that overt recognition of transgression (RSV "confession"

for wmwdh) is essential to their rejection and one's de-

liverance. Twenty-eight:17 asserts bloodguilt. Twenty-

nine:3-decries harlotry, but without any suggestion of

the foreign woman. In 29:18,. law and prophecy (hizwn)

appear in parallel. It is the only reference to prophecy

in Proverbs under either *hizh or *nb'. Twenty-nine:24

¹Cf. 31:26.

²1:8; 3:1; 4:2; 6:20, 23; 7:2.

269

brings up the robber's code of silence, or "honor among

thieves."

Although both are based on antitheses, D differs

from A in its number of striking and significant (from

the view of theology and ethics) concrete sayings. The

banality which Skladny remarks in the routinized vocabu-

lary of A is therefore not essential to the antithetic

form of aphorism.¹

Both B and D are distinguished as separate col-

lections on form-critical grounds; as we have seen,

smaller blocks of material can be discerned at places in

the text. Thus, the exact number of collections one could

theoretically discern depends on the criteria for dis-

tinguishing changes in form and content--what threshold

one adopts for saying that the change in material is so

great that clearly one is dealing with an independent unit.²

Bryce, for example, proposes to find a separate

collection in chapter 25:2-27.³ He argues that Egyptian

¹Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, pp. 57-67.

²Presumably meaning at least "written at another

time" or more likely "written or redacted by someone

else."

³Glendon E. Bryce, “Another Wisdom-'Book' in

Proverbs,” Journal of Biblical Literature 91 (June 1972):

145-57.

270

wisdom often includes a statement of theme in the middle

of the work, in addition to one at the beginning and end.

By an ingenious emendation of v. 27, admittedly a diffi-

cult text, Bryce finds a collection of court wisdom with

the theme emphasized by a central transitional rubric in

vv. 16-7. Vv. 2-3 introduce the theme of the king; vv.

4-5, the wicked man. V. 15 concludes the king section

with a renewed mention of the ruler. Vv. 16-7 restate

the theme of the second half, the wicked man. V. 27 re-

calls both v. 2 (searching out the hidden things) and

v. 16 (moderation with honey as an instance). V. 2, in

presenting the world as the hidden order of god in his

glory, frames the entire collection theologically. The

brief work, Bryce argues, both recounted useful points

in courtly life and served as a didactic text presenting

a diversity of literary forms.

Whether or not one accepts Bryce’ argument and

emendation in full, he points out the problem of distin-

guishing the minor structure of the four central mashal

collections. The gross seams are easily discerned; the

finer separations are in part a function of the in-

genuity of one's methodology. Clearly, too, a finer

structure is there to be discovered.

Following collection D, the MT gives the Words of

Agur, son of Jakeh, of Masseh, while the LXX concludes

its sequence with the acrostic psalm. Curiously, the LXX

271

treats the names in the superscriptions at 30:1 and 31:1

as words to be translated; i.e., as text. With the word

ms', the LXX could be right; on the other hand, the LXX

may be influenced by the (also usually prophetic) term

n'm in v. lb. The stichos in lb is almost hopelessly

obscure, though most commentators try to find some

declaration of despair or pessimism in the phrase to

lead to the ky and statement of ignorant futility in

v. 2. V. 4 suggests the first Yahweh speech in Job 38-9

or the paean to the creator in Psalm 104. Probably

Agur's wisdom, remarkably pessimistic, extends only some

four verses, if that. Lemuel and Agur are commonly

taken to have been Arabian sage-kings, already legendary

to the Hebrews. Agur is followed by a collection of

numerical sayings (vv. 7-9, 15-6, 18-9, 21-3, 24-8, 29-31)

that seem to be the poetic answers to riddles.¹ The

adulteress is mentioned once (v. 20), filial piety twice

(vv. 11, 17). Vv. 11-14 are each begun with dwr, forming

a unit. The others are mixed sayings.

Chapter 31 actually emphasizes wise women.

Lemuel's wisdom comes from his mother, and he is addressed

by name (a hortatory vocative?) in v. 4. The advice

emphasizes a royal asceticism, circumspection in sex and

¹Crenshaw, "Wisdom," p. 242, who points out that

this interpretation goes back to Herder; cf. Roth.

272

drink, and wise governance (i.e., justice and equity

for the déclassé in terms customarily used by kings to

affirm their royal stewardship). The acrostic psalm, a

wisdom form in most cases, would seem to have been at-

tracted to this setting by the common theme of the wise

woman (cf. v. 26). For the most part, her wisdom con-

sists in the diligent performance of her wifely duties,

her speech and reverence (yr't-yhwh) mentioned only

briefly in conclusion.

Since the proverbs seem to be nothing so much as

a random assemblage of unrelated sayings, the four col-

lections are often treated, apart from isolated observa-

tions, as two works or even as an essential unity through-

out. Skladny points out that systematic analyses of con-

tent in support of form-critical distinctions have here-

tofore been lacking. On the basis of his examination,

which relies heavily on statistical comparisons between

the collections, Skladny concludes that a clear pattern

of historical development emerges. The evolution of

aphoristic wisdom appears in the milieu presupposed by

the sayings, the role Yahweh is assigned, and the rela-

tionship assumed to obtain between deed and consequence.

These collections, he argues, do indeed go back to the

period of the Hebrew monarchy and are, as had been held

by many recent scholars, among the oldest wisdom materials

273

in Israel. Thus, an interest in them is consistent with

the continuing search in wisdom studies for the origins

of wisdom among the Hebrews. Skladny arranges the col-

lections A, D, B, and C in a proposed historical sequence.¹

Collection A concentrates on the Zwillingsformen,

in particular the contrast between the righteous, sidyk,

and unrighteous man, rš^c. To the first follow rewards;

to the second, misfortunes. “Was siedākā aber bedeutet,

bzw. wer ein siaddīk ist, wird nicht direkt definiert;

die meisten, Aussagen erwecken den Eindruck, als handle

es sich hierbei um feststehende Begriffe, deren Bedeutung

darum ohne weiteres vorausgesetzt werden könnte.”² While

one can amass a list of synonyms, the specification of

what it means to be righteous or what benefits follow

from right action remains obscure:

Es werden verhältnismässig selten konkrete Taten,

Handlungen erwähnt (wie etwa in 11,26b), meist

sind die Sprüche allgemein gehalten und charak-

terisieren an Hand von Abstrakta wie tōb oder

'emet eine ganz bestimnte Haltung: die Haltung

des Gerechten. Die Haltung hat für den, der sie

vertritt, positive Konsequenzen, d.h,, der guten

Lebenshaltung folgt Heil.³

Reward, and misfortune, follow in this world.

¹Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, pp. 76-82.

²Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, p. 7.

³Skladny, Spruuchsammlungen, p. 8.

274

Righteousness brings life or its prolongation, preserva-

tion from untimely death, contentment, honor, inheritance,

property. An opposite list accompanies the doing of evil.

Alongside this complex of opposite terms stands another

concerned with the wise man and the fool. A similar

series of rewards and penalties follow from each, and

they are similarly vague about the specific kinds of acts

proper to each.

Skladny concludes that wisdom is an ethical

quality, not intellectual, which follows from yr't-yhwh

and results in knowledge of what is pleasing to Yahweh and

therefore right. Wisdom and righteousness are virtually

synonyms, but wisdom derives from righteousness. "Nicht

der Weise ist der Gerechte, sondern der Gerechte ist

zugleich auch der Weise.¹

This analysis leads Skladny to conclude that

collection A does not postulate a Tat-Ergehen-Zusammenhang.

The emphasis lies with general ways of acting, with dis-

position and attitude rather than specific right or wicked

deeds. Further, this disposition is keyed to life, its

fortunes and goods. One should therefore speak of a

(Lebens-) Haltung-Schicksal-Zusammenhang. “Schicksal”

reflects this wisdom's concern with the outcome of one's

¹Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, p. 12.

275

life, not a specific reward keyed to some prior action.

Honor, long life, fortune, contentment are general re-

turns which "Ergehen" would make seem far too particular.

The locution "Haltung-Schicksal-Zusammenhang" also avoids

the juridical implications of "retribution" (Vergeltungs-

dogma) which seem far more external and imposed than the

actual ethical and religious emphasis would justify:¹

. . . ein "Gerechter" ist, wer die von Jahwe

gesetzte und garantierte Weltordnung und Jahwes

absoluten Authoritätsspruch in freiwilliger

Unterordnung anerkennt, wer sich also in diese

Ordnung einfügt und damit “in Ordnung” ist.

Dabei geht es ganz selten um konkrete Handlungen,

fast immer aber um die Lebenshaltung eines Menschen,

die für den Gerechten einen Heilszusammenhang, für

den Frevler einen Unheilszusammenhang in Kraft

setzt.²

In this sense, the usual translation "fear" for

the yr't-yhwh misleads. What is referred to is not an

emotional stance nor some basic human experience. The

better interpretation is “honor,” since it positively re-

flects man's insight into and recognition of Yahweh's

created order, his absolute express authority, and man's

free, independent acceptance of a right disposition in

his life.³ A does not concern itself with god's grace;

¹Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, pp. 13-24.

²Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, p. 22.

³In "Becket," Jean Anouilh has Becket respond to

King Henry's question whether he has begun to love God,

"I have begun to love the honor of God" [Indeed, the play

is titled, "Becket, ou l'Honneur de Dieu"!].

276

it is interested in man's will and insight into the

divinely-guaranteed order. A displays no effort to un-

cover the nature of Yahweh. It emphasizes his role as

guarant, so that his rsiwn and tw^cbh, acceptance or detes-

tation, are both evaluation and consequence (Beurteilung

and Verurteilung)--judgment in both senses of the word.

A treats the king seldom, but positively, as also guarant

with Yahweh of the Haltung-Schicksal-Zusammenhang.

A's content reveals a concern for the discrepancy

between poverty and wealth. It recognizes that one may

be unjustly rich or poor. The righteous poor stand

under Yahweh's protection; the unjust rich are no less

condemned than those poor by their own fault. The former

may anticipate deliverance; the riches of the unjust

wealthy will be their windfall. A asserts individual

responsibility at the root of his fate. But A also shows

a concern for collective responsibility, so that a com-

munity's fortunes ride on the individual dispositions of

its members. Person and community form an indissoluble

unity and share a common fate. Righteousness precedes

wisdom, so the emphasis is on conduct in everyday life.

Since cult is a special circumstance, one should

avoid drawing many conclusions from the few references to

cult. It stands outside the area of principal interest,

and seems to have been the sine qua non of righteousness.

277

While A evidences a positive concern for agriculture and

husbandry, some for artisanry, and little for trade or

city life, we cannot easily locate the collection in

Hebrew society. It mentions student and teacher alike,

but without obvious didactic intent. It seems to have

aimed at reaching no narrowly definable social group. A

is an excursus depicting the broadest implications of

righteous and unrighteous patterns of conduct into which

even the most seemingly ethically neutral sayings fit in-

separably.¹

Collection D, by contrast, sees to have been a

Fürstenspiegel, to instruct young men in right life and

right governing. This characterization is supported by

the peculiarities of this collection:

1. das starke Hervortreten von Rechtsfragen und,

gesellschaftlichen Problemen,

2. die ausserordentliche Hochschätzung des Armen,

der geradezu mit dem Gerechten (Weisen) gleich-

gesetzt werden kann, and vor allem

3. die sich an den Herrscher selbst wendenden

Königsspruche.²

Over half of all the sayings are directed toward a ruler

or some rich high-placed personage, and the others are

consistent with such an intention. These sayings concern

legal problems of particular significance to the king,

responsibility for the poor and for society in general,

¹Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, pp. 7-24.

²Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, p. 66.

278

warnings against the misapplication of wealth, against

acts of violence, usury, extortion and partisanship.

Skladny finds useful similarities in content to the

Regentenspiegel in II Samuel 23:1-7 and Psalm 101, and

infers a relationship to the royal wisdom attributed to

Solomon (i.e., "richterliche Regentenweisheit," a hear-

ing heart, ability to govern the people well).¹ He con-

cludes that the collection addresses that young aristo-

crat who is destined to gain power and to rule, to

acquaint him with what he must know in order to discharge

his office or the kingship successfully and competently.

Special emphasis is placed by D on the ruler's

responsibility toward the poor. While D continues to

assert the view that the poor and the rich generally are

individually responsible for their station in life, D

sharpens the poor man's status as a creature of Yahweh

to whom God will be merciful. To Yahweh, riches have no

meaning; he is interested in man's integrity and upright-

ness. Especially at law, the ruler or high official must

adopt a similar stance. D displays considerable sympathy

for the poor, but it also warns against the avariciously

rapid acquisition of wealth. Such greed leads to poverty,

death, and even despoliation of the land.

¹Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, p. 67.

279

In D, the antitheses recur. Again, prime emphasis

rests on the opposite pair righteous-wicked, for which

wise-fool are virtually synonyms in actual usage. As in

A, wisdom is ultimately ethical, not intellectual. The

language supports the imputation to D of a similar

Haltung-Schicksal-Zusammenhang to that in A, of which

Yahweh is once more the guarantor. The same tension

exists, too, between individualism and collectivism.

While one is primarily responsible himself for what he

experiences in life, whether fortune or misfortune, wealth

or poverty, the community shares a common fate. The ruler

in particular bears responsibility for the well-being of

his society.¹

In collection B, the differences are of quite

another order. This material evidences a change in the

relationship of action and outcome, a modification in the

understanding of Yahweh, a sharp decline in references to

the righteous man, and a new group to whom it is directed.

This collection, argues Skladny, can legitimately be

compared with the Egyptian instructions. He compares

the themes and reviews the problematic relationship of

wise man and scribe. He concludes that B was written to

educate young men for vocations in the royal service, and

¹Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, pp. 57-67.

280

that B constitutes a Beamten- or Diplomatenspiegel.

Sicher handelt es sich bei ihr [i.e., a Sitz-im-

Leben] um eine Unterweisung, die den von ihr

Angeredeten--ausgehend von den sich auf alle

Lebensbereiche erstreckenden Forderungen Jahwes

und von der Anerkennung seiner Souveränität--an

vorwiegend negativ geformten Bildern und Beispielen

ihre Verantwortung im Alltagsleben deutlich machen

soll. Dafür, dass B eine bewusst zusammengestellte

Unterweisung ist, sprechen die Vielzahl der in B

behandelten Themen und die dominierende Stellung

der Jahwe-Königssprüche.¹

As soon as one says "instruction," then Egypt

becomes the relevant and obvious point of comparison for

this collection more than any other. The role of Yahweh

has changed, too, based on two experiences: on

1. der Erfahrung des Qualitätsunterschiedes zwischen

Mensch und Jahwe und dem daraus erwachsenden Schuld-

bewusstsein auch des Gerechten,

2. der Erfahrung Jahwes als des souverän Schöpfers

und Lenkers der Welt und des Menschen, der den Weg

des Menschen dirigieren kann, ohne den Menschen

deshalb aus seiner Eigenverantwortlichkeit zu

entlassen und ohne den Zusammenhang zwischen Guttat

und Heil bzw. Frevel und Unheil aufzulösen.²

First, B has discovered an unbridgeable gulf be-

tween human and divine righteousness, so that no man can

stand fully just before his creator. Man's responsibility

to god, the cosmic order and his fellow men rests upon his

recognition of his createdness vis-a-vis god. This quali-

tative separation between Yahweh and people does not lead

¹Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, p. 43.

²Skladny, Spruchsammlungen,.p. 28.

281

the B writer(s) to pessimism or despair as in some other

wisdom literature; B retains the optimism, though not

perhaps the naivité, of A and D. Further, Yahweh is now

more than guarant. He does not transcend the synthesis

of retribution so-called, but he does intervene between

the thoughts and schemes that arise in the human mind and

their enactment so that he emerges as the director and

implementer of a person's life. There is still no doc-

trine of (free) grace. For B as for the other collections,

the cult should remain considered the sine qua non of

right life and action.

The role of the king, however, has become more

elevated consistent with the rising view of god, so that

he is almost more divine than human. The king's charac-

teristics to B are quite positive, for he is identified

with righteousness, goodness, truth, and wisdom. He re-

mains under the superior dominion of Yahweh, though.¹

B speaks about the wise man and the fool, the

righteous person and the wicked, in strikingly concrete

terms when compared with the previous two collections.

Here one can list specific actions which identify these

people. Righteous and wicked now take on a distinctly

juridical coloring, which Skladny believes is secondary

¹Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, pp. 25-29.

282

to the earlier ethical meaning. B concentrates on the

negative terms and pays close attention to the effects on

others beyond the consequences for the evil-doer himself.

Of course, generalizations and abstractions do not disap-

pear. In discussing wisdom and folly, B displays a rich

vocabulary without discernible preferences. Here, too,

the ethical sense has declined and wisdom acquires the

implication of cunning or wit.

A considerable overlap between wise and righteous-

ness, evil and folly continues. For B, the fool is

virtually ineducable. There is a kind and depth of folly

in the face of which no amount of (corporal) punishment

or censure will avail. The "callow youth," on the other

hand, can be taught; there is a fundamental difference

between ignorance and folly.

Finally, B's interest in concrete acts may mean a

growing scepticism toward the absolute invariability of

the Lebenshaltung-Schicksal-Zusammenhang—as evidenced by

the mounting concern for the poor in A and D and the

sharp distinction between divine and human righteousness

here. B concentrates on specific acts and their conse-

quences; one must speak of a Tat-Folge-Einheit now pre-

dominating, qualified by scepticism:¹

¹Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, pp. 25-46.

283

Typisch für diese vorsichtigere Beurteilung der

Tat-Folge-Einheit ist die grosse Zahl der Sprüche

(in B), in denen eine Tat durch ein einfeches

"tōb" (bzw. "1'ō-tōb") charakterisiert und ge-

wertet wird, ohne dass von einer konkreten (Heils-

oder Unheils-) Folge gesprochen wird, sowie vor

allem auch ein Spruch wie 19, 10, in dem eine

positive Folge als zu einer negativen Handlung

"nicht passend" beschrieben wird. Hier bleibt

also die (schnelle) Durchsetzung der Tat-Folge-

Einheit völlig offen, denn das "Unpassende" kann

durchaus (zumindest zeitweilig) geschehen--wie

die Erfahrung den Weisen gelehrt haben mag.¹

Finally, collection C orients itself toward

simpler folk, while god and king stand at the greatest

remove. C is manifestly, at least in Skladny's mind,

Bauernethik. References to nature, to the weather, to

plants and animals as well as other natural entities, and

to the agricultural life, along with an emphasis on many

kinds of artisanry, support this view. Little mention is

made of trade, but city life recurs. Legal sayings cover

the same topics as other collections. Importantly, the

king and his court are treated with the highest respect

and deference—the mind of the king seems no more search-

able than that of God.

Yahweh is virtually never mentioned except in

passing as guarant of the Tat-Folge-Einheit in a simple

kind of prooftext saying. Instead, C concentrates on

practical grounds for right action, presumably in accord

¹Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, p. 36.

284

with the interests of its hearers. Peasant and artisan

have little use for vaunted theologies; concrete valida-

tion of wisdom is required beyond the simplest sort of

religious justification. Yahweh, therefore, is still

more remote and unsearchable than in B, his mind the

more unknowable.

The distinction between the ineducable fool and

the educable but ignorant youth appears here as in B.

Further, the explicit contradiction at 26:4-5 suggests

that the wise man-teacher had to thread a path between

extremes, using his judgment in applying his learning and

insight.

C is searching for a middle path, not simply giving

concrete action over to absolute freedom. Wisdom as such

is scarcely mentioned, but the fool appears often. Folly

is now an intellectual defect, not an ethical one. Still,

[d]ie meisten Aussagaen über den Klugen bzw. den

Dummen haben jedoch überraschenderweise ein

sittliches Verhalten zum Inhalt (wie Treue, Versch-

wiegenheit usw.) und verwandeln es erst durch die

hinzufügte Begründang für das Bewusstsein dessen,

der so handeln soll, in ein kluges und darum

anziehenderes Handeln.¹

The righteous man is mentioned only once. Much more em-

phasis is placed, à la B, on negative than positive

¹Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, p. 52.

285

characteristics.¹

Skladny's recognition that his evidence leads to

two opposing chronologies and scenarios is prophetic,

for Schmid actually reverses the processes Skladny postu-

lates. Skladny argues that C cannot be the oldest col-

lection, in spite of its superficial secular tone and

more simplistic setting, because of form-critical con-

siderations: the fairly heavy use of Mahnsprüche, the

presence of many contrasts. If one neglects tone, more-

over, one can argue that a process of progressive abstrac-

tion led from an emphasis on the individual deed and its

specific consequence to broad patterns of life.

Skladny contends that the A and D collections

clearly display a naive and optimistic tone. Pattern

arises not from abstraction but from a failure, or per-

haps better unwillingness, to distinguish the activity

of the mind--plans and intentions--from acts and outcomes.

While A obviously, to Skladny, must be placed early in

Hebrew history, D represents a wisdom that has already

become affiliated with the royal court. Otherwise, they

are quite similar in content and form; thus, they must

reflect a process of courtly appropriation.

B reflects the expansion of courtly wisdom to a

¹Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, pp. 46-57.

286

system of education for the official administration.

Wisdom has expanded of necessity to meet the demands of

government. At the same time, B represents a growing

dissatisfaction with the rather naive "retribution" of

A and D in the face of disconfirming experiences. B

sees a requirement for more personal relationship with

god and a more active role for Yahweh in the working out

of events. The B writer(s) finds this possibility in a

(newly-found) space between reflection and action. The

validity of a basic doctrine of recompense remains, but

Yahweh may act to block plans and motives, barring their

fulfillment for purposes of his own. The intention never

comes to deed. At the same time, Yahweh becomes in-

creasingly remote ethically. The assumption that one can

simply be righteous implicit in the earlier dichotomies

declines. Yahweh's' righteousness is so higher than man's

in qualitative terms that by comparison man is sinful by

any divine standard.

C, on the other hand, reflects a movement of wisdom

in the later monarchy, or at the very least before the

time of Ezekiel (whose view of the righteous man living

individually by his righteousness and whose pessimism could

not but have influenced this wisdom if it had already

been disseminated), away from the royal court and into

the smaller communities of the country. It reflects an

287

increasing democratization of wisdom, a decentralization

of wisdom institutions, and a concern for natural life as

the sphere (for whatever reason, perhaps political dif-

ficulties) in which one can still be wise. Nevertheless,

the position of the king remains that of the regent of

god and guarantor with Yahweh of the worldly order. His

position becomes increasingly exalted, alongside that of

his god.¹

Skladny's arguments counter Schmid's analysis of

space and time in wisdom, at least with respect to the

aphoristic literature.²The more inner-worldly wisdom is

later; the naive systematism by comparison is early.

Wisdom finds its place in the world through various his-

torical and social processes: democratization, decentrali-

zation, the quest for personalization of god. Naive-.

optimistic wisdom was first appropriated by the court;

only later did it become historicized. Perhaps, though,

depending on what predecessors one finds for collection

A, early and late wisdom were far more historical in

Schmid's sense (i.e., "genuine wisdom" soi-disant) than

intermediate but not through any process of re-historici-

zation. Further, there is no scepticism equals pessimism

¹Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, pp. 67-95.

²Schmid, Wesen and Geschichte der Weisheit, pp.

79-84.

288

equation.

Skladny definitely finds evidence for sacred

space in the distinctions made among righteous and wicked,

wise and fool, educable and ineducable. This language

reflects distinct social gulfs, class distinctions and

bounds for (divine?) righteousness. The difference be-

tween fool and ignorant youth is particularly important.

There are gradients of wisdom in "space" (i.e., social

space) that suggest an analysis along the lines of van

der Leeuw's sacred space.¹ Skladny finds no proleptic

wisdom, but he also places any activity of Yahweh prior

to deed so as to preserve the doctrine of recompense,

rejecting "retributionism" as too legalistic and mechani-

cal. Skladny's view of late wisdom is far more oriented

toward the present than past or future. The longer view

of time, with less emphasis on the immediate present, is

that of early, not late, wisdom. Synthesis breaks down;

it does not build up.²

Collection B is a vital clue for Skladny because

¹G. van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Mani-

festation, trans. J. E. Turner with Appendices to the

Paperback edition incorporating the additions of the

second German edition by Hans H. Penner, 2 vols. (New

York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1963), 1:43 ff. Cf. his

concept of sacred word, 2:403 ff.

²Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, pp. 67-95.

289

of its particular attention to the role of Yahweh. It

will be our text for examining these proposals about

space and time to see if they square with the evidence.

It should be evident that Proverbs represents an

admixture of forms. On the basis of our earlier discus-

sion of the varieties of wisdom, we may infer that,

whether or not a single group was behind the production

of the materials later incorporated into the Book, the

Book as we have it has been assembled cut of different

kinds of materials with varying purposes and literary ob-

jectives. From this, scarcely profound, observation, one

can move further to two possible positions. The most ex-

treme is to regard this material as an assemblage of es-

sentially unrelated materials. In this sense, the sec-

tions we discern as collections are spurious structure--

they should actually be taken to point to the still

greater unrelated character of the materials. This view

does not mean that the materials are absolutely random

nor that various kinds of sayings cannot be delimited.

Rather, it says that these distinctions are essentially

immaterial to the Book in its present form, however im-

portant they may be for the history of wisdom thought.

The second position states that while blocks of materials

may have come together, they have been heavily redacted

to reflect the views of a later time--specifically, that

essentially secular wisdom sayings have been theologized.

290

Two versions of the first view have been asserted

with respect to the four mashal collections A through D.

The first is the folk-wisdom position we have already re-

jected on form-critical grounds. These sayings differ

systematically and sharply from what we know of folk

wisdom in Israel.

The second has more recently been set out by

McKane. He rejects Skladny's theories, and himself uses

the word "random" in relegating the poetic and paronomastic

devices to strictly secondary significance.

. . . I do not place a very high value on the con-

cept of a 'collection' as applied to the sentence

literature, and I am sceptical of Skladny's efforts

to discover in 'collections,' of wisdom sentences

such a coherence of theme and consistency of

artistic intention that he can describe a 'collec-

tion' as if it constituted an architectonic unity.

In such literature there is no context, for each

sentence is an entity in itself and the collection

amounts to no more than the gathering together of

a large number of independent sentences, each of

which is intended to be a well-considered and

definitive observation on a particular topic.²

To this position, McKane adds an extremely re-

strictive definition of mashal--as the statement of a

striking image with "high representative potential" and

"openness to interpretation"--in terms of which few of

¹McKane, Proverbs, p. 10.

²McKane, Proverbs, p. 413.

291

the sayings in these collections qualify as meshalism!¹

Since the sayings are random, McKane contends

that they are best understood through a classification

system which respects the self-contained nature of such

sentences, but uses their content to ascertain the chang-

ing historical circumstances from which they come. Thus,

McKane accepts Gese's position that one cannot draw mar-

ginal historical distinctions between collections, while

rejecting his agreement with Skladny that Mahnsprüche are

derivative from Aussagen.² In Gese's discovery of alter-

native wisdom interpretations, McKane finds the basis for

arguing that the classifications reflect a progressive

process of reinterpretation of wisdom that went on in

Israel. Statistical analysis of the collections in terms

of these classifications confounds Skladny's distinctions

--materials from various periods in Hebrew wisdom thought

stand side-by-side.³

In fairness to Gese, we must point out that

McKane's interpretation of his remarks anticipates con-

clusions MoKane wishes to draw from his own evidence.

¹McKane, Proverbs, p. 414.

²See Appendix, Table 13.

³Gese, Lehre und Wirklichkeit, pp. 37-33; Schmid,

Wesen und Geschichte der Weisheit, pp. 159-63; McKane,

Proverbs, pp. 13-16; Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, pp. 67-95.

292

Compare the following:

The distinctive element in Gese's account is that

he supposes a secondary Yahwistic interpretation

to have operated on certain of the verses in which

there is an explicit mention of Yahweh's action,

and that with this reinterpretation the sentences

are no longer compatible with the concept of order

characteristic of the older wisdom in Israel and

comparable with the Egyptian Maat. According to

Gese, these sentences (10.22; 16.1, 9, 33; 20.24;

21.1, 30, 31; 25.2) emphasize the freedom of Yahweh

from any metaphysical order and are evidence of a

tension between Yahwism and old wisdom which ulti-

mately precipitates the crisis of wisdom in Job

and Ecclesiastes.¹

Es ist uns unmöglich, diese . . . Sprüche

chronologisch von den übrigen zu scheiden. Sie

kommen verstreut in den ältesten Sammlungen vor

and sind sicher nicht sekundär eingetragen. Im

Gegenteil, sie bilden mit den anderen Sprüchen

zusammen ein, wenn auch spannungsgeladenes, Ganzes:

Es ist wohl die Liebe zum Paradoxen, das man--

wenigstens in der Formulierung--auch in der

Sprichwortliteratur findet, die das Nebeneinander

zweier Welten in der israelitischen Weisheitslehre

möglich macht.²

Actually, McKane historicizes and expands the

differentiation made by Gese, on the basis of linguistic

confirmations of his classifications. Concepts and words

treated positively in one kind of saying are regarded

pejoratively in another, within the same “collection.”

In other cases the change is less drastic, but necessi-

tated by a growing Yahwism--certain wisdom claims must

be reserved to Yahweh. In one case (13:14 versus 14:27),

¹McKane, Proverbs, pp. 15-16.

²Gese, Lehre und Wirklichkeit, p. 49,

293

this change works a substitution. McKane contends that

these differences are less well explained as the result

of conflicting contemporaneous viewpoints (schools) than

as a process of historical reinterpretation--that theologi-

zation is in fact the minimalist hypothesis.

McKane distinguishes three classes of sayings

representing different stages in the process of reinterpre-

tation found generally throughout Proverbs' sentences:

Class A: These sentences are set in the frame-

work of old wisdom, and concerned with the question

of the-individual for a successful and harmonious

life.

Class B: Here ,the centre of concern is the com-

munity rather than the individual, and the sentences

in this class have, for the most part, a negative

character, in that they describe the harmful effects

on the life of the community of various manifesta-

tions of anti-social behaviour.

Class C: These are identified by the presence

of God-language or by other items of vocabulary

expressive of a moralism which derives from Yah-

wistic piety.¹

McKane's use of the term "sentence" reflects his

view that most of these sayings are instructions in form;

they are self-conscious literary products intended for

mundane instruction, modeled on the true mashal, which

had a strictly popular origin, Class B, like A, is non-

theological, but concerned with this-worldly existence.

B sayings have interiorized the Hebrew mythology of

death. For this reason, McKane thinks they are the sayings

¹McKane, Proverbs, p. 415 (cf. p. 11).

294

the modern reader finds most attractive: death becomes

alienation. Its implicit theological foundation remains

its concern with the life of the Hebrew community.¹

We raise two objections to this line of argument.

First, Proverbs in its present form is a literary docu-

ment with a literary history (whether it was originally

oral or written literature is immaterial). Somehow this

document came together into its present form. While

McKane contends that the differences among many of the

collections so-called are small, we hold that small varia-

tions are not therefore to be disregarded. Some principle

of selection must have been at work to produce the present

document, just as another principle of selection was at

work, however implicitly, in the process by which the

wise selected those aspects of their experience on which

to reflect and comment. In-selection and out-selection

do reflect views of the world. McKane refuses to consider

or discuss the principles of selection that led in chapters

10-15 to a dominance of antithetic parallel form, while

16-22:16 emphasize synonymity and synthesis. Some pro-

cess of composition is going on. If McKane wishes to

argue that the material originated in a diversity of

settings, he still must deal with the editorial act that

¹McKane, Proverbs, pp. 21-22.

295

brought together certain materials to form a written and

transmittable (because it was in fact transmitted) work.

However inadequate the term "collection" may be to express

the process whereby the literary compositions of the wise

came into being, surely he does not wish to argue that

the Book is the product of an entire class over time--

some person or small group imposed its views on the ma-

terial. It seems methodologically unsound to deny that

the selective principles are recoverable pre-analytically

though he might be correct post-analytically (as a matter

of descriptive fact). Interestingly, McKane can argue

that although these materials are, like "real" meshalim,

self-contained, they reveal enough of the circumstances of

their composition and use that one can, in part on the

basis of form, distinguish the instructions from true

meshalim. They do in fact reveal something of them-

selves.

Our second point follows from this observation.

McKane hauls in the back door what he tosses out the

front. The classifications amount to historical descrip-

tions, in spite of the term "reinterpretation." That

these classes are strewn through the Book in no way

vitiates the implication that at least three separate

historical traditions existed that came to be, by pro-

cesses unknown, interleaved with one another in a single

document. If the sayings were truly random, self-

296

contained and descending from a variety of settings,

then any simple systematic classification would be at

best doubtful and at worst unsound.

These two points are methodological; to them,

we add a practical consideration. McKane's classifica-

tions are, by his own admission, intuitive. Hence, his

statistical analysis is essential to their validation,

to the extent that any such analysis--Skladny's included

--can be valid with such numbers and types of data. His

figures show sharp differences in proportions of sayings

from chapter to chapter, lesser variations from "collec-

tion" to "collection." While the figures disagree with

Skladny, they do not as such prove themselves. Why do

C and D differ so significantly from the norm? What do

the numbers mean? Classification after all is not

theory. For example, the apparent randomness of the

classes could mean that McKane's types are in fact arbi-

trary. Being arbitrary, they appear without notable

pattern, except for the normal variations within an ad-

mittedly small sample. In other words, McKane's-methods

demand the kind of theory he eschews.

Recently, Scott has sided with McKane in reject-

ing the collectional approach to aphoristic wisdom in

Proverbs, but without adopting the view of randomness un-

critically. Thus, Scott represents the second option:

297

that the present work reflects a long process of accretion

of materials from diverse sources.

These bodies of material are not homogeneous, and

there is overlapping between them in subject matter,

phraseology and literary forms. The differences

among them are mainly differences in proportion of

the several elements of their contents.

To call these divisions of the text "collec-

tions" is again to beg the question. . . . The

present Book of Proverbs is better seen as the end

result of a centuries-long process of composition,

supplementing, editing and scribal transmission, a

process which has blurred some lines of demarcation

between its constituent parts.²

We discussed Scott's evidence for these statements

earlier: the uncertain and unreliable relationship be-

tween superscriptions and text, apparent displacements of

the Hebrew text, and the occurrence of duplicates and

variants in a pattern that does not match the supposed

structure of he collections.

Though Scott underplays the significance of his

modification of McKane's position, the emphasis on the

accretion process is critical. Scott postulates no random

and incomprehensible processes. While the redactoral pro-

cess is not known with any certainty, it can and should

be studied--presumably therefore the evidence for that

study is in the text. While the present theoretically

obtained structure of Proverbs is spurious, Scott argues

¹Scott, Proverbs, p. 17.

²Scott, “Wise and Foolish,” pp. 146-65.

298

that we can make progress toward understanding the text

through a more elaborate set of classifications than

McKane's. Scott first rejects McKane's B class. He then

postulates the following:

A. Secular sayings (Religious belief is not ex-

pressed or implied, though the writers may have been

religious men).

1. Folk sayings (or literary couplets based on

folk sayings) which are more suitable to exchanges

between adults "meeting in the gate" than to

authoritarian instruction of youth in home or

school.

2. Folk sayings or their derivatives which

seek to impress on the hearers the moral standards

and values of home and community, but without any

indication that these are grounded in an unseen

order of reality.

3. Teaching proverbs in literary couplet form

in which wise men and fools are characterized and

their opposite fortunes are emphasized. The ap-

parent setting is that of schools for youth who

aspire to a "higher education" than was received

in the home or tribal community.

4. Teaching proverbs more specifically directed

to the professional training of scribes and public

officials.

B. Sayings which make use of specifically religious

language or relate teachings of wisdom to those of

religion.

5. Sayings which exhibit the contrast between

the siaddiq and the raša^c as in the third group the

hiakam is contrasted with the k^esil/’^ewil.

6. Sayings which portray Yahweh as a present,

active and determining factor in the life experience

of individual persons.

7. Sayings which introduce the phrase “fear of,

Yahweh” with the meaning “piety, religious belief.”¹

Categories three and five explain, for Scott, the notice-

able lack of overlap between these two vocabularies--the

¹Scott, "Wise and Foolish," pp. 154-60. This

chart summarizes Scott's distinctions which he elaborates

in considerably more detail.

299

antitheses were opposite in their own terms and not inter-

changeable, except perhaps in the area of "moral recti-

tude."¹

Two important points should be noted. First,

Scott recognizes that instructional wisdom may make use

of folk forms modified, so he allows for imitation or

modification in the first two classes (i.e., a redaction

process). Second, at least the last two kinds of ma-

terials may reflect later processes of redaction and

annotation of an already solidified work. Again, Scott

accords redaction a place; McKane denies it.

Both these views undermine our approach by argu-

ing that no view unites any collection, though McKane's

view, if correct, would be the most unyielding. The

final validation of our inquiry must await our conclu-

sions—its proof is its applicability and informativeness.

We can however state some grounds for assuming that some

consistent world-view is discernible within potentially

diverse materials, though the final proof of some points

would require an independent, and perhaps lengthy, in-

quiry to establish with greater confidence. We base our

work on eight points.

First, a long tradition of scholarship, from

¹Scott, “Wise and Foolish,” p. 161.

300

Casanowitz to Boström, has shown the importance of

paronomasia, assonance and catch-words to the structure

of Hebrew poetry and particularly to the Book of Proverbs.

Not only are word-plays and puns, repetitions of sounds,

uses of different forms from the same root, spurious (for

poetic effect) roots, and multiplication of synonyms em-

ployed to form individual sayings, but the same poetic

devices appear to tie together successive sayings into a

whole. The importance of such a pattern should not be

minimized; we saw one application at the seam between

collections A and B. Paronomasia clearly establishes

editorial intent when used as systematically as in

Proverbs. The pattern cannot be either random or

fortuitous; to contribute it to abstract verbal associa-

tion or the mnemonic associative process of oral litera-

ture begs the question. Again, one faces both the issue

of selection and the problem of the selector. We sub-

mit, further, that the extensive pattern of verbal

¹Immanuel M. Casanowicz, "Paronomasia in the Old

Testament," Journal of Biblical Literature 12 (1893): 105-

67; H. Reckendort, Über Paronomasie in den Semitischen

Sorachen: ein Beitrag zur Allgemeinen Scrachwissenschaft

(Giessen: Verlag von Alfred Töpelmann (vormals J. Ricker),

1909); Gustav Boström, Paronomasi i den äldere Hebreiska

Maschalliteratur: med särskild Hänsyn till Proverbia,

Acta Universitatis Lundensis, Nova Series, Lunds Univer-

sitets Årsskrift, Ny Följo, Avdelningen 1: Teologi,

Juristik och Humanistika Ämnen, vol. 23, no. 8 (Lund:

-- C. W. K. Gleerup, 1928); A. Guillaume, "Paronomasia in

the Old Testament," Journal of Semitic Studies 9 (1964):

282-90. See also Semitics 1 for several related articles.

301

association demonstrated in our discussion of the A-B seam

is typical of Proverb's structure. While Boström has

adequately shown the catch-word structure, much further

work remains to be done on other paronomastic verbal

associations, which would, I think, buttress claims of

systematic compositional or redactoral activity. That

certain blocks of material are related by theme and

poetic structure, therefore form, can scarcely be denied--

it is far too well documented by scholarship.¹ One may

take issue with the term "collection" for describing the

process whereby these blocks and other materials became

a written document, but that such units existed seems as

certain as anything in literary history can be. We

argue, therefore, that paronomasia establishes a pattern

of association of sayings. Poetic system added to

thematic organization (of blocks) suggests a determin-

able organization.

Second, neither Scott nor McKane takes sufficient

account of the known rhetorical devices of the wise which

would provide an alternative and less drastic explanation

of some of their evidence. The wise, for example, clearly

prefer in the context of brief sayings to state matters

in general terms, without regard to exceptions and cases.

¹See Appendix, Table 9.

302

They speak generically and at some level of abstraction.

The antitheses are definitely general and generic.¹ Since

a number of sayings clearly emphasize a propriety of oc-

casion, sayings which conflict may be resolved by appeal-

ing to relevant differences in situation--the wise man

does not respond to life through the rote application of

formulae to experience.²Part of being wise may be the

ability to sense the relevant characteristic of a situa-

tion so that he may know how to make use of his stock of

experience. Descriptions of the functions of proverbs,

McKane's included, stress the power of the saying to struc-

ture and interpret experience. We should recognize the

confirmatory dimension to this application. Citation of

the relevant saying confirms, proves, demonstrates with

authority the validity of one's interpretation. Part of

its “oracular” power is its affirmation, "this situation

now makes sense and I understand it in (approved) terms

by which I can effectively respond." The suggestion that

some proverbs may have been cited as case-decisions in

law makes sense in this connection. The battle of wits in

Ahiikar suggests the not-unfamiliar battle of the proverbs

from our own milieu: and the appeal to conflicting

¹See Appendix, Table 7.

²See Appendix, Table 14.

303

authorities is well-known in virtually all movements.

Further, repetition of sayings, the use of stock phrases,

and repetition of sayings with small but all-important

variations, all are known poetic devices in Israel as

elsewhere. That the wise should use them in poetry

scarcely requires resort to the atomization of wisdom

writing and composition. The replacement of some phrase

by a theological statement may represent theologization;

it may also reflect qol-wahiomer reasoning. If due piety

be the sine qua non of wisdom, the irony of such substitu-

tions would be obvious to the hearer. While one of the

two sayings must be original nevertheless, a long histori-

cal separation or some nationalization process is not

essential. In other words, failure to recognize rhetorical

devices in wisdom, where the use of such devices is widely

attested, may be the creature of our historical presup-

positions about the developments of wisdom thought.

Our third point follows from this statement. We

have seen that some accepted theories about the develop-

ment of wisdom are dependent on Hegelian philosophical

commitments and conclusions grounded in Germanic studies.

The nationalization of late wisdom cannot be disputed,

but a similar shorter process is hard to prove. One de-

pends heavily on the analogy from Egypt and on certain

assumptions about the theological character of international

304

wisdom. One cannot easily prove whether Israel ever had

an essentially secular court wisdom confined to the elite

and their heirs that was a-theistic, so-called, in tone

because so much of the development of early court wisdom

and the official "bureaucracy" is tied up in the legend

of Solomon. Blocks of court material in Proverbs are

really too brief to give assured judgments. McKane's

Class B certainly recognizes the possibility of an im-

plicit community theology. The association of royal and

elite wisdom is ill-founded because of the fundamental

difference in relationships of power (in support of which,

witness the dubeity of "royal authorship" in early Egyp-

tian wisdom). In brief, we should be careful not to

historicize our philosophical pre-commitments, however

useful they be in formulating research hypotheses and

analyzing data. We are always in danger of finding what

we expect to find. We should be careful not to make

'wisdom' so rigid and inflexible, so dogmatic in its as-

sertions of retributionism, that it becomes a caricature,

particularly in light of the humanitarian elements some

scholars see as so bound up with the essence of wisdom

thought. We should preserve the wit, sympathy, and

perhaps "sense of distance from self and world" that

makes a world-view attractive to its adherents. To wit,

we should preserve our methodological sympathy and

305

empathy for a view, even when it does not find in us an

elective affinity.

Fourth, in line with Point Two, we should recog-

nize the relationship between language and context. For

example, the antitheses provide two (or more) opposing

vocabularies, each appropriate to its context. The same

may apply to other dimensions of wisdom, specifically the

yahweh-sayings. Pre-analytically, references to a god

seem to call for a different kind of discourse than

references to people. Hence, what does it mean when we

find that certain views about Yahweh find equivalents in

no non-Yahweh contexts?--The more, if the wise do in fact

rely on rhetorical generalization. To the extent that,

for the wise, Yahweh limited or conditioned experience,

one would expect these qualifications to appear only

within the relevant generic statements, those about Yahweh

himself, and typically not within sayings about the events

conditioned. Further, Yahweh presents a special dimen-

sion to life, since he cannot compassed within the same

kind of antitheses as many other (generic) aspects of ex-

perience. While we might propose a functional antithesis

--wholly implicit--on theoretical grounds as a contrary

to the sacred, in these four mashal collections there is

scarcely the barest suggestion of personalized evil.

That suggestion exists only if one so interprets the

306

‘yšh-zrh of chapters 1-9 and then reads that interpreta-

tion into the very occasional mentions of harlotry. In

the absence of an explicit dualism, the language used to

comprehend Yahweh should naturally differ from that used

other circumstances by the wise. If Yahweh is discussed in

generic terms, the qualifications of experience must

find some other mode of expression than in antitheses. Fur-

ther, if Yahweh stands entirely above the worldly order, as

guarant, rather than within it (so Würthwein), than he

stands outside or above the antitheses as such--the same

kind of generic balanced discourse does not apply to him

that applies to the rest of life. To conclude that the

theological language represents a later redaction on

grounds of content, one must show that they present a

world-view fundamentally at variance with that of the

sayings-context in which they appear.

Fifth, the aphoristic literature is terse, McKane

emphasizes the objective of this literature to open or

unveil experience, its metaphoric character. The sayings

are quintessentially poetry, to be related and under-

stood in poetic terms. One can hardly dispute their use

of poetic devices to achieve their literary purpose.

Though the parallelistic approach of Hebrew poetry en-

ables us to ferret out many of the technical terms of a

particular literature, these sayings' brevity and their

poetic rather than thematic associations plus the enormous

307

diversity of experience that they reflect, all mean that

we discern clearly only some of the technical terminology,

quotations, and stock phrases of the literature. Brevity

and openness limit our ability to specify even those

terms we do know with assurance to be technical. Typical

of this problem is the dispute in wisdom studies over.

Vergeltung--precisely what relationships did obtain

among intent, act and consequence in the Hebrew wise man's

mind? Here again we must be governed by a certain empathy

which enables us to appreciate the wholeness of the ma-

terial without caricature. Still, the poetic structure

of the sayings also means that redactoral efforts should

be fairly apparent through inconsistencies and problems

in the text. The problems of "seamlessly" redacting a

poetic text are nothing short of notorious. The tradi-

tional division of Proverbs into “collections” is founded

on precisely such problems. Alternative, hypotheses of

the composition of the Book should present us with simi-

lar kinds of evidence to be convincing. In sum, the

aphoristic literature, amounts to poetic, not just "ra-

tional," modes of thought given poetic forms of expression.

Poetry imposes certain kinds of limitations on attempts to

comprehend it in terms of another non-poetic logic. On

the other hand, understood poetically, the literature

yields itself both to properly poetic interpretation and

308

to techniques of form-criticism proven in dealing with

other poetic materials.

Sixth, however we understand the proverbs, we

should offer an intelligible redaction-history of the

Book. For example, the catch-word and paronomastic pat-

terns which connect various proverbs simply cannot be

adventitious nor accidental. They are intrinsic to the

literature and require explanation. Groupings of sayings

must be accounted for, along with disruptions and in-

cursions into the text we mean by “intelligible redac-

tion-history” more than just our earlier point that the

document came into being, selections were made, patterns

do appear, and the Book must at some time have served

some literary purpose which "random" outrightly ignores.

Rather, the sequence of events whereby the document came

into being should be historically plausible, consonant

with our understanding of other events and circumstances

of the period, and should present a likely and under-

standable state of affairs and set of social processes

to account for developments. Hence, we question the

citation of the LXX against the MT to show that the yahweh-

sayings near 16:1 come late.¹ The poetic interrelationship

depends on Hebrew word-plays and assonances which have few

corresponding Greek equivalents--a sequence of puns,

¹Boström, Paronomasi, p. 162.

309

synonyms and sounds would be difficult to represent in

aay language without detailed explanation. The Greek

translator is known to have omitted and substituted when

it served his purposes. The disruption is as or more

easily understood as occurring at the point of transla-

tion or subsequently than in the Hebrew through redaction.

Scott and McKane both depend heavily on a process of

theologization to explain the motives of the redactors

or contributors. Yet, how does one explain the seemingly

arbitrary pattern of revision which allowed duplicates

and variants to remain in the text, which in one place

respected the text by assembling sayings at the seam and

yet elsewhere strew them willy-nilly, and which worked

a cross-purposes in different parts of the text. Thus,

Skladny bases his marginal differentiations upon (to him)

discernible differences in the treatment of Yahweh in the

text. Would not the yahwizing editor-contributor at

least be consistent with himself? Further, some blocks

of material serve clear purposes. The hortatory dis-

courses at the beginning and middle of the Book are clearly

formal instructions: they belong to a didactic setting.

Foreign wisdom is quoted, not accreted--some group pre-

served it. The psalm scarcely came from a folk milieu;.

its association with a group possessing a formalized

poetry and tradition of wise women is obvious. The four

310

mashal collections depart from the instructional form and

must have served some other purpose. Nevertheless, they

are an organized, sophisticated and fairly rigid poetry

with a restricted and quite precise vocabulary (a point

essential to Scott's argument) which is intrinsic to its

view of the world. Whether or not its inspiration may

have lain in folk expression, the materials before us are

neither folk in form nor folk in use. Von Rad may be too

pessimistic when he thinks the distant past of wisdom

thought lies unrecoverable at present, but he points out

the need to deal, as first order of business, with the

(traditional and historical) form of the materials in

front of us.¹ Blocks of distinctly-formed materials are

recognizable in Proverbs and should first be understood

as such.² The classification approach, therefore we sub-

mit, jumps a step in the analytic process.

Seventh, one may doubt whether we have any sig-

nificant amount of the literature of radicalism which has

came down to us from ancient Israel. Were the prophets

religious reformers, or "reactionaries" in search of an

idealized (and never existent) by-gone day? Certainly,

both priest and wise man held tightly to tradition. The

¹Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, p. 24.

²See Appendix, Table 9.

311

authority of both rested on an approved transmission of

the right word in a correct lineage. Though their forms

of social expression differed, both stood upon inherited

words and a sedimented pattern of teaching and learning

them. Both were men of the book. This typification of

the wise applies no matter what the scenario we adopt.

One expects, as a consequence, that they would early-on

value the retention and correct transmission of their

traditions, in this case the wise sayings of learning

and instruction. We know that the latter were preserved;

should the former not also have been? If we credit the

wise with having preserved much of Hebrew literature,

then the preservation of sayings in written form becomes

almost a historical necessity: would they preserve the

learning of other social groups without preserving their

own? If they did preserve it, or may be assumed to have

done so, then the notion of “collection” becomes far less

objectionable. At the same time, one would become more

hesitant to admit that they would heavily and perhaps

heavy-handedly (albeit erratically) redact their own

literature--and certainly not more than others'. Points

Six and Seven join here. We should be sensitive to a

fundamental potential conflict between the theories of

democratization and theologization through wisdom's early

and middle periods (what we called the "shorter history").

312

While the tradition of an early royal wisdom may be

erroneous, certainly wisdom moved from the court elite

and their offspring to the group we anachronistically

would call the "merit bureaucracy." The growth of ef-

fective military and government required trained secondary

leadership. Economic and trade viability required a

certain minimal literacy, along with an expanded record-

keeping and communications class. Since the higher ranks

of priests must have been included (certainly in Egypt

and presumably in Israel as well) in the court elite,

theological language would seem to have been appropriate

more to court cult and priest than to the ideology of a

"meritocracy." If Smith is at all right about the funda-

mental conflict of parties in Israel,¹ and he must be at

least partially right, exclusive dedication to Yahweh

could have served the partisan political purposes of the

wise and court priests. Such partisanship in a more

democratized wisdom is harder to explain. Thus, democra-

tization suggests a growing, rather than declining, "secu-

larism" and "pragmatism" in line with the social applica-

tions of wisdom. Finally, early Yahwistic wisdom would

accord with an early and growing nationalism to wisdom

which came to full flower in post-Exilic wisdom. Is

¹Smith, Palestinian Parties.

313

pessimistic wisdom also a conflict over growing na-

tionalism? Preuss, however, would reject this interpre-

tation of nationalization.¹The important point is this:

in a movement of conservatism, moving from a hereditary

elite to encompass the "managerial classes," an increas-

ingly strict Yahwism seems at variance with the social

demands of the situation. If the early court circle in-

cluded the priests, must any postulated theologizing, if

it exists at all, be late? Contrariwise, given the in-

creasing sedimentation of ideologies with time, is the

increasing theological inclusiveness of wisdom under the

monarchy consistent with increasing theological exclu-

sivism? We submit that certain hypotheses about wisdom

postulate sociological inconsistencies.

Finally, perhaps Hebrew wisdom really does not

differ so much from other ancient Near Eastern wisdom

theologically after all. Preuss concludes that the same

views of god as the creator of the cosmos, guarant of

world-order, and upholder of the complex of behavior and

consequence can be found throughout ancient Near Eastern

wisdom literature.² Even in its uses of rsiwn and tw^cbh

¹Preuss, "Theologischen Ort," pp. 393-417; Horst

Dietrich Preuss, "Das Gottesbild der Alteren Weisheit

Israels," Vetus Testamentum Supplements 23: 117-45.

²Preuss, "Theologischen Ort," pp. 414-17; Preuss,

"Gottesbild," pp. 117-45.

314

vis-à-vis Yahweh, Israel does not depart from the theologi-

cal world of its neighbors in wisdom. Clue to this com-

monality, of course, is the oft-remarked absence of norma-

tive Hebrew theology from wisdom:

. . . Erwählung und Bund, Verpflichtung und Gebot

Jahwes, Väterverheissung, Landverheissung, David-

verheissung, Zion, Tempel, Gottesstadt, Geschichte

als zielgerichteter Ganzheit, Eschatologie, Gottes-

volk usw.¹

Even the view that Yahweh may interpose himself between

the intent and the act to bring about his own purposes

rather than man's is in no wise peculiar to Israel.

Preuss' citation of parallel quotes from Egypt is de-

tailed.² The absence of normative theology and the

presence of common theology lead one to the conclusion

that Hebrew wisdom, though set within the social world of

Yahwism and based on it, even in that respect did not dif-

fer from the similar relationship of wisdom to culture

elsewhere in the ancient Near East:

In der Weisheitsliteratur wird vielmehr Theologie

zwar nicht als Anthropologie, wohl aber als Phä-

nomenologie versucht. Daher gehören die Texte mit

theologischen Themen auch kaum den Volkssprichworten

an, sondern sie sind eher Kunstsprüche. Käme die

alte Weisheit Israels wirklich vom Glauben an Jahwe,

vom Kultus und vom Wissen um die Gebote her und

hätte sie aus diesem Grund ihre begrenzte Thematik,

müsste dieses von den ähnlichen Texten der Umwelt

¹Preuss, "Gottesbild," p. 119 n.

²Preuss, "Gottesbild," e.g., pp. 128-31.

315

des alten Israel auch gelten, was betr. Jahwe

unmöglich ist und wofür es auch in analoger

Fragestellung keinen Anhalt gibt. Der Jahwe-

glaube wird zwar insofern (ohne dass irgendeine

Heilstat zitiert wird usw.!) auch vorausgesetzt,

als er verwendet(!) wird, als er Motiv mensch-

lichen Handelns werden kam, jedoch eines sehr

eigenständig geprägten Handelns, das mit der

weisheitlichen Weltsicht des Alten Orients eng

verbunden ist.¹

The same analysis applies to the yr't-yhwh. Since the

concept is not often found elsewhere in ancient Near

Eastern wisdom, though sometimes elsewhere in the sense

of cultic fulfillment, it is often taken to be the pe-

culiar contribution of Hebrew religious thought. However,

when one considers the actual application of the term,

rather than its postulated history, one generally finds

that it means the realization of wisdom and the confirma-

tion of the (optimistic) doctrine of retribution. Only

very rarely does one find a hint of more--a personal re-

lationship to Yahweh, the numinous--principally in the

revision of Amenemope (22:19), and even there the inter-

pretation is 1ess than certain. Hence, one need hy-

pothesize no yahweh-redaction. The concept is entirely

consistent with early wisdom, whether Hebrew or ancient

oriental. Preuss' evidence certainly cannot be lightly

dismissed. He suggests that the reasons educed for

¹Preuss, "Gottesbild," pp. 144-45.

316

postulating either the random accretion of sayings or

their redaction from changing theological needs are es-

sentially phantom.¹ Certainly, the question of harmony

between classes of sayings--between yahweh- and non-

yahweh-sayings--should be considered in the analysis which

follows.

For these eight reasons, we hold that there is

ample ground for considering Proverbs II-B as a unit.

While the sayings may not all come from exactly the same

social situation, there should be sufficient consistency

of perspective to make analysis and conclusions possible.

Whether certain classes of sayings are incompatible is a

separate, redactoral, question. That the material can

be studied, recognizing the question of consistency where

relevant, seems to be justified.

¹Preuss, "Gottesbild," pp. 136-45.

CHAPTER V

THE SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL MATRIX OF

PROVERBS 15:28-22:16

Introduction

Social and conceptual worlds--whether of indi-

viduals or groups or communities--can be interpreted as

and in terms of a gradient structure of saliences. Some

entities, ideas, symbols and relationships fit closely

into the experiences of person or croup. They receive

special attention, detailed examination and thoughtful

interpretation. Fine distinctions are made which reflect

differences in the life interests of that individual or

that particular group. Meanings and values are not givens;

they are interpretations of experience. A social world is

not an epistemological or ontological given. It is the

construction of a group over time.¹ It is a selection

from the virtual infinity of experiential elements that

impinge on one based in the life and work of the group.

Incongruent interpretations die cut: they lack salience,

¹Schutz, Phenomenology of the Social World;

Schutz and Luckmann, Structures of the Life-World; Berger

and Luckmann, Social Construction of Reality.

317

318

the power to give meaning and value to the everyday.

Especially congruent concepts are adopted, driving out the

less compelling with which they compete. The relationship

is not one-to-one; it is not predictive. Given a particu-

lar setting, one cannot predict the conceptual and social

system that will give it meaning for that group to the

exclusion of all others. On the other hand, one can

generally outline the dominant features of a successful

and durable system that is likely to be adopted and re-

tained. Conversely, one can predict features that are un-

likely to persist for lack of congruence. People ob-

viously, have a stake in the meaningfulness of their

world, thus in its interpretation. They will not devote

time, work and physical and emotional resources in a con-

ceptual system that has little relevance in terms of their

actual experiences. Indeed, devotion and investment--

stake--vary directly with the degree of salience. Simi-

larly, conceptual worlds transform relationships. By

conferring meaning and value, these systems conform ex-

perience to the interpretation over time. Thus, con-

gruence is a function of social interpretation and social

¹Weber, Protestant Ethic; Weber, Economy and

Society, vol. 2, which lays out his sociology of religion

in terms of his interpretation of 'elective affinities,'

Wahlverwandtschaften.

319

action alike. The process is dialectic.¹

This congruence or salience is reflected in the

proximity of elements of experience to the individual or

group. Social proximity appears as an interpretation of

space and time. Whatever objective reality we confer upon

space and time, if any, these categories have an intensely

metaphorical character, which amounts to and reflects an

interpretation of existence.² What is real for the wise

of this proverb collection is what seems self-evidently

close-at-hand in time or space. In looking at their in-

terpretation of relationships, we look also at the tem-

poral sequence of relevant circumstances, motives, actions

and consequences that give sense and meaning to their own

acts and those of others. Thus, we are interested, not in

describing the world of these wise, but in seeing its

relative proximities to them. What differentials divide,

distinguish, order and relate their conception of the con-

stituent elements of experience? We do not look just for

¹Berger and Luckmann, Social Construction of

Reality, develop their sociology of knowledge in terms of

a dialectical methodology drawn from Schutz.

²Palmer, Hermeneutics, pp. 12-32; Gadamer, Truth

and Method. This realization, within the German intel-

lectual tradition, goes back to Kant’s Critique of Pure

Reason and informs a variety of dialectical theories:

Phenomenology, various existentialisms, Critical Theory

and neo-Marxism, hermeneutic theory, and much Struc-

turalism.

320

what they conceive but how they conceive of and order it.

Indeed, order is a good term for what we call saliences,

congruities and proximities, except for its other tech-

nical meaning in wisdom studies. Social-conceptual worlds

are spatio-temporal worlds. To give order is first to

give sequence and proximity.¹

In what follows, we are not concerned only or

principally with cataloging the linguistic usages that de-

limit space and time for these wise.² Rather, we seek to

infer and project categories of space and time that have

this metaphorical and interpretive character from what the

wise say about their world. Hence, our work is inferen-

tial rather than descriptive in the strict sense. Such

projection is founded in the principle that people take

for granted that which is most fundamental in their ex-

perience. They do not discuss, much less defend, what

they assume as the fundamental or social sine qua non.

Indeed, what is defended and discussed in detail is no

longer taken for granted as such. In a sense, assumptions

which must be argued for have already lost what makes them

effective: their pre-interpretive, pre-linguistic,

¹Schutz, Phenomenology of the Social World;

Husserl, Internal Time-Consciousness.

²Cf. Wilch.

321

pre-conscious character. To discern at least the crucial

lineaments of this taken-for-granted structure, we must

project and infer. Descriptions are the consequence of

interpretations; they are not the interpretations them-

selves.¹

From such projections, we may begin to be able to

make distinctions among various hypotheses about the

social setting of these wise. For the literature to have

warranted formulation and preservation, it must have been

salient in some respect not only for the writer-collectors

but also for the collector-preservers, however we may in-

terpret these roles. Thus, our projections have some

validity not only for the setting of particular sayings but

also for that which preserved them as part of an intel-

lectual and symbolic aesthesis. Thus, the broad and meta-

phorical understanding of space and time becomes all the

more important. How does this world of space and time be-

come a congruent symbolic reality? How does it make ex-

perience intelligible and plausible? How does the every-

day experience of the life-world acquire (an order of)

¹What Schutz calls the epochē or "bracketing" of

the natural attitude, a form of phenomenological reduction,

leads to the "appearance" (showing forth as 'phenomena')

of the taken-for-granted as uncritically-accepted ground.

Cf. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Mac-

quarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper Row Pub-

lishers, 1962), pp. 51-60.

322

meaning and value?

Space

Under the rubric of space, certain recurrent themes

emerge that reflect the independent and distinctive value

system of these wise. Though they likely formed an inte-

gral part of the intellectual and social elite of this

period, we shall see that the wise evidence in these say-

ings a symbolic social hierarchy that is far from being

the existing social system writ large. Their criteria of

judgment are their own, at times supporting, at times dif-

fering from the values we would associate with a privileged

elite. Their value system neither naively defends nor

seeks to justify the status quo and privilege per se. They

know power; they live their lives in its shadow. Still,

it is not power that they value. They apparently had to

live and work in the public view, yet that publicity re-

mains subordinate to other things they esteemed more. They

do not justify a style of life they serve but do not ex-

perience themselves, though in justifying their own way of

life they produce a kind of class ethic. Personal, rather

than power, relationships count for much. They concentrate

on a person's disposition, what we might loosely term

'character,' in making ethical judgments. Here, the ethic

is not founded in a direct synthesis of deed and consequence,

323

but in a manner of deportment to which particular deeds

must be referred before they can be interpreted and assessed.

Theirs is an ethic and an ethos of propriety. They observe

a congruence or appropriateness of person, place, time and

event that forms the basis of 'aesthetic' evaluation.

These people value reserve. They esteem restraint and dis-

cipline of character and action, an aesthetic of economy

reminiscent of mhden agan. They remark the coherence and

sufficient intelligibility of one's life, not the compre-

hensibility of the cosmos as such. With propriety goes

what we shall call 'demesne,' that realm of experience and

action over which one has effective control. To be re-

strained is to recognize the boundaries of one's demesne

and observe them. To overreach those limits is to court

disaster, the more when it is done with (foolish) con-

fidence.

To say that the experiences of life make sense for

these wise is to say that one can conceive their pattern.

The recognition is Gestalt--one perceives the interre-

lated whole or one does not perceive at all. Thus, the

demarcations within their social-intellectual world tend

to be sharp. These compartments of experience are not

purely intuitive. What can be known and understood can be

expressed. The wise do not rule out the ineffable. They

perceive limiting conditions and crucial boundary questions

324

in their experience, as we shall discover. Still, the word

has its propriety and cannot be made properly to overreach

itself either. "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof must

one be silent," to quote Wittgenstein.¹At most one can

say that the world, too, observes the proprieties, each

domain unveiling itself in an appropriate way. While the

crucial temporal boundary question for the wise is that

demesne bounded by death, spatially, it is the power to

know and by knowing to control. In each case, the ques-

tion becomes freedom and justice. In each case, the mys-

tery of that which is in principle beyond human demesne,

Yahweh, is implicit. On an individual basis, the spatial

limit becomes adversity, confronting an irreconcilable

conflict of values which cannot be realized without sacri-

fice. These wise perceive these experiential dilemmas and

integrate them into their aesthetic of value. The dis-

tance and objectivity that come with reserve and restraint

produce a sense of irony in the ethically sensitive ob-

server of life.

In order to project what we are calling the

spatial dimension of the social and intellectual world of

these wise, we shall analyze five aspects of wisdom. We

¹Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philoso-

phicus (London: Kegan Paul, 1922), Sentence 7.

325

shall begin by considering the nature of wisdom as they

perceive it. "Where is wisdom to be found?" What does it

mean to be wise? How does wisdom differ from a simple

legitimation and affirmation of the social status quo?

Second, we shall consider the life-world and its structure.

What features of experience occupy the attention and con-

cern of these writers? How do they stratify society: who

fits where in their view? What sorts of people are there,

in terms of the value criteria that most concern them, and

how does these people relate to the life of the person who

is or strives to be wise? Third, we shall consider the

concept of “demesne”--that realm of experience which an in-

dividual can control and "master." What can one know and,

knowing, control? What is the proper and appropriate

range of individual competence? What is relevant in as-

sessing ethical accountability? How does individual

demesne relate to the life of some distinctive social

group of which the wise person is a part (Standesethik)?

Next, we should consider the implications of the wise'

rhetorical style here. The word is the vehicle whereby

the world of experience becomes intelligible for one who

is wise. The capacity to master and then transmit that

mastery to others rests in the ability to verbalize what

is. To order is in part to state. In the way in which

they present this understanding here, we may find some

326

evidence of how that experience is organized. Since what

is taken for granted is implicit, rhetoric becomes rele-

vant to the problem of projection. Rhetorical style is

at once implicit and commonly understood. Finally, we

shall consider the limits to their experience and their

control. To have a demesne--as we shall argue the wise

here believe they have--is also to have limits beyond which

one cannot act, certainly not with impunity. What limits

do these writers perceive? Where and what are the crucial

boundaries in experience?

"Wisdom"

The obvious point of departure for any discussion

of the world of the wise has to be what that wisdom might

be. Our earlier attempts to define wisdom were not alto-

gether satisfactory in the sense that we confronted

irreconcilable multivocality in the term. Thus, we have

been forced for the moment into such rather inelegant cir-

cumlocutions as "these wise" and “wisdom as evidenced by

these sayings” to refer to the wise and their wisdom who

appear in and through the B proverb collection. These

phrases beg the question. Further, we find no clear ref-

erence in these sayings to the existence of an identifi-

able (self-identified) and coherent group whom we could

unarguably call the wise. The closest we might come is

327

15:31, which we include in the introduction to B though

it traditionally has been assigned to A:

He whose ear heeds wholesome admonition ['zn šm^ct

twkhit]

will abide among the wise.

Since "abide" is used figuratively, the context does not

require a specific group: the sense may be "reckoned

among" and thus categorical rather than appelative. Ref-

erences to wisdom tend to be general and disconcertingly

abstract. We look in vain for a proverb we might quote as

a simple, satisfactory, unambiguous definition of wisdom,

particularly one which does not lead us into a thicket of

other equally technical and equally difficult terms.¹

Consider 18:15,

An intelligent mind acquires knowledge,

and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.

Here, we must pursue lb, nbwn. d^ct, and ‘zn. This wisdom

and the group to which the author(s) who produced it belong

exist by and as an inference from the work. The B composi-

tion, like early Hebrew wisdom generally, makes no unam-

biguous references to the technical implements of scribal

class or school--a point already made. For clues then,

we must turn to the semantic field of "wisdom" and related

¹See Appendix, Tables 15 and 16.

328

terminology.¹

The word *hikm appears seventeen times:² nine

times as a noun or adjective froth hikm,³ three times as a

verb, and five times from hikmh.⁴An essential condition

for the acquisition of wisdom is the ability to learn from

instruction.⁵ The fool lacks the capacity to benefit from

wisdom's discipline:

Why should a fool have a price in his hand to buy

wisdom, when he has no mind? 17:16

If we were to include the last verses of ch. 15 in this

collection, then the person's appropriate relationship to

Yahweh is a second precondition:⁶

The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom,

and humility goes before honor. 15:33

Certainly, other sayings also suggest this interpretation.⁷

We shall argue below that righteousness is the necessary

precondition for attaining wisdom.

Wisdom involves learning, the ability to generalize

¹See Appendix, Table 15; also Tables 1-5.

²See Appendix, Table 15, Part A.

³Also, 15:31.

⁴Plus 15:33.

⁵Cf. 17:10; 19:20.

⁶Cf. 18:12b.

⁷Cf. 22:4; 19:23; perhaps 16:6, 20; 22:12.

329

from experience:¹

Listen to advice and accept instruction,

that you may gain wisdom for the future. 19:20

Wisdom is cumulative. It is not a closed body of informa-

tion that is acquired once for all time. While wisdom is

associated with d^ct, knowledge, it is not knowledge-about

or knowledge-of.² It is insight which is gained pro-

gressively:³

When a scoffer is punished, the simple becomes wise;

when a wise man is instructed, he gains knowledge.

21:11

Throughout the B composition, there are repeated refer-

ences to the mind or heart, with the word lb appearing

some twenty-three times.⁴ Wisdom has the quality of depth,

hence the analogy of the fountain or flowing waters,⁵

"Wisdom is a fountain of life to him who has it":⁶

The words of a man's mouth are deep waters;

the fountain of wisdom is a gushing stream. 18:4

To have this quality, wisdom must even be more than

knowledge-how, though it may also enable one to deal

¹Cf. 18:15, quoted above.

²See Appendix, Table 15, Part C.

³19:20; 18:15

⁴Not counting 15:28, 30, 32. See Appendix, Table

17.

⁵See Appendix, Table 16, Part D.

⁶16:22a; cf. 20:5.

330

competently with demanding situations in life.¹ Wisdom,

then, is a quality of mind or heart. It is insight, per-

ceptiveness and depth of spirit which is only reflected in

the way that one acts and interacts with others.

The wise of heart [lhikm-lb] is called a man of dis-

cernment,

and pleasant speech increases persuasiveness. 16:21

The parallelism is synthetic; the rhetoric is conse-

quence.² Wisdom is valuable in and of itself, not for the

sake of some more distant goal; hence, "virtue is its own

reward” in 16:22 and in

A man of understanding sets his face toward wisdom,

but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the

earth. 17:24

One does not pursue wisdom for some objective to which wis-

dom is the means, though having attained wisdom, one may

gain consequent things as well:³

To get wisdom is better than gold;

to get understanding is to be chosen

rather than silver. 16:16

This saying is a variant on the tiwb-mn, lacking the dis-

tributive negative middle term which customarily produces

¹16:14, 21, 23.

² I.e, the second stichos gives an implication of

the general principle stated in the first stichos; 17:20;

20:18; 15:33; cf. 16:23 (climactic parallelism without

consequence);. 19:8(!).

³Cf. 19:20 b’hirytk.

331

a comparative dilemma or conflict of value. Here, tiwb

appears internally, and inversion of the form produces a

synonymous intensification.¹

Wisdom is achieved through a discipline of in-

struction, and this discipline continues to characterize

the life of the wise individual through an ethic of re-

straint and self-control:²

Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise;

when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.

17:28

Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler;

and whoever is led astray by it is not wise. 20:1;

Part of this discipline is the ability to verbalize in-

sight³ economically, effectively and persuasively.⁴ Two

references to wisdom appear in the context of king-sayings.

In 20:26, the king's wisdom is that of wise governance,

not necessarily the insight and perspicacity we associate

with wisdom tout court. At 16:14, the wise person is

threatened by the king's passion; wisdom provides the pos-

sibility of dealing with that inevitable characteristic of

power. The reference to the emissary of death suggests the

¹See Appendix, Tables 11 and 12.

²21:11; 15:31, 33; 17:28; 16:14(?).

³An essential presupposition of wisdom, e.g. 19:27.

⁴16:21, 23; 18:4.

332

relationship of wisdom, sound governance and the ethic of

restraint to the purposes of Yahweh.¹ The power of wisdom

is such that might alone does not avail against it, which

implies wise governance in the plans of battle or con-

flict.²

Ultimately, however, whatever wisdom one may

acquire through the discipline of instruction, that dis-

cernment is bounded by the power of Yahweh to pursue and

establish whatever purposes he will. Thus, while wisdom

is acquired as a process, by implication one never fully

attains it. The limit on the one hand is demesne--wis-

dom's value on self-control, restraint, (self-)governance

--and on the other is Yahweh and his wisdom:

No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel,

can avail against the Lord. 21:30

The word d^ct appears nine times, twice in 18:15.³

The latter emphasizes the cumulative acquisition of wisdom

through hearing; it is the pursuit of the intelligent

mind.⁴The association of knowledge with hearing, with

the verbal and transmissable character of wisdom, appears

in 19:27, an admonition and the B collection's only use

¹Cf. 17:11 cruel emissary; 16:4 evil day; 16:25

ways of death.

²21:22; 20:18.

³See Appendix, Table 15, Part C.

⁴Lb nbwn (cf. 15:14a).

333

of the vocative bny:¹

Cease, my son, to hear instruction

only to stray from the words of knowledge. 19:27

This verse and 21:11, when compared with 17:16, already

point up the distinction between ignorance and folly.²

While the ignorant (typically represented by the stock

figure of the callow youth) person can err and act fool-

ishly, that folly is not a fundamental part of his dis-

position, i.e. his character. Through instruction, it may

be driven from him; hence, cf.

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child,

but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.

22:15

The fool, however, acts foolishly out of his basic charac-

ter; his mind lacks the capacity to acquire the discipline

of wisdom.³ Thus, wisdom, ignorance and folly represent

three distinct human dispositions. The ignorant can learn

through-mwsr;⁴ the wise person can benefit from counsel

and reproof; the fool stands beyond wisdom's reach. In

these sayings which refer to knowledge, we find the same

themes that emerged earlier with respect to wisdom. It is

¹Cf. 27:11 in C.

²See Appendix, Tables 18 and 19.

³See Appendix, Table 20.

⁴See Appendix, Table 21.

334

valuable in itself, more than any precious possession.¹

Passion is rejected² in favor of restraint:

He who restrains his words has knowledge,

and he who has a cool spirit is a man of

understanding. 17:27

Knowledge implies control and economy of speech.³ Finally,

the demesne of an individual's wisdom is described and

delimited by that of Yahweh:

The eyes of the Lord keep watch over knowledge,

but he overthrows the words of the faithless. 22:12

Note again the verbal basis of knowledge, and thus wisdom.

The word tbwnh occurs five tithes; byn or bynh six.⁴

These sayings also emphasize the deep association of wisdom

and mind, drawing out implications in that notion:

Whoever acquires insight loves his basic nature

[qnh lb ‘hb npšw!]

he who keeps understanding will prosper. 19:8 BK

The purpose in a man's mind [^csih blb] is like deep water,

but a man of understanding will draw it out. 20:5

They continue the emphasis on the wise person's capacity to

learn, discipline for the ignorant, and the life of re-

straint.⁵ The fool's disposition bars him from wisdom:

¹20:15; 19:2a.

²19:2b.

³20:15b.

⁴See Appendix, Table 15, Parts B and D.

⁵17:10, 24; 19:25; 21:29.,

335

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,

but only in expressing his opinion. 18:2

Here, too, is the demesne of human wisdom:

A man's steps are ordered by the Lord;

how then can a man understand his way? 20:24

Among other terms, mwsr appears four times, all

among passages dealt with above;¹ nbwn, four; ^csh, five.²

*Śkl occurs ten times, though at least one use seems to

play on its alternative meanings of pondering and prosper-

ing.³ Verse 16:20 emphasizes the precondition of reliance

on Yahweh. In 19:14, a "prudent" wife comes from Yahweh,

though "house and wealth are inherited from fathers." At

21:16, the word drk appears ("way of understanding") as it

frequently does in relation to adhering to wisdom, a point

we shall investigate further below. Finally, the term ap-

pears in reference to what we shall argue is another dis-

position, righteousness, in the sense of reflecting on or

pondering the experience of others, to learn from it:

The righteous observes the house of the wicked;

the wicked are cast down to ruin. 21:12

The saying in 17:2 points up the precedence dispositional

state takes over social conventions, in what amounts to a

¹Plus 15:32, 33.

²19:21 of Yahweh parallel to mhišbwt of man in the

sense of demesne.

³17:8 the bribe!

336

rather iconoclastic re-assessment of social as against wis-

dom values:

A slave who deals wisely will rule over a son who acts

shamefully,

and will share the inheritance as one of the brothers. 17:2

The word tm, integrity, appears twice, arguably in relation

to the disposition of the righteous rather than wisdom

per se.¹ The former saying is a regular tiwb-mn saying which

weighs poverty and integrity against perversity of speech

and folly. Twšyh for "sound judgment" appears in 18:1,

whose interpretation is obscured by the exact rendering

which should be given to (1) t'wh (own desire? pretexts?).

The word ^crm does not appear to mean wisdom or knowledge

so much as wit, cunning or prudence in its two occurrences.

Once, ysr appears in an admonition to instruct the callow

youth:

Discipline your son while there is hope;

do not set your heart on his destruction. 19:18

In 18:11, mśkyt may mean "imagination," though its applica-

tion here would be tangential in any event, confirming in-

sight as something more than a specificable body of actions

or information. Admonition, twkhit, appears in 15:31, 32

and as the verb at 19:25. Yr't-yhwh, the fear of the lord

which is a pre-condition for wisdom is associated with hisd

¹19:1; 20:7.

337

w'mt, hiyym, swr mr^c, ^cnwt, kbwd.¹ There are certainly a

number of other words which appear in these contexts, but

an exhaustive analysis of the vocabulary of this passage

lies outside our purposes. The implications of many of

these terms--drk, lb, rwhi, šm^c , nr, tiwb, ksyl, pty and

others--will become clear as they fit into the course of

our discussion.

The B composition seems to delimit a clear realm

of wisdom. It is associated with the mind. The principal

emphasis lies on its inherent value, not any specific con-

sequences which might follow. To be wise involves the

capacity to heed instruction, restrain and control one's

passions in the disposition of a cool spirit, ponder and

learn from experience and from verbal instruction. Wisdom

is attained through discipline, but it seems to supercede

any particular act or teaching. Since wisdom is cumulative,

and since some dispositions bar one from attaining it, by

implication the wise sustain and expand their wisdom

through mutual recognition and instruction as well as by

the disciplined instruction of youth. While there are no

clear references to a group of wise, the nature of that

wisdom virtually demands that those of like disposition

interact, while excluding these (fools) who simply cannot

¹16:6; 19:23.

338

hope for wisdom. Wisdom is the highest intrinsic good,

but it is bounded by the power, dominion and (presumably)

wisdom of Yahweh who at once sustains and limits the ef-

fective power of knowledge. The wise person's command of

life is qualified, not absolute, hence the folly of pur-

suing wisdom instrumentally (as if that were possible).

The life-world: power and position

Given this description of wisdom, how does the

life-world manifest itself to the writers of the B composi-

tion? We begin by looking at the conduct and activities of

the wise person himself, which to some extent we shall have

to infer from stated values.

We have already remarked that apt speech figures

prominently in their thought. Wisdom leads to parsimonious

but effective speech.¹ While wisdom is communicated in

part through verbal instruction, silence is-often prefer-

able to speaking:

He who keeps his mouth and his tongue

keeps himself out of trouble. 21:23

To speak is to expose oneself to the consequences of having

spoken.²

First, one should attend to instruction: these

¹16:21, 23; 17:27.

²18:20-21. See Appendix, Table 22.

339

sayings place a premium on listening, the attentive ear,

and heeding admonition:¹

The hearing ear and the seeing eye,

the Lord has made them both. 20:12

In addition, restraining the tongue gives one time to con-

eider what should be said and present it cogently and ef-

fectively.² In speech, one conveys the depth of his mind--

that is how instruction is possible—and reveals himself to

those with the insight to perceive.³Thus, the gravest

failing in speech may be haste:⁴

If one gives answer before he hears,

it is his folly and shame. 18:13

Consider the consequences:

From the fruit of his mouth a man is satisfied;

he is satisfied by the yield of his lips.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue,

and those who love it will eat its fruits.

18:20-21

The latter saying is not without a certain sense of irony.⁵

Certainly, the expression of knowledge leads to life, so

that speech is not per se evil. In fact,

¹18:15; 19:20, 27; 15:31.

²15:28; 17:27.

³18:4.

⁴15:28; 20:9, 22, 25; 17:27.

⁵Cf. Appendix, Table 23.

340

Pleasant words are like a honeycomb,

sweetness to the soul and health to the body.

16:24

Compare 15:30, and

There is gold, and abundance of costly stones;

but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.

20:15

The menace in speech is that it exposes one to the

power and control of others; words go out beyond the demesne

that one can control. Thus, speech is the vehicle for

gossip, quarreling, strife and conflict;¹ whoever gossips

cannot exercise control or discretion, therefore no secrets

are safe when one associates with him. Further, attractive

and effective speech is more than idle flattery or the

puffery of a facade. It requires a measure of insight and

perspicacity in the audience to appreciate.² One who is

not wise will find the speech of the foolish or wicked en-

ticing; it has its own attraction, and its own reward:³

An evildoer listens to wicked lips;

and a liar gives heed to a mischievous tongue.

17:4

The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels;

they go down into the inner parts of the body.

18:8

¹16:28; 17:9; 18:8; 20:19.

²Perhaps this explains the emphasis on corporal forms

of discipline with the ignorant (19:20, 25, 29; 22:15).

³Cf. 18:7.

341

Thus, speech, too, is tied to disposition. To each

type of character, a certain speech becomes appropriate.

From that kind of speaking flow consequences appropriate to

the disposition, not just the speech itself. This distinc-

tion applies to social station and to disposition as

measured against the wisdom scale of values.² Signifi-

cantly, these sayings assume the capacity of the king to

appreciate and reward speech that is both righteous and

eloquent:³

He who laves purity of heart

and whose speech is gracious,

will have the king as his friend. 22:11

Reception by the king as friend has special significance in

these sayings. Verse 16:10 seems to attribute divination,

the Revised Standard Version has "inspired decisions," to

the king, which would affirm both his close association to

insight and wisdom through speech and its appropriate dis-

position and his favor with Yahweh who limits but sustains

wisdom.⁴

The B collection's concern for the courts,

¹A source of some ironic observations by the

authors (17:7; 18:23; 19:7(?))

²16:27; 17:20; 19:1.

³16:13; 17:7(?).

⁴See Appendix, Tables 10 and 24.

342

especially truthful testimony and just administration,

closely follows this problem of speech.¹ The parallel

sayings in 19:5 and 9 affirm consequences of false testi-

mony:

A false witness will not go unpunished,

and he who utters lies will not escape

[v. 9: will perish].

Such sayings seem to confirm a doctrine of retribution,²

although its nature is remarkably unspecific.³ Yet,

other sayings recognize the fragility of justice when it is

perverted, either by lies or by bribery.⁴

It is not good to be partial to a wicked man,

or to deprive a righteous man of justice. 18:5

This saying and 19:28 can be interpreted to reflect the in-

herent difference in character between righteous and wicked

which results in a radically different relationship to the

judicial and administrative system.⁵ In that light, jus-

tice becomes the product of perspicacity and just procedure,

the difficulty of which is keenly presented in 18:17:

¹See Appendix, Table 25; cf. Tables 22 and 26,

Parts E and R.

²21:28; cf. 21:6; 20:17.

³See Appendix, Tables 8, Part E, and 27.

⁴See Appendix, Table 26, Parts N and. R; cf. Table

16, Part F.

⁵Cf. 21:15.

343

He who states his case first seems right

until the other [r^chw!] comes and examines him.

righteous are not assured deliverance from all in-

justice:

To impose a fine on a righteous man is not good;

to flog noble men is wrong. 17:26

The saying confirms the proprieties that attend differen-

tial social status,¹ but it would be irrelevant were not

such injustice both possible and an actual fact.² Simi-

larly, if simple retribution could be taken for granted,

there would be no need to affirm it. Thus, sayings like

19:5, 9; 21:28 need to be viewed circumspectly. While they

may well confirm a doctrine of retribution, though we shall

argue they do not, they may also deny such a doctrine by

confirming the need to uphold and defend the value system

of this group.³ In that light, the general statement of

consequences becomes important: compare the statements

which make each dispositional state its own reward.⁴

The courts and administration generally receive a

relatively large amount of attention in this composition.

¹See Appendix, Table 14.

²However infrequent, compare 17:23.

³See Appendix, Table 27.

⁴See Appendix, Table 28.

344

We find reference to cases,¹ testimony,² examination,³

decision,⁴ and punishment.⁵ We include administration be-

cause several sayings extend the references to lying and

deceit beyond the situation of the law court. Sayings

20:17 and 21:6 are general, but imply favorable economic

transactions for the liar while affirming that such deceit

will not bring enduring gain. Verse 19:22 presents a con-

flict of values, esteeming fidelity, even with poverty,

over false speech.⁶ The sayings on bribery, however, pro-

vide a much clearer focus.⁷They apply to law and adminis-

tration alike. It would be too much to say that the wise

advocate the use of bribes--though such an interpretation

has at times been given such sayings in arguing for the

worldly orientation of this wisdom. Rather, these sayings seem

to condone them, though with some ambivalence and a

sense of irony. As we shall see, the wise here favor

¹18:27.

²19:5, 9, 28; 21:28.

³18:17.

⁴17:26; 18:5; 20:8; 21:15.

⁵17:26, 23; 21:15; 19:29(?).

⁶See Appendix, Table 29.

⁷See Appendix, Tables 16, Part F, and 26, Part N.

345

generosity in those of means.¹ They recognize the influence

wealth has over the actions of others.² Verse 19:6 may well

play on this theme by equating wealth, power, social status

and generous inclination all through the ambiguity of ndyb:

Many seek the favor of a generous man ["noble"?],

and everyone is a friend [!] to a man who gives gifts.

19:6

In a world where one must deal with those who have power,

this kind of "generosity" can be quite helpful:³

A man's gift (mtn 'dm) makes room for him

and brings before great men. 18:16

Still, 17:23 voices disapproval toward accepting a bribe

for the sake of influencing the dispensing of justice.

What is wrong is not just the acceptance per se, since 17:8

places acceptance in a far more ambiguous light. Perhaps

one could argue that perversion of the judicial process is

what is at stake,⁴ but 20:17 and 21:6 clearly have broad

application in denouncing false speech. There may be some

clue for us in 17:8,

A bribe is like a magic stone

in the eyes of him who receives it;

wherever he turns he prospers.

¹See Appendix, Tables 30 and 31.

²See Appendix, Table 32.

³Compare 21:14.

⁴’rhiwt mšpt 17:23b.

346

"Prospers" renders yśkl which may play on its technical

sense. That would suggest a less favorable and more ironic

stance toward the bribe. Resolution of this conflict must

await the elaboration of more evidence. For now, the bribe

sayings indicate clear concern for relations with legal and

administrative power. Their focus seems to be at least as

much on the use of gifts to manipulate influential people

as on the taking of bribes by those who have power. This

emphasis again suggests that these wise must deal with

powerful institutions and influential people whose favor has

a material effect on their life situations.¹

The saying at 16:14, mentioned earlier intimates a

gift as a possible means for diverting the anger of the

king. Verse 20:8 explicitly relates the royal court to

justice, in distinguishing the righteous and the wicked.

King-sayings recur throughout the B collection, as they do

in the mashal literature generally.² We find a block of

royal king-sayings at 16:10-15. The king's throne is

founded in righteousness and fidelity (sidqh, hisd):

Loyalty and faithfulness preserve the king,

and his throne is upheld by righteousness. 20:28

¹Note how 17:16 suggests that wisdom instruction

requires the payment of a fee or price.

²See Appendix, Table 10.

347

The institution of the monarchy has a special relationship

to Yahweh that must be respected and preserved, certainly

by the king himself. Thus, "It is an abomination to kings

to do evil."¹When the king issues a pronouncement, it has

the status of an oracle and is synonymous with justice.²

The righteousness of the royal institution, if not of the

king himself, is divine, giving royal authority a divine

warrant. Still, the king's power devolves from Yahweh,

and Yahweh may do with it according to his own purposes.³

Even the authority of the king has a demesne that is bounded

by the power of Yahweh:

The king's heart is a stream of water

in the hand of the Lord;

he turns it wherever he will. 21:1

Here the appearance of the water metaphor with the reference

to heart suggests a quality of insight that goes beyond

competent governance.⁴ Royal insight is virtually wisdom

by definition. Several sayings seem to confirm this inter-

pretation. The king seems to recognize and prefer righteous-

ness, to esteem true speaking,⁵ to perceive and focus upon

¹16:12a.

²16:10.

³See Appendix, Table 8, Parts A and G.

⁴See Appendix, Table 8, Part L.

⁵16:13.

348

evil in his midst,¹ and to separate righteousness from

wickedness while calling the latter to judgment:²

A wise king winnows the wicked,

and drives the wheel over them. 20:26

This divine favor may help explain the reference to the

emissary of death in 16:14³ along with the choice of kpr

for "appease" there and the use of ."purity" (tihwr),

"fidelity," "righteousness," "faithfulness" all in connec-

tion with the king. Certainly, since the king possesses

great power, we probably should not read over much into

statements about his wrath. The B composition suggests by

its concern with royal favor and the hazards of dealing with

royal power that such matters were an important concern for

these wise. More, the special status afforded the king in

relation to Yahweh, to the extent that it manifests itself

as wisdom or insight, suggests a social condition in which

the wise group would support and defend the royal establish-

ment in spite of its hazards.⁴ To evoke the wrath of the

¹20:8.

²"Winnows" (20:8, 26).

³Cf. 17:11.

⁴16:14; 19:12; 20:2 (the first stichoi of the latter

two sayings differ by one word).

349

king is to court death;¹ his favor brings (forth) life.²

There also appear references to princes or nobles.

Except for 19:6, which involves a possible play on words

already noted, sayings dealing with the nobility are

propriety sayings.³That is, they set forth separate

standards of conduct and treatment, depending on one's

social class (as here) or disposition. It is not appro-

priate for princes to be impoverished, subject to social

inferiors, dealt rough justice.⁴ One expects cultivated

discourse but also veracity of a noble. If 19:6 should

apply to the prince, then he should also be generous,

while dispensing powerful favors, not unlike the king him-

self. Again, such statements suggest an environment where

the privilege of the nobility is taken for granted by the

wise group underlying this composition. The latter seem

to observe and cultivate the social proprieties.

The B composition gives considerable attention to

the influence of the powerful, particularly when that

¹20:2.

²19:12; 16:15; cf. 22:11.

³See Appendix, Table 14.

⁴17:26; 19:10.

⁵By implication, the fool is a social inferior, as

would be appropriate if royalty have a special relationship

to Yanweh founded in righteousness (17:7).

350

influence results from wealth.¹ Power as such is am-

biguous. While the wise here seem to respect it, they

often deem competing values to be superior to it. For

example, in wisdom resides the potential to overthrow self-

confident might:

A wise man scales the city of the mighty

and brings down the stronghold in which they trust.

21:22

Presumably, the saying is metonymous or synechdochic--"by

wise guidance wage war"² --and the setting is political and

military. Where powerful forces are in conflict, the wise

concern for restraint comes into play:³

The lot puts an end to disputes

and decides between powerful contenders. 18:18.

Security is implicit in wealth, which fact makes riches

most desirable. With wealth comes entree to other rich

and powerful people.⁴ It brings new company.⁵ One

propriety saying reflects the new freedom of the well-to-

do:

The poor use entreaties,

but the rich answer roughly. 18:23

¹See Appendix, Tables 32 and 33.

²20:18b.

³Cf. 16:33.

⁴18:16.

⁵19:4, cf. 7

351

Still, the wise view skeptically the loss of restraint and

self-control that can come with power.¹ They vehemently

contemn the vice of arrogance and overweaning pride which

surely invites ruin.² When wealth or, one assumes, other

sources of power lose their distinctive value as security

from the manipulation or control of others and become the

basis of one's own obtrusive or coercive activity, then

this wise group rejects them because they entice one to

overreach his demesne into (potential) destruction.³

In addition, wealth can induce sloth,⁴ hedonism,⁵ greed⁶

and perhaps even a measure of folly in the unwary.⁷

Power, especially wealth, is valuable not in and of it-

self, but instrumentally. Its ethical valuation by the

wise depends on setting, the context within which it is

used. For that reason, the extensive references to

generosity, direct and implied, suggest at least one way

¹21:24

²16:18; 18:12.

³16:18-19; 15:33; 16:5, 8; 17:19.

⁴20:13.

⁵21:17.

⁶21:6; 22:16

⁷21:20.

352

in which riches are to be used wisely:¹

All day long the wicked covets,

but the righteous gives and does not hold back.

21:26

He who has a bountiful eye (tiwb-^cyn) will be blessed,

for he shares his bread with the poor. 22:9

While economic inequity is clearly a major concern

in the B collection, the wise here are not so close to

either pole of the issue that they become strident and

humorless. Their sense of ironic distance remains,²

implying that they do not identify themselves completely

with rich or poor. Distance, irony, ambivalence, ethical

concern, all suggest that this composition issues from a

group that has not become accustomed to inherited wealth

or privilege even if they have it,³ is subject to the

vagaries of power, but is sufficiently confident in its

station that it may at least subtly "lecture" itself and

others on their moral obligations. Further, poverty is

more than a theoretical possibility for them,⁴ the ad-

versity sayings seem to confirm this,⁵ without becoming a

¹See Appendix, Table 30.

²18:23, 18; 20:14(?); 19:7, 4.

³19:14.

⁴See Appendix, Table 29.

⁵22:1-2; 19:22, 1; 17:5; 16:19.

353

fixation. Wealth and poverty are both "existential"

realities in the B composition.

As we shall shortly see, privilege brings obliga-

tion, "noblesse oblige":¹

He who oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth,

or gives to the rich, will only come to want. 22:16

The poor become a special moral concern of those who have.

Restraint remains a feasible strategy for those who are

comfortable, but not well-to-do. With the attainment of

wealth and influence, one can no longer be self-contained.

Riches and power affect others simply because one has them.

To some extent, they breach demesne in rather the same way

that situations which demand that one speak, and do so

effectively, serve to breach the confines of demesne.

Benevolent use of this influence restores balance, there-

fore quiet confidence in one's position.²

He who closes his ear to the cry of the poor

will himself cry out and not be heard. 21:13

If wealth and generosity are a concern in B, so is

poverty along with its implications.³ Two themes recur

in these sayings. First, the poor are subject to the

¹See Appendix, Table 31.

²19:17; 21:13; 22:2, 9; 18:11; 21:26.

³See Appendix, Table 34.

354

control of the wealthy.¹ Second, to be poor is to be

friendless: those continually in need exhaust the gen-

erosity of both family and friends. Pleas for relief of

their plight serve only to alienate further those on whom

they might formerly have relied:² "a poor man is deserted

by his friend."³ Disposition is more important than

poverty. Thus, in two tiwb-mn sayings, personal integrity

supercedes wealth, particularly when riches lead to con-

ceit, over-confidence and folly:

Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity [btmw]

than a man who is perverse in speech, and is a fool.

19:1⁴

It is better to be of a lowly spirit with the poor

than to divide the spoil with the proud. 16:19

Saying 19:22 is a variant comparative which stresses in-

tegrity as hisd:⁵

What is desired in a man is loyalty,

and a poor man is better than a liar.

For these sayings to carry weight, clearly poverty

must be viewed by the wise group at this time as being a

considerable misfortune. Yet, for poverty to form the

¹22:16; 22:7; 18:23.

²19:7 (v. 7c is difficult).

³19:4b.

⁴Cf. 28:6a.

⁵See Appendix, Table 35.

355

focal point of sayings concerning power, altruism and the

dilemmas of the wise' ethics, these alternatives should

likely have been more than purely theoretical. Both wealth

and poverty, gain and loss of social station, seem to have

represented real and plausible possibilities in the lives

of this wise group. Thus, the B composer considers the

relationship of ethics and its intrinsic system of values

to social position. While 17:6 equates want or low

station (rš, cf. dl elsewhere) with personal calamity ('yk),

it also reflects an "iconoclastic" trend in these sayings:

He who mocks the poor insults his Maker;¹

he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished.

17:5

The B composer evidences a special concern for the

poor that goes beyond what we call noblesse oblige. Rather,

it seems to reflect a concern for the possibilities of

virtuous life irrespective of social station. The wise

assess position by a standard which departs from that of

their society²--disposition, personal integrity within

one's appropriate social role, is what is ethically rele-

vant, to the extent that social fortunes may be overturned

by one with proper character.³ They aspire to such social

¹Cf. 14:31a.

²See Appendix, Tables 36 and 37.

³22:4; 21:13; 17:2.

356

transformations, knowing that they may not come about.¹

Ultimately, virtue is its own reward.² Note that poverty

itself is not ennobling; it is a social calamity. Disposi-

tion, not station, counts. The virtues of upright character

realized in conduct supercede the positive, or negative,

benefits of social position. Allegiance to Yahweh, humility,

integrity, reputation, esteem, diligence and good marriage

all mean far more than an one's station in life.³ In sum,

The rich and the poor meet together,

the Lord is the maker of them all. 22:2

The B composer seems to reflect a wise group who are not

mere custodians of the social status quo.⁴ They are suf-

ficiently close to wealth and want, socially and intel-

lectually, to perceive the ethical ambiguities inherent in

each and to chart their own course through them independent

of their society's values as such.

While the B composition treats the pledge or surety

relationship, it does not consider it as an independent

status.⁵ One saying⁶ points up the influence inherent in

¹16:19; 19:1, 22.

²17:5, 16:16; 22:1, 4.

³16:19; 19:1, 14, 22; 21:5; 22:1, 4.

⁴See Appendix, Tables 36 and 37.

⁵See Appendix, Table 26, Part L.

⁶22:7.

357

wealth and money. It and two others¹ focus on the loss of

control (demesne) that comes with borrowing or surety, thus

reflecting more on the discipline of restraint than on a

particular social relationship. The wise person avoids be-

coming thus dependent on others--through borrowing or be-

coming surety--while continuing to exert control over his

own property when others are foolish enough to enter such a

relationship.

The slave is mentioned only three times, one of

which is metaphorical.² A second treats the proprieties of

power and position, relating slave to prince.³The third

places the slave within the context of family rather than

social relationships.⁴ Thus, though its extent may be un-

clear, there is a material familial dimension to the slave's

position evidenced in this material, even though the status as

such seems rather removed from the "existential possi-

ilities" of the B composer. Slavery is tangential to his

thought.⁵ It is relevant insofar as it continues to af-

firm the distinction between the social value of one's

position and the value of one's integrity and faithful

¹17:18; 20:16.

²22:7 (in connection with borrowing).

³19:10.

⁴17:2.

⁵See Appendix, Table 38.

358

conduct. Propriety means one has an ethical responsibility

to act in terms of one's social role, but one's disposition

is not determined by his social position.¹

The foreigner appears equally tangential.² He

figures into one saying concerning surety and pledge:

Take a man's garment when he has given surety

for a stranger and hold him in pledge when

he gives surety for foreigners [nkrym, Q nkryh!]

20:16³

The saying concerns demesne, leaving the place of the

foreigner obscure. The Qere of this saying and 22:14 sug-

gest the image of the "foreign woman" or ‘yšh zrh⁴ to a

reader sensitized by the image in other wisdom. Only at

29:3 do we find any other reference to the foreign woman or

prostitute within the four major collections.⁵ In addition,

the image appears in the shorter intermediary collections

at 23:27-28, at the conclusion of a series of hortatory dis-

courses with the vocative reminiscent of the setting of the

parallel sayings in chs. 1-9. Verse 29:3 uses zwnwt,

limiting the parallel. Saying 22:14 could conceivably be an

addition, since it is the third saying from the end of

¹See Appendix, Tables 14, 35, and 39.

²See Appendix, Table 40, Part H.

³27:13 (except qhi for lqhi).

⁴V. 14 zrwt.

⁵There, D.

359

the B collection, which breaks off with the Amenemope

material. On the other hand, nothing about the saying it-

self compels symbolic, let alone mythic, interpretation,

and any relationship with the foreign woman image may be

extraneous, purely inferential or even, contra Bauer-Kayatz,¹

anachronistic. In the context of the B composition, the

sense of the saying could adequately be given by pointing

up once again Yahweh's power, especially over those who act

without restraint or self-control. Yahweh may (not, must)

use such lack of discipline as an occasion to work his own

purposes.

In this connection, the rhetorical style of B be-

comes important. The composer(s?) makes no use of mythic

or highly symbolic language. When he turns to metaphor, he

appropriates stock symbols and figures from what seems to

be a technical vocabulary having relatively narrow and well-

defined meanings. This vocabulary appears from an examina-

tion of B's own usages: by and large, one need not refer

elsewhere to discover that B is using stock terminology.

Our first obligation obviously is to see what B means by

his language, irrespective of other applications. B's

metaphors are conventional and relatively closed: concrete

and narrow in scope. The foreign woman symbol is (almost)

¹ Bauer-Kayatz, Proverbien 1-9; Bauer-Kayatz,

Einführung, pp. 36-=38, esp. 37, n.3.

360

mythic, broad in its polyvalence, highly abstract--symbol

rather than metaphor, to the extent that we may make a dis-

tinction between the two. On the other hand, the prostitute

as a metaphor is quite within the rhetorical reach of B.

Significantly, the mashal literature, the proverb collec-

tions, turns to abstraction rather than symbol in making

general, potentially multi-valent statements. Indeed, it

is that propensity for using abstract technical vocabulary

which makes the proverb literature so difficult to read or

interpret. We cannot exclude the image of the prostitute

prefiguring or even subtly suggesting other usage, but the

thrust here seems straightforward and concrete. Taken this

way, the saying tells us little if anything at all, about

“foreignness.”

Whether the product of one or several writers, the

B collection, as we have argued, seems to call for the

existence of a group whose accumulated and collective counsel

was superior to that of any one member. Moreover the group

acted as custodians of this learning, instructing the

educable in this heritage. While the sayings here give no

certain evidence of the work or social location of the wise,

inferences can be drawn. B shows ambivalence and value-

conflict when social situations are close to the writer

(and, presumably, his group). This group experiences wealth

and poverty, high and low station, as real possibilities in

361

life, irrespective of personal virtues. They do not in-

herit wealth or position so secure that it can neither be

lost nor materially enhanced. Rather, they live by what

they do, not who they are. Thus, the capacity to project

an effective image in dealing with the powerful becomes a

vital group value—hence, their focus on effective speech.

They seem to work in administrative milieu of information,

judgment and decisions: false statements threaten the

viability of their working positions. Close to those who

have power, they esteem it, but perceive its fickleness.

The king and the nobility are more remote than the wealthy

and powerful; their power and its rightness are taken for

granted. The king is remote; his power, quasi-divine. One

would expect a more complex humanized view, cognizant of

arbitrariness born of politics, intrigue and aristocratic

conflicts, from a group close to the king or high aris-

tocracy. Such ambivalence appears toward wealth and poverty,

suggesting a more modest and intermediate position for this

group. They have enough not to be forever subject to the

control of others; little enough so that they project their

concern about the loss of control inherent in wealth onto

those with more than themselves. These characteristics

suggest middle-rank career officials in the employ of the

state and others, dependent on their work or wits for ad-

vancement but with some confidence (but not certitude) that

362

integrity, fidelity and diligence will be rewarded. While

loss of position is a real calamity, it is not a fixation.

There is far more to life of value than one's position.

In this respect, the wise here reformulate the social order.

They have sufficient stake in the present order that they

value it and seek a measure of fulfillment within its

proprieties. Yet, wisdom is not equivalent to social posi-

tion; status is not presumptive evidence of wisdom. Neither

is wisdom a radical inversion of the social order, whether

this-worldly or other-worldly. The wise perceive their

demesne, their limits of personal control, and seek to act

within it. Overreaching is the cardinal sin. Social posi-

tion is not good, it is given; it is part of demesne. Any

realization of wisdom must be accomplished within that given,

though it maybe an intrinsic value that does not lead to

social preference or advancement. The social order, then,

is affirmed to the extent that it is given. Wisdom values,

however, are relatively, if not entirely, independent of

that system. Though wisdom is possible for every status,

and no one station is free of folly, each class has its

special virtues and vices. The king's virtue is righteous-

ness; his vice, evil deeds and judgments. The nobility,

one suspects, might be characterized by, respectively, grace

and perhaps boorish insipidity. The wealthy may be generous

or grasping. The educated are wise or foolish. The poor

363

are uprightly faithful or dependently servile. Slaves may

be trustworthy or, one might guess, self-aggrandizing.

Wisdom and folly are the special virtue and vice of this

“middle-class” officialdom. Each class may realize wisdom,

or folly, but they appear in forms appropriate to that

position in society. Each vice is not ignorance but failure

to observe the bounds of demesne, overreaching the discipline

of restraint, pride, hence hubris. Recognition of demesne

is faithfulness and integrity; competent action and self-

control within its bounds is wisdom, realized as the special

characteristics of each position. We have to make in-

ferences to reach such a list, but, to the extent that it

be accepted, it suggests the relative independence of wis-

dom versus class which can masquerade as class itself only

because it takes the social order as a given, seeking ac-

complishment within it. The adversity sayings (infra)

strongly suggest that the wise value wisdom over their

social position. Finally, one might even infer that Yahweh's

righteousness, for this group, reflects Yahweh's kingly

role: it is Yahweh's wisdom seen in ruling and governing,

casting righteousness in a slightly different light.

Though important elements of our depiction of the wise have

yet to be sketched, we can already begin to see difficulties

with arguments from retribution and order that seek to

represent or depict the wise, at least with respect to the

364

B composition. The wise’ interpretation of their world

shows notable affinities with what Weber called "inner-

worldly asceticism" (innerweltliche Askese), though such a

characterization would be far too broad and general to be

entirely satisfactory for this literature.¹

The life-world: social institutions

The family and familistic language recur within

these sayings.² We find references to father, mother, wife,

son, child (n^cr), youth (bhiwr), grandchild, the aged,

brother and friend/neighbor--not to mention the outsider or

foreigner already discussed. As one might expect with re-

lational language, several different familistic terms tend

to occur within any particular saying and several relation-

ships may be implied. Occasionally, these terms take on a

symbolic or metaphorical sense, especially the term

“brother.” Generally, however, the terms seem to refer to

the institution of the family, though often in an abstract

or generalizing way. With the exception of the vocative

bny in the admonition 19:27, there is no evidence that the

terms should be taken as an indirect reference to some other

institution or social relationship. There is, for example,

no implication that “father” or "son" have any sort of

¹Weber, Protestant Ethic, pp. 79-92.

²See Appendix, Table 41.

365

school or apprenticeship setting.¹

Fathers are mentioned seven times.²In each case,

other familistic terms appear: son,³ mother,⁴ wife,⁵ and

grandchildren and the elderly.⁶ Where sons are juxtaposed

to fathers, the grief of a son's folly for his parents ap-

pears in three sayings,⁷ violence toward parents is de-

plored once⁸ and his cursing of his parents is once decried.⁹

Only 17:6 casts this relationship in a more favorable light,

and it emphasizes the glory of grandchildren for one who is

old, while sons are honored by their fathers:

Grandchildren are the crown of the aged,

and the glory of sons is their fathers.

Against this left-handed compliment are arrayed sayings like:

A stupid [ksy!] son is a grief to his father;

and the father of a fool has no joy. 17:21¹⁰

¹McKay, pp. 426-35. See Appendix, Table 41, Parts

A, D and H.

²17:6, 21, 25; 19:13, 14, 26; 20:20.

³17:6, 21, 25; 19:13, 26; and implied in 20:20.

⁴19:26; 20:20; and implied in 17:25.

⁵19:13, 14.

⁶17:6.

⁷17:21, 25; 19:13.

⁸19:26.

⁹20:20.

¹⁰Cf. v. 25, 19:13a.

366

Whoever does violence to his father and chases away

his mother

is a son who causes shame and brings repproach. 19:26

The relationship between youth and age, however,

represents a counterpoise to the father sayings at least

insofar that they are silent about the grief youth may

cause. Saying 17:6 involves an ironic inversion of time;

it is tied by catch words (^ctirt, tp’rt) to 16:31 preceding:

A hoary head is a crown of glory;

it is found in the way of righteousness: (BK)

In 20:29, one finds an appreciation of youth that otherwise

seems to be lacking in these sayings:

The glory of young men is their strength,

but the beauty of old men is their gray hair.

Clearly, youth militates against wisdom; it is a stage of

life in which the way of wisdom may be lost and is there-

fore perilous to the youth and stressful to the parent.

Youth is not, however, to be devalued or evil ipso facto.

Wisdom comes with age. The implication seems to be that

those who are wise expect and desire that their sons (pre-

sumably) succeed them in wisdom. They look to their chil-

dren, not generally to surrogate children,¹ to follow their

example. The role of family-based in-group recruitment

among these wise, therefore, should probably not be under-

stated.

¹Cf. 17:2.

367

Train up a child in the way he should go,

and when he is old he will not depart from it.

22:6

Right conduct cannot be assumed; it is something that must

be attained in the child through disciplined development

structured by the parent.

Wives are mentioned four times;¹ mothers, three,

each time parallel to father (!).² Two of the wife sayings

follow the tiwb-mn form;³ each is a saying of adversity.⁴

In each case, the wise man faces a dilemma. He has to de-

cide between undesirable alternatives. The obvious impli-

cation is that such relationships which place the wise

person in an untenable position occur; such choices have to

be made, electing the lesser of two evils. Here, a mar-

riage of contention and conflict represents one of the most

unhappy and disruptive situations in which one who is seek-

ing the wisdom can find himself. Better loneliness and isola-

tion than such disruption. These sayings place a high

value upon a sound and supportive marriage; a good wife

facilitates the way of wisdom for her spouse. Both the

choice of a wife and the wife's own conduct are fundamental

¹18:22; 19:13; 21:9, 19.

²17:25; 19:26; 20:20.

³21:9, 19.

⁴Cf. Appendix, Tables 41, Part C, and 29.

368

to the development of right conduct, a good relationship

with Yahweh and successful pursuit of wisdom:

It is better to live in a desert land

than with a contentious and fretful woman. 21:19

He who finds a wife finds a good thing,

and obtains favor from the Lord. 18:22

As the ultimate good, the way of wisdom supercedes even

the marital relationship. Still, the family is pivotal

to the development, maintenance and communication of the

character and discipline of wisdom. Thus, the character

of one's wife critically affects one's ability to develop

that disposition which is wisdom. This material seems to

presuppose a male perspective. The role of father pre-

dominates over the (almost totally implicit) role of hus-

band. The father's role in discipline receives heavy

emphasis; the mother's, mostly implicit stress, though it

is by no means beyond inference.¹ The value of the wise

disposition as of righteous character redounds through

and is expressed in terms of the father-son relationship:

A righteous man who walks in his integrity--

blessed are his sons after him! 20:7

While women or daughters are not explicitly credited with

wisdom, and that relationship attains no symbolic status

in this work, there is something to the disposition of a

woman that one must assume can be developed and which must

¹See Appendix, Table 41, Parts, A, B, C and D.

369

be sought for her husband and children (sons) to hold to

the way of wisdom. Interestingly, the vices of the bad

wife presented in the adversity sayings are those of

passion and heat: quarreling, contention, fretting.

They also imply abuse of speech! The good wife, by im-

plication, practices that same restraint which typifies

one who pursues wisdom.

All of the references to the mother role occur in

the context of sayings which deal with the foolish or dis-

respectful son: violence to parents,¹ cursing parents²

or general folly.³ The first two stress, albeit by a

rhetorical inversion of extremity, filial respect and

responsibility, perhaps at least in part because wisdom

can only come with mature age, though obviously these

sayings also deal with surrender of the self to vicious

passions. The third is consistent with the view that the

fool's folly has contagious consequences. Those who are

closest to him and whose lives are most inextricably

bound up with him will be most affected by the conse-

quences of his disposition and conduct.⁴

¹19:26.

²20:20.

³17:25.

⁴See Appendix, Tables 42 and 43.

370

Several sayings refer rather generally to children,

though the child would seem to be male (n^cr) so that these

sayings might be included with son sayings. Two sayings

stress discipline.¹ The former has become a cliche, at

least in English, but it stresses the gradually and sys-

tematic acquisition of disposition. The way, disposition

and conduct, is and must be acquired while growing up, as

a process of development.²The latter almost equates

folly with ignorance, but that equation is rhetorical

(effect and cause made equivalent).³ Wise disposition is

not natural or inherent. Ignorance in a child becomes

folly in an adult. The discipline is begun while one is

a callow youth or not at all. Youth is the gateway to

wisdom as to folly.

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child,

but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.

22:15

Verse 20:11 is what we might call an observation:

it is a pithy insight into human nature, a keen recognition

and summary of how people actually behave, seemingly with-

out a judgment as to that behavior.⁴ The recurrence of

¹22:6, 15.

²Cf. Appendix, Tables 20, 39, and 44.

³See Appendix, Tables 26 and 28.

⁴See Appendix, Tables 45 and 46.

371

observations among these sayings may account in part for

the alleged pragmatism, not to mention secularity, of this

material.¹ Something about human conduct and nature is

seen which is simply given as an 'observation' for what

it may be worth, apparently non-judgmentally. If this

saying is an observation, then it expresses the universal

experience of adults dealing with children: children have

keen insight into what is expected of them, yet may behave

in ways sharply at variance with what they know to be right.

Just the way a child goes about doing something

shows clearly whether what he is doing is proper.

Even a child makes himself known by his acts,

whether what he does is pure and right. 20:11

Even a child is not an a-moral being. Yet the saying lends

itself to other, non-observational, interpretations as well.

First, righteousness (unlike folly?!) forms part of an

inherent moral sense which even children have. That in-

trinsic sense forms the basis for the development of what

we are calling "character" or "disposition." The act is

the unveiling of something that is not practical or prag-

matic, that is prior to conduct: it is the revealing of

the character out of which that act inevitably springs

(ytnkr-n^cr). Second, the saying represents a counter-

poise to 22:15. The child is capable of right action.

¹See Appendix, Table 47.

372

Folly is potentially present in youth, but it is not in-

herent. The child can elect or act out that righteousness

which is the sine qua non of the way of wisdom or the child

can choose evil or folly. Youth does not equal folly,

therefore ignorance also is not the same as folly.¹ Un-

derneath the observation lie some understandings of human

nature that are fundamental to the distinctive position

of this (wisdom) material.

Eight sayings deal explicitly with the role of

son;² at least two others are implicit.³ Eight are ex-

plicit or implicit father-sayings, with which we have al-

ready dealt. One deals with the faithful slave.⁴ The

last presents the stock figure of the callow youth whose

ignorance can and must be overcome through discipline:

Discipline your son while there is hope;

do not set your heart on his destruction. 19:18

Ironically, while these sayings portray the vulnerability

of parents, particularly the father, to the ignorance and

potential folly of their offspring, no saying states that

parents might somehow gain glory and honor through the

conduct or disposition of their children. In fact, 17:6

¹See Appendix,. Tables 20 and 48.

²17:2, 6, 21, 25; 19:13, 18, 26; 20:7.

³20:20, 29.

⁴17:2.

373

inverts that theme. It would be too much to take this

curious balance, particularly on the basis of silence, as

evidence that these wise strongly disvalue youth. If that

were so, the concern with the institution of the family,

to the exclusion of many other social institutions, that

is expressed here would be inexplicable. The clear im-

plication is that these wise desire that their sons

(children?) eventually follow them on the path of wisdom:

like many elites, this group would seem to sponsor its own

children for its successors. Rather, we might infer that,

while a youth, one's capacity for wisdom and maturity of

disposition is by definition low, while one's vulnerability

to folly is high. The contagion of folly exposes those

close to one to its consequences.¹ Hence, these parents

have little to gain from their youth qua youth, but stand

to lose much if their children go astray. The sayings

reflect that disparity.¹

Six sayings deal with brothers;² none with sisters.

One is a slave saying,³ previously dealt with. Three are

friend-sayings that juxtapose brother and friend as re-

lationships of faithfulness and intimacy. Verse 18:9

¹See Appendix, Table 42.

²17:2, 17; 18:9, 19, 24; 19:7.

³17:2.

374

treats "brother" metaphorically. In 28:24b, the same

basic phrase appears using hibr for 'hi, thus indirectly

linking this verse as well to the comparison between

brother and friend. Only 18:19 may deal with the brother

as a straightforward kinship relationship, but unfor-

tunately the saying is quite corrupt. It seems to stress

fraternal loyalty and mutual reliance.

There are eleven sayings which explicitly portray

the stock figure of friend or neighbor.¹ Two others might

be considered implicit.² Nine use the term r^ch or a re-

lated form; one, 'wlp;³ one, 'yš-'mwnym.⁴ The figure sym-

bolizes steadfastness, loyalty, fidelity, faithfulness

and integrity. By poetically juxtaposing friend and

brother, the kinship relationship becomes a thematic

bridge whereby the figure of the friend is brought into

the closest circles of intimacy for these wise: the

friend is like a close member of the family.⁵

There are friends who pretend to be friends,

but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

18:24

¹16:29; 17:9, 17, 18; 18:24; 19:4, 6, 7; 20:6;

21:10; 22:11.

²20:16 and 19.

³17:9.

⁴20:6.

⁵See Appendix, Table 24.

375

‘yš r^cym lhtrw^cc

wyš ‘hb dbq m’h. 18:24

First, the friend sayings stress the character of

the friend:

A friend loves at all times,

and a brother is born for adversity. 17:17

Many a man proclaims his loyalty,

But a faithful man who can find? 20:6

Character is important in assessing the conduct of the

friend; there is a propriety of conduct toward one another.

Friendship is a value that transcends particular acts.¹

Judgment is called for in determining how to act toward

the other, for if the other be a friend, special obliga-

tion is due. Being a friend and friendship seem to be

part of the character or disposition of wisdom: to become

is, in part, to be and behave as a friend. Thus, the

character of the friend qua friend raises a special pro-

priety or obligation, one which impinges upon them both:

He who forgives an offense seeks love,

but he who repeats an offense alienates a friend.

17:9

Note that this saying, 17:17, and perhaps 22:11, all de-

nominate the intimacy of the friendship relationship as

love, 'hbh. Those who share friendship, founded in

righteousness and ultimately wisdom, have a relationship

¹Implicit adversity: better friendship than

alienation over some misconduct.

376

that goes beyond intellect or conduct to 'way,' character,

disposition. If love be a passion, which is probably too

much to say, then it seems at least in this respect to

be affirmed in friendship and a fortiori in kinship.

Second, and seemingly at some variance with the

foregoing, these sayings relate friendship to wealth and

material generosity. If one has means, one can have

ready friendship. To some extent, we can subsume these

sayings under our rubric of 'observation.' They are the

wry recognition that where there is generous treatment of

material wealth, the sycophants gather. Yet, the language

of the sayings in no way suggests any distancing from

wealth or means that would suggest irony or perspectival

objectivity. At best, one might infer a certain ambivalent

admiration: that friendship is easy and rewarding where

there is material abundance but burdensome and fragile.

where it is lacking:

Many seek the favor of a generous man,

and every one is a friend to a man who gives gifts.

19:6

Wealth brings many new friends,

but a poor man is deserted by his friend. 19:4

We might better explain this admiration as a recognition

of the vulnerability and contagion of poverty. The poor

person cannot readily control what happens to him and

cannot easily influence others. The necessities of

life come hard. One is vulnerable to minor exigencies

377

that one of more means could easily ignore. One is

vulnerable to chance and circumstance.¹Further, one must

spend the capital of one's friendships and kin relation-

ships in a constant succession of minor but irksome re-

quests for basic needs. The poor are forever needing and

asking for something. One is tempted to add that they do

not even have to ask. To those who have some means, the

mere fact of the poverty of kin and close friends is a

burden borne with guilt that is rekindled every time one

has to see them. Their very existence creates guilt.

Verse 19:7 expresses this dimension, though its third

stichos is difficult:

All a poor man's brothers hate him;

how much more do his friends go far from him!

He pursues them with words, but does not have them.

Warnings against becoming surety or giving pledge are the

logical extension of such vulnerability: one objectively

surrenders control of his life into the hands of others.²

One is no longer able to rely on his own character or dis-

position. To be wise is to limit, not expand, one's

vulnerability. Consider,

A man without sense gives a pledge,

and becomes surety in the presence of his neighbor.

17:18

¹See Appendix, Tables 34 and 43.

²See Appendix, Table 26, Part L.

378

Thus, we may infer that wealth provides a measure of pro-

tection against vulnerability. It is a means to an end,

viz. relatively greater invulnerability which is part of

the restraint which wisdom seeks. It may not be an end

in itself.¹

Two sayings treat the corruption of friendship.

The relationship opens one to influence by another, an

influence, vulnerability, which the wise would seem to

wish to avoid otherwise. Friends are not by definition

either wise or righteous. Hence, one may be harmed by one

with bad character or evil disposition.

The soul of the wicked [npš ršh] desires evil;

his neighbor finds no mercy in his eyes. 21:10

A man of violence entices his neighbor

and leads him in a way that is not good, 16:29

One last friend saying sums up many of these points. Dis-

cipline, integrity and restraint are means to a life of

quality that will be rewarding. The king becomes friend

and intimate:

He who loves [‘hb] purity of heart,

and whose speech is gracious, will have the king

as his friend. 22:11

Within the life-world of these savings, the family

figures prominently. Few social institutions or relation-

¹See Appendix, Tables 32, 33, 34, 42, and 43.

379

ships receive the emphasis that family does. While argu-

ments from silence are perilous, one looks vainly for

sayings dealing with most occupations, vocations, classes

or social groups. Certain of the elite appear, as do

and court. Most others are missing. Thus, the

prominence accorded family and the friend loom large.

There is a privacy, intimacy and relationalism to the way

of wisdom that is otherwise often missed. Objectively, it

means the group is more closed and higher in-internality

than often seems the case. We infer most recruitment by

sponsorship from within.

Only one other social institution receives the

stress accorded the royal court and the family in the B

collection: the law court.¹The sayings revolve around

testimony and judgment. Mashal 18:17 offers the observa-

tion that

He who states his case first seems right,

until the other comes and examines him.

There is a hint of propriety in this saying. The persua-

sive power of speech relates to the circumstances of its

use. The eloquent litigant and the well-spoken adversary

each use speech to present their approach to the case in

the most convincing light. It is a good as a tool, in

¹See Appendix, Table 25.

380

relation to the propriety of its use, not as a value or

end in itself.

Four sayings dea1 with false testimony; two dif-

fer only by replacement of the last word or two by an

equivalent of the opposite valence (negative for positive

expression--19:5, 9). They affirm the integrity and

durability of true testimony. They assert the surety of

judgment against a false witness.

A false witness will perish,

but the word of a man who hears will endure.

[or:--but an .attentive/obedient man will speak

in an enduring way. (BK)] 21:28

In 19:28, we find a saying of deceptive simplicity. It

seems true by definition, almost an observation. Yet, it

appears to assert that vice like virtue is its own reward,

that evil corrupts established social institutions, that

the defect in the evil person lies in the character from

which the conduct flows, and that unreliable or false

testimony amounts to an active rejection of or rebellion

against the law court system. Like many other of these

sayings, much is communicated by implication.

A worthless witness mocks at justice,

and the mouth of the wicked devours iniquity.

19:28

The saying in 18:5 can be taken as a direct affirmation

of the judicial system as well as a rejection of partiality.

In that sense, however, the saying is trivial and it

belabors the obvious. It affirms the accepted with seeming

381

artlessness. Perhaps we should see this as another pro-

priety saying revolving around the characters or disposi-

tions of the litigants. The character as well as the act

must be considered part of the litigation. The court

cannot be blind as to who appears before it. Acts do not

supercede the personalities, characters, of the agents.¹

To affirm the acts of the wicked or to hold against the

conduct of one who otherwise is righteous represents a

perversion of justice. The upright expect their conduct

to be affirmed as the wicked must expect to meet rejection

in the courts.

It is not good to be partial to a wicked man,

or to deprive a righteous man of justice. 18:5

With this saying, compare,

He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the

righteous

are both alike an abomination unto the Lord. 17:15

Other sayings affirm the judgment of the courts and its

appropriateness.² Hence, in what may be another propriety

statement,

When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous,

but dismay to evildoers. 21:15

The association of courts with propriety is reinforced by

the sayings concerning lots discussed above: the lot

¹See Appendix, Table 14.

²17:26; 19:29.

382

decides between powerful adversaries, implying that power,

like character, is a relevant and appropriate considera-

tion in the deliberations of those in the law courts.¹

Aside from the rite of lot-casting, if indeed it

should be taken as a reference at all, the cult is in-

frequently mentioned and then in fairly general terms.²

Verse 15:29, which we may include with B material, asserts

that Yahweh hears the prayer of the righteous while re-

maining remote from the wicked. The saying is more in-

teresting for the equation of righteousness with prayer,

hence (cultic?) ritual, than for the possible allusion to

formal worship or religious expression. In other words,

we shall argue below that such sayings clarify the com-

parative semantic fields of "righteous" and "wise"--the

two are related but not equivalent.³

In 21:27, the disposition of the worshipper af-

fects the quality and validity of the worship and worship-

ful conduct. What the wicked does is ipso facto offen-

sive; the character of the individual is in and of itself

an abomination that by contagion sullies whatever he or

she may seek to do. Above and beyond that, the worship

¹16:33; 18:18.

²See Appendix, Tables 8, Part H; 26, Parts R, S

and U; and 40, Parts D, F, and J.

³See Appendix, Tables 26, 49 and 50.

383

is doubly abominable if it forms part of an evil design

zmh:

The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination;

how much more when he brings it with evil intent

[Better: intentions, plans, designs]. 21:27

Saying 21:3 clearly places some distance between the author

and the cult. Sacrifice is not in and of itself a good.

This saying can be taken as evidence that these wise have

secular values or that they downplay the role of the cult

in their life. The saying fits in with the widespread

secular-pragmatic interpretation of wisdom. Three issues

impinge on this saying. First, the semantic field of

"righteousness" (sidqh) needs to be considered. Second,

if conduct is the outgrowth of a disposition, then the

quality or nature of the disposition of the person deter-

mines the nature or quality of the act. Third, each dis-

position implies a propriety. Thus, one who is righteous

has, we shall argue, a right relationship with Yahweh.

It is a type or quality of relationship (not the only one

possible); it is not an act. Thus, doing righteousness

amounts to the expression of a certain quality of relation-

ship and of the personality who has it. Valid cultic

worship of any kind is possible if and only if the indi-

vidual already stands in the proper kind of relationship

with Yahweh--otherwise, the worship is actually a pro-

fanation, by virtue of the disposition of the agent alone

384

(propriety). Thus, sacrifice is not in and of itself

valuable, but valuable only as the act and expression of

one who already expresses the proper disposition, viz.

right relationship with Yahweh. Thus, Yahweh clearly

favors the disposition and its expression over the cultic

act, except and unless it is the expression of such a

personality.

To do righteousness and justice

is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.

21:3

This interpretation receives some reinforcement,

not only from intentionality sayings, but from a saying

concerning vows and one's perceptions of the holy. Here,

the act of vowing or of religious affirmation (better:

commitment, dedication in the cultic sense) represents a

genuine vulnerability. The author(s) asserts that such

an act binds. Therefore, it must be undertaken with

caution and reflection. The sacred and the cult repre-

sent significant powers that are not to be trifled with

or taken lightly. Such commitments represent irrevocable

surrenders of autonomy. The power of the sacred, perhaps

even over disposition, is affirmed.¹ The saying suggests

a highly serious attitude toward cultic acts:

It is a snare for a man to say rashly, "It is holy,"

And to reflect only after having made his vows.

20:25

¹Cf. 19:16.

385

One other saying may reflect some understanding

of the cult, though it is obscure at best.

The wicked is a ransom [kpr] for the righteous,

and the faithless for [thit] the upright. 21:18

The saying clearly deals with disposition and propriety

following the interpretation we are developing, but the

word "ransom" or atonement/redemption gives it a cultic

cast. We infer that the disposition of the wicked vastly

increases their vulnerability. Righteousness and wisdom

represent attempts to limit one's vulnerability. There-

fore, under the principle of propriety, those who have

evil or rebellious dispositions are due evil and ultimate

destruction. Whatever acts of evil the righteous person

does, whatever acts of folly the wise person may commit,

all pale to insignificance by propriety combined with a

due consideration of the dispositions of those who have

not followed that way. The vulnerability of the wicked

to the consequences of his or her own disposition de-

creases the vulnerability of the righteous or wise to

deviations from their ways.¹ This view would represent

a modification of, and perhaps an explicit response to,

the doctrine of retribution.² Retributive justice is not

tied purely to act. The intentionality forms the basis

¹See Appendix, Table 43.

²See Appendix, Tables 8, Part E, and 27; cf.

Tables 12, 29, 36 and 39.

386

of moral consequence: it is so governed by propriety that

the consequences which accrue to those who are evil work

to free from potential harm those who are upright.¹The

doctrine may be cultic as well as moral-ethical.

Trade is mentioned occasionally, though principally

through sayings on weights and measures.² Three sayings

associate "diverse" measures and weights with abomination

to Yahweh:³

Diverse weights and diverse measures

are both alike an abomination to the Lord. 20:10

Sayings like these could represent a serious ethical con-

cern on the part of the wise of the B collection, especially

because of the parallels to prophetic ethical concern.

We shall shortly argue, however, that these sayings belong

to a class we shall call 'noblesse oblige' in which the

elite assert and justify their privileged station (here,

in the way of wisdom and in righteousness) through-certain

highly conventionalized ethical statements.⁴ The concern

is formalistic rather than substantive. But, we anticipate

ourselves. Suffice to say that, if so, these sayings also

shed little light on these wise' relationships to trade,

¹See Appendix, Tables 42 and 43.

²See Appendix, Table 51.

³16:11; 20:10, 23. See Appendix, Table 52.

⁴See Appendix, Table 31.

387

merchants or measures. Otherwise, there remains only the

penetrating 'observation':

"It is bad, it is bad," says the buyer;

but when he goes away, then he boasts. 20:14

A variety of sayings deal with agricultural

settings, practices or products.¹ For Skladny, this

language anticipates a gradual movement of this wisdom

away from an urban elitist setting onto the land. Wisdom

becomes both democratized and decentralized as part of its

reaction to the breakdown of retributionism.² What is

striking about these sayings, however, is not the depth

and power of their insight, their familiarity with and use

of the vocabulary and experience of agriculture, but

rather their formality and superficiality. We find no

hapax legomena, no odd technical terms, no difficult or

obscure practices. We find metaphors that are virtually

cliche and rather banal naturalistic language ("bread,"

'honeycomb," "grass," "rain" and the like). In what way

is rural life essential to these sayings? Rather, an

urban tyro could as easily appropriate this language (and

it might therefore be more excusable artistically, if we

dare make such judgment). To be convincingly naturalistic

this language ought to seem out of place anywhere but on

¹See Appendix, Table 53.

²Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, pp. 76-79.

388

the land. It does not. Why? We would argue that it

represents a common reaction of urban elites to their re-

fined lifestyle: the neo-naturalistic urge to recapture

lost intimacy with others and self and to be free of

alienating and objectifying as well as anxiety-producing

social structures by fantasizing a return to the land.

The fantasy serves as a compensation and affirmation. Neo-

naturalism affirms one's own value and significance. It

affirms another dimension to one's life and sense of self.

It idealizes and captures the value of personal intimacy

that being a part of an urban elite often denies one.

The language, therefore, is imagistic only to the extent

that it is symbolic. It asserts the well-rounded in-

terests and life of its author and preserver. The de-

tails and arcana of rural life are irrelevant, for one

does not seek that life literally (and modern neo-

naturalists would probably hate to live the life they so

symbolically reverence), but figuratively. The banality

and triviality of the images suggest the symbolic rather

than experiential value of these sayings. Similarly, a

few sayings mention wild animals--she-bear, lion,

horse(?)--but not in ways that would suggest, let alone

require, direct experience.¹

¹See Appendix, Table 54.

389

A king's wrath is like the growling of a lion,

but his favor is like dew upon grass. 19:12

Let a man meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs,

rather than a fool in his folly. 17:12

He who sows injustice will reap calamity,

and the rod of his fury will fail. 22:8

Such sayings offer little direct interpretation of the

life-world of these wise. If neonaturalistic, the life-

world is expressed through them by a kind of indirect,

almost inverse, symbolism.

There are several sayings that deal with war or

battle.¹ The predominate theme is the stronghold or

fortress-city, which may be besieged. Thus,

A wise man scales the city of the mighty

and brings down the stronghold in which they trust.

21:22

A rich man's wealth is like a strong city²

and like a high wall protecting him. 18:11

Restraint offers security,³ as does one's brother helped.⁴

Wisdom and counsel prepare the way for battle,⁵ intimating

the cumulative nature of wisdom. Wisdom also makes the

stronghold vulnerable.⁶There is also the deus disponit

¹See Appendix, Table 55.

²Cf. 10:15a; 18:10.

³16:32.

⁴18:19.

⁵20:18.

⁶21:22.

390

saying:

The horse is made ready for the day of battle,

but the victory belongs to the Lord. 21:31

Here, too, the imagery is stereotypical. There is

nothing about it that suggests by vividness of imagery or

use of special terminology that the wise of collection B

have more than an abstract familiarity with war. Rather,

war seems to express conveniently vulnerability and in-

vulnerability in symbolic terms. Indeed, one saying

suggests this conceptual and emotional distance by assert-

ing the wisdom standard of valuation:

He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty,

and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

16:32

Though various sayings deal with corporal punish-

ment as a means of discipline,¹ none specifically locates

that within a formal didactic institution, though several

do in terms of the law court's judgment. Only one saying

seems to reflect a formal system of instruction as part

of the Lebenswelt:

Why should a fool have a price in his hand to buy

wisdom,

when he has no mind [lb]? 17:16

Several technical wisdom terms appear in this rhetorical

question.² Behind it, one would like to find some sort

¹19:18; 22:15.

²See Appendix, Tables 15 and 56.

391

of formal system of instruction for which fees were

charged. One is tempted by the Greek model of paideia,

though the notion is both anachronistic and culturally

untenable. Still, the saying cannot be dismissed.

While one can make no useful statement about the form of

instruction or its social organization, the saying would

make no sense if it were not possible to think, however

wrongly (irony!), that wisdom could be bought. In other

words, the fool's error could be not merely that he lacks

the essential disposition to acquire wisdom but also that

he thinks wisdom is purchasable. Still, where would he

get the idea unless there were some formal instruction,

if only for those who had amenable dispositions and who

could acquire the discipline to which the instruction

would be at best the means? One cannot buy a disposition

or character, but that character must be put on the way,

trained, through a discipline imposed by those who have

advanced toward wisdom.¹ Some formal system seems im-

plicit.

This discussion of the Lebenswelt seems to show

a focus in this material around the issue of socio-

economic status and the institution of the family. The

¹See Appendix, Tables 20 and 39.

392

wise of the B collection seem to be an elite, built on

administrative authority and a specialized discipline

which they attributed to the character of the learner.

They seem to form an in-group, hence their concern for

their immediate circle of family and "friends." That

intimacy shades into wisdom. They therefore probably

sponsor their own young to succeed themselves, failure

at which is deemed a great personal tragedy. They seem

to be urban and privileged, though subject to those with

great power. They live in an administrative world of

court and courts, where language and reliability are

vital. When they look outside that realm, their language

and imagery become stereotypical, symbolic, and sometimes

banal. Their attention seems to be focussed on a fairly

restricted sphere. While arguments from silence are

tenuous, an argument from a pattern of silence may not

be: much of the social life of that society is missing,

because it did not occupy the attention of these wise.

It could be taken for granted as certain specialized areas

could not. The life of the lower classes and the world

outside the city (if our argument concerning neonaturalism

be valid) scarcely appears. They explain and defend the

world which they must interpret because of its immediacy

and their potential vulnerability to it: the world of

administrative and political power. It requires

393

interpretation only because they live within it and are

immediately affected by it. I submit we may largely as-

sume that what is missing did not require explanation.

Demesne

Third, tinder the rubric of space, we shall examine

the demesne these wise perceive, or better the system of

demesnes which they perceive themselves to inhabit and

in terms of which they feel they have to act. We use the

somewhat archaic term 'demesne' to refer to the range of

personal and social space over which a particular person,

being, institution or effect would have influence or

power. One's demesne is what one can control. That the

wise perceived themselves to deal with the world of ex-

perience in terms of demesnes meant that they understood

the world in terms of gradients of power or authority,

control. This view should not be surprising if our loca-

tion of this literature among the administrative elite

be correct. The bureaucracy is a world of semi-feudal

demesnes. Little wonder that this experience should be-

come normative for their understanding of life. The

gradients experienced in work are seen as one manifesta-

tion of a pervasive natural and religious phenomenon. The

world is organized and structured by power. Its range is

demesne. The wise person lives within his own demesne,

limiting his or her exposure to the demesnes of others and

394

thereby reducing vulnerability and contagion. Part of

wisdom is one's recognition of the boundaries of demesnes

beyond which one becomes especially vulnerable. The

fourth section, following, deals with these boundaries.

Demesne is not an act or action, nor is it expressed

directly as or through activity. Demesne is the gradient

structure of a power whose range diminishes at some bound-

ary.

Obviously, 'demesne' represents an inference. We

propose this concept as a means of interpreting the seem-

ing inconsistencies of this literature. The much vaunted

pragmatism of these wise stands over against admonitions

and judgments which flagrantly ignore self-interest or

expediency. Concern with conduct stands in opposition to

the abstraction and generality of too many sayings. The

term 'demesne' should be sufficiently neutral that we

can avoid most extra-cultural inferences and use it to

structure and interpret what seems to be an implicit and

sometimes explicit consistency with these sayings.

Demesne begins with disposition, intentionality.

intentionality, rather than disposition, is the more

rigorous term.¹ By intentionality, we mean the way in

which the individual as a whole being, having and giving

¹See Appendix, Table 39.

395

meaning to the world of experience, comes to (= is dis-

posed toward, hence disposition) action. “Disposition,”

"personality," "character," all are more conventional

terms which we substitute for the Phenomenologically-

based 'intentionality.' Intentionality is hermeneutic

because it presupposes a meaningful and meaning-giving

orientation toward life. It is not "intent" or "inten-

tion" but the whole of a person's character which colors

and interprets what that person then does. Intentionality

cannot be reduced to conduct.¹

We have already suggested that the B material

bases its evaluation of people and their conduct on dis-

position, intentionality, not on the conduct alone. The

first clue to the approach from intentionality comes from

the 'attitude' sayings.² They stress the state of mind

(lb, heart) of the individual as something significant and

valuable, entirely apart from behavior. Thus:

A cheerful heart is a good medicine,

but a downcast spirit dries up the bones. 17:22

A man's spirit will endure sickness;

but a broken spirit who can bear? l8:14

The purpose in a man's mind is like deep water,

but a man of understanding will draw it out. 20:5

All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes,

but the Lord weighs the spirit. 16:2

¹Kovacs, "Intentionality."

²See Appendix, Table 57.

396

Within the mind/heart resides a disposition or character

that may not readily appear in overt behavior. People do

not reveal their basic natures by what they do. Impor-

tant dimensions of personality, that are essential for

interpreting the meaning and quality of their conduct,

lie beyond immediate observation. Only through perspicacity

and insight in the context of a proximous even intimate re-

lationship can the deepest but most fundamental elements

of the other be known.¹ Part of wisdom is being able to

go beyond superficial evaluation of conduct and perceive

the basic character that underlies it. Yahweh possesses

this ultimate quality, so that he assesses or judges

("weighs'!) action on the basis of what is fundamental to

that person, the essential disposition.² In that, Yahweh

differs from people, especially those who do not pursue

wisdom. They judge conduct after their own lights, i.e.

in and of itself, apart from the intentionality from which

it springs.

The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord,

searching all his innermost parts. 20:27

The “lamp”³ symbolically represents that essential

¹See Appendix, Table 16, Part O.

²See Appendix, Table 8, Parts H and L.

³See Appendix, Table 58.

397

character.¹ Note the equation here with spirit,² which

is also terminus technicus for disposition or essential

being.³ Another term is "bones" or grm in 17:22 which

Brown-Driver-Briggs suggests can mean "self" as it may

in the difficult text II Kings 9:13; Proverbs 25:15 also

gains considerable poignance when interpreted in this

light. The wise are sensible of the quality of depth in

human experience and express it in imagistic and meta-

phorical language. Thus, too, they use the images of

fountain,⁴ deep waters,⁵ rain and clouds,⁶ stream⁷ and

the like. To understand a person, one must look within

to his character; one must look behind actions to their

underlying meaning. This quality of insight is quintes-

sentially Yahweh's. This language also casts the term

'way' (drk) in another light.⁸ A person's way is not

what he does but what he or she is essentially. We might

¹20:20; 21:4; cf. 15:30.

²rwhi; see Appendix, Table 59.

³Saying 13:9 in.the A collection parallels lamp

to light, cf. 15:30 in B, "light of the eyes."

⁴16:22; 18:4.

⁵18:4; 20:4.

⁶16:15.

⁷21:1.

⁸See Appendix, Table 44.

398

say that it is the pattern rather than specific instances of

conduct. The recurrence of the term suggests its

importance; it is more than a metaphor. Though it cer-

tainly implies the discipline whereby wisdom develops

and grows, the way is more than a discipline. It repre-

ents the intentional patterns of which particular

disciplines are in turn expressions.

When a man's ways please the Lord,

he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

16:7

The highway of the upright turns aside from evil;

whoever guards his way preserves his life. 16:17

A wicked man puts on a bold face,

but an upright man establishes his ways. 21:29

Character is a value in its own right. It gives pleasure.

It is the basis for intimacy with others, hence friend-

ship. Ultimately, it is the basis of a sound relation-

ship with Yahweh. The attitude sayings show that the

B author, and presumably his audience, distinguish the

importance of disposition, stressing the significance

of good character, even as its own reward.

What is desired in a man is loyalty [hisd!]

and a poor man is better than a liar. 19:22

Many a man proclaims his own loyalty,

but a faithful man who can find?

A righteous man who walks in his integrity--

blessed are his sons after him! 20:6-7

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,

but only in expressing his opinion. 18:2

399

The wise have a distinct standard of values which are

organized around the quality of person that is character,

attitude, intentionality.¹

In the B material, we find delineated various ways

of living, various kinds of character or intentionality.

The most important of these are wisdom, righteousness,

ignorance, folly and wickedness, though one could probably

argue for others as well, the ‘friend’ for example. The

righteous, whom we have not yet really discussed, put the

others in perspective.² Like wisdom, righteousness is

an intentionality, it is character.³ Certain aspects of

righteousness make it difficult to separate from wisdom,

so that the two may seem to be equated or equatable.

Thus, two sayings associate the righteous person with

reflective, thoughtful, accurate speech.⁴ Another relates

righteousness to generosity.⁵ An adversity saying in tiwb-

mn form prefers righteousness to wealth; reminiscent of

the valuation placed on wisdom in such meshalim.⁶ Two

¹See Appendix, Table 36.

²See Appendix, Table 49.

³17:26; 18:5; 20:7!, 28; 21:18.

⁴15:28; 16:13.

⁵21:26.

⁶16:8.

400

assert that righteousness leads to life and wickedness to

destruction, a la wisdom versus folly.¹

Since we have no saying which explicitly compares

or contrasts wisdom and righteousness, any distinction we

draw between the two must be based on inferred semantic

fields. There seems to be some difference. Righteous-

ness is associated with a relationship to Yahweh. The

righteous person finds Yahweh a refuge; Yahweh hears his

or her prayers; Yahweh orders the system of justice in

favor of the righteous (not right acts!).² Righteous-

ness appears in the context of integrity (tm) and

loyalty/hisd³ and faithfulness ('mwnh).⁴ Several of the

sayings have a cultic cast;⁵ others use the term abomina-

tion (tw^cbh) in the same context;⁶ some refer to an act

of judgment;⁷ others associate righteousness with wise

governance and the king.⁸ I would propose that what

¹16:31; 21:12; cf. 20:7; 21:18.

²15:29; 17:15; 17:26; 18:10; 21:3.

³See Appendix, Table 35.

⁴20:6-8, a thematic sayings sequence; cf. 20:28!

⁵15:29; 17:15?; 21:3, 18.

⁶See Appendix, Table 52.

⁷17:15, 26.

⁸16:12, 13; 20:28.

401

underlies these sayings is a disposition of one in a

proper/valid/sound relationship with Yahweh. Righteous-

ness is right relationship to god. That relationship

then forms the basis of cult, court and kingship. Each

can be well founded and function properly if and only if

there be first a right or proper relationship to Yahweh.

Otherwise, the structure is perverted and results in

(contagious) evil. Righteousness is a way that is es-

sential for Hebrew society and for each person within it.

Righteousness is attainable: there is no suggestion that

a person cannot aspire to being righteous, that some

group or class of people are a fortiori excluded from the

ranks of the righteous except insofar that they exclude

themselves (as and through wickedness). Right character

is self-justifying;¹ it is its own reward. We would

infer that righteousness is the sine qua non of wisdom.

Unless one establishes right relationship with Yahweh,

one cannot begin to pursue wisdom, hence the unclarity.

Everyone who is wise is and must be righteous and just.

To be wise, one must have integrity. But all who are

righteous are not wise. Wisdom is something that is

not as readily accessible. Some, as fools, cannot attain

wisdom; they cannot aspire to it. Even a child, we have

¹20:7.

402

seen, possesses a certain moral sensitivity¹ that is the

basis of righteousness. The callow youth, however, does

not possess a certain intellectual or better charactero-

logical sensitivity that predisposes him or her to wisdom.

Indeed, the grief of bringing one's children to wisdom

obsesses these wise. The fool, therefore, lacks wisdom,

either by rejecting it or being unable to attain it. The

ignorant, however, are educable. The fool is no longer

educable. The wicked reject righteousness; what they do

is evil. It leads, by contagion and vulnerability to

destruction. Folly has the same outcome. Both can af-

fect others who become bound up in them. In a sense,

folly and wickedness are more closely related than wisdom

and righteousness. If wisdom presupposes righteousness,

then wickedness presupposes folly. But, to reject wisdom

is virtually to reject the righteousness upon which it

is based: hence, the probable convergence of folly and

evil/wickedness.

There is no saying that neatly clarifies this

vocabulary. We suggest, however, that the cultic and

righteousness sayings, in the light of those on disposi-

tion and attitude, suggest a kind of increasingly restric-

tive hierarchy of dispositions: wicked, foolish,

¹20:11,

403

ignorant, righteous, wise. The ambiguity of the relation-

ship between righteousness and wisdom derives from the

fact that righteousness is taken for granted; it is that

without which one cannot be wise, the sine qua non.¹ To

be wise, one must first be righteous. One must first be

in right relation with Yahweh, implying a recognition

and presupposition of the cult. Again, it is the sine

qua non. Of course one must have "piety," but that is

not enough. Other values are higher still--which does not

mean a rejection of or normative faith. But, dis-

position supercedes practice; wisdom is more demanding

than righteousness.

Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity

than a man who is perverse in speech and is a fool.

It is not good for a man to be without knowledge,

and whoever makes haste with his feet misses the way.

When a man's folly brings his way to ruin,

his heart rages against the Lord. 19:1-3

Each “way” is a disposition. To each way belong

appropriate behaviors and responses. The ‘propriety say-

ags’ are an outgrowth of these distinctions.² Behavior

is interpreted on the basis of intentionality: it acquires

meaning on the basis of who undertakes the action. Right

interpretation and response is to the character of the

“agent” not to the abstract ethical status of the act.

¹15:33; 16:6.

²See Appendix, Table 14.

404

In this sense, we see the Hebrew wise of this collection

as personal, individualistic and concrete. Acts are an

abstraction. What one is concerned with is the conduct

of personalities. To understand an act, I must under-

stand who did it. Thus, what may be fitting in one

setting is out of place in another. What is right for

one is wrong for another, even though the objective act

be the same. The act alone is not at stake; one must

consider the character of the person who acted. Perhaps

this is the meaning of 21:18 as we have suggested.¹

The Lord has made everything for its purpose [lm^cnhw],

even the wicked for the day of trouble [lywm-r^ch].

16:4

The poor use entreaties,

but the rich answer roughly. 18:23

The latter may be an observation, or even bon mot; how-

ler, it also may reflect a sense of propriety as well.

What is proper, even admirable, in the well-to-do, is

appropriate or unsuitable for the poor. Each way, each

character, has its own appropriate conduct and style. A

number of other propriety sayings have already been noted,

though the clearest deal with social class, wealth or

judgments in court. In a way, retribution is the working

of propriety. Each "way" has intrinsic consequences.

Each attains what is inherent and appropriate to the

¹See Appendix, Tables 39 and 57.

405

character of the individual. Thus, many seemingly

retributive sayings can readily take on a proprietary

cast when seen in this light.¹

As one moves up the hierarchy of dispositions,

one becomes less and less vulnerable. Wickedness and

folly not only lead to appropriately unfortunate conse-

quences, but they expose one to danger and disaster.

While no one can totally avoid misfortune, righteousness

and wisdom reduce the risk of it.²First, Yahweh searches

out a person's character.³ One may be mistaken about his

way, and from that mistake incur disaster or mischance.⁴

What Yahweh intends, not man, will take precedence.⁵

Intentions bow to god's will:⁶

Many are the plans in the mind of a man,

but it is the purpose of the Lord that will be

established. 19:21

Moreover,

Who can say, "I have made my heart clean;

I am pure from my sin?" 20:9

Wisdom is cumulative and limited. It is a demesne. When

¹17:10-11; 17:5, 13, 20, 22; inter alia.

²See Appendix, Tables 16, 39, 49 and 57.

³20:27.

⁴16:2; 21:2.

⁵See Appendix, Table 8, Parts A and C.

⁶21:30-31.

406

one steps beyond that demesne into Yahweh's, then one

risks misfortune in the face of Yahweh's will, especially

if that overstepping be borne of arrogance:

Pride goes before destruction,

and a haughty spirit before a fall.

It is better to be of a lowly spirit with the poor

than to divide the spoil with the proud. 16:18-19

Adversity occurs, even to the wise, as the ad-

versity sayings clearly show.¹ But, one can reduce the

likelihood of misfortune by pursuing a way, a disposi-

tion, that will find favor with Yahweh and by restricting

his behavior insofar as possible to what is within one's

own demesne.² What vulnerability means is that a person

who is foolish or wicked will experience disaster or

misfortune in ways far out of proportion to their ob-

jective behavior. The response (propriety) is to their

character, not their conduct. Even the objectively

"good" or "right" derives from a personality that is

neither, thus they gain no benefit from such acts. In-

deed, a right act done by the wrong person may be doubly

offensive, as is the case with cult sacrifice by one who

is wicked.³ Conversely, the righteous and wise avert

many disasters that might befall them on the basis of

¹See Appendix, Table 29.

²E.g., 16:5-7.

³21:27.

407

the consequences objectively due certain deeds, because

Yahweh searches out their "heart" or "spirit" and

evaluates their conduct in that light. They are rela-

tively less vulnerable to consequences.¹

By loyalty and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for,

and by the fear of the Lord a man avoids evil

16:6²

It is even possible that the increased vulnerability of

the wicked or foolish can be thought to balance the de-

creased vulnerability of the wise and righteous,³ though

we should not stress the point.

Along with vulnerability goes contagion. In

other words, character is not purely a matter of indi-

idual personality. It affects those with whom one has

relationships. The closer the relationship, the more

one is affected. Good and evil alike are contagious, as

are wisdom and folly. In a sense, then, relationships

make one vulnerable to contagion.⁴

Let a man meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs,

rather than a fool in his folly. 17:12

A king's wrath is like the growling of a lion,

but his favor is like dew upon the grass. 19:12

¹See Appendix, Table 8, Part H.

²Cf. vv. 1-9.

³21:18.

⁴See Appendix, Tables 42 and 43.

408

Drive out a scoffer, and strife will go out,

and quarreling and abuse will cease. 22:10

The second saying indicates that contagion may be

facilitated by demesnes of power. 'Contagion' is a

rather sinister way of saying that for these wise, dis-

positions develop and change. They are not fixed and

immutable. Wisdom derives from discipline and learning.¹

Wickedness may be rebellion; folly can be arrogance or

militant ignorance.²In a world where personalities can

be changed, but where the "quality" of the personality

has ultimate religious and ethical significance, people

can be affected through their relationships with others.

The consequences of disposition, good and ill, are not

and cannot be confined to the particular individual:

they affect those he is close to and whom he influences.

Consequences are distributed through structures of rela-

tionship and influence. The doctrine of vulnerability

merely enhances this process. Contagion also means that

the individualism of these wise can be rather overstated.

While contagion is not community, it does depend on re-

lationships and ultimately intimacy.

When a scoffer is punished, the simple becomes wise;

when a wise man is instructed, he gains knowledge.

21:11

¹See Appendix, Tables 20 and 60.

²See Appendix, Table 26.

409

One is most vulnerable to contagion in family and friend-

ship, hence the poignance of a shrewish wife, feckless

child, impecunious and importuning brother or faithless

friend.

The result of vulnerability and contagion is a

sharpening of social divisions. One should seek to live

his or her life among those with righteous dispositions

and who are pursuing the way of wisdom. One should

limit contacts with those whose dispositions are likely

to draw one into their predisposition to misfortune and

disaster. What counts is the character of the person

with whom one deals.¹ Thus, we infer social demesnes.

From this perspective, the wise constitute an elite in-

group. They identify themselves on the basis of charac-

ter, which they see as going beyond membership in a

particular social subclass, a certain kind of training

or discipline, or a certain parentage.² Doubtless,

though, these objective characteristics constituted im-

portant signs for prospective membership among this

group of "wise." Yet, "ideologically," they wish to

maintain, probably with some justice, that the ultimate

test is a character which one who is wise can generally

¹See Appendix, Table 39.

²See Appendix, Tables 16, 20, 21, 48 and 60.

410

perceive in another that goes beyond any specific objec-

tive criteria.¹ Indeed, from the adversity sayings, lack

of certain of these characteristics does not necessarily

bar one from wisdom, if one has the disposition/inten-

tionality, though such lack makes the way more arduous

and treacherous.² This proposal would account for our

difficulty in specifying what wisdom is, for it lies be-

yond objective conduct in the quality of a person's

character. Wisdom would then have a strong intuitive

dimensiom. Wisdom is what one is, not what one does.

Noetic words thereby take on another cast; they are in-

tuitive recognitions, not sums of rote learning and ap-

plication. This view, obviously, stands against the

postulated pragmatic interest of the wise soi-disant.

What is prudential is that one seek to fulfill a 'good'

disposition, act within and in terms of it, and live

within and in terms of a compatible social demesne.

Within this group, the beneficial contagion and cumula-

tion of wisdom redounds to the benefit of each member and

of the group as a whole. Maleficence in turn is basically

confined to its proprietary groups as a contagion.³ One

¹See Appendix, Table 16, Part O.

²See Appendix, Part 29.

³E.g., 16:27-32; 20:1-3; 21:4-12.

411

gains not only the beneficent fruits of one's own dis-

position as wise or righteous but shares in their poten-

tiation through participation with like-disposed others.

Thus, the ethic of restraint which expresses these

demesnes constitutes a kind of Standesethik to the extent

that it serves to identify, organize and maintain an

identifiable social group that, at least by inference,

constitutes a social demesne or in-group.

The most encompassing of all demesnes is Yahweh's.

His power supervenes over all others.¹No insight, no

wisdom can prevail against the stronghold of Yahweh's

power:² Whatever Yahweh disposes occurs. Human ends,

from whatever disposition they may derive, must submit to

those of Yahweh. While those who are righteous and wise

are most likely to be in accord with those purposes and

therefore most likely to experience beneficent outcomes,

no human judgment, no concatenation of human judgments

however disposed can equal those of Yahweh. Yahweh has

the (absolute) capacity to bring his ends to fruition.

Even when human purposes and the disposition of which

they are born are in accord with Yahweh's, it is Yahweh's

power that brings them to fulfillment. The outcome,

¹See Appendix, Table 8, Parts A and D.

²See Appendix, Table 8, Part B.

412

beneficent or maleficent, good or bad, always proceeds

from Yahweh's power.¹The demesne of Yahweh supervenes

over all others.

Further, Yahweh is disposed (!) in terms of

standards and values which are distinctly his (i.e.,

appropriate to his disposition as Yahweh and god).²

Whatever human judgment may be, even born of wisdom and

righteousness, its values are secondary to Yahweh's

Yahweh has a distinct system of valuation.

All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes,

but the Lord weighs the spirit. 16:2

No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel,

can avail against the Lord. 21:30

People develop a variety of plans, in accord with their

dispositions. Yahweh's supercede that diversity.³

Humility is, therefore, a virtue, because it is a recog-

nition that no knowledge or insight, no disposition, can

assure that one's intentions are consistent with Yahweh's.⁴

Wisdom is not absolute; it must submit to the superior

demesne. At the same time, Yahweh's values, purposes and

power are not maleficent but righteous--they are intrinsic

¹16:1-9, 33; 20:24; 21:1-2, 30 (!), 31; 22:5, 12.

²See Appendix, Table 8, Part C.

³19:21; 22:2, 16 (JB).

⁴See Appendix, Table 16, Part I.

413

to and follow from Yahweh's own disposition as god.¹ The

superiority of the divine demesne does not place people

in an intolerable no-win situation. While Yahweh's dis-

position is not fully knowable as such, its foundation

in righteousness is knowable. Further, relationship with

him, which is the foundation of human righteous as hisd,

is not only possible but essential. It is the sine qua

non of any knowing and any sound disposition whatsoever.

Thus, the relationship, as a kind of intimacy, supercedes

any particular intent, purpose, end or action.² The

relationship provides a basis for trust:³

Commit your work to the Lord,

and your plans will be established. 16:3

What one can do is walk in his integrity, which

is the ultimate solution to the theodical question.⁴

Moreover, the relationship, upon which both wise and

righteous dispositions are founded, is an intrinsic value;

it requires no justification or legitimation in terms of

some other value or system of value. It is good in itself.

¹See Appendix, Table 8, Parts D, G, H and I.

²16:3, 20; 18:10; 20:22, 21:1, 31; 22:4 (?), 12;

cf. 22:16 (JB).

³16:3, 6.

⁴16:6; 19:1, 22; 20:6-7; 21:3.

414

It is its own reward.¹ Yahweh's power and values are

accompanied by insight. In a sense, relationship with

Yahweh is possible because he has ultimate insight into

a person's character.² As a part of Yahweh's standards,

he assesses a person on the basis of that integrity,

faithfulness or hisd which is instrinsic to one's dis-

position. Deeds and purposes and knowledges are all

subsidiary to the structure of character from which they

derive. The standard by which Yahweh judges a person is

character. Yahweh weighs hearts;³ he judges the spirit.⁴

Since character is an intrinsic good, nothing else is

necessary as the basis of a relationship with Yahweh.

For

Who can say,”I have made my heart clean;

I am pure from my sin"? 20:9

Wisdom is the quest for that character which Yahweh

values, even though it can only be partially attained.

It is also a search for that form of relationship and

valuation in one's dealings with others--to deal with

them dispositionally (hence, demesnes). Yr't-yhwh is the

¹15:29-32; 16:22; 18:2, 14; 19:2-3, 8.

²See Appendix,, Table 8, Part L.

³See Appendix, Table 8, Part H.

⁴16:2; 17:3; 20:27; 21:2.

415

sine qua non of wisdom.¹

Set below Yahweh is the demesne of the king,

practically in terms of the monarch's power and ideally

in terms of his perspicacity.²Thus, we might infer a

distinction between office and person. The king's

authority to govern is derived from Yahweh as righteous-

ness.³ Thus, with the office goes the right to determine

ends and realize purposes irrespective of the wills of

particular people. In that respect, the power of the

king resembles that of god and is second only to Yahweh.

Whatever a person's disposition, he is vulnerable to the

power and judgment of the king, though one who is righteous

or wise is proportionately less vulnerable and more likely

to be in accord with the king's will than one who is

foolish or wicked.⁴ Wisdom is beneficial for one who

deals with the king because it enables one to reduce his

vulnerability and enhance the likelihood that his purposes

and actions will conform to the desires of the king.⁵

¹15:33; 16:6; 18:10; 19:23; 22:4.

²See Appendix, Table 10.

³See Appendix, Table 8, Part G.

⁴See Appendix, Table 26, Parts B and C.

⁵See Appendix, Table 16, Parts E, M, P, Q, R and S.

416

Still, the purposes of the king are different from those

of other people. And the disposition that inheres in

kingship, irrespective whether the king be good or

wicked, wise or foolish, means that the king's values

and goals are not precisely those of his subjects, what-

ever their dispositions. In other words, the kingship

implies a distinctive dispositional and valuational

system.¹ For that reason, the actions of the king are

not fully intelligible or comprehensible--no insight is

sufficient to anticipate the actions of the king. Rather,

one can conform one's disposition to that which the king

ought to seek, since with kingship goes the potential for

special insight into a person's character. The king,

especially the good and wise king, penetrates beyond the

superficial acts and appearances of people to judge them

by their dispositions.² Against the king's power, wis-

dom avails as it does not against Yahweh, so that one

may deflect royal wrath and channel the apparently

whimsical purposes of the king.³ The wise person has

power to act even within the demesne of the king, although

¹16:10, 12-15; 17:7; 19:10, 12; 20:2, 8, 26, 28;

21:1; 22:11.

² 20:8, 26.

³16:14; 20:2.

417

that power is subsidiary to that of the king. Apparently

the qualities of disposition and insight go to some de-

gree with the office of king, so that the throne per se

is founded in righteousness; obviously, the power is in-

herent in the office. The king, however, is capable of

goodness or wickedness, wisdom or folly.¹ By pursuing

goodness and wisdom, the king enhances his power, in-

sight and capacity to rule. Wisdom and righteousness

strengthen the effective demesne of the king. The king's

problem is not to circumscribe his power, though against

Yahweh's demesne that would be necessary, but to occupy

and make use of the demesne effectively and potently.²

Wickedness or folly, not to mention ignorance, make the

king vulnerable. The stronghold of city and kingdom are

vulnerable to human wisdom, as the way sayings seem to

suggest.³ Only when the king occupies his demesne wisely

are he and his people secure: by implication, wise

governance is a fortress.⁴ From our study of the life-

world of the wise, we might infer that through the royal

court, certain high officials and members of the

¹See Appendix, Table 26, Part B (!).

²16:12; 20:28.

³20:18; 21:22, 31 (!).

⁴16:12, 32 (?); 20:28.

418

aristocracy share in or rank immediately below the power

and disposition of the king. If that be so, however, the

only saying which even hints of such a thesis would be

20:18 in light of the cumulative nature of wisdom.

Below the king's demesne ranks the wise' demesnes.

We say "demesnes," plural, because, while the wise form

a group to preserve and enhance what they have in wisdom,

each person can govern only himself or herself and to a

lesser extent can influence others based on kinship,

intimacy, authority or persuasiveness. Life-world does

not equal demesne. The exigencies of life force one to

live among and act in terms of people, institutions and

forces that one cannot control and over which one may

have little if any influence (Yahweh, the king, the

aristocracy, the powerful or wealthy, the contagion of

the foolish or wicked). With the development of wisdom's

disposition, one develops, through discipline, an ethic

of restraint that leads one to limit his or her exposure

to the influence or control of these forces. While one

cannot constrict one's life-world, one can so live within

it that one's exposure is limited. One can seek fulfill-

ment within the demesne of what one can reasonably,

though never assuredly, control. Thus, there is a

parallel between governance and this sort of wisdom, for

living within one's dispositional demesne is self-

419

governance.¹

A prudent man sees danger and hides himself;

but the simple go on and suffer for it. 22:3

Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse;

whoever guards himself [šwmr npšw!] will keep far

from them. 22:5

It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife;

but every fool will be quarreling. 20:3

The beginning of strife is like letting out water;

so quit before the quarrel breaks out. 17:14

The minute one invests himself outside the demesne he can

govern, he becomes progressively enslaved to forces he

cannot control:

The rich rules over the poor,

and the borrower is the slave of the lender. 22:7

The man of discernment has wisdom there before him,

but the eyes of the fool range to the ends of the earth.

17:24 (JB)

He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty,

and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

16:32

Wisdom implies a discipline we shall discuss in a moment.

It also implies insight into the characters of others. In

order to be self-governing and to limit one's exposure,

one must be able to judge the situation and the person.

In that respect, wisdom leads to insight. One who has

wisdom perceives what is intrinsic to people and situations,

and therefore governs his actions more effectively and

¹17:27; 19:11; 21:23; 16:17-9.

420

gives sounder counsel.¹

On the basis of our analysis of their life-world,

we have located the author(s) and audience of the B

material at or near the social center, in positions of

authority and responsibility. Not surprisingly, then,

we would not only expect them to have an investment in

traditon² and in the status quo,³ except in fact where

these are in conflict with their highest values, but we

might expect their interpretation of life to sound rather

conventional and conservative.⁴ Thus, the concept of

demesne can be seen not as limitation but as the basis for

freedom and autonomy. To overreach oneself is to submit

to the control of others. Pride, arrogance, passion,

volubility, and political-social-economic manipulation,

all are not liberating but exposing; they subject one to

other powers in other demesnes.⁵Only by restraint born

of the increasingly wise disposition can one assume con-

trol of one's own life, govern it, act freely within it,

¹20:5, 27; 18:4; 22:1, 11; 21:22.

²15:31, 32; 16:16; 17:16, 24; 18:15; 19:8, 27;

22:6, 12.

³16:10; 17:7; 18:5; 21:15; not to mention sayings

concerning royalty and power and wealth.

⁴See Appendix, Tables 37 and 61.

⁵See Appendix, Table 26, Parts A, E, F, P and Q.

421

live autonomously. With that freedom comes responsibility:

an affirming of the status quo, upholding the proprieties

of social class, liberality, counsel, cult, pedagogy.

These follow from what is intrinsically good in life. The

universe of the wise is ordered (!) into demesnes of power,

competence and disposition. In that respect, the world

makes sense. The authority of wisdom is the authority of

an intrinsic good which also provides the means of its

own realization. Wisdom is not instrumental; it need

not be legitimated in terms of something else. Motiva-

tions are secondary, not primary, to wisdom. Wisdom is

self-justifying; it is its own authority.¹ We should

probably not over-intellectualize wisdom. The world is

intelligible, not in the sense that wisdom leads to de-

tailed understanding of it, but in the sense that one

knows where and how one can act and can therefore act

confidently and with integrity. Wise disposition leads

to (self-) governance which is action, not contemplation.

The pursuit of wisdom is discipline and restraint, but it

is not by any means the contemplative life. It is the

life of autonomous and value-able action:

qnh-lb 'hb npšw

šmr tbwnh lmsi'-tiwb. 19:8

¹15:32, 33; 16:4, 16, 22; 19:1-3; 18:14-15; 21:

20-22.

422

Wisdom is an elite demesne. Not everyone may

aspire to it. One must be so pre–disposed that the dis-

cipline and ethic of restraint can produce the mature

disposition of wisdom. In order to free oneself from the

power of others' demesnes, wealth, authority, position

(status) and familial descent (class affiliation) seem

to be important, perhaps even a certain relationship to

Yahweh (through the cult?). Those who lack these condi-

tions are seriously inhibited in seeking wisdom and may

be barred. They certainly are, if as youth they did not

have the opportunity to undertake the discipline which

only can lead to wisdom. Wisdom is a total commitment of

one's life begun early. Everyone, however, would seem

to be able to pursue righteousness. While not offering

the insight into character that wisdom does, righteous-

ness, as we have seen, does offer an intrinsically valu-

able way of life built on a relationship with god. One

is more vulnerable; but the fundamental character lies

entirely within one's power to develop and sustain.

Righteousness is also a dimension of governance,¹ so that

the righteous person also has a measure of personal

autonomy. What one lacks is the know-how to restrain

oneself within the boundaries of one's demesne (though

¹20:28.

423

the demesne here is more broadly and loosely drawn). The

redeeming quality is faithfulness based in a relationship

to Yahweh.¹ By founding one's disposition in that rela-

tionship, one's character is grounded for self-governance

in the same way that the king's power is grounded. As an

intrinsic good, righteousness is self-justifying, though

it also is sustained through its grounding in relation-

ship to Yahweh.

Ignorance is a tenuous demesne.² It cannot en-

dure. The wise symbolize this through a stock figure of

the callow youth, whose impress we can see among these

sayings. Ignorance is a stage of life out of which be-

gins the development of some character that will endure

throughout life. The youth lacks both insight and power.

Ignorance is powerlessness. While one may have some

basic moral sense that could issue in righteousness, one

lacks the relationship, pattern of living and of action,

and discipline out of which an autonomous, self-governing

and perhaps insightful character may develop. To be

ignorant is to be subject to any other power--it is in

a sense the ultimate vulnerability because it is so con-

sequential for life. Even if one lacks the pre-conditions

¹See Appendix, Tables 35 and 16, Part Q.

2See Appendix, Tables 18 and 41, Part D.

424

for becoming wise, however, righteousness is accessible

to anyone. One's basic moral sense offers the possibility

of such a line of growth and maturity, if one does not

turn aside. In that respect, one is not hopelessly

vulnerable. In youth resides the potential for some

measure of self-governance and autonomy.¹

While the ignorant have some rudimentary sensi-

tivity to the existence of demesne, the foolish syste-

matically ignore the boundaries of autonomy and self-

governance.² They seek power, freedom and fulfillment

outside the sphere of demesne and consistently meet with

misfortune and disaster.³ In a sense, their 'sin' is

classic: hubris.⁴ They seek to control that which is

beyond their proper bound, that which properly belongs

to the dispositions of others. Thus, they not only bring

such outcomes upon themselves, by reaching beyond their

bounds, they impose upon the demesnes of others and in-

volve them (contagion) in that misfortune.

Every one who is arrogant is an abomination to the Lord;

be assured, he will not go unpunished. 16:5

¹See Appendix, Tables 20, 29, 44, 62, and 63.

²See Appendix, Table 19.

³See Appendix, Tables 26, Parts D and P, and 50.

⁴See Appendix, Table 26, Part A.

425

. . . he who makes his door high seeks destruction.

17:19b

While a 'cool spirit' carefully weighs consequences,¹ the

heated and passionate person substitutes action for re-

flection. Passion is a violation of the bounds of demesne.

Strong emotions issue in actions that inherently and in-

evitably carry one beyond the bounds of his or her own

autonomy--at times which such boundary violation

is unnecessary.²Perhaps part of the difficulty in lack-

ing the predispositions that will lead one, under proper

tutelage, to wisdom is that one is frequently placed in

vulnerable situations where the path of the cool spirit

soi-disant is closed to one. One is compelled by the

circumstances of life, poverty for example, to act in

im-passioned ways that a birth of wealth, higher birth

or social station could readily avoid.³ The fool, how-

ever, is not merely one who is reduced by circumstance

to being impassionate. The fool is ineducably ignorant

of the boundaries of demesne.⁴ Poverty does not make one

a fool. Militant ignorance certainly does. In part,

¹See Appendix, Table 26, Part K.

²18:13; 19:2; 20:1, 21, 25; cf. 17:27.

³18:25; 19:1, 4, 7.

⁴17:16.

426

folly seems to be a mistake. The fool conceives that

what is required of a person, and what is essential for

personal freedom and autonomy, is some sort of action.

To be a person of a certain quality or kind, one must act.

Therefore, the fool is forever acting, ignorant of the

fact that righteousness and wisdom alike consist in

what one is (in terms of a relationship grounded in

Yahweh), not what one does. The fool substitutes action

for character. The pride of the fool has a classic, even

archetypal, overt manifestation: impetuosity.² In his

haste (to act), the fool takes no time to reflect. Speak-

ing is more important than having something substantial

to say.

A fool's lips bring strife,

and his mouth invites a flogging.

A fool's mouth is his ruin,

and his lips are a snare to himself. 18:6-7

If one gives answer before he hears,

it is his folly and shame. 18:13

But,

Even a fool who keeps silent us considered wise;

when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.

17:28

It is the disposition, not the silence, that separates fool

from one who is wise. Alas, the fool cannot keep his

¹17:24, 28 (!); 18:2; 19:22; 21:20, 25; 16:22, 26.

²See Appendix, Table 26, Part P.

427

mouth shut. He must expose himself to the affects of

powerful demesnes he cannot control and intrude himself

upon the demesnes of others.¹ Thus, he cannot govern

himself and makes himself and others vulnerable.

The wicked, too, is arrogant and prideful, though

in a somewhat different way. The wicked person is a

perverter. He destroys. His sin is more than just un-

bounded passion. In some respects, "sin" is the right

word here, for, more than any other disposition, it is

possible to specify in some detail the vices of the

wicked. The wicked person violates the demesnes of others

in order deliberately to aggrandize himself at the cost

of others and their autonomy. The wicked spreads violence,

oppresses and scorns the poor, corrupts justice, speaks

perversion and lies, spreads strife and contention,

schemes and plots evil, misuses authority and suborns

governance, takes pleasure in calamity, violates the

principle of propriety by returning evil for righteousness,

perjures, bribes, quarrels, and is merciless.² On the

basis of what is said in the B collection about righteous-

ness, one is attracted to the inference that wickedness is

a violation of the grounding relationship with Yahweh.

¹See Appendix, Table 26, Parts E, G, M, P, Q, R

and S.

²See Appendix, Table 26.

428

While folly is a violation of insight and boundaries,

wickedness is a violation of relationship with god.

Rather than being an assault on the integrity of others,

it is a violation of personal integrity because the wicked

person explicitly rejects what is necessary to have in-

tegrity. Wickedness, if this be true, is a contravention

of hisd. It is an assault ultimately upon Yahweh, the

extreme case of hubris, rather than upon other people.

For that reason, it is due absolute condemnation. While

there may be a sense in which folly is its own punish-

ment,¹ the wicked are due something more as the fruit of

their explicit rejection and revolt.² This line of argu-

ment would clarify the special vulnerability and contagion

that seems to attach to wickedness: what is at stake is

not merely a particular kind of disposition. It is not

merely the absence of insight or judgment or the capacity

for self-governance. It is not delusion. It is not mis-

calculation of one's interests nor surrender of the self

to one's passions. It is not mere overreaching. What is

at stake is conflict with Yahweh, a rebellion against the

grounding relationship upon which civil order, justice,

the state, social relationships and the entire social

¹16:22; 18:21.

²See Appendix, Tables 40, Parts A, B and C; and 50.

429

system is based.¹ One can do without the insight of the

wise, though at some cost. One cannot do without the

grounding relationship in Yahweh, let alone do so by

calculation. Thus, punishment must fall disproportion-

ately upon the rebel.²

At the same time, one cannot help noticing, after

reviewing the vices of the wicked, that there is a kind

of inversion of the taken-for-granted world of the wise

being projected upon the wicked. The wicked violate all

the constraints to which the wise feel bound. Further,

they represent a kind of symbolic assault upon tradition

and the status quo.³Though the wise have been accused

of pragmatism and self-interest, in this material it

would seem to be the wicked who are accused of this.⁴

Such self-interested action undercuts the foundation upon

which the social system is based, grounding in Yahweh,

and must therefore be condemned. The wise, one might

speculate, fear disruption of the social order, religious

or theological dissonance (non-conformity, impiety?) and

conflict, breach of the proprieties, violation of tradition.

¹See Appendix, Table 8, Parts C, D and G.

²15:29; 16:4; 21:18; cf. 19:3.

³See Appendix, Tables 37 and 61.

⁴Cf. Appendix, Table 46.

430

As conservatives, the wise fear conflict and social up-

heaval; it is the cardinal social sin. Those who propose

or symbolically represent significant social changes

threaten the established position of this elite. The

circle of wise have considerable to lose from signifi-

cant social changes. What they value is not necessarily

stasis but continuity. The pattern of future develop-

ments should be as clear as possible. Similarly, who-

ever opposes them and their position of privilege is

likely to be tarred with the symbolic image of the rebel

and have attributed to them the cardinal vices of these

wise. Thus, the wicked person may well be a symbolic

representation for this literature: a symbolic inversion

of their taken-for-granted world, depicting what they

regard as the greatest threat to their position and their

world.

If the sketch we are developing has any validity or

plausibility, the obvious upshot of this analysis is

that the wise, as they appear through the B collection,

are very far from being anthropocentric or secular

minded. Religion, piety, is the sine qua non. The

cardinal sin is rejection of the religious taken-for-

granted, disruption of the grounding relationship, as

hisd, with Yahweh. The analysis of dispositions and

demesnes leads me to propose a hypothesis which the

431

B collection neither enables me to prove nor acceptably

disconfirms. Therefore, I must offer it for further re-

search.¹The unquestioning and unequivocal Yahwism of

the mashal literature, especially the B collection, is

curious, given what we know of the social, political and

religious circumstances when they most likely were

written. Why does none of the conflict with folk re-

ligion or royal (i.e., political) religious practice ap-

pear in the sayings? Allegiance to Yahweh is the obses-

sion of the prophetic movement throughout this period.

Where the wise concern themselves with allegiance, it is

only to the extent that they attribute symbolic sins to

a rhetorical figure, the wicked person, whom they accuse,

albeit by implication, of breach of relationship with

Yahweh but not defection to some other deity. Why? I

would suggest that we consider whether Yahwism serve, for

this elite, as a point of elite symbolic unity. In other

words, their adherence to a particular religious party

(better: ideology) identifies them as members of the

elite. Their religion is a symbol of their social status,

particularly in that they are members of a religiously

exclusive party when others of seeming high rank are

eclecticists. Yahwism is a badge of in-group

¹Kovacs, 'Social Considerations"; Gottwald, "Re-

sponse."

432

identification. Thus, they do not seek to expand Yah-

wism--that would undercut their exclusive religious

position. Nor do they regard their religious commitment

as a problem: their social position, as a class, is

secure. They are much less vulnerable than high officials

to the winds of political favor. Whoever is in power must

turn to the educated and experienced bureaucrats to make

the political and social system work effectively. Indi-

viduals may suffer; the class will not. Therefore,

neither their religion nor their social position is or can

be threatened easily. Their Yahwism, according to this

hypothesis, is symbolic, unquestioned, unproblematic. Of

course it is special, restricted/ive and elitist. That

is the basis of its ideological appeal and function. I

must state again that this literature offers no means of

testing this hypothesis to my satisfaction. It remains,

therefore, to be studied. It has the virtue, however, of

explaining the Yahweh sayings in a way that seems to me

to be consistent with what else we know, according to the

most conservative renderings, about this social class.

It is also a counterpoise to the recent resurgence of

evolutionary hypotheses in biblical study.

Restraint

The concept of 'demesne' implies on the one hand

a system of values and an ethic whereby the demesne is

433

occupied--i.e., one makes oneself "at home in it"--and on

the other hand boundaries beyond which one cannot be

autonomous but becomes subject to other forces--one is not

at home there. We shall take each of these in turn.

From the B collection sayings, we have inferred

two values that are fundamental. Both are intrinsic.

One must have righteousness, a disposition grounded in

a relationship to Yahweh. From that grounding, one may

then seek wisdom, a refinement of disposition that leads

to insight into character and intentional self-governance.

Both values are intrinsic; they are not means to something

else, even the good. Self-mastery, as mastery of one's

demesne of existence, is ultimate, when properly grounded

(the sine qua non). To lose either of these values is to

lose the only things worth having in life. In fact, to

lose either is tantamount to losing one's life, it is

the ultimate disaster.^l One cannot entirely control

even one's own demesne, for there are powerful forces in

the world. One has, however, entire control over one's

own character--one cannot be compelled to lose that.

Thus, any adversity is bearable, so long as one retains

righteous and wise disposition:²character, rather than

¹See Appendix, Tables 64 and 65.

²15:33; 16:8, 19; 17:1, 17; 18:1 (?); 19:1; 21:1,

19.

434

the social world, is the ultimate demesne. Thus, develop-

ment of that character represents a responsibility and

high value. The discipline of wisdom is an essential part

of its successful transmission, as we have seen. The

author(s) and audience for this material are clear that

life presents dilemmas where one is forced to choose be-

ween extrinsic and intrinsic values.¹ Adherence to

wisdom or righteousness can force one to accept adversity,

loss of things of considerable extrinsic value, in order

to maintain those things which are ultimate. This valua-

tion and this insight may underlie the evolution of the

tiwb-mn form.² The saying reflects the dilemmas of choice

that one who has ultimate commitments has to make in a

world of demesnes:

Better a little with righteousness

than great revenues with injustice. 16:8

It is better to be of a lowly spirit with the poor

than to divide the spoil with the proud. 16:19

Better an equable man than a hero,

A man master of himself than one who takes a city.

l6:32 (JB)

The word tiwb, especially in variant or implicit tiwb-mn

sayings, expresses this comparative valuation process.

Thus, these people are far from being masters of expediency.

¹See Appendix, Tables 29 and 36.

²See Appendix, Table 11; cf. Table 12.

435

They have ultimate commitments, and recognize the potential

costs of holding to what is of intrinsic value in life.

Wisdom, righteousness, are not inherently pragmatic values;

they are not instrumental.

The conservatism and conventionalism of this group

confounds our understanding of them, because at the same

time they generate sayings about adversity and the dilemmas

of holding to such character, they also produce sayings

which support the status quo and express admiration for

what enables one to manipulate others.¹ While the

hierarchy of characters, and their demesnes, is not a

simple reflection of the social class system of ancient

Hebrew society, it should be clear that there are signifi-

cant parallels, nonetheless. The propriety sayings can

be understood as support and admiration of the social

status quo, an affirmation of the class system in the

society to the extent that class status and character are

equivalent (as they by all rights ought to be?).² Thus,

we would see the support offered for the existing social

situation as subsidiary to other, higher values. It is

subject to the condition that the status quo reflect the

hierarchy of dispositions, as it in fact does not always

¹See Appendix, Table 37.

²See Appendix, Table 14.

436

do. The elitism of these people is not built upon power.

Power belongs to king and presumably to the aristocracy

and court officials.¹ Rather, the elitism of this group

as wise is built upon character and its consequent in-

sight. They place intentionality and understanding ahead

of conventional social values when there must be a con-

flict, which gives some of their sayings an iconoclastic

flavor if so interpreted.²

Nevertheless, the social system is built upon

grounded power, i.e., authority. This system generally

assures these people a measure of status, stability and

influence. They seem to be in a position where they can

appropriate and make use of the authority of others.

They have means and a measure of freedom and leisure.

They have the time, education, and freedom to develop an

elaborate and highly sophisticated, not to mention

rhetorically technical, aesthetic that is expressed both

in literature and as a discipline in life. Therefore,

they respect, admire, support and affirm that social sys-

tem insofar that it offers them such position. The view

is evinced in sayings which, as we have seen, confirm the

proprieties, uphold tradition and confirm the status quo.

¹See Appendix, Table 33.

²16:19; 17:2, 28; 18:17, 18; 20:9; 21:1, 20; 22:1,

2, 16.

437

Support of the status quo, in this view, would be in-

strumental and therefore conditional. The existing social

system provides the opportunity to pursue wisdom and at-

tain the highest and most demanding intrinsic value. The

system is good and valuable in that light and to that ex-

tent. It is not good in itself.

Another series of sayings can best be described

as pragmatic.¹ They are not an affirmation of the formal

social order. They express approval or grudging admira-

tion for manipulation of that order and its functionaries

in pursuit of one's own end or goals. Curiously, the

wise seem to admire expediency. Why?

A bribe is like a magic stand in the eyes of him who

gives it;

wherever he turns he prospers. 17:8

. . . everyone is a friend to one who gives gifts.

19:6b

Take a man's garment when he has given surety for a

stranger. . . 20:16a

Death and life are in the power of the tongue,

and those who love it will eat its fruits. 18:21

Wealth brings many new friends. . . 19:4

But,

Under cover of the cloak a venal man takes the gift

to pervert the course of justice. 17:23 (JB)

How do we square such sayings with the sayings' concern for

¹See Appendix, Table 46.

438

wisdom and righteousness above any apparent expediency?

Here again, we may appeal to demesne. Wealth and speech

in particular are qualities which can free an individual

from vulnerability to others.¹ Used with restraint,

caution and calculation, they offer some extension of

one's own demesne, or relative freedom from others',

without the entanglements that inevitably follow from

passion. In other words, there are certain things, and

certain personal attributes, that can be used consistent

with discipline and the ethic of restraint. While these

wise may be ambivalent about such things, as they con-

spicuously are about bribery, they admire the extent to

which a disciplined person can use them to maintain and

secure autonomy. Their instrumental value cannot be

ignored. Still, these values are quite subsidiary and

extrinsic. They are subject to circumstance and condi-

tion. When used with passion, they menace. When used to

pervert righteousness or in pursuit of folly, they are

desperately inappropriate. Used in the context of a dis-

ciplined intentionality, they are an extension of

propriety and an effective use of demesne, therefore to

be valued, albeit cautiously. Actions are secondary to

character. Actions done out of and consonant with right

¹See Appendix, Tables 22 and 32.

439

and faithful and insightful (wise) disposition are good.

The same actions done out of another disposition, or not

in consonance, are not.

The ethic of restraint, as we call it, is the ex-

pression of this system of values. The producers of this

material seem to want to limit their vulnerability to

others and to gain autonomy and self-governance. There

are powers in society which one cannot avoid nor success-

fully contest. What one can do is limit his or her ex-

posure to them. One can reduce his vulnerability.¹

Wisdom is expressed as a way of life; it appears as a

holding back or self-restraint. What these people fear

most, it would seem, is the loss of their power to govern

their own demesne--loss of self-determination or of what

we have called autonomy. Self-control, then, becomes the

basis for an ethic. It means living fully within one's

demesne and circumspectly outside of it.

Restraint is emotional control. Passions and

strong emotions are held back. One is to behave reflec-

tively and thoughtfully. Speech is a public act, there-

fore one is vulnerable whenever he speaks. Thus, each

word must be weighed and considered for the effect it may

have upon one's autonomy. One who is wise uses speech in

¹See Appendix, Table 43.

440

rare bursts of eloquence. These are most valuable in

influencing the decisions of powerful others who could

invade one's demesne. It becomes a defensive weapon.

Restraint means one's associations with others

are controlled. Relationship means intimacy; that in

turn means vulnerability through contagion. One uses the

insights of wisdom to assess the character of others,

though that instrument is not infallible. Associations

are, so far as possible, limited to those who are worthy,

by their character, of association. One invests only so

much of oneself in most social relationships as is abso-

lutely necessary: the minimum exigencies of the life-

world are met through association, but more investment

of self than that would be perilous.

Restraint means discipline. It means subjecting

oneself to the control and guidance of parents and worthy

elders. We should see in this relationship a measure of

trust, though no saying evinces it. In other words, the

callow youth cannot readily determine the character of

his mentor(s), and so must accept discipline in trust

that what is being done to and for him is worthy of his

commitment. There is a theological significance to that

relationship, between student and mentor, that resides

far behind the sayings themselves. That perception

should also be cautionary: there is much about the

441

taken-for-granted and implicit world of these sayings

that we cannot readily know nor infer. Yet it may be

precisely those dimensions which are socio-historically

and religiously the most profound.

Restraint means humility. The cardinal sin, for

fool and wicked alike, is presuming more control over

one's own life than one has. When carried to extreme, the

sin becomes an assault upon the authority of Yahweh. The

concept of demesne implies that one does well to err on

the side of underestimation.¹ Governance is a funda-

mental virtue, but only of the self (unless one happens

to be king or a high official). That authority does not

need to be asserted, merely to be exercised. Reputation,

a high value, is made by others, not by oneself.²

Restraint ultimately means a style of life in

which one has perspective and a measure of emotional

distance. One is not without commitments; rather, one

knows what his or her commitments are, which are funda-

mental, and what is at stake. The wise are neither

idealists nor pessimists. They follow what might better

be termed a minimalist approach to life: to invest of

self only what one needs to invest, assume only what one

¹See Appendix, Table 16, Part I.

²See Appendix, Table 16, Part M.

442

needs to assume. While they value other things, that

valuation is secondary and conditional. Their basic com-

mitments and presuppositions are minimal.

It is this minimalism that they share with con-

servative, conventionalist, upper middle class movements

in a wide variety of cultures--not necessarily the sub-

stantive elements of their thought or ethics. Their

minimalism extends to their symbolic world, so that they

come across to some readers as pragmatic realists. The

nature of their commitment—to character, theologically

grounded--belies that interpretation. What they have are

few symbols and illusions, but by no means none. Socially,

the consequence of this restraint is probably an in-group

ethic (Standesethik). In other words, they value their

own group and the facilitation it gives their governance

of their awn demesnes. The proprieties mean that they

owe a different kind of ethical obligation to those out-

side the group than they owe each other. Their ethics

may well have had, as many sayings suggest, a strong class

character, even though no vocational or strict profes-

sional statement comes through. Commitment to their

group and a differential ethic are nonetheless clear.

Boundaries

Demesne implies boundary. There are limits to

one's sphere of control and self-governance. There are

443

other demesnes, just as there are other intentionalities.

People experience boundary conditions because each per-

son's demesne is limited. Those limits are appropriate

to that person's character, life-world affiliations, and

location within the Yahweh-grounded social world. Since

wisdom is not what one knows but what one is, human wis-

dom is limited in extent and reliability.¹ Wisdom by no

means implies absolute verbal understanding, or even

savoir-vivre. It implies commitment, and the disposition

to make the commitment, to certain, ultimate values,

properly grounded.²In those terms and under those condi-

tions, it is rewarding in and of itself: each disposition

gets what it deserves by virtue of what it is. Thus,

there is a sense in which retribution is true by defini-

tion, since the outcome is its own reward. The con-

formity of objective rewards, though expected, cannot be

assured because it lies outside one's own demesne. In a

way, the concept of demesne lends itself to the notion of

a distribution of power(s) and its/their gradients. While

there is a “harmony” to these powers, an 'aesthesis,'

that interaction or mutual fit can only be partially un-

derstood and therefore deliberately participated in by

¹See Appendix, Tables 8, Parts A, B and G; 16,

Parts H and I; 39 and 57.

²See Appendix, Table 36.

444

any person. 'Understanding,' as an expression of wise

intentionality, is less a comprehensive verbal interpre-

tation of experience's underlying orderly structure than

an aesthetic sense of the propriety of things and an in-

tention to harmonize with them well. There seems to be

a strong aesthetic dimension to wisdom, at least here,

to which we shall return below under the rubric of

'rhetoric.'

If our understanding of wisdom as demesne and in-

tentionality represents the implicit presuppositions of

this literature with any fairness, then limiting situa-

tions and boundary experiences constantly recur. They

are far more diverse than they are depicted among these

B collection sayings. Certain, presumably important,

themes recur, suggesting that they are symbolic foci for

this group, representing important aspects of that ex-

perience. Concern with these experiences becomes a

thematic hallmark for the B collection, especially in

the context of Yahweh's grounding and limiting self-

governance and conduct. The significance of this fact

rests in part on arguments and evidence which lie beyond

the scope of this inquiry. If one presupposes an evolu-

tionary view of society in general and theological under-

standing in particular--a view that has held considerable

sway in biblical studies since von Harnack and nineteenth-

445

century liberalism, then it is possible to locate this concern

for boundaries within the context of a breakdown in the

credibility of the retribution dogma.¹Thus, wisdom

loses its innocence, draws back and changes its character

as a result of an ethical and theodical frustration.

Earlier wisdom would be focussed on ethics and conduct.

The emphasis on boundaries becomes symbolic of a growing

pessimism within this literature and among its authors.

What does the recognition of boundaries mean?

We see four major lines of argument, in some way salient

to this analysis, which impinge on this argument.

First, there is the evolutionary presupposition

itself. We quickly embark upon a chicken-and-egg con-

troversy. Does the evidence compel the thesis or the

thesis compel the evidence? Which leads to recognition

of the other? Obviously, the notion of presupposition-

less research is a philosophical monstrosity. Still,

what compels us to assume the process? In part, the as-

sumption develops out of theses concerning changes in

social organization and theological reflection that have

a long base-line. They occur over many centuries, even

¹Cf. Appendix, Table 6; Schmid, Wesen and Geschichte

der Weisheit, pp. 173-201; Skladny, Spruchsammlungen, pp.

76-79. Cf. the methodology developed in Paul D. Hanson,

The Dawn of Apocalyptic (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,

1975).

446

millenia. How is modern society different from ancient

society? It has evolved socially and intellectually.

Therefore, the microcosm recapitulates the macrocosm (an

assumption, of course, but scale-invariance is a highly-

desired criterion of good philosophy of history and

elegant social science). The doctrine, however, presumes

unilinear or at least continuous and generally linear

social change. We cannot assess the argument on that

scale here. What we can ask is a more restricted ques-

tion. Is there anything about the B collection which

compels us to see behind a process of intellectual or

social change that is leading to a re-theologizing of

wisdom? Absent such evidence, the assumption of scale-

invariance in the application of evolutionary theory be-

comes quite tenuous. Our line of argument to this point

has been in quite the contrary direction. We have argued

that the sayings belie a period of social stability in

which these people have a measure of confidence in their

social position. They form an elite which does not seem

to be agonizing over its status; certainly there is no

(tortured) self-justification among these sayings. On

the contrary, they seem to take the legitimacy of the

position of this group for granted: its foundation takes

some inferential reasoning to locate in fact. Restraint

is not withdrawal. These sayings are far from jaded,

447

disappointed, sad, wistful or pessimistic. Rather, they

are energized,¹ optimistic² and strongly supportive of the

social status quo. While the sayings clearly do not as-

sume social rigidity, they do not treat social change as

caprice or chance. They are confident of their ability,

within the bounds of discipline and restraint, to cope

with it. Even the possibility of royal whim, and the

menace inherent in it, is seen in perspective, with the

assurance that wisdom can cope; indeed, even the king

must give way to the power and purposes of Yahweh.³

What these people fear is the vulnerability and contagion

of the wrong disposition, not the failure of their ethic.

It is hard to see the force of any argument that the B

material, taken in isolation from other works and other

sayings, leads one to the conclusion that forces of social

change or socio-political instability are at work either

organizationally or theologically. It is extremely diffi-

cult to point to the absence of something and prove one's

case. However, these sayings, by themselves, do not

evince a theology in trouble. Rather, the theology seems

too be clear, stable and untroubled. The boundary

¹Sayings on work and sloth.

²17:22; 18:14; 21:21; 22:11.

³21:1, 31.

448

material is quite compatible with such stability in terms

of such concepts as demesne and intentionality.

These last points lead us to our second line of

argument. From the B material we have projected an

upper-middle-class elite whose authority and its legiti-

macy are both derived from others whom they closely serve

--Yahweh, king, aristocratic officialdom. Thus, they

are aware of their vulnerability to power, and the

caprice with which it is sometimes exercised. On the

other hand, they possess an expertise and station which

significantly reduces their vulnerability despite their

proximity. The concept of demesne is a natural evolution

from bureaucratic and governmental experience. Deriva-

tive authority and proximity to power lead fairly straight-

forwardly to the recognition of boundaries. Moreover,

one's privileged social position cannot be explained in

terms of the ultimate legitimations of the authority one

is entitled to dispose--those legitimations belong to

others, basically to king and court.¹ One can find one's

legitimation, however, in the way one exercises derived

authority: in the style or personality of the individual

rather than in the overt conduct. In fact, this situation

explains a subtle iconoclasm that may seep in. While the

¹16:12b; 21:1; 22:11 (?).

449

truly powerful are elite in what they do and in their en-

titlement to do it, these people ("the wise") are elite

in who they are. The latter then is an even higher form

of elite status than the former; it becomes an ultimate

value. Moreover, not only is character or style not

derivative from others, it is secure and stable because

it cannot readily be taken away. Unlike formal authority,

which comes from others, character inheres in the self.

One acquires character by some arduous process--here,

discipline--it is not given to one by another. Litera-

ture becomes an expression of that refinement of charac-

ter and that style. It reflects a superior aesthesis

that those who have ultimate power never develop. Again,

their position is actually higher. The highest classes,

those who have power, notoriously abjure discipline and

intellectual reflection; they reject arduous and abstract

aesthetics. They are free to use power which resides

within themselves; they do not have to worry about it.

Vulnerability is not a problem. The highest classes are

not intellectuals. The existence of such a literature

implies a measure of vulnerability for that reason alone.

More, it reflects the search for a means of justifying

elite position; it is an ideological defense cast in

aesthetic form. Demesne, therefore, did not evolve in

response to ethical conflict. Boundaries are the

450

inevitable experience of those who use the authority of

others--who have to justify and interpret their privilege.

The characteristic of their demesne then becomes an ulti-

mate value in a subtle inversion of the social structure:

one would expect such a touch of ressentiment among those

in such a position. They compensate for their functionary

role by appealing to what they are as an ultimate value

and the final superiority, while still affirming the

social system and its status quo. They do this in an

aesthetic form that is most accessible to those who are

already members of the class, or who are aspiring to and

sponsored for admission to that group (such ideological

materials become didactic in use even when they are not

so in origin). Significantly, ideological material is

notorious for its lack of specificity. The language used

is highly emotive, symbolic and expressive. It rehearses

common feelings and sentiments. It is symbolic, not

semantic. The fact that many words in this literature

are difficult to define may be a clue to the nature of

the mashal collections, i.e., ideological and legitima-

tional rather than “ethico-philosophical.” The basic

issue is not ethical. The concept of demesne does not

evolve under ethical or theodical pressure. In sum,

this literature seems to be located in a setting where

boundaries were a basic life experience and where retri-

butionism would not be what is at stake socially,

451

religiously or ideologically. Hence, we have spoken of

restraint and minimalism, rather than retribution.

Third, we argue that this literature is much

more highly structured than the 'collection' terminology

or hypothesis suggests. While more study is necessary,

we have suggested, in the previous chapter, some evi-

dences that the material has a tight and rigorous poetic

structure. We shall argue that there is also a refined

rhetorical style. These points weigh strongly for

through-composition rather than collection. In the event

of such composition, we have to raise the question of

structure and theme. There are evidences of an archi-

tecture to the B collection as well as for thematic unity

and consistency.¹ If the works be through-composed, then

we must discount thematic differences among them as the

basis for organizing them historically. To be more ex-

act, in such a case, thematic differences are the result

of compositional intent. Differences in theme are not

prima facie evidence of differences in date or social

setting, though they may be. Any such socio-historical

differences would have to be established on some other

ground than theme, or one's argument becomes hopelessly

circular. In Table 9, we see that there is a general

¹See Appendix, Table 9.

452

thematic sequence to sayings. There is also some evi-

dence of inclusion, as the opening and closing display

some parallels, a few of which are striking. Given the

predilection of wisdom literature soi-disant for

inclusio, this pattern is the more interesting. The

theme of the passage recurs at thematically and poetically

crucial points, which we have called 'cadences' following

the role of such architecture in music. These postulated

cadences would make boundary experiences and Yahweh's

role in establishing limits the central theme of the work.

Yahweh-theology becomes fundamental to such wisdom as

does the experience of limits to wisdom and personal

demesne. The paronomastic architecture which also un-

derlies this material is far too complex to discuss here,

though some limited work has been done on it.¹ We shall

have to content ourselves to asserting, without proof

here, that initial examination of this structure suggests

that it is highly intricate, beyond what the coincidences

that thematically, onomatopoetically or paronomastically

similar sayings might have. Again, through-composition,

a possibility which undermines the concept of 'collection,'

makes assertion of evolution in the material more

¹Boström, Paronomasi; Casanowicz, "Paronomasia";

J. J. Glück, "Paronomasia in Biblical Literature,"

Semitics: Annual of the Department of Semitics, Uni-

versity of South Africa 1 (1970): 50-78.

453

difficult because the themes become intrinsic to the

structure of the saying rather than extrinsic and there-

fore a manifestation of the social and theological milieu.

That the theme is tied to setting remains clear in any

event, but the question becomes how. Artistic intent

and expression force thematic, if not stylistic, diversity.

That the themes can be ordered in a logical way does not

compel they should be absent other evidence. In sum, if

theme is a part of poetic architecture, then differences

in theme among various compositions reflect various as-

pects of their self-interpretation which may or may not

have any coincident historical sequence. Nothing in this

material seems to compel such sequence, though that argu-

ment in detailed examination lies beyond us. Nothing

from the life-world material compels a definable social

milieu, except in the most general terms, independent of

the theme. We have to have evidence, beyond assumption,

for attributing theme to social milieu as opposed to

other possible causations (i.e., artistic intent above

all else).

Fourth, And finally, we raise the question of

thesis. The concept of 'demesne' threatens to con-

jure up a Donnean vision of islands, separated from and

independent of one another--or of Leibnitzian monads com-

municating with one another perhaps only through the mind

454

of god. Demesne can suggest isolation. The B collection,

however, is not a work of isolation. Rather, it leads,

through rhetoric, paronomasia, poetic architecture,

thematic development, discipline and the interactions of

the life-world to a relationalism we might best call

'aesthesis.' People who derive their position and in-

fluence from others tend to be more concerned with form

than with substance, particularly if they are accorded

comparatively lofty station in the order of things. They

produce an 'etiquette.' They develop, an understanding

of the fitness and harmony of things that becomes taste,

for which they provide the leadership and sensibility.

Etiquette and taste are not concerned so much with what

specifically is done as with how it is done. Thus, we

argue for a possible noblesse oblige interpretation of

some of their conventional sayings about ethics as well

as for a neo-naturalism in their imagery. In the poetry

of the proverb collections, we run the risk of importing

our own class and culture understandings into the litera-

ture. We are accustomed to using language for the con-

veyance of information or understandings. We look to it

for meaning, signification, semantic significance. Yet,

paronomasia and various rhetorical devices may appeal to

another way of using the literature, for sound or har-

mony. If it be poetry in this form, then we risk placing

455

too much emphasis on any particular saying and its apparent

meaning. The value of the saying is, one might argue, its

structure and sonorous relationship, its harmony, with

its context. It is not merely, or even principally, what

is said so much as how it is said. Again, this view is

consistent with what we have said of intentionalities and

demesnes. We can perceive of wisdom as an aesthetic

Gestalt, a comprehensive and harmonious patterning of

life. Such harmony does not demand control, nor is its

principal conceptual category 'justice.' Rather, one is

concerned with fitting in, doing what is appropriate,

elegance and style. For harmony, it is enough that one

be able to perceive a pattern--not a rigid and inflexible

structure, as the term 'order' seems to imply--or co-

herence in terms of which one can arrange one's life

aesthetically. Aesthesis deals with values, not deeds.

Thus, it is significant that this literature returns so

often to the proprieties--to what is suitable, right or

appropriate for particular kinds of people in particular

settings. Propriety may reflect aesthesis, the har-

monious suitability of things. It is hard for harmony

to be disconfirmed. Harmony is not rigidity. Judgment

is required to harmonize, and not all attempts will be

successful. Those who have Gestalt insight--sensitivity

--will be more successful at recognizing what situations

456

require and fitting in. The attainment of aesthetic value

is hardly an extrinsic act: it is its own reward. The

reward for doing something well, as opposed to just doing

it, is doing it well. Aestheses certainly change and

develop, but whether boundaries could be taken as evi-

dence for change is most doubtful; they and the Yahweh

theology are entirely compatible with an elitist and

upper-middle-class functionaries' aesthesis or harmony,

especially as a harmony of powers.

Boundary experiences are essential to wisdom,

to living within and attempting to harmonize with a uni-

verse of graduated powers. Understanding is finite and

fluid: there is a propriety of times as well as of place

and person, as in knowing when to speak and when to be

generous. There is always that which one does not un-

derstand; there is always that which one cannot control.

One cannot entirely protect oneself from adversity, no

matter how virtuous one may be. One cannot substitute

one's judgment, insight, plans or purposes for those of

Yahweh. For one who is wise, the world still contains

non-manipulables. It is still filled with mystery. We

are accustomed to think of knowledge in terms of content.

We interpret it as a transitive relationship: under-

standing amounts to knowledge-of. For this literature,

it is possible that we should orient ourselves more

457

intransitively: to think of knowledge as a state of

being. At the risk of sounding existential, the known is

bounded by the unknown (which is in principle vastly

greater). The wise are sensible of hubris--one cannot

arrogate to oneself the position of Yahweh.¹Yahweh truly

understands what goes on within a person and acts in ac-

cord with that fundamental disposition. Yahweh truly

understands the pattern and direction of the world, and it

is that direction which he purposes which will be estab-

lished irrespective of our desires and understandings.

My knowledge, as wisdom, is limited to a distinct demesne

over which I can exercise it. Beyond that lies a world

which I cannot control, though which I may harmonize my-

self with and which I cannot fully understand. Much of

the world is ineffable. If I look to wisdom to give me

an understanding of what lies thus beyond my demesne, I

am asking for what it cannot give. In fact, what wisdom

brings is a clarification of the ineffability of much of

the world. I know that I cannot know it. The funda-

mental premise of this wisdom is not that the world is

fundamentally intelligible and therefore communicable,

but, ironically, that it is not. Yahweh, a la Otto, is

¹See Appendix, Table 8, Parts A, B, C and L.

458

the mysterium tremendum; his autonomy is absolute.¹ Even

the demesne of the king supercedes that of the wise, so

that his purposes can appear as caprice. To be wise

not so much to make-sense-of, again a transitive rela-

tionship, but to be in a certain (aesthetic) way. It is

from the latter that the world becomes reliable for me.

I may still experience adversity and dilemmas; death

remains a reality (and a fixation of these people).²

Still, I have hold of what is valuable in itself. What

is significant in the proverbs is the pattern which lies

beyond them. Conceiving of wisdom aesthetically alters

what we expect wisdom to be and do. Again, ironically,

freedom or autonomy is found in circumscription and

limitation, recognition of demesne.

When we start detailing specific boundary situa-

tions, we risk repeating our depiction of the hierarchy

of intentionalities, for the hierarchy is a reflection

of the boundary phenomenon. What we can do briefly here,

however, is discuss the basis for its more important

characteristics. The pivotal issue involves grounding.

¹Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry

into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine

and Its Relation to the Rational, trans. John W. Harvey,

Galaxy Books (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958),

pp. 5-59.

²See Appendix, Tables 64 and 65.

459

What is the source of the confidence and value that I

find in the way of wisdom? To argue that wisdom is en-

tirely self-grounding would amount to hubris. I cannot

ground my own existence; intentionality is not self-

grounding.¹ I rely upon Yahweh. My own judgment, intro-

spection ("in one's own eyes"), provides no basis for a

claim upon Yahweh.² Yahweh's power and authority lie

beyond any individual's claim. Human intentions and

insight are valueless in sensibly interpreting god.

Yahweh is ineffable, for to know is to bind.³ The re-

liability and dependability that I find in the world is

neither noetic nor ethical. It is aesthetic. From

within my own demesne and in terms of it, I can perceive

an aesthetic pattern (i.e., through artistic or symbolic

or poetic rather than intellectual or moral sensitivity)

with which I can harmonize myself. By so dis-posing

myself, I participate in the wisdom of Yahweh which

grounds that harmony. I do not claim it; I relate my-

self to it. (In a sense, it claims me; or in classic

theology one has grace.) I can rely on the harmony of my

being, but not on my judgment of the harmony of my being,

¹See Appendix, Tables 8, Parts D and G, and 39.

²See Appendix, Table 8, Parts A and H.

³21:30.

460

for god weighs hearts. Still, Yahweh's harmony is open

and subject to innovation and surprise--improvisation as

it were. The world does not lose harmony, or value, nor

do I. Yet, I may not be prepared for that possibility and

it may not work to my benefit. The aesthesis is open, not

closed, and it depends literally on the direction of Yah-

weh. If my harmony be qualitatively poor, it is a reflec-

tion upon me and not Yahewh. Yahweh is the master of the

harmony. If I do not conform to the harmony, I create a

dissonance that affects me and those nearby, irrespective

of my purpose in so projecting myself. It is not my

harmony but the master harmony that will be established.¹

Dissonance can be created inadvertently. Still, if I

develop aesthetic sensitivity, if I grow in skill in the

harmony, then I am less likely than others to err and

more likely to create a larger harmony with others of

like sensitivity and disciplined skill. The development

of an aesthesis is not a guarantee but it does not con-

ceive of the universe rigidly. Rather, it is the asser-

tion of a pattern that tends to recur and which can be

enhanced by participation which is rewarding in and of

itself, therefore grounded.

In saying this much, we obviously move far beyond

¹See Appendix, Table 66.

461

the text, drawing the aesthetic metaphor from the style

of the mashal literature and the etiquette of the pro-

prieties. Yet, aesthesis makes sociological sense.

Ethical retributionism or a firm (order-based) noesis are

both highly fragile doctrines for a group in the position

suggested by the life-world of this literature. They act

in terms of derivative authority. They cannot claim

legitimacy for themselves and lack power to assert their

position against those more powerful in a show-down.

They have no claim on the most powerful people and insti-

tutions of the nation. Noetic or ethical wisdom invite

isconfirming experiences. Their position is curious:

individually vulnerable and collectively secure. Fur-

ther, there is no obvious stake in a noesis or ethic to

initiate cognitive dissonance, preventing a rapid theo-

dical breakdown in the world-view.¹ As aesthesis, how-

ever, the world-view expresses the mix of vulnerability

and security much more closely while also providing a

¹ For a recent application of Cognitive Dissonance

Theory to biblical study (here, New Testament) and a dis-

cussion of some methodological issues, see John G. Gager,

Kingdom and Community: The Social World of Early Chris-

tianity, Prentice-Hall Studies in Religion Series, eds.

John P. Reeder, Jr. and John F. Wilson (Englewood Cliffs:

Prentice-Hall, 1975), pp. 37-49; cf. also my "Response"

to his work presented to the Consultation on the Social

World of Early Christianity, Society of Biblical Litera-

ture Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 28-31 December 1977.

462

basis for asserting the inherent class superiority of the

group, in terms of its character or aesthetic discipline

end sensitivity. The task of the high bureaucrat is pre-

cisely to harmonize him- or herself to the wishes of those

who delegate their authority and legitimacy through them,

to give form rather than create substance, to pattern

rather than create. An aesthetic of wisdom is impervious

to disconfirmation in ways that other interpretations of

wisdom thinking are not. It is more resilient and dur-

able; it more effectively interprets their life-situation.

And, it has the virtue of providing a means of in-group

expression and solidarity through a medium denied to

outsiders on the basis of its difficulty, sophistication

and technical proficiency--not to mention the intangible

trump-card of "taste."

Rhetoric: The Word

With the introduction of our concept of 'aesthesis,'

the significance of rhetoric to understanding and inter-

preting the perspective(s) underlying this literature

should become clearer. The style of the saying is as im-

portant as its apparent content. Poesis is the verbal

expression of the integrating and interpreting aesthetic

of this group of people. The aesthetic of the poetry

is part of its hermeneutic. The poetic interrelationship

of the sayings is integral to understanding how they

463

comprise a world-view. Atomization, combined with an

orientation directed purely to content, ignores what is

essential: the poetic integrity and expression of the

work. Obviously, this line of argument is considerably

heightened if one accept the possibility of through-

composition for the B material. At the very least, each

saying does not exist in a vacuum, either for its author

or its audience. It exists in the context of a wide

variety of sayings being honed and preserved and trans-

mitted for their value in maintaining and conveying this

people's interpretation(s) of experience, whether large

numbers of sayings were composed by the same author as

part of a continuous literary context or whether the

composition/redaction was a social-group process. Each

saying, by the very fact of its existence, presupposes

the existence of other sayings. The preservation of a

mashal literature makes this point beyond dispute. The

audience for any saying, whether presented as part of a

composition or as a separate saying, knew and used, and

would necessarily be assumed to know and use, many and

diverse sayings as part of the poetic interpretation of

their lives--aesthetic interpretation of wisdom or not.

These are a mashal-using people. Thus, any particular

saying plays and must play off against a background of

sayings with which the audience would be familiar, both

464

in particular and in general. Any given saying's mean-

ing and form of expression in conveying that meaning

would take that context for granted. This fact rein-

forces the aesthetic interpretation, for that taken-for-

granted perspective is poetic and symbolic: each saying

plays poetically off others in both form and content.

To convey meaning through mashal, the meaning must be in-

corporated into understood poetic forms and their variants.

The rhetoric of mashal-poesis is fundamental to the grammar

of the sayings. Meaning arises through in-forming and in-

stylizing a verbal interpretation of experience (von Rad!)

which communicates according to understood and elegant

expressive patterns (grammar and style). In order to

make sense of these sayings, ultimately we have to de-

velop, or better reconstruct, the rhetoric which informed

them: the understood conventions of expression which

gave the verbal interpretation of an understanding/

experience an appropriateness to the experience of the

audience once and an elegance of expression (aesthesis) that

made it worthy of communication and preservation. What

was the poetic context whereby these words became a

poesis and were so retained and transmitted? What is

their poetic-contextual significance in light of that

poetizing? In what way are sayings modified by their

larger poetic context, especially if that context be

systematic and integral?

465

Adequate answers to such questions hardly exist.

The 'collection hypothesis' has probably worked to dampen

the search far such a larger rhetorical context, particu-

larly when combined with a thesis that places the origins

of some sayings or of the sayings-composition process

within the folk or folk-tribal milieu. The significance

of such an aesthetic, if it could even exist non-trivially,

becomes down-played. The presence of a coherence of world-

view and expression suggests the opposite tack: that we

assume aesthetic integration and begin to search for the

manner of its expression within this literature. In

fairness, that assumption has underlain our analysis and

interpretation of these sayings to this point, though the

assumption has not been made explicit in this form. As-

signment of sayings to various categories takes into

account, insofar as possible at this stage of inquiry,

our interpretation of the in-forming rhetoric.

Rhetoric is significant in another way as well.

It constitutes a bridge from the 'spatial' to the 'temporal'

dimensions of the projected world of the B composition as

of this literature generally. The aesthesis is a Gestalt

recognition. In that sense, it is as such ineffable; it

lies beyond the particular interpretation it may be given

in any verbal statement. The statement, the words, con-

stitute a means whereby one comes to that understanding,

466

but they are not the understanding itself. Instruction,

discipline, are a way of living, i.e. in self-governing

but grounded autonomy, not a collection of statements or

rules of conduct. Still, poesis is a way of expressing

that understanding and provides a means for people who

are so disposed to intuit the integrative understanding,

aesthesis. To use Otto's language, it supplies the stand-

point or perspective from which the aesthesis may be

recognized and internalized if one will.¹ For a properly

disposed person, the sayings lead to the unveiling of ex-

perience. It gains "integrity" and harmony. It coheres.

Each demesne of the universe unveils itself, to the ex-

tent that it will in ways appropriate to itself. Poetic

expression is part, but only part of that unveiling pro-

cess. Aesthetically and rhetorically, the word is more

a symbol than a sign. It harmonizes, rhetorically, with

what is.

The word, here as saying, thus appears as a sym-

bol in social space and social time. It is not only a

means whereby the world coheres for one receptive to and

disciplined for that cohesion. It is a means for in-

corporating, sharing, maintaining and communicating that

harmony, as poesis and poetry. It delineates, but as a

¹Otto, pp. 5-59.

467

transmission event. The word has the power to locate an

experience. It is a hermeneutic of space and time because

it gives social spatio-temporal meaning to event. By

publishing, i.e, making public, it locates what is other-

wise precognitive and transient. For those reasons, one

could arguably treat word or language, here our rubric is

'rhetoric,' as prior to either social space or time and

therefore a distinct inclusive category. Alternatively,

one could recognize the bridging dimension of rhetoric

and treat it as a category between. While we see rhetoric

as central to this literature, aesthesis extends beyond

rhetoric. Clearly, though, rhetoric leads our discussion

into social time.¹

We have already mentioned assonance, paronomasia,

use of key-words and -phrases, topical linking, themes

and poetic architecture as rhetorical expressions of the

B composition's aesthesis. To these we need to add a

list of stylistic tendencies and devices which recur and

which significantly affect the meanings to be attributed

to particular sayings. In addition, they may help explain

some of the inconsistency, exaggeration and tendentious-

ness of the material. These include:

(1) Absolutism: representing qualities or

¹Van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifesta-

tion, 385 ff.

468

characteristics that have a great deal of (internal)

variability in terms of non-dimensional, invariant

qualities or characteristics; treating variable qualities

as constants. Only by the concatenation of such sayings

or by combining them with instance-sayings that present

specific counter-examples does the variability of the

quality appear. In other words, the absolute saying

assumes a background of sayings to introduce the attri-

bute's variability.¹

(2) Concretion: representing qualities or char-

acteristics by means of a class of behaviors, a type of

person, or a specific characteristic in which that quality

is deemed to appear. The tangible replaces the intangible,

recognizing that what is involved is not the type of per-

son or conduct represented but the general quality which

is symbolically represented. Concretion does not present

a specific case of the quality, but it takes an abstract

or complex attribute or concept and presents it in terms

of more comprehensible and ordinary concepts.²

(3) Instance: a specific instance--person, cir-

cumstance or behavior--is depicted to symbolize an ab-

stract concept or quality. When instance involves a

¹E.g., l5:28, 31; 18:3; 19:4; rich versus poor,

wise versus foolish, righteous versus wicked.

²E.g., 16:11, 24; 17:22; 20:14, 20.

469

class of cases rather than a specific one, it begins to

shade into concretion; the former, however, tends to deal

with a case or cases while the latter deals with a quality

or qualities.¹

(4) Abstraction: a set of concepts are related

to one another predominantly or exclusively as abstract

concepts rather than concrete qualities or instances.

The interrelation is stated as a generality or abstrac-

tion, without regard for the complexity of the concepts

being related.²

(5) Universality: a quality of attribute is

presented as applicable without exception, even when there

are well-known or obvious exceptions to the generalization.

The saying asserts the pervasiveness or value of a quality

or attribute by treating it as if it were universal or

unexceptioned. It thereby assumes that the audience will

interpret it against the background of sayings which

clarify the quality's true extent or which deal with the

exceptional or difficult cases.³

(6) Personalization: presentation of a charac-

teristic, quality, attribute or concept in the form of a

¹E. g., 16:26; 17:8, 17; 20:1.

²E.g., 16:12, 22; 20:18; 15:32.

³E.g., 16:3; 20:21; 22:6, 9.

470

person having that quality or an aspect of that quality.

An abstraction is made concrete by expressing it through

typical or stylized personal behavior. Unlike instance

or concretion, here the emphasis is on the person or

class of people who represent this concept. The persona-

lization, however, is highly one-dimensional and imper-

sonal. The only relevant dimension of the character is

the concept being presented through it.¹

(7) Stock figure: use of a stereotypical person

or thing, often an ironic caricature, to present a series

of related attributes, qualities, characteristics or

concepts, the elemental structure of their interrelation-

ships and the pattern of their interaction with other

qualities and circumstances beyond the figure. The stock

figure is not one-dimensional. It depicts a complex

series of internal and external relationships. The figure

also tends to be poetically and symbolically open to new

situations and interpretations, unlike the personaliza-

tion, which tends to offer only a rather closed set of

applications or interpretations. The stock figure is

sufficiently complex that it implies a wide series of

attributes and behaviors beyond what is straightforwardly

presented in the saying, offering the opportunity for

¹E.g., 16:27, 28; 19:25; 21:22.

471

ironic usage and divers layers of meaning.¹

(8) Extremity: the use of extreme or exaggerated

occurrences of a quality, attribute, characteristic or

concept even when the extreme rarely occurs in the course

of the quality's widely variable forms of appearance.

These sayings tend to treat extreme cases; they avoid

the mean in favor of drawing worst- or best-case analyses,

especially when combined with absolutism, where the ex-

treme is treated as the representative occurrence of the

quality or concept. Extremity anticipates a background

of sayings which qualify, clarify or modify the extreme

and often absolutistic presentation; other sayings pro-

vide the lacking perspective.²

(9) Antithesis: the juxtaposition of extremi-

ties or absolutistic extremities, often as if they were

opposites or exhaustive alternatives. Antithesis re-

duces extremity to duality. Generally, this rhetorical

device is used to draw fundamental lineaments of inten-

tional demesnes and to stress boundary conditions, even

where there may be more than two options and where the

over-all valuing system may not see them as true opposites.

Antithesis treats the system of values as uni-hierarchical,

¹E.g., the king, the callow youth, the fool, the

sluggard, the false witness, the faithful wife.

²E.g., 17:2; 18:9; 19:3, 29.

472

even when a more complex system may be held. Again,

the complex background of sayings would create the neces-

sary depth, variability of quality, and valuational com-

plexity that a specific individual saying lacks for

stylistic effect.¹

(10) Dilemma: presentation of inconsistent or

mutually exclusive qualities or values of identical

valence (positive or negative), often in an extremitized

form. This device is a stylistic inversion of antithesis.

It generally serves to delineate boundary situations by

depicting them in (extremitized) situations of exclusive

alternative choice, with one value-system understood as

favored. Adversity sayings frequently use dilemma. Dilem-

ma sayings in particular serve to counterbalance and pro-

vide perspective for antitheses, extremities and ab-

solutisms.²

(11) Cadence: a saying or group of sayings which

the basic theme or themes of a composition (col-

tion?) in terms of basic rhetorical motifs. Cadences

form an inclusion structure and may punctuate the com-

position as well. The structure of cadences provides

¹See Appendix, Table 7.

²See Appendix, Tables 11 and 29.

473

closure or completeness.¹

(12) Observation: a superficially non-judgmental

presentation, often with irony, of a relationship, quality

or pattern of action that typically unveils the inten-

tionality or characteristic conduct of the person or

figure. An observation may therefore present neutrally

or with admiration what is elsewhere highly disvalued;

the value of the observation lies in the insight.²

(13) Bon mot: an observation which displays

striking imagery. The observation tends to function ex-

plicitly while the bon mot functions implicitly and with

multiple layers of meaning, beyond the aesthetic-qualita-

tive difference.³

(14) Irony: the use of multiple layers of mean-

ing, especially when the apparent explicit meaning stands

in some tension with or dissonance to one or more of the

implicit meanings; inconsistency of meaning, especially

when it is used to emphasize the propriety of demesne.⁴

(15) Neo-naturalism: the symbolic use of stereo-

typical naturalistic language as a compensation for

¹See Appendix, Table. 9.

²See Appendix, Table 45; cf. Table 47.

³See Appendix, Table 45.

⁴See Appendix, Table 23.

474

qualities, concepts or values which are in conflict with

those symbolically represented by the "natural world."

Typically, neo-naturalism is compensation for urbanism,

formalistic social relationship, and increased social

distances.¹

(16) Intellectualization: substitution of

verbalized interpretations of experience for pre- or

extra-verbal interpretations; representation of the

extra-verbal by means of the symbolic-poetic use of the

verbal.²

(17) Individualism: statement of group or class

values in terms of the qualities, attributes and conduct of

stereotypical individuals; substitution of the typical

individual for the values of the group of which he or she

deemed to be a member, often by poetic attribution.³

To these, one might add thematic devices typical

of this literature, such as hierarchy, demesne, mystery,

noblesse oblige, topos, propriety, gradience, hubris

grounding legitimacy/authority, and the like. If there

be a wisdom aesthesis, then what is said--and meant--is

inextricably tied up with how it is said. The 'how' re-

mains in many ways too poorly understood.

¹See Appendix, Table 53; cf. Table 54.

²E.g., 15:30; 16:17; 17:12, 22; 19:14; 20:14.

³E.g., 19:6, 7; 20:5-7, 9.

475

Time

Excepting the somewhat doubtful middle case of

'word,' 'time' comprises the second of the fundamental

phenomenological dimensions of social existence. People

make themselves "at home" in a when as well as a where.

This time is a hermeneutic, just like social space. It

is an interpretation of experience as meaningful, valuable,

and significant. Social time is a social reality, a

construction and therefore a kind of convention. It is

another way of relating disparate events to one another

so that one may deal effectively with experience. Behind

this literature lies an interpretive temporality which we

also want to elicit. Time is not a prominent, explicit

and consistent concern of this literature as it is of

other types, such as prophecy or apocalyptic. The spatial

characteristics of the social world are clearly more ex-

plicit and detailed in the B collection. In part, though,

this may be a function of the rhetorical devices, such

as absolutism, abstraction and extremity, which downplay

or omit temporal conditions. Some of our understanding

of temporality has to be derived from the juxtaposition

of sayings with one another, especially as a socially

interpretive background among a mashal-using people.

Also, important temporal concepts are analogues or con-

sequents of spatial concepts already developed.

476

In our discussion of space, it has been a prac-

tical impossibility to defer all consideration of tem-

porality. We have already sketched many of its linea-

ments and developed some of its basic concepts. We shall

not repeat those lines of argument again in detail here.

Rather, we shall seek to summarize coherently the tem-

poral concepts or implications of concepts already de-

veloped and explore the other, often-implicit, dimensions

of temporality. Three central issues will form the basis

for our discussion. First, what is the stance of the

individual with respect to time? How does a person con-

front temporality as it applies to one's own life-

situation? This question is at once ethical and existen-

tial: in what way can or do I act with regard to events

as sequence, how do I choose? Second, in what way is

temporality related to life as a whole? In what way is

a person's life an expression of (their) temporality?

Third, in what way does the world express a temporality

that extends beyond one's own life and yet impinges upon

it? How do I relate to time as the process of history?

The disparity of attention paid to spatiality as

opposed to temporality constitutes an important clue

both to the world-view of this literature and to the

social milieu from which it comes. Spatial issues are

problematic. The gradient power, its legitimacy,

477

autonomous action within one's essential social milieu,

all have become significant problems requiring both inter-

pretation and defense of that interpretation among the

sayings. It is axiomatic in sociological analysis that

people only talk about that which is not taken-for-

granted. They discuss, assert and defend something be-

cause it has in some way become a problem for them. De-

fenses of world-views appear when those world-views are

beginning to crumble. The world-view of this literature

is not beginning to crumble, because it has not evoked

that kind of elaborate spirited defense. Still, certain

situations provoke questions that have to be dealt, with

and those issues appear as social spatiality. The re-

stricted autonomy, individual vulnerability and collective

security of this bureaucratic elite require explanation

and interpretation. They are ineluctable issues.

By contrast, temporality is largely-taken-for-

granted. Few problems require social temporal explana-

tions. This lack of emphasis does not mean that time

has no meaning or significance for these people. It

means that whatever experience they have of time, it is

unproblematic, at least for the most part. In fact, we

shall argue that time is an important part of their

hermeneutic. They exist in a time that has a great deal

of meaning for them. But, that time is reliable and

478

consistent. It is relatively free from surprises or

rapid and unpredictable changes of direction. Indeed,

the reality of time is pivotal to their ethic and their

world-view: meaningful action is possible in the world.

Problems of sociality arise precisely because the ex-

perience of temporality is fundamental, but relatively

untroubled.¹

This taken-for-granted character of social

temporality in this literature also has important impli-

cations for our understanding of its social evolution.

Whatever experiences its authors and audiences may have

been having, they did not raise significant issues of

temporality in any of the three forms we shall consider.

The social milieu raised spatial but not temporal kinds

of questions. No event or constellation of events, no

social process, no intellectual or theological develop-

ment led to the posing of significant temporal problems.

Their view of time persisted and could continue to be

taken-for-granted, with few and specific expectations.

Only the second question, the process of personal de-

velopment, raises issues in connection with the commit-

ment to and disciplined development of an intentionality.

One would expect ethical or theodical problems to raise

¹See Appendix, Tables 37 and 61.

479

temporal questions. Choice--action and consequence--in-

volves one's being toward the future.¹To have choice at

all, there must be some freedom and openness toward the

not-yet. Yet, the future is not an overweaning issue,

even in the dilemmas and adversity sayings. Similarly,

the absence of Heilsgeschichte, even in the thematically

theological B collection, is notorious. Whatever is

happening "historically" to their social world, these

people are not experiencing it as a problem in terms of

their interpretation of history. Since we shall argue

a temporality of continuity here, that entails that they

have not experienced events that call that thesis of

social and national continuity in time into question.

Time may not be rigid and inflexible, else their ethic

would be purely formalistic instead of substantive, but

it is also not discontinuous and inconsistent. Their

temporal world, on all three levels, is basically stable,

consistent, reliable and predictable to a sufficient

degree. They know how to cope with temporality and are

coping with it. Their social world and ideology display

no temporally-based evidence of being in trouble. Their

being in time can be taken for granted.

¹See Appendix, Table 67.

480

Stance

The first dimension of temporality is stance,

the "presentness" of the individual in his or her being

toward the future. This dimension is both preceptual

and ethical. To choose is to operate out of a stance

toward a meaningful future. The temporal characteristics

which emerge from the perspective of stance are:

(1) Time is an arena within which meaningful

action is possible. The ultimacy and mystery of Yahweh,

the boundedness of demesne, and the sharp delineation of

intentionalities could together serve to deprive indi-

vidual choices and actions of any real significance, but

that does not happen.¹ Actions are not overwhelmed.

Even allowing for a noblesse oblige interpretation of

some sayings, the cumulation of wisdom, adversity sayings

and dilemmas, correction and instruction, discipline and

growth in an intentionality, all suggest that one faces

ethically genuine choices at any stage in one's develop-

ment.²

Each action has meaning; it is not automatic or

derivative. Some choices lead to growth; others, to

harm or even destruction. No particular stage of growth

¹See Appendix, Tables 8, Parts A, B and C; 39

and 57.

²See Appendix, Tables 13, 20, 21, 44, 48, 60;

cf. Tables 16 and 26.

481

or intentional structure deprives one of the reality of

choice. Thus, what one does and how one chooses to do it

is a constantly meaningful occurrence. One's stance out

of the present toward the immediate future offers por-

tentous alternatives.¹ The future and the present are

not equivalent. There is a genuine passage of and in

time. The future is potential and it is different from

the present. It is not fixed or given; it is not

chimaerical. The 'way' involves constant decision-making

to maintain and develop the discipline.² Thus, the in-

dividual is a functioning agent in time.

(2) Meaningful change occurs. One cannot rely on

one's own judgment of a state of affairs or of one's own

wisdom to detect a pattern or structure to events that

will continue indefinitely into the future and upon which

one can rely beyond that of the harmony or aesthesis of

wisdom within one's demesne of autonomy. In other words,

hubris or self-righteousness assert an understanding be-

yond one's demesne one cannot have, even one who is

otherwise pursuing wisdom.³ Yahweh's pattern, his purposes,

¹See Appendix, Tables 8, Part A; 16, Part P; 26,

Part D; and 67.

²See Appendix, Table 44.

³See Appendix, Tables 8, Part A; 16, Part P; and

26, Part A.

482

remain in principle beyond human ken.¹ Hence, genuine

dilemmas and genuine adversity are possible, though un-

likely, even for one who is quite wise.² The future

differs from the present. Real change occurs, because

the unexpected is an inherent part of futurity. Indeed,

that fact about time is a fundamental motive for the de-

velopment of the doctribe of demesne, limiting oneself to

that upon which one can rely. Haste and impetuosity are

cardinal vices.³Choice is disciplined and bounded.⁴

(3) Change is evolutionary, not revolutionary.

Excessive or excessively rapid change is as subversive

of the possibility of choice as stasis.⁵ In a revolu-

tionary society or world, change is so rapid that there

is no intelligible basis for making decisions; experience

is not a reliable or consistent guide. Old principles

do not necessarily have validity in the new order. Clearly,

wisdom is cumulative; growth is expected; the discipline

is the facilitative means to wisdom.⁶ The past is a

¹See Appendix, Table 8, Part B.

²See Appendix, Tables 11, 12, 29, 65, 66 and 68.

³See Appendix, Table 26, Parts H, P and Q.

⁴See Appendix, Table 20.

⁵See Appendix, Tables 31, 37 and 61.

⁶See Appendix, Tables 13, 48, 60.

483

reliable guide to choice and conduct in the present and

the future, though it may not be perfectly predictive.

The pursuit of wisdom aesthesis and the harmony which

flows from it are reasonable and worthy goals. The

propriety of intentionalities is consistent and one can

expect a general harmony or consonance of circumstance/

outcome and intentionality.¹ The possibility inherent

in futurity does not undercut the general harmony of

character and station, though it means that the relation-

ship is not mechanical. The freedom of the powerful to

exercise their power according to their will and the un-

knowability of Yahweh's specific intentions tend to be

more ideal than actual in that in practice both tend to

act in ways that are consonant with the aesthesis of wis-

dom. Specific inconsistencies do not undermine the larger

consistency and therefore the appropriateness of wisdom

disposition. Specific freedom is compatible with the

evolution of possibility on the larger scale.

(4) Dispositions evolve, grow. Characters appear

in this literature in absolute, one-dimensional form. In

fact, each disposition is widely variable, a necessary

concommitant of the reality and significance of choice.²

¹See Appendix, Tables 39, 57; cf. Tables 8, Parts

E and G, and 27,

²See Appendix, Tables 20, 39 and 57.

484

Wisdom, for example, is acquired through a life-long dis-

cipline. One's wisdom at any particular moment may or

may not be adequate to the situational demands made upon

it. It is possible to have insufficient maturity in

wisdom and therefore to be unequal to a circumstance or

decision.¹ Similarly, there are degrees of folly, so

that instruction even of the fool makes sense.² Judgment

and correction do make a difference even for those for

whom wisdom—and conceivably, though not likely, even

righteousness--is not an intentional possibility.³

Though within limits, character can change and be molded.

Again, ethical decisions have meaning; they are real, for

each intentionality. To face genuine options, one's

character must have a range of development. That range,

however, seems to grow consistently narrower with time.

The dispositional range--potential--of the callow youth

is virtually total, from wicked to wise, at least in

principle.⁴ The dispositional range of one mature in his

or her intentionality is basically within that particular

intentionality alone. The wicked do not become wise; but

¹See Appendix, Tables 11, 12 and 29.

²See Appendix, Table 19.

³See Appendix, Table 60.

⁴See Appendix, Table 18.

485

it seems that they may well become less wicked.¹

(5) What is relevant in relation to the conse-

quential future is attitude or character, not the specific

act. All action is character-based. This interpreta-

tion follows directly from the proprieties and from in-

tentionality.² It exerts a stabilizing influence on the

process of change. Harmonizing occurs with respect to

character, therefore isolated acts, especially if out of

character, do not disrupt the continuity of time. Changes

in disposition development or deterioration of charac-

ter, do appear to affect consequences. The process of

harmonization is not restricted to the intentional agent.

Others within the life-world, the powerful, the natural

world and Yahweh also constitute active harmonizing

forces that tend toward consonance, or 'aesthesic har-

mony.'³ Since the pursuit of harmony is intentional, the

response of these extra-demesne forces is to harmonize

with intentionality. This harmony, however, is not act-

based, nor is it retributive. The world is not mechani-

cal; these forces are individually active. Harmony above

all in the domain of specific acts does not mean utter

¹See Appendix, Table 39.

²See Appendix, Tables 14 and 39.

³See Appendix, Tables 8, Part A, 10, 32 and 33.

486

predictability or rigidity: the world has its surprises,

and not all are benevolent from the perspective of a par-

ticular individual ("in his own eyes"). Dilemmas exist

which no harmony or structure or stability or order can

avert, hence the recognition of demesne.

(6) Temporal processes which are relevant to the

individual tend toward harmony with intentionality. In a

way, the B material seems to make the claim that the world

makes sense but that that sense is not intelligible as

such even to one who is mature in wisdom. One can discern

some of that pattern. One can have a Gestalt insight

into the meaning of the pattern without knowing the de-

tails or substance of it. That the world makes sense does

not mean that it is knowable or even that it has to be

knowable. Rather, wise or tight intentionality are part

of the way in which the world makes sense. Thus, the

disparate forces and dimensions of activity in the world,

including the actions of Yahweh, tend to fit appropriately

with well-disposed actions. The psychological term

'closure' might apply here. The sense underlying the world

appears as harmony, but only over time and in respect of

intentionality. Moreover, harmony is a fitness or appro-

priateness, not a mechanistic relationship. The exact

form of the harmony is not predictable--that is the part

of the sense of the world that lies beyond human ken. What

487

one can be sure of is that wise or right intentionality

fit; they harmonize. For that reason, they facilitate the

sense of the world and are intrinsically good and right

in turn. One's participation in this aspect of temporal

propriety is not passive but dispositionally active.

While Yahweh sets the ultimate sense, the proper disposi-

tion (but not one's own interpretation of what the proper

disposition might be, which is a fortiori dubious) does

make a difference, facilitative or destructive (temporal

dimension of contagion).¹

(7) For one of right or wise disposition, the

world is ultimately worthy of trust. The B material is

not cynical, despondent, melancholy or pessimistic. Less

is it paranoid. People are depicted as active and par-

ticipating in the life-world: one cannot successfully

restrict oneself only to one's autonomous demesne. One

must risk--disciplined--involvement in the life-world.

Withdrawal is not a viable option, except perhaps as a

rhetorical response to the choices posed in adversity

(through the dilemma). Wealth, position, authority,

influence, eloquence, insight, all are tools for use in

manipulating and disposing one's life-world.² Consonance

¹See Appendix, Tables 8, Parts A, B, C, D, E, G,

H and I; 28 and 42.

²See Appendix, Table 16.

488

can and should be sought actively, not passively. Dis-

cipline and restraint mean minimalism, not withdrawal.

This literature reflects a wary people, who recognize the

limits to intelligibility and knowing, but who believe

that action in accord with the proper disposition is

right, necessary and productive, though not always sure.

There are ethical imperatives of action. With the appro-

priate character, such involvement facilitates harmony and

tends to be rewarding. On balance, the oft-times pre-

carious and uncertain world is benevolent to those rightly

disposed. That benevolence-on-balance, however, is predi-

cated on involvement within the life-world. To hope to

harmonize, one must involve oneself in the world beyond

the narrowest and best-governed portions of the demesne,

into the life-world. On the other hand, that involvement

does not mean arrogance or passionate commitment; it means

discipline in accord with disposition. Restraint and

discipline mean walking the path ("the way") between

under- and over-commitment, both of which are inharmonious.

(8) The world within which one acts is reliable.

Irrespective of one's disposition, the world, as an ex-

pression of the purposes of Yahweh, can be expected to

make sense. Harmony persists. While the particular form

and content of that harmony cannot be predicted, one can

be sure that the harmony will be maintained. The world

489

will not become dissonant and inharmonious; Yahweh will

not act without meaning or purpose.¹ One can rely on the

preservation of harmony and meaning by and through the

aesthesis even when one cannot predict specific events

or acts. One can also rely on the relationship which

persists between harmony and intentionality. Right and

wise dispositions facilitate, while evil and foolish

harm or destroy.

(9) The world within which one acts is consistent.

The pattern underlying the world is such that the strate-

gies divined by the wise for dealing with it retain their

validity even when certain prudential patterns of conduct

may change. The basic lineaments of that strategy appear

in demesne, intention, propriety. These strategic inter-

pretations have persistent validity. While specific

moral imperatives and admonitions may change, the inter-

pretation upon which they are based persists, the ethic

remains. In other words, one can count on the fundamental

nature of the world remaining constant. One may count on

the fundamental nature of Yahweh remaining constant, even

if they cannot be fully known nor understood, let alone

their effects predicted. Thus, ways of coping with such

a world, if effective, retain their effectiveness to the

¹See Appendix, Table 8.

490

extent that they are based on valid and accurate interpre-

tations of those natures. While first-order judgments may

change, second-order do not. The interpretations are

consistent and reliable, even when the specific judgments

and actions they lead to may vary.

This is a difficult and somewhat obscure inter-

pretive point, but basic to clarifying how this litera-

ture functions. We propose that the consistency and co-

herence of the world perceived by the author(s) and users

of the B composition lies at a higher level than has often

been supposed. The "order" does not lie in some automatic

or mechanical relationship of act and consequence. The

world is not rigid and inflexible. Such an order under-

mines the meaning of ethical choice: the appearance of

choice is a sham. Ultimately, the effect is to deprive

Yahweh of any freedom, which seems a curious doctrine to

impute to either this literature or these people, though

it cannot be ruled invalid for that reason. Such doc-

trines as retribution, however, do not square with ad-

versity, dilemma, iconoclasm or the role of power in this

material. The appearance of retributive language can be

understood rhetorically. If reward and punishment are

not mechanical, however, what motivates the wise to

pursue an arduous and potentially unrewarding discipline?

Why risk a foolish son, contentious wife, autocratic king

491

and willful deity? What justifies wisdom? The argument

that wisdom could not be justified in the face of these

experiences--theodicy--that it broke down, ultimately begs

the question. Where did the notion come from in the first

place? How did a people whose everyday experience exposed

them to the caprice of power arrive at the conclusion that

righteousness and wisdom are objectively rewarded? How

could they claim to understand what they later must ap-

parently admit they did not, when their experience with

the caprice of king and official must have been immediate?

A doctrine of consistency, however, does not raise direct

theodical questions, is resilient and far more immune

from attack. We cannot know the ultimate pattern. We

can know that it exists. We do not know what Yahweh in-

tends. We know that he intends purposefully. We do not

know that what we do will always lead to reward and happi-

ness. We know that no other strategy leads to more suc-

cess and happiness than ours. Further, we know that the

ultimate intentional realization of our way of life is

fully in harmony with the ultimate pattern of the universe,

helping to preserve, extend and perpetuate it insofar

that human action can. What we do makes sense, though it

may not always work. Our knowledge is limited and our

judgment of our knowledge self-centered. But, it is the

best strategy and the strategy is in basic accord with

492

the over-arching meaning of the world. When taken as the

collective product of a group of people who persist over

time, wisdom presents a strategy/interpretation whose

fundamental structure is so in accord with the funda-

mental pattern of the universe that it persists. Wisdom,

however, can grow and develop. The strategy and under-

standing are forever incomplete. Interpretations of it

by individuals are subject to fault, folly and hubris.

The persistence of wisdom as a harmonizing strategy re-

flects both the reliability and the basic consistency

that underlie a world that appears open and changing.

(10) From the perspective of a particular indi-

vidual, the temporal aspect of the world is fluid. Things

change, but slowly. Short-term variability does not

conceal long-term stability. The world is not erratic,

neither is it rigid. In order to function in particular

life-situations, one has to make judgments appropriate to

the circumstance, context and character(s) involved.

Decisions, choices, are not inalterable, but they are not

random. There is a basis for choice, but specific choices

gradually change. The world is not bound, brittle, or

broken.

(11) The future is open. No specific course of

action is ever a foregone conclusion. The role of Yahweh

provides for intervention, however much one may think

493

one understands a particular situation and how-

ever righteous or wise one may think one's course. The

course of events provides real alternatives which lead

in genuinely different directions. The over-all pattern

or sense of the world, the purposes of Yahweh, do not

produce a rigid structure to the world that closes or

confines courses of action to the extent that inexorable

processes are at work. The world is not governed by fate

or necessity, certain rhetorical usages to the contrary

notwithstanding.¹ The pattern does not produce an im-

mutable sequence of events in which the individual or even

Yahweh is impotent or must function mechanically. The

options we face are real. The pattern exists at the

second-order. We might say that it is the pattern of the

pattern of events that is fixed.

(12) The orientation toward time in the situation

of choice is individualistic. While it is clear that

wisdom is both cumulative and collective, the situation

of ethically-relevant choice is individualistic. Demesne,

for example, is an intensely individual concept. The

rhetorical use of stock figures is revealing. While they

may present classes of individuals in the form of collec-

tive representations, the choices they face, the situations

¹See Appendix, Tables 8, Parts A, B and C; 36

and 66.

494

they are in, are appropriate to particular separate

people, not to groups. Choice is not a group, class or

national process. Intentionality must be pursued through

individual discipline, not collective. Speech is the act

of one person (at a time). The issues that concern people

in this literature revolve around situations in which

particular persons are presented with choices that they

as individuals have to make. That fact does not make

wisdom purely individual, but it certainly reflects a

stance toward temporality that is individualistic.¹ The

reality and openness of time is experienced at the point

of the individual's decision for a particular way of

being or course of action. Even contagion suggests that

involvement begins with the spread of effects from a

particular person's intentionality. It is the individ-

ual, not the group, class or nation, that is the focal

point for the life-world. The model stance is a person

open to decision.

(13) That stance assumes freedom and autonomy.

Individuals can make meaningful choices apart from groups.

In fact, the nature of group decision-making over against

that of the individual is never addressed: is it dif-

ferent in kind or nature or degree? While self-governance

¹See Appendix, Table 16, Parts E, F, H, I, K, L,

M, O, P, Q, R and S.

495

may not be competent, it is understood and assumed as the

point of departure. Choices are real. No previous

pattern of action so binds one that choices only have the

appearance of meaning. Intentionality does not assure

that one will act purely in terms of that intentionality.

It structures and orients conduct, but it does not de-

termine choice, hence we cannot totally predict the ac-

tions of others on the basis of their intentionalities.¹

However mature in wisdom one may have become, he must

still make decisions that continue to be consonant with

that wisdom and it is still possible that he will not.

Yahweh's involvement is determinative of events, not

acts. Yahweh assures harmony. Yahweh assures sense. But

the divine in no way takes away the reality of choice,

even from the ignorant, foolish or wicked.² Instruction,

free choice to alter one's conduct though not necessarily

to an unlimited extent, remains possible.³ People can

learn to some degree, however formed their dispositions.

One is therefore responsible for one's choices. Yahweh

may intervene between the formulated purpose (decision)

and its outcome, but he does not intervene in making the

¹See Appendix, Tables 39 and 57.

²See Appendix, Tables 18, 19, 20, 28 and 60.

³See Appendix, Tables 21, 48 and 60.

496

decision itself. There is no structure, mechanism, neces-

sity or fate that deprives a person of meaningful choice.

(14) Spatiality and temporality are both inner-

worldly. We have seen that the life-world of the B ma-

terial is disposed in a fairly-well-defined social milieu.

The questions posed and answers given deal essentially

with matters of immediate personal concern. One confines

one's attention to that one can effectively deal with,

one's demesne and one's life-world. Beyond that lie the

demesnes of others. The supra-mundane does not occupy

these people. They are not other-worldly. They look

for no supernatural compensation for their lot. Indeed,

their situation is, if not always assured and stable, more

often agreeable than not. The same situation obtains

with respect to time. The relevant temporal consideration

at the point of choice is immediate and personal future.

Outcomes are this-worldly and individual. They are not

and are fundamentally inconsistent with the other-worldly,

supra-temporal or supra-individual. At most, the focus

of this literature extends beyond the temporality of one's

own experiential world to that of intimates and progeny.

The closest one comes to the other-worldly is the ref-

erence to Rephaim in 21:16, a, saying which is still con-

cern with the fate of a particular individual as the con-

sequence of this-worldly conduct; the lineaments of any

497

other-worldly place or time are lacking.^l

(15) Temporality appears as stance, presentness.

Inner-worldly and individualistic temporality means that

the focus is on the situation of choice, one's stance

toward the immediate personal future. The past exists

largely for one through intentionality developed to that

point; indeed, the constitutive elements of that past,

such as childhood, appear in and through that inten-

tionality. The past appears as an influence upon the

present rather than an independent and detailed reality

with its own structure and concerns. Similarly, the

openness of the future appears over against the present-

ness of one's stance: that the future is as-it-were un-

formed possibility without (first-order) structure. The

literature is concerned with the specious present oriented

to the immediate future.

(16) Personal past appears as developed/ing in-

tentionality brought to bear upon the moment of choice.

The past is individualistic, not collective. One is the

product of one's choices; one ultimately is responsible

for molding one's own life. Groups appear in forming

and disciplining a person. Parents, for example, have

¹See Appendix, Table 40, esp. Part J.

²See Appendix, Tables 39 and 57.

498

great, though not absolute, influence over a child's de-

velopment.¹Yet, people have autonomy and genuine choice.

Their actions are not subsumed to a group or structure of

reality, present or past. The past, internalized, in-

forms but does not determine their actions. The past ap-

pears within these sayings as what affects one's stance,

rather than an independent and valuable reality to be

preserved and cherished in its own right.² The past ap-

pears in light of one's stance in the present, and is

subordinate to it (which rather rules out the last possi-

bility as an unexpressed taken-for-granted lying far be-

hind this literature). The past, therefore, can be seen

under the rubric of experience, intentionally understood.

The past appears less as the interpretive cumulation of

past events than as the development and maturation of a

personality/character through a process of learning and

growth. (Thus, we need to be careful of the treacherous

multi-vocality of 'experience.')

(17) Temporality is an arena of non-symbolic

action. This point follows rather directly from much

that we have already said. Choice does not stand for

forces or structures that are larger than life or supra-

¹See Appendix, Table 41.

²See Appendix, Table 61.

499

mundane. Nor are they supra-personal. Actions certainly

reflect structures of intentionality, with which time

harmonizes, but that intentionality is individual and

personal, however typical or representative it may be.

One is not compelled or fated to act in a typical way.

Acts carry their ordinary social and contextual meanings.

These sayings are certainly not devoid of symbolism, but

the use of symbols is consistent with their minimalism;

time is immediate and mundane. It seldom has symbolic

value except as the arena of decision and action.¹

(18) Temporality appears as demesne, in terms of

the life of the individual. The sayings' concern with

time is often expressed in terms of the language of life

and death.²As would be expected, longevity and right or

wise intentionality are related. One's demesne, however,

is ones life. While actions, may redound to some extent

to family and kin, while contagion implies a measure of

temporality, the consequences of action, like the action

themselves, occur within and are directly related to one's

own life. The temporal stance of presentness is oriented

within one's own life demesne. The working out of in-

tentionality, the realization of harmony, is a process

¹See Appendix, Table 16.

²See Appendix, Tables 64 and 65.

500

of the individual life, above all. An individual life-

time is the demesne within which wisdom comes to its proper

realization. This demesne is not obvious given the trans-

missibility of wisdom combined with cumulativity. One

could imagine a supra-personal wisdom realized in his-

torical process whose symbolic benchmarks were divorced

from the individual human life. If such a conception of

wisdom existed among these people at this time, it does

not appear clearly among these sayings. One can only

realize wisdom within and in terms of one's own life and

life-world, one's spatio-temporal action sphere.

(19) Wisdom has temporal authority. The develop-

ment of wise disposition leads to facilitative harmony

with one's world. In that respect it is continuous with

the grounded aesthetic which is the (second-order) pat-

tern of the world and of its governance. The trans-

missible authority of wisdom is its grounded aesthesis:

it produces a valuable harmonizing of individual, group

and world that is compatible with the aesthetic under-

lying the purposes of Yahweh. No other disposition is

similarly consonant; only righteous character is similarly

grounded. Wisdom and righteousness are transmissible

realizations of intrinsic value. The aesthetic in which

wisdom may be said to "participate" is good in and of

itself. Wisdom's authority is its relationship to this

501

Yahweh-grounded and -legitimated value. The authority of

those who have wisdom to act to preserve and transmit the

wisdom aesthesis expressed through a person's inten-

tionality (i.e., their authority to act, to seek and

discipline students, to communicate their ethic) is their

relationship to the value, the aesthesis and the ground

of both in Yahweh.¹

(20) Wisdom cumulates through time. Wisdom is

not an absolute or ideal quality. It appears concretely

as intentionality, in and through specific-individuals.

As discipline and aesthesis, wisdom can grow, develop, be

refined. Its basis in mature and righteous intentionality,

its history, its grounding, all mean that the basic pat-

tern endures, as we have argued. Still, the last word

remains to be said. Time forms an arena in which wisdom

develops through the group which possesses it.²

(21) Wisdom is collective. Wisdom grows through

the participation of people in a group. Thus, there is

a sense in which wisdom is also tied to the life of the

group of people who possess it. Wisdom cumulates with

respect to the group as well as the individual. The

¹See Appendix, Tables 8, 16, 20, 21, 48 and 60.

²See Appendix, Tables 11, 12, 29, 36, 66 and 67.

³See Appendix, Tables 21, 48 and 60.

502

group assures, to the extent possible, wisdom's preserva-

tion and transmission. The aesthesis of wisdom, the

"second-order pattern," is supra-personal in space and

time to the extent that the aesthesis is the harmonizing

pattern of world and god. This dimension of wisdom, how-

ever, is not discussed in detail within the sayings.

Further, the group is not itself treated supra-personally.

The temporality of wisdom, despite cumulation and col-

lectivity, appears in and through individual demesne,

one's life.

(22) There is a propriety to time. This pro-

priety of individual temporality does not seem to appear

as a doctrine of kairos, the general propriety of times,

though such a doctrine would be quite plausible given the

analysis thus far. Rather, it appears in the range of

choices and alternatives arising within the sphere of im-

mediate action at each stage of life. Each stage in

intentional development has its appropriate relationship

to action. The range of action--freedom, autonomy, open-

ness of time—varies with intentional stage of individual

development and growth.

In addition to these points, several others have

either appeared within the discussion or are obvious

analogues to spatial concepts. In either case, it is

sufficient merely to mention the following:

503

(23) Aesthesis appears in the individual stance

toward time as a strategic conservatism.

(24) Aesthesis appears in the individual stance

toward time as a strategic minimalism.

(25) The openness of immediate futurity entails

individual vulnerability, irrespective of intentionality.¹

(26) Contagion appears within immediate tem-

porality.²

(27) Wisdom as intentionally realized aesthesis

is transmitted through discipline, ethic and language

(poetry) within the context of a group of wise.

These characteristics reinforce the artistic

metaphor we are using in discussing wisdom. There is an

art to applying wisdom to life situations. The openness

and change one confronts when one deals with temporality

out of the stance of one's presentness mean that wisdom

as aesthesis cannot be a formula for conduct. When wis-

dom is converted, or better translated, from the abstract

level of aesthesis to specific ethical considerations,

the proprieties and demesnes of the immediate situation

have to be taken into account. The suitability of the

context is ethically relevant. Right is an appropriateness

¹See Appendix, Table 43.

²See Appendix, Table 42.

504

or fitness to character as well as the groundedness of

the action; it is not a formula of conduct. The pattern

derived from discipline and learned in the growing ex-

perience of the past requires harmonizing and application.

An act is not objectively wise. It is aesthetically wise,

doing well rather than doing good.

Stages of Life

The second temporal dimension of wisdom follows

from the propriety of time. One's life is composed of

stages, to each of which there is an appropriateness of

both space and time. We have already discussed the

hierarchy of intentionalities at length. Clearly, though,

they have some temporal relationship. Even in childhood,

an apparent sensibility of righteousness appears. The

child is amenable to discipline, though incapable of in-

tentional choice.¹ The child has not yet the capability

of selecting an intentional direction to his or her life.

The parent has both the capacity and the responsibility

to begin the process of directing the child's growth so

that proper choices will be made and the child will pur-

sue the discipline of wisdom when he or she can.² This

instruction, though pivotal, does not control inalterably

¹See Appendix, Table 41.

²See Appendix, Tables 20, 48 and 60.

505

the child's development as several sayings might seem to

suggest. Else how can we explain the persistant theme of

the foolish child. Clearly, parents who pursue wisdom

nevertheless find their hopes for their children, the

perpetuation of their wisdom-based values and class

identity, disappointed. If all that were required for

the child to elude this fate in later life were adequate

parental guidance and discipline, this recurrent theme

would be difficult to explain. Rather, the child's life

seems to be patterned rather than determined. He or she

must still decide the direction of his or her intention-

ality in youth, and face real ethical choices as adults.

No childhood instruction in and of itself produces wis-

dom. This argument is also consonant with wisdom's ap-

parent cumulation and collectivity, not to mention one's

demesne.

The (callow) youth has reached the age where-in-

tentional choice becomes possible. Indeed, only in youth

can one's direction for life be set. In youth, one has

the potential for the fundamental ethically-meaningful

choice, what sort of character do I commit myself to de-

veloping? If the youth be so equipped, he or she may

pursue the way of wisdom. Certainly, the way of righteous-

ness lies open. On the other hand, folly and wickedness

may also begin from wrong decisions and commitments made

506

in youth. In a sense, youth is a period of total inten-

tional freedom. One may go virtually any direction.¹

Once this period in life is past, there seems to be much

less freedom. The sayings offer no clear indication that

one can change from one type of intentionality to another

after the passage of youth.² To pursue wisdom, one must

find teachers, perhaps one's parents, who can subject one

to the course of discipline that is essential for mature

wisdom to appear later in life.³ In youth, what begins

as a result of one's decision is a process of growth

within the way one has chosen. Whatever character one

selects begins to grow and develop, both as a process of

personal growth and development and as a process of social

interaction. The youth who seeks wisdom becomes a

protegé of the wisdom-seeking class. He becomes a part

of their collective and its facilitation. The dis-

cipline, as we have consistently argued, is not rote

learning. The "instruction" which occurs is a vehicle

for developing a character.

With adulthood, the realistic possibility of com-

mitting oneself to a particular course of personal

¹See Appendix, Tables 18 and 41.

²See Appendix, Table 28.

³See Appendix, Table 48.

507

development fades. One's intentionality is increasingly

fixed. One's actions, however, still have a measure of

freedom, so that one may exacerbate a wrong choice or

facilitate a good one--or vice versa. The process of

growth and development does not come to an end with the

passing of youth. The maturation of intentionality is

ultimately a process that goes on for an entire lifetime.

It is never complete or finished. The rhetorical device

of extremity tends to conceal the variability within each

intentionality. It is in the course of adulthood that

one makes decisions and acts in ways that affect one's

position within that variability. Wisdom in particular

does not come to full maturation in the early years of

adult life. Wisdom requires some age to possess with

assurance and confidence.¹ Thus, we should distinguish

the young man (young adult) from the mature adult. Only

the latter functions as one who is consistently wise and

fully autonomous (self-disciplining?). In that middle

age, one's discipline has at last acquired a maturity

that stable character exists and one becomes one who acts

consistently out of wisdom intentionality and may properly

be said to do so. Before that time, one's handle on that

wisdom remains too shakey. Even now, one who is wise,

¹See Appendix, Table 41, Part G; cf. Table 16.

508

acting alone, may err grievously or do what is inappro-

priate or wrong. The group is some protection against

such deviation.

Age brings the final maturity in wisdom. It is

the full fruition of an intentionality developed through

life's discipline. At that point it becomes one's point

of honor and integrity. One may take satisfaction and

act confidently with comparatively little fear of self-

delusion or hubris. Honor, however, may begin to take

the place of action and specific conduct as duties in-

volving regular decision-making pass to others. In other

words, it is possible that the old may revel and take

honor in their professed wisdom in that they have ever

fewer opportunities to use it, and therefore to risk

error or misconduct. They have the privilege of being

rather than doing.

There is nothing within this literature that en-

ables us to locate the B collection clearly within any

of these stages of life. Nevertheless, this analysis

allows us to infer some probabilities which are sugges-

tive. One may begin by asking in which life stage such

a work could be composed or, alternatively, compiled.

In theory, mature age is possible, since then one can

function with confident authority. Still, action weighs

against reflection. Moreover, the composition or

509

collection of such material even at that age would seem

to border on arrogance or hubris. By what right does one

engage in attempting to delineate, codify or organize

wisdom material. What entitles one to undertake the

poetic act without its becoming merely the expression of

what is wise in one's own eyes. Old age, however, is al-

lowed honor. Age, after all, is the harmonious concom-

mitant of righteousness and wisdom. Moreover, the old

are allowed their glory and honor in wisdom as no other

life stage is. Further, a summing up is psycho. Socially

appropriate in age. The preparation of a wisdom compo-

sition is the culmination of a disciplined and wise life.

It is the verbal and poetic expression of what one has

become. It offers a measure of psychological closure.

The completion of the work parallels the completion of a

wise and aesthetically sound life. Intentional aesthesis

finds counterpart in literary aesthesis. Further, the

failure of the old to record their experience threatens

the loss of some of the wisdom collective. Certainly,

wisdom is not a saying or collection of sayings. But,

the aesthetic of wisdom is pointed to and symbolized by

the composition. Some measure of retention and endurance

is assured. Otherwise, the group is impoverished by the

loss of its old. Clearly, the group believes that wis-

dom is transmissible. Indeed, it must be transmitted.

510

Poetic preservation is an appropriate and fitting part of

that process. It is the more when it comes from the ap-

propriate members of the community, among a group for

whom the notion of fittingness or propriety is quite

fundamental. Further, the group values eloquent speech.

Speech is an important means of maintaining autonomy and

manipulating the life-world. Among the old, such elo-

quence ought to have come to its fruition. The notion of

cumulation points strongly to age as the life stage for

mashal composition. It is the symbolic rite of a stage

of life.

The notion of symbolic rite also offers a possible

application for the literature. Stages of life in any

society mandate a rite of passage between each pair of

stages. All societies rehearse the formal and informal

social transitions of their members. If these wise so

regarded and recognized stages of life, then rites of

passage of some sort had to exist, at least for members

of the group and their families. An exhortation of some

sort, based in the mashal form, is an appropriate means

of recognizing certain passages, perhaps best that from

youth to young adulthood. When a youth has irrevocably

committed himself to the wisdom discipline and has so

demonstrated aptitude and proficiency that the attainment

of wisdom in full adulthood may be anticipated, then it

511

is time to recognize the passage from 'postulant' to

'member.' One has become a member of the group and has

committed oneself to it. The sayings would make a cer-

tain sense in the context of recognizing this membership

and one's adult capacity to decide not subject to the

strict and searching discipline laid by elders upon the

callow youth. One becomes responsible for one's own con-

duct in accord to that intentionality to which one has

committed himself. In this, the old become sponsors of

the young. They symbolically, rather than literally,

instruct eloquently those who are entering the group,

ultimately to take their place. Those most advanced in

wisdom communicate their aesthesis to those least ad-

vanced. There is a symbolic recognition that the preser-

vation and transmission of wisdom rests increasingly with

those who have sought out wisdom and become members of

such a circle. The communication of the mashal makes far

less sense to either callow youth or mature adult: one

cannot yet make use of the exhortation and the other

really does not require it. The young adult adherent also

most needs ideological affirmation and confirmation. Such

exhortation is far more symbolic than literal; it is af-

firming, and in a language deemed valuable and powerful

by virtue of the commitment since made (cognitive dis-

sonance?). If the communication of sayings, not to

512

mention their composition, formed part of some rite of

passage, then the circle of the wise would have been even

more tightly-knit and -organized a group than we have

thus far argued. The existence of a theory of life-

stages does fit appropriately with such a passage rite.

The aged wise sponsor the committed young. They sym-

bolically recognize their adulthood and thereby take

leave of them.

Life and death are important dimensions in the

sayings of the B collection, but the actual use of these

terms does not display a discernible pattern beyond the

obvious association with the antithesis between righteous-

ness and wisdom versus folly and wickedness.¹ In a way,

the terms seem rhetorical; they are ambiguous and vague

in their context. They seem to be used symbolically more

than literally. The Rephaim are once mentioned.² Death

is associated with a messenger twice,³ perhaps consonant

with Yahweh's role in grounding intentionality. The use

of life and death language suggests that the course of a

person's life, and its length, are of great significance

in these sayings. That emphasis fits in with our

¹See Appendix, Tables 64 and 65.

²21:16.

³16:14; 17:11.

513

contention that the primary frame of reference is the

individual human life: that is what is at stake in these

sayings for their author(s) and audience. If intention-

ality properly developed is an intrinsic good, then it is

not hard to infer that death is a fundamental evil. It

represents the termination of any possibility of realizing

that good. Moreover, if wisdom be cumulative, collective,

and developmental (i.e., part of the human process of

growth), then premature death denies one the opportunity

to achieve mature wisdom. Wisdom in its fullest, in its

aesthetic wholeness, comes only with the maturity of age.

Thus, old age is required for closure, especially if

mashal-composition is an old man's activity as part of

that culmination.

History

Finally, we come to the question of history be-

yond the individual. What we can infer here differs

little conceptually from what we have already said. One

or two concepts, however, should be stressed. First,

the material suggests that time is continuous rather than

discontinuous. That means that each moment of time fol-

lows coherently and consistently, though not necessarily

predictively, from the moment before. There are no

drastic, erratic or random changes in the course of his-

tory. The past is applicable to the present; the present

514

has an intelligible relationship to the future. The

consistency of change follows a pattern (of the second

degree). What this means is that there are no points in

history when sudden breaches occur which disrupt the con-

nection of moment to moment. There is no point where

what follows bears no readily discernible relationship to

what preceded. There is no apparent dualism or poly-

morphism of time. Time is one continuous and uninterrupted

process of development, growth and change.

This conception of time places this literature

at some remove from those works which postulate drastic

discontinuities in time. The wise have not had experience

that causes them thus to distrust history or to place its

meaning and unveiling outside the "natural" process. It

is difficult to see how this material could readily be

the precursor of literatures which postulate historical

dualism. This view poses a basic difficulty for the

von Rad hypothesis. The traditional affinity between law

and wisdom is based on their compatible spatio-temporal

realities: based in demesnes, displaying proprieties,

this-worldly and temporally continuous. Prophecy coheres

with apocalyptic on the grounds of the same kind of com-

patibility: here a dualistic approach to history that is

radically discontinuous in a world without demesnes or

proprieties in which ethical activity/sensitivity is

515

leveled by a radical divalent ethical and temporal system.

The divalence of wisdom, we have argued, is largely

specious; the doctrine is far more complex and multi-

valent, but temporally continuous.

The other features of historical temporality

amount to a repetition of our earlier list: stable, re-

liable, evolutionary, coherent and consistent, arena of

meaning, fluid, open, field of change, non-symbolic, in-

telligible through aesthesis and as aesthesis, indi-

vidualistic, a field of authority and power according to

the proprieties, subject to the harmonizing aesthesis of

Yahweh as ground. The ultimate values of this material,

however, are individual rather than supra-individual, so

we look in vain for discussions of history qua history.

At best, we perceive the longer term by inference: that

history is the field within which these people may

cumulate, rehearse, celebrate and transmit their inter-

pretation through a literature which symbolizes poetically

a quality of being they intrinsically value. In that

they become a group and acquire identity, that wisdom

grows out of common search and common life. Perhaps this

literature is a reflection of the ritual forms and sharing

that bound that life and group together.

CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSION

The themes of atomism and evolutionary develop-

ment recur in the scholarly interpretation of the Hebrew

Bible's proverb literature. The sayings are terse, em-

blematic and often abstract. Their literary structure

derives from formal rather than substantive coherence.

Thus, the works may appear to be collections of sayings

brought together from a wide variety of social, cultural,

and theological milieux to serve their present, pre-

sumably didactic, purpose. Within or between these

collections, one can discern the lineaments of the his-

torical processes whereby the literature evolved. Ele-

ments of large-scale social processes already appear,

perhaps in miniature. With their implicit hermeneutics

and historiagraphies, such theories cut to the heart of

the phenomenon of wisdom. The proverb literature is

pivotal, both historically and form-critically, since it

seems to derive from settings which, and to present what,

one must call 'wisdom' if the term is to have any viable

analytic application.

Examination of the definitions which predominate

516

517

in wisdom research makes clear the multi-vocality of

'wisdom,' raising the question whether any historical

phenomenon as such lies behind it. The attempt to de-

velop a wisdom typology derived from the text makes clear

that wisdom is not a single historical entity.

If 'wisdom' is not to be either vacuous or os-

tensive and therefore derivative, then some minimum

criterion for its application must be developed. This

criterion is sociological: some identifiable social

group must stand behind the literature. Theses concern-

ing wisdom influence or development become theses con-

cerning the relationships and continuity of that group

with others within that socio-historical milieu.

Certain projective approaches derived from sys-

tematic, methodologically-rigorous Phenomenology elicit

a coherent world-view from one accepted body of proverb

material. Delineation of this Weltanschauung helps

clarify the setting within which this literature de-

veloped and was preserved. The result argues for com-

positional rather than redactoral unity in this proverb

work; it imposes distinct limitations on viable evolu-

tionary theories.

The work examined, Proverbs 15:28-22:16, evi-

dences a hierarchy of "demesnes." Demesnes are spheres

of power, influence or autonomy. They are ordered in

518

terms of intentionalities. Character stratifies demesne:

Yahweh, king, aristocrat, wise, righteous, ignorant,

foolish, wicked. Passion or pride, violating the boun-

daries of demesne, makes one vulnerable to the contagious

effects of other demesnes; one loses autonomy. Such

structures are both spatial and temporal. Wisdom is

the character acquired through a discipline begun early

in life. Demesne is not absolute. Wisdom's discipline

is an intrinsic good which supercedes other values, even

autonomy.

Such a world-view demands a cohesive social group

which preserves and transmits the discipline, shares the

potentiation of collective wisdom, reduces vulnerability,

and produces and preserves an ideological literature.

Though they have authority, the wise are subordinate to

other powers and demesnes, especially Yahweh's. Wisdom

has a theological orientation which clarifies the re-

ligious self-understanding of this group and explains

the authority of their wisdom.

Sociological-structural analysis thus validated

offers further prospect for clarifying and evaluating

theories concerning the origins, nature and development

of wisdom and related groups. The methodology has pa-

tential value in interpreting any social group whose

world-view is coherently expressed in literary form.

TABLE 1

TERMS FOR "WISDOM," "UNDERSTANDING,"

"KNOWLEDGE"

hikmh

byn

nbwn

bynh

tbwnh

d^ct

*yd^c

t^cm

mzmh

mwsr

^csih

y^csi

twšyh

*śkl

Also:

sidq

^crmh

wisdom; often used with lb, insight

comprehend (distinguish), understand (action)

insightful, understanding, apt

understanding

knowledge, insight, understanding

knowledge, experience (i.e., ability), experienced,

adroitness, aptness

understanding, comprehending

plan, thought., lucidity

discipline, instruction., "paideia"

counsel, advice i

advise, counsel i

effective wisdom, success

insight, comprehension, think, ponder

right, righteous, in harmony with order (maat?) i

craftiness, prudence

Perhaps: yšr, hisd, kbwd, tiwb, ‘šr

520
521

TABLE 2

TERMS RELATING TO FOLLY OR IGNORANCE

'wyl foolish, stupid

'wly useless, worthless

'wlt stupidity, impious stupidity

ksyl foolish, stupid (practical matters), shameless

(religion)

lsi scorner, gossiper

nbl worthless, foolish, uncomprehending

nblh folly, blasphemy

*skl foolish action

*pth inexperienced, misguided

pty young and inexperienced, eatily, misled, ignorant

b^cr dull, brutish, stupid

hll boastful

hllh, hllt madness

Also: k^cs, pšh, ^cwn, šmh, *hiti'

522

TABLE 3

ADDITIONAL TECHNICAL WISDOM TERMS

tkhit

ysr

m^cgl

drk

'rhi

ntbh

hisd

msiwh

^cqš

nptl

^cwt

hit'

SOURCE: Crawford H. Toy, A Critical and E;:egetioal

Ccrnrentary of the Book of Proverbs, International Critical

Commentary, vol. 16 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,

1899), pp. xxiv-xxv.

523

TABLE 4

ADDITIONAL TECHNICAL WISDOM TERMS PECULIAR

TO PROVERBS 10 ff

mqwr hiyym fountain of life

mhith destruction

bn mbyš son who causes shame

slf perverseness, subvert ruin

yd lyd hand to hand [surely--BDB]

'k lmhiswr only to want

mpry py ‘yš from the fruit of a man's mouth

htgl^c show the teeth, rail, quarrel

tw^cbt-yhwh abomination of Yahweh

yš formula for introducing a proverb

thibwlwt wise guidance, steersmanship

esi hiyym tree of life

1' ynqh shall not go unpunished

mrp' healing (with various applications)

ypyhi kzbym breathes forth lies

yphi 'mwnh breathes forth faithfulness

mrdp pursuer of . . .

hpyq rsiwn draw favor from Yahweh

myhwh

ygrh mdwn stir up strife

nrgn whisperer, tail-bearer

r’š, rš poverty

bny my son

Also:

twšyh, lqhi ‘mrym, "void of heart," "sluggard “

m^cglwt, thpwt

SOURCE: S. R. Driver, An Introduction to the Litera-

ture of the Old Testament, Meridian Books (Cleveland: World

Publishing Company, 1956), pp. 403-4.

524

TABLE 5

THE SEMANTIC FIELD OF WISDOM

(ADAPTED FROM FOHRER'S ANALYSIS)

A. Sorcery, witchcraft, knowledge of sacred powers.

This sense is closely parallel to the predominate Mesopotamian

usage. "Hikm ist eine Bezeichnung desjenigen, der um die

Hintergründe des Weltgeschehens und die künftigen Ereignisse

zu wissen vorgibt,"^a including not only priests and oracle-

sayers but animals. The wise are those who understand the

times; thus, there is a connection with astralism.

B. Aptitude, ability, experience, adroitness. Here

we understand by 'wise' the skill of the artisan at his

craft as wel1 as the administrative capacity of the ruler or

official whatever his rank:

C. Cleverness, craft, cunning. The word is applied

to the wiles of animals, so "dass hikm ein nicht von Moral

bestimmtes Klug- und Kundigsein ausdrücken kann, das man

braucht, um im Leben bestehen zu können."^b In Job, such

cunning takes on a distinctly negative hue.

D. "Lebensklunheit," worldly wisdom, practical

understanding. Wisdom is “die Kunst, das Leben in jeder

Beziehung und in allen Lagen meisterlich zu führen."^c It is

steersmanship (tahibûlōt), which may include the understand-

ing that Yahweh directs the world, knows everything that

occurs in the world, and distinguishes good and evil.

E. Learning, knowledge. To this sense of 'wisdom'

belong the onomastica, the lists of plants, creatures,

deities, and other entities which were common to Egypt and

Mesopotamia and are suggested in I Kings 4:33 with reference

to Solomon.

He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to

the hyssop that grows out of the wall; he spoke also of

beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish.

Here, the observer is attempted to define and objectify the

world as it appears to him, to give it an intelligible order

so that he may master it.

525

TABLE 5--Continued

F. Right conduct, rules of conduct, admonitions of

behavior. Just as the torah is administered by the priest,

and the prophet mediates the divine word, so the wise gives

counsel. The speeches of the wise about behavior are flow-

ing fountains not deep cisterns--the wise are not merely

accurate authorities on right conduct, but their ideas and

counsels are artfully arranged to be of use and beauty.

G. Ethical behavior, moral determination. The out-

come of right rules of conduct is ethical behavior, which is

governed by understanding. Indeed, it requires understand-

ing to know enough to seek such rules in order to attain to

ethical action.

H. Piety, right religious behavior. Ethical be-

havior is often tinged with religious implications; moral

maxims, by religious thoughts. Wisdom is often equated with

the fear of Yahweh, in the sense that theologically-deter-

mined wisdom will lead one to an understanding of and re-

spect for Yahweh. By 'understanding' we do not suggest

"pious aptitude."

Immer bezeichnet der in der Weisheitslehre beliebte

Ausdruck Jahwe- oder Gottesfurcht das fromme Verhalten.

Er meint nicht die Angst vor Gott, sondern die

religiöse Verehrung, wie sie sie jedem Gott von seinen

Verehrern entgegengebracht wird. Sie äussert sich

nicht im Kultus, der in diesem Zusammenhang nur eine

ganz geringe Rolle spielt, sondern ist praktische

Religion im täglichen Tun and Lassen, d.h. im rechten

ethischen Verhalten.^d

I. Academic wisdom teachings. This sense applies

to the general understanding of the world developed in later

wisdom. It formed a complete unity of teaching that was

theologically finished.

J. Eschatological reward or treasure, apocalyptic

gift. As gift, wisdom is the more-than-human wisdom to

uncover the secrets of the future. As "grace," wisdom is

bestowed by the Spirit of God upon the ruler of the end

time. There, it amounts to insight, counsel, knowledge,

fear of Yahweh, and power, all of which exceed in strength

and extent any human skill.

526

TABLE 5--Continued

K. Possession of Yahweh, creation of Yahweh.

Finally, wisdom represents the sagacity of Yahweh which en-

compasses all his divine secrets, his retributive justice,

his knowledge of the future, and his basic determination of

good and evil conduct and their codification. In this mean-

ing, wisdom represents a comparatively late borrowing from

similar Canaanite, Mesopotamian and Egyptian notions. We

also have the almost mythic characterisation of wisdom from

Job 28. Yahweh searched out and won Wisdom, then used her to

order and govern creation. Wisdom here is less personal and

hypostatic than simply objective. It/she is divine, pre-

existent, and an independent potency that only gradually

becomes located in Yahweh's divinity. In any case, this kind

of wisdom includes the secrets of creation and the immensity

of creative knowledge.

SOURCE: Adapted from Georg Fohrer, "Die Weisheit im

Alten Testament," in Studien zur Attestamentlichen Theologie

und Geschichte (1949-1966), Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die

Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, vol. 115 (Berlin: Walter de

Gruyter Company, 1969), pp. 243-74.

NOTE: Interestingly, while the Egyptian ma^cat can at

least arguably be related to Hebrew 'wisdom' and 'righteous-

ness,' in Akkadian the terms for 'wisdom' convey almost ex-

clusively the sense of cultic or magical knowledge. So, "In

dem Text 'Ich will preisen den Herrn der Weisheit' ist der

Gott Marduk gemeint, dessen 'Weisheit' darin besteht, dass

er der Riten des Exorzismus kundig ist."^e This lack of an

equivalent term, however, does not mean any lack of wisdom

literature comparable to Hebrew and Egyptian. It is interest-

ing, though, that the two Akkadian termini technici "to com-

prehend something" and "to learn" (hakâmu and lamâdu) are

both West-Semitic loan words.

^aP. 254. ^bP. 255.

^cP. 256. ^dP. 260.

^eP. 245.

527

TABLE 6

CHARACTERISTICS OF WISDOM, LATE WISDOM AND MYTH

(ADAPTED FROM H. H. SCHMID)

A. Genuine wisdom.

1) In-the-world: person acts in terms of the demands

and alternatives presented within his everyday life.

2) In history: there is only one time--duration--in

which one lives wisely. His life is not ordered

according to some objectivizing time nor accord-

ing to "real time" from which the experiential

is derived (cf. Jolles). Significant events are

individuated as experience.

3) In space one lives in van der Leeuw's "extension"

from which significant places are individuated as

positions (i.e., of experience).

4) Duration and extension exist with respect to and

for the acting individual: cosmos is created in

unity with the world through individual, not

collective, action.

5) Unity postulate: the world of life (-experience)

and the cosmos (beyond experience) are one.

6) The same structure, order, fully interpenetrates

world and cosmos.

7) "Man is the measure of all things"--the ethical

value of an act (vis-a-vis the world order) is

solely a function of its propriety in terms of

that situation, that moment of time and that

particular position in space. There is no ethical

judgment apart from individual experience.

8) There is no sacred realm that exists in opposition

to the space or time (or word) of this world.

[Perhaps one may regard the situation of right

action as somehow sacred in Schmid's system, the

word being sacred only with respect to that event.]

9) The wise man lives in the continuous present (not

in Jolles' past). Wisdom is only viable for that

present.

10) Wisdom is contingent on experience. Wisdom deals

with an instant as experience, in terms of its

particularity (parallel to Jones).

11) Change through time is continuous but not pre-

dictable. Therefore, knowledge can be transmitted

but must be re-tested in every new context.

528

TABLE 6—Continued

A. Genuine wisdom--Continued

12) Wisdom creates structure. Cosmogony is con-

tinuous and co-extensive with right action in

the world. Cosmic structure is a function of

human behavior in concrete situations.

13) Deed and consequence are perceived as a unity--

the outcome is an integral part of the act. Any

displacement between the two in space or time is

immaterial to their synthesis.

14) Correlative with the unity of experience is a

tendency to perceive the divine in "monotheistic"

terms, i.e., as a functional unity which validates,

justifies and upholds the ethical stability of

the act-conseqence synthesis.

15) Distillation of experience into maxims of wisdom

is limited by social convention to certain indi-

viduals (Sippenweisheit, patriarchalism) or a

class of individuals, on whose authority this

contingent wisdom is transmitted. Descriptively

speaking, wisdom sayings tend to center on the

significant experiences in the lives of these

people.

16) Wisdom validation out-selects transient phenomena.

B. Formalized ("late" or "systematic") wisdom.

1) Objectivized: a person acts in terms of the

structured pattern of behavior and its descrip-

tions of reality set out within an authoritative

system (strictly speaking, an authoritative set

of instructional sayings and discourses).

2) Systematic time is static--duree is immaterial to

the system's validity or function and the system

stands outside temporal categories, with respect

to experience.

3) Systematic space stands outside extension which

is equally immaterial. Experiential position is

not relevant to the theory.

4) Time and space are perceived in terms of the system

objectively. The theory rejects a relativism of

space and time which emphasizes the individual,

his experience, and appropriateness. Rather,

situational duration and extension vary unpre-

dictably and inconsistently from the objective

norm, but the pattern of these deviations appears

in the formalized space and time of the system.

529

TABLE 6—Continued

B. Formalized ("late" or "systematic") wisdom--Continued

4) Time and space are perceived in terms of the

system objectively--Continued

Therefore, the wise person norms all his ex-

perience to the system in the expectation that

variations will cancel themselves out. This

forming involves an act of faith.

5) The pattern of the cosmos cannot be adequately

discerned by the mind of man. One can know

authoritatively only enough to get along reason-

ably well in life. The divine remains distant;

it is Wholly Other, whose purposes can at best

be matters of belief where they are intelligible

or discernible at all. In principle, the aims

of the divine may be at variance with human

well-being--at least they may seem to be.

6) Wisdom tends to personify and anthropologize in

compensation for the implicit alienation from the

cosmos and the unpredictability of experience.

Man becomes man's center, restoring epistemic

unity. Somehow, depending on the culture, the

cosmos is mediated to man in a personal way.

7) The world's structure is not adequately and en-

tirely discernible to man--hence, not intelligible.

Wisdom, as theory, conforms this structure to

objective criteria which are intelligible. The

structure of the world continues subordinate to

the cosmos and the divine, but the cosmos stands

above and at some remove from the world. Late

wisdom, as a result, essentially drops the unity

hypothesis.

8) The system is the measure of all things; man

constitutes the fundamental unifying center which

validates the structure of theory.

9) The "school"—including in this term all formal

and approved occasions for the systematic communi-

cation of wisdom--functions as a (quasi-) sacred

position, or sanctuary. The school has its sacred

word with power (whose order and form is fixed

without regard for meaning (cf. Jolles on the

maxim), its degrees, its rites. While the calendar

of the school, the paternal-maturational structure

of its time, are fixed, they seem not to have been

so encompassing as to constitute truly sacred

530

TABLE 6—Continued

B. Formalized ("late" or "systematic") wisdom—Continued

9) The "school"—Continued

time. [Here we have to make considerable in-

ference from Schnid's comparison between myth

and genuine wisdom: a sacred calender would

seem to recapitulate life far more than does

the "school."]

10) Wisdom's authority derives from the past, an in-

creasingly remote past of great wise men. Its

faith in the proleptic justification of the system

means a reliance on future vindication for what is

undertaken in the present. The unintelligible

contingency of the present stands in stark relief

to the certitude of the past and hope for the

future. The time to come, in other words, struc-

tures and explains and justifies the present

world of action, events.

11) Wisdom is absolute.

12) Change is discontinuous. Wisdom stands above

change, though there is a strong element of belief

in its anticipation that cosmic structures beyond

its ken will work to validate it.

13) Formal wisdom perceives patterns of action; dis-

position, not some particular deed, is ethically

significant. The realm of wisdom differs from

the realm (space) of non-wisdom; no act can bridge

the gap. Positions relate to disposition, patterns of action.

14) Deed and consequence are displaced. In a single

event, there is no guarantee of synthesis. Con-

sequences (in the future) are believed to com-

pensate for imbalances in the present, when in-

terpreted in terms of patterns.

15) Wisdom persists through a stable authoritarian

system of oral communication, rote learning, and

learned formal interpretive schemes.

16) The tone of formal wisdom is ambiguous, because

of the contingency of experience, and pessimistic,

because of the alienation from everyday experience

(objectification) and orientation to times other

than the present. The pessimism is latent, in

the form of a crisis potential between historical

and a-historical wisdom. Overtly, the pessimism

appears of a kind of distance (almost proto-stoic)

in which one avoids unnecessarily exposing himself

to the unpredictable vagaries of nature and power.

531

TABLE 6—Continued

C. Myth

1) Apart from the world: a person acts ritual

in a formalized and world-excluding setting

which may recapitulate fundamental and essen-

tial cycles or experiences in life but in a

guise that established a separate and distinct reality.

2) Outside of history: mythic structure (mythos)

does not define a present, past and future. All

time, and therefore in a sense no time, is en-

compassed. The a-temporality of myth often

appears in terms of an indefinite future (end-

time) or past, but its continuity with the

present is not that of history. It is synchronic;

there is sacred time.

3) Sacred space also exists to delimit the sphere

of holy power. Positions acquire mythic sig-

nificance in reference to groups: family,

community, sect, tribe. Gradations of space

protect and define types or degrees of power.

Different functions demand different space.

4) Sacred ritual encompasses. It celebrates

unities, not distinctions. It recapitulates.

On the other hand, some kind of negation is im-

plicit in space and time distinctions which keep

the sacred from the profane or the expressly

contaminating. [We submit that three categories

at least are needed; beyond sacred and profane

there is the demonic/wicked/contaminating.]

Rite and sanctuary are superior to the indi-

vidual devotee.

5) Mediation Postulate: ritual brings together the

cosmic and world of ordinary experience. The

cult typifies so that separate events acquire

reality in terns of sacred mythos. Super-

natural reality impinges on phenomenal reality

through and in terms of cultic mythos.

6) The structure of mythos is received from cosmic

structure. Myth defines, therefore, a hierarchy

of reality. One cannot speak of interpenetration

since the devotee is drawn by the cult toward the

original cosmic reality from which cult and world

structure derive at increasing remove. Cosmic

structure is primordial.

532

TABLE 6—Continued

C. Myth—Continued

7) Cosmic structure (not necessarily order in the way

that genuine wisdom creates cosmic order) is the

measure of all things. Ritual and magic bring it

to bear in intelligible form upon events to re-

veal their structure. Hence, they manipulate the

cosmic, within definite constraints, in the

service of the present.

8) There is a primordial sacred realm outside dura-

tion and extension.

9) The devotee, when in the sacred precincts and in

the presence of or participating in ritual, lives

outside time. Past and future are only metaphors

for this is a-temporality of mythos.

10) Mythos is not contingent, but absolute because

founded on a prior (ontologically, if we may say)

reality.

11) Within mythos there is no change. Mythos defines

a static, predictable cycle of events that re-

capitulate fundamental types of experiences.

Its standard "time" is therefore cyclical. Since

it points to the same cycles in the life-world,

change there must be immaterial. Deep structures

of the world do not change; the eternal cycles

recur however appearances may differ.

12) Cycles suggest synthesis, that there is some kind

of deed-consequence retribution, but the power

which stands behind and above the deed (or, less

likely, disposition) is prior to the deed itself.

Right action rests upon external criteria not

entirely consistent with retribution in the

strictest sense. [Here again, we have had to go

rather far in our inferences to complete a some-

times sketchy paradigm.]

13) Synthesis appears, but includes a prior element

of the power of structure from which the deriva-

tive reality of experience acquires its structure.

14) Mythos tends to cosmologies which rehearse cosmic

structures excluding (i.e., vanquishing) chaos.

The tendency to cosmologize places mythos in

primordial times, increasing the alienation be-

tween cosmos (in cult) and experience.

15) Mythos is authoritative, ritualized in word and

deed, restricted in space and time, a collective

rather than individual product. [Mythos is

533

TABLE 6—Continued

C. Myth—Continued

15) Mythos is authoritative . . . —Continued

received from tradition (by the ritualizers); it

is not written nor revised by any determinable

individual.] It therefore centers on the re-

curring collective experiences of some relevant

group.

16) Mythos deals in terms of the Wholly Other whose

power must be duly protected and confined.

17) While genuine wisdom expressly affirms life in a

certain sense, so does mythos in terms of the

cyclical, basic, collective and cosmic. The tone

of both is affirmative-optimistic. Wisdom is

dynamic, while cult and mythos are static.

SOURCE: Adapted from Hans Heinrich Schmid, Wesen

und Geschichte der Weisheit: eine Untersuchung zur

Altorientalischen und Israelitischen Weisheitsliteratur,

Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentlice Wissen-

schaft, vol. 101 (Berlin: Verlag Alfred Töpelmann, 1966).

534

TABLE 7

ANTITHESIS

15:29, 32

16:1, 2, 9, 22, 21, 33

17:9, 22, 24

18:2, 12, 14, 19, 23, 24

19:4, 12, 21

20:3, 5, 6, 14, 15, 17, 29

21:5, 8, 15, 20, 26, 28, 29, 31

22:3, 15

535

TABLE 8

SAYINGS DEALING WITH YAHWEH

A. Yahweh disposes

16:1, 4, 7, 9, 33

19:21

20:24

21:1, 2, 30 (!), 31

22:5, 12

B. Mystery

16:(25?), 33

19:21

20:24, 25, 27

21:2, 30

Cf.: 18:17

C. Yahweh's standards

16:2, 4(?)

17:3

19;21

20:22, 25 (?)

21:1, 2, 30

22:5, 12, 14, 16 (JB)

D. Trust in Yahweh's power

16:3, 20

18:10

20:22

21:1, 31

22:4 (?), 12, 16 (JB)

536

TABLE 8—Continued

E. Simple retribution: direct harmony

16:4, 5, 7

17:5, 15

19:3, 17, 23

21:12(?)

22:4, 5,12(?), 14(?), 16

Cf.: 15:29

F. Atonement

16:6

(20:9)

(21:18)

G. Guarantor of justice

16:4, 5, 6, 7, 11

18:10

20:10, 12, 20(?), 22, 23

21:12(?)

22:4, 12, 16

Cf.: 18:18

H. "Weighs hearts"

16:2

17:3

(20:27)

21:2

I. Yahweh as maker

17:5

22:2

537

TABLE 8—Continued

J. Yahweh's name

18:10

K. Wife as Yahweh's favor

18:22

19:14

Cf.: 22:14

L. Yahweh as origin of insight

20:12, 27

Cf.: 20:30

M. Cult/Sacrifice

15:29

19:16

20:25

21:3, 18(?), 27

538

TABLE 9

ARCHITECTURE OF PROVERBS 15:29-22:16

15:28-16:9 Thematic Statement

15:28 parallel 22:12

15:29 parallel 22:11(?)

15:30 parallel 22:9 ("eye")

15:33 parallel 22:4 (yr’t-yhwh)

16:1-7 parallel 21:30-1; 22:1-4

15:28-9 wicked

31-3 instruction

16:1-9 Yahweh sayings

10-5 royal sayings (mlk)

18-9 pride and humility

20-30 speech or words

26-32 attitude types

16:32-17:3 wisdom standards

4-5 evildoers

6-16 proprieties

17-8 friend

19-25 attitude or character

27-8 speech

18:2-3 character (wisdom standard)

4 wisdom

6-8 fool's speech

10-1 security

12-4 attitude

16-8 pragmatic judgments

539

TABLE 9—Continued

18:2-3 character--Continued

(19 parallel to verses 10-1?)

20-3 speech

19:3-4 observations

5-9 false witness

6-7 friend

11-2 anger/wrath

13-4 fathers

213 thematic recapitulation Cadence

19:29-20:3 passion

5-11 Character or attitude

20 parallel 27 lamp

20-1 filial relations parallel 29

20:22-21:3 Yahweh and king sayings Cadence

4-12 wicked versus righteous

16-29 intentionalities

21:30-22:4 Yahweh (wisdom standard) Cadence

7-11 intentionalities or character

12 thematic summary Cadence

12-16 additions?

540

TABLE 10

ROYAL SAYINGS

16:10, 12, 13, 14, 15

17:7(?)

19:10(?), 12

20:2, 8, 26, 28

21:1

22:11

Cf.: 18:18

TABLE 11

TiWB-MN SAYINGS

16:8, 16(?), 19, 32(?)

17:1, (10?), 12

19:1, 22(?)

21:9, 19

22:1(?)

541

TABLE 12

TiWB-SAYINGS

(WORD "TiWB” APPEARS, IRRESPECTIVE OF FORM)

15:30

16:8, 16, 19Q, 20, 29, 32

17:1, 13, 20, 26

18:5, 22

19:1, 2, 8, 22

20:23

21:9, 19

22:1, 9

TABLE 13

ADMONITION OR VETITIVE

19:18, 27

20:16, 18, 19(?), 22

Jussive: 17:12

Motivated Form: 16:3

19:19, 20

20:13

22:10(?)

542

TABLE 14

PROPRIETY SAYINGS

16:4, 25, 26(?)

17:7, 10, 13, 15, 16, 17, 26

18:5, 17, 23, 24(?)

19:1, 4, 7, 10(!)

20:20

22:7

Cf.: 19:14, 26 .

But: 17:2

22:2

543

TABLE 15

WISDOM TERMS

A. *hikm

15:31, 33

16:14, 16, 21, 23

17:16, 24, 28

18:4, 15

19:20

20:1, 26

21:11, 20, 22, 30

B. byn

16:16

17:10, 24

19:25

20:24

21:29

C. d^ct

17:27

18:15

19:2, 25, 27

20:15

21:11

22:12

D. tbwnh

17:27K

18:2

19:8

544

TABLE 15—Continued

D. tbwnh—Continued

20:5

21:30

E. nbwn

16:21

17:28

18:15

19:25

F. ^csih

19:20, 21

20:5, 18

21:30

G. mwsr

15:32, 33

16:22

19:20, 27

22:15

H. ^crwm

19:25

22:3

I. thiblwt

20:18

J. śkl

16:21, 22, 23

17:2, 8

545

TABLE 15—Continued

J. śk1—Continued

19:11, 14

21:11, 12, 16

K. tm

19:1

20:7

L. twšyh

18:1

M. ysr

19:18

N. mśkyt

18:11

O. ykhi

15:31, 32

19:25

P. 'mwnh

20:6

Q. thiwr

20:9

22:11

546

TABLE 16

ELEMENTS OF WISDOM

Cf.: 20:9

A. Comparison to gold or silver

16:16

17:3

20:15

22:1

B. Power

21:22

C. Heart

16:21

17:22

18:15

19:8(!)

22:11

D. Fountain

16:22

17:14

18:4

20:5

21:1

E. Speech

15:30(?)

16:23

18:20, 21

547

TABLE 16—Continued

F. Bribery

17:8

18:16

19:6

21:14

G. Forgiveness

17:9

19:11

But: 19:19

H. Silence

17:27, 28(!)

21:23

I. Humility

15:33

18:12(?)

J. Prosperity

19:8

21:26

K. Slow to anger

19:11

L. Without vengeance

20:22

M. Reputation

22:1

548

TABLE 16--Continued

N. Dew/grass

19:12

Cf.: 20:4

O. Insight

18:4

20:5, 27

P. Plans

20:18

21:16(?)

22:3

Q. Loyalty

20:28

R. Action

21:3

S. Diligence

21:5, 21, 29

549

TABLE 17

LB SAYINGS

15:30, 32

16:1, 5, 9, 21, 23

17:3, 16, 18, 20, 22

18:2, 12, 15

19:3, 8, 21

20:5, 9

21:1, 2, 4

22:11Q, 15

TABLE 18

IGNORANCE

15:31, 32

16:20 (?)

18:13

19:2, 7, 20, 25, 27

21:11

22:6, 14

Cf.: 17:16, 28

20:5, 24

21:2

550

TABLE 19

FOLLY

16:22

17:7, 10, 12, 16, 21, 24, 28

18:2, 6, 7, 13

19:1, 3, 10, 13, 29

20:1(?), 3, 19

21:11, 20

22:5, 14

TABLE 20

DISCIPLINE

15:31, 32, 33

16:22

17:10

18:6

19:11, 18, 20, 25, 27

22:6, 15

551

TABLE 21

'INSTRUCTION' SAYINGS: MWSR

15:32, 33

16:22

19:20, 27

22:15

TABLE 22

SPEECH

15:28

16:13, 21, 23, 24, 27(!)

17:4, 7, 20, 27(!), 28

18:2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 13, 20, 21

19:1, 7, 16(?)

20:15, 19

21:23

22:11

552

TABLE 23

IRONY

16:26, 30

17:2, 8, 10, 16, 24, 28

18:17, 23

19:13, 24

20:14, 28

21:3, 13, 17, 25

22:13

Cf.: 19:27 (JB)

20:11, 17

TABLE 24

FRIEND/NEIGHBOR SAYINGS

16:29

17:9, 17, 18

18:24

19:4, 6, 7

20:6

21:10

22:11(!)

Cf.: 20:16, 19

553

TABLE 25

LAW COURTS

17:15, 26

18:5, 17

19:5, 9, 28, 29

21:15, 28

554

TABLE 26

ELEMENTS OF EVIL AND FOLLY

A. Arrogance or pride

16:5, 18

17:19

18:12

20:6, 9

21:4, 24

B. Errant kings

16:12

C. King's Wrath

16:14

19:12

20:2, 8, 26

D. Plotting/Scheming

15:28

16:27, 30

17:11, 20

18:3

E. Speech

15:28

16:27

17:4, 7, 20

18:21

19:1, 28

Cf.: 20:19

555

TABLE 26—Continued

F. Strife

16:28

17:14, 19

20:3

22:10

G. Gossip or Rumor

16:28

17:9

18:8

20:19

H. Violence

16:29

21:7

I. Mocking poor

17:5

J. Rejoicing at calamity

17:5

K. Evil returned for good

17:13, 15

L. Pledge, surety

17:18

20:16

Cf.: 19:17

22:7

556

TABLE 26—Continued

M. Attitude

17:22

18:1

21:7

N. Bribery

17:23

O. Laziness, sloth

18:9

19:15, 24

20:4, 13

21:25

P. Impetuosity

18:13

19:2

20:21

21:5

Q. Quarreling

18:19

20:3

R. Lies, perjury

19:5, 9, 22, 28

20:17

21:6

557

TABLE 26—Continued

S. Despise word

19:15, 25, 29

21:24

22:10

T. Unfilial

19:26

U. Vows

20:25

V. Wine

20:1

W. Mercilessness

22:10

558

TABLE 27

SIMPLE RETRIBUTION: WITHOUT YAHWEH'S AGENCY

16:17, 31

17:11, 13

18:5, 7, 20(?), 21

19:5, 8, 15, 16(!), 19

20:7(?), 13, 16, 18(?), 21, 30(?)

21:5, 7, 8, 11, 12(!), 13, 15, 20, 21, 28, 29(?)

22:2, 4, 5, 8, 10(?)

Cf.: 15:29(?!)

21:17

22:7

TABLE 28

GULF BETWEEN WISDOM AND FOLLY

15:32

16:22(?)

17:7(?), 10, 16, 21(?), 24

18:2, 19(?)

19:2, 10, 22

21:11, 15, 18, 20, 22, 26, 27(!), 29

22:3, 5

But: 17:28

22:2

559

TABLE 29

ADVERSITY SAYINGS

15:33(?)

16:8, 19

17:1, 17

18:1(?)

19:1

21:9, 19

TABLE 30

ALTRUISM

17:5

19:6, 17

21:13, 26

22:9, 16(?)

Cf.: 18:23

21:5, 20

560

TABLE 31

NOBLESSE OBLIGE

16:11, 19

17:5

19:17

21:13(?), 26

22:9, 16

NOTE: Sayings involving "Weights-Measures-Scales,"

"Altruism;" and "Law Courts” (viz. testimony) may be given

this interpretation (Tables, 51, 30, and 25).

TABLE 32

WEALTH

18:11, 16(?), 23

19:4, 6, 10, 14

20:14

21:6, 20, 26

22:1, 2, 4, 7, 16

561

TABLE 33

THE POWERFUL

18:16, 18

21:22, 24

TABLE 34

POVERTY

16:19

17:5

18:23

19:1, 4, 7, 17, 22

20:13

21:13, 17, 19, 26

22:2, 7, 9

TABLE 35

HiSD SAYINGS

16 :6

19:22

20:6, 8

21:21

562

TABLE 36

WISDOM STANDARD OF VALUES: IMPLIED

“HIGHER STANDARD”

15:33

16:25, 32

17:2

20:9(!), 14, 24

21:16(?)

22:16

Cf.: 20:29

TABLE 37

STATUS QUO

16:10, 31(?)

17:7, 14(?), 26

18:5

20:8(?), 28

21:3(?), 8, 15

563

TABLE 38

SLAVE SAYINGS

17:2

19:10

22:7

Cf.: 20:16

TABLE 39

INTENTIONALITY

15:28, 32

16:6, 7, 23, 25, 27, 28

17:9, 10, 11, 16, 22, 24, 26

18:1, 3, 6, 14

19:2, 11, 19, 22, 28

20:5, 7, 9, 11, 14(?), 27(Q)

21:2, 8, 10(1), 15, 17, 25(!), 27(!)

22:11, 12

564

TABLE 40

MISCELLANEOUS SPECIAL CONCEPTS

A. Day of trouble 16:4

B. Messenger 16:14; 17:11

C. Way of Death 16:25

D. Commandment (miswh) 19:16

E. Wine 20:1

F. Lots 16:33; 18:18

G. Vocative "My son" 19:27

H. Foreigners 20:16, 18

I. Loose woman (zrwt) 22:14

J. Rephaim 21:16

K. Cool spirit (qr-rwhi) 17:27

565

TABLE 41

FAMILISTIC SAYINGS

A. Father

17:6, 21, 25

19:13, 14, 26

20:20

B. Mother (all with 'b)

17:25

19:26

20:20

C. Wife

18:22

19:13

21:9, 19

D. Son/Child

17:2, 6, 21, 25

19:13, 18, 26, 27

20:7, 11

22:6, 14

E. Grandchild

17:6

F. Brother

17:2, 17

18:9, 19, 24

19:7

566

TABLE 41—Continued

G. The Aged

16:31

17:6

20:29

22:6(?)

H. Vocative "my son"

19:27

567

TABLE 42

CONTAGION

16:19, 22, 27, 28, 29, 30

17:2, 4, 8, 9, 12(!), 14(!), 17, 21, 25

18:9, 22(?)

19:12, 13, 19(?)

20:7, 19, 28(?)

21:10, 11, 18, 22(?)

22:9, 10, 11, 14

TABLE 43

VULERNABILITY

16:4, 5, 7(!), 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 22

17:5, 11, 13, 15, 18, 19, 20, 22(?)

18:3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14(?), 16, 19, 21, 23

19:2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8(?), 9, 16, 23

20:2(!), 3, 8, 16, 23

21:5(?), 6, 7, 14(?), 16, 18, 22, 23, 26(?), 27

22:3, 6(?), 7, 14

568

TABLE 44

'WAY' SAYINGS: DRK

16:2, 7, 9, 17, 25, 29, 31

19:3, 16Q

20:24

21:2, 8, 16, 29Q

22:5, 6

TABLE 45

OBSERVATION (FORM)

16:24, 26^a, 30^a(?)

17:12, 14, 17, 28

18:8, 17, 18(?), 23

19:3, 4, 6, 7

20:6, 11, 14^a

21:17

22:7, 13^a

^aBon mot.

569

TABLE 46

DESCRIPTIONS

16:15, 26

17:12

18:8, 17

19:7, 24

20:4, 11, 14, 28(?), 29(?)

21:8, 15, 17

22:7, 13

TABLE 47

PRAGMATIC SAYINGS

17:8, 9, 14

18:16, 18, 20

19:6, 11, (18?), (19?), 20

20:6, 9, 13, 16, 25

21:14, 22(!)

22:3, 6, 15, 16(?)

570

TABLE 48

TEACHING

17:16

19:18, 27

22:6, 15

TABLE 49

THE RIGHTEOUS

15:28, 29

16:8, 12, 13, 31

17:15, 26

18:5, 10, (11?)

20:7, 28

21:3, 12, 15, 18(!), 21, 26, 29

571

TABLE 50

PURPOSE/END OF THE WICKED

16:4, 18, 25

17:11

18:3, 21, 24

19:16

20:20, 21, 22

21:7, 13, 25, 28(?)

22:8, 14

Cf.: 21:18

TABLE 51

WEIGHTS-MEASURES-SCALES

16:11

20:10, 14, 23

572

TABLE 52

‘ABOMINATION’ SAYINGS: TW^cBH

16:5, 12

17:15

20:10, 23

21:27

TABLE 53

NATURALISTIC SAYINGS

[OR, NEO-NATURALISTIC]

16:24, 26

18:8, 20, 21

19:12, 1:3, 15, 24(?)

20:4, 13, 17, 26

21:17

22:8

573

TABLE 54

ANIMALS

17:12 She-bear

19:12 Lion

20:2 Lion

21:31 Horse

22:13 Lion

TABLE 55

WAR SAYINGS

16:32(?)

18:10, 11, 19

20:18

21:22, 31

TABLE 56

(RHETORICAL) QUESTIONS

17:16

18:14

20:6, 9, 24

574

TABLE 57

ATTITUDE

15:30, 33

16:2, 6, 7, 26-32

17:5, 9, 20-22

18:2, 12, 14

19:1-3, 16(?), 22

20:5-7, 27

21:2, 3, 24,27

22:10

TABLE 58

LIGHT/LAMP SAYINGS

15:30

16:15

20:20Q, 27

21:4

575

TABLE 59

'SPIRIT' SAYINGS: RWHi

16:2, 18, 19Q, 32

17:27K, 22

18:14

TABLE 60

CORRECTION, ADMONITION

15:31, 32

17:10, 15, 26

18:5, 6, 17

19:5, 9, 18, 20(?), 25, 28, 29

20:8, 30

21:11, 15, 28

22:6(?), 14

576

TABLE 61

TRADITION

15:31, 32

16:16

17:16, 24

18:15

19:8, 16, 27

21:11

22:6, 12

TABLE 62

NPŠ SAYINGS

15:32

16:17, 24, 26

18:7

19:2, 8, 15, 16, 18

20:2

21:10, 23

22:5

577

TABLE 63

YR’T-YHWH SAYINGS

15:33

16:6

19:23

22:4

TABLE 64

LIFE SAYINGS

16:7, 15, 22

18:7, 21

19:1, 23

20:2

22:5

578

TABLE 65

DEATH SAYINGS

16:14, 25

17:11

18:21

19:16, (18)

20:2, 20(?)

21:6, 12(?), 16(!)

TABLE 66

SAYINGS INVOLVING 'FATE"

16:4, 7, 25

18:18

19:9 (?)

20:22(?), 24, 25

22:2(?), 3

But: 16:33

579

TABLE 67

FUTURE

19:20

20:20

21:28

TABLE 68

SICKNESS

17:22

18:14

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Methodology and Theory

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struction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology

of Knowledge. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday &

Company, 1966.

Berger, Peter L.; and Luckmann, Thomas. "Sociology of

Religion and Sociology of Knowledge." Sociology

and Social Research: An International Journal

47 (July 1963): 417-27.

Brandt, Richard B. Ethical Theory: The Problems of

Normative and Critical Ethics. Englewood.Cliffs,

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595

Edited by Howard N. Bream, Ralph D. Heim, and

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596

Posener, Georges. De la Divinité du Pharaon. Cahiers de

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Rainey, Anson F. The Scribe at U7arit: His Position

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597

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van Dijk, J. J. A. La Sagesse Suméro-Accadienne:

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Volten, Aksel. "Ägyptische Nemesis-Gedanken." Miscellanea

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Volten, Aksel. Kopenhagener Texte zum Demotischen

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Williams, Ronald J. "The Alleged Semitic Original of the

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Williams, Ronald J. "The Fable in the Ancient Near East."

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Andrew Irwin, pp. 3-26. Edited by Edward C.

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Williams, Ronald J. "The Literary History of a Meso-

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In Trudy 25. Mezdunarodnego Kongressa Vostokovedov:

Moskva 9-16 Avgusba 1960, 1: 88-93. Moscow:

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Canadian Journal of Theology 2 (1956): 14-26.

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Universität. Leipzig, (1952-3), 63 et seq., 153

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versität Marburg, no. 6. Marburg: N. G. Elwert

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D. The Proverb and Proverb Literature

Albright, William Foxwell. "An Archaic Hebrew Proverb in

an Amarna Letter from Central Palestine." Bulle-

tin of the American Schools of Oriental Research

89 (February 1943): 29-43.

Barucq, André. Le Livre de Proverbes, Sources Bibliques.

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Beardslee,William A. "Remarks on the Rhetorical Func-

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Beer, G. "Libros Iob et Proverbiorum." In Biblica

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Boström, Gustay. Proverbiastudien: die Weisheit und

das Fremde Weib in Spr. 1-9. Acta Lniversitatis

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Årsskrift, Ny Följo. Avdelningen 1: Teologi,

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Bryce, Glendon E. "Another Wisdom-'Book' in Proverbs."

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Bryce, Glendon E. "'Better'-Proverbs: an Historical and

Structural Study." In Book of Seminar Papers:

the Society of Biblical Literature One Hundred

Eighth Annual Meeting, Friday-Tuesday, 1-5

September 1972, Century Plaza Hotel--Los Angeles,

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Cohen, A. Proverbs: Hebrew Text and English Translation

with an Introduction and Commentary. Soncino

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Conrad, Joachim. "Die Innere Gliederung der Proverbien:

zur Frage nach der Systematisierung des Spruch-

600

gutes in den älteren Teilsammlungen." Zeitschrift

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67-76.

Dahood, Mitchell. Proverbs and Northwest Semitic Philology.

Sacra Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici, vol.

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Donald, Trevor. "The Semantic Field of 'Folly' in

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Testamentum 12 (1963): 285-92.

Duesberg, Hilaire; and Auvray, Paul, translators [and

eds.]. Le Livre de Proverbes. La Sainte Bible:

Traduite en Francais sous la Directicn de l'École

Biblique de Jérusalem. 2d ed., revised. Paris:

editions du Cerf, 1957.

Eissfeldt, Otto. Der Maschal im Alten Testament: eine

Wortgeschichteliche Untersuchung nebst einer

Literargeschichtlichen Untersuchung der mšl

Genannten Gattungen "Volkssprichwort" und

“Spottlied.” Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die

Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, vol. 24. Giessen:

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Eppstein, Victor. "Was Saul Also Among the Prophets?"

Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

81 (1969): 287-304.

Fox, Michael V. "Aspects of the Religion of the Book of

Proverbs." In Hebrew Union College Annual, vol.

39. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College-Jewish

Institute of Religion, 1969 [1968].

Fritsch, Charles T. "The Book of Proverbs: Introduc-

tion, Exegesis." The Interpreter's Bible. Vol.

IV: Psalms; Proverbs, pp. 767-957. New York:

Abingdon Press, 1955.

Gemser, Berend. Sprüche Salomos. Handbuch zum Alten

Testament, 1st Series, vol. 16. 2d revised and

expanded ed. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul

Siebeck), 1963.

Gerleman, Gillis. Studies in the Septuagint. Vol. 3:

Proverbs. Acta Universitatis Lundensis, Nova

Series. Lunds Universitets Årsskrifts, Ny

Följo. Avdelningen 1: Teologi, Juristik och

601

Humanistika Ämnen, vol. 52, no. 3, Lund: C. W. K.

Gleerup, 1956.

Godbey, Allen Howard. "The Hebrew Mašal." American

Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 39

(November 1922 through July 1923) : 89-108.

Gottwald, Norman K. "Response to Kovacs' 'Social Con-

siderations in Locating the Wise of the Mashal

Literature.'" Paper presented to the Section on

the Social World of Ancient Israel, Society of

Biblical Literature-American Academy of Religion

annual meeting, San Francisco, 28-31 December

1977.

Greenstone, Julius H. Proverbs with Commentary. Holy

Scriptures with Commentary. Philadelphia:

Jewish Publication Society of America, 1950.

Habel, N. “The symbolism of Wisdom in Proverbs 1-9.”

Interpretation 26 (1972): 131-56.

Herbert, A. S. 'Parable' (Māša1) in the Old Testa-

ment." Scottish Journal of Theology 7 (1954):

180-96.

Hermisson, Hans Jürgen. Studien zur Israelitischen

Spruchweisheit. Wissenschaftliche Monographien

zum Alten und Neuen Testament, vol. 28.

Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1968.

James, Fleming. "Some Aspects of the Religion of

Proverbs." Journal of Biblical Literature 51

(1932): 31-39.

Johnson, A. R. "Māšāl." In Wisdom in Israel and in the

Ancient Near East: Presented to Professor Harold

Henry Rowley, pp. 162-69. Edited by Martin Noth

and D. Winton Thomas. Vetus Testamentum Supple-

ments, vol. 3. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1955.

Jones, Edgar. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes: Introduction

and Commentary. Torch Bible Commentaries.

London: SCM Press, 1961.

Kayatz, Chirista Bauer-. Studien zu Proverbien 1-9:

eine Form- und Motivgeschichtliche Untersuchung

unter Einbeziehung Ägyptiscnen Vergleichs-

materials. Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum

Alten und Neuen Testament, vol. 22. Neukirchen-

Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1966.

602

Kent, Charles Foster; and Burrows, Millar. Proverbs and

Didactic Poems. Student's Old Testament, vol. 6.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927.

Kovacs, Brian W. "Evidence for the Development of a

World-View in Proverbs: An Assessment." Paper

presented to the Southeastern Regional Meeting

of the Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta,

17-19 March 1977.

Kovacs, Brian W. "Is There a Class Ethic in Proverbs?"

Essays in Old Testament Ethics: (J. Philip

Hyatt, In Memorlam), pp. 173-97. Edited by

James L. Crenshaw and John T. Willis. New York:

KTAV Publishing House, 1974.

Kuhn, Gottfried. Beiträge zur Erklärng des Salomon-

ischen Spruchbuches. Beitrage zur Wissenschaft

vom Alten und Neuen Testament, 3d series, vol.

16 (vol. 57 of the entirc collection). Stutt-

gart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1931.

Landes, George M. "Creation Tradition in Proverbs 8:

22-31 and Genesis 1.". In A Light Unto My Path:

Oldl Testament Studies in Honor of Jacob Myers,

pp. 279-93. Edited by Howard N. Bream, Ralph D.

Heim, and Carey A. Moore, Gettysburg Theological

Studies, 4. Philadelphia: Temple University

Press, 1974.

McGlinchey, James Martin. The Teaching of Amen-em-ope

and the Book of Proverbs. Washington, D.C.:

Catholic University of America, 1939.

McKane, William. Proverbs: A New Aporoach. Old Testa-

ment Library. Philadelphia: Westminster Press,

1970.

Miller, Patrick D., Jr. "Apotropaic Imagery in Proverbs

6:20-2." Journal of Near Eastern Studies 29

(April 1970): 129-30.

Müller, August; and Kautzsch, Emil. The Book of Proverbs:

Critical Edition of the Hebrew Text, with Notes.

Translated by Duncan B. MacDonald. Sacred Books

of the Old Testament: A Critical Edition of the

Hebrew Text, vol. 15. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrich'sche

Buchhandlung, 1901; London: David Nutt, 1901;

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1901.

603

Osterley, W. O. E. The Book of Proverbs with Introduc-

ion and Notes. Westminster Commentaries, Vol.

17. London: Methuen and Company, 1929.

Ogden, Graham S. “The 'Better'-Proverb (Tôb-Spruch),

Rhetorical Criticism, and Qoheleth.” Journal of

Biblical Literature 96 (December 1977): 489-505.

Paterson, John. The Wisdom of Israel: Job and Proverbs.

Bible Guides, vol. 11. New York: Abingdon

Press, 1961.

Perowne, T. T. The Proverbs, with an Introduction and

Notes. Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges,

vol. 17. Cambridge: The University Press, 1899.

Plaut, W. Gunther. Book of Proverbs: A Commentary.

Jewish Commentary for Bible Readers. New York:

Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1961.

Plöger, Otto. "Besprechung Von U. Skladny, Die Ältesten

Spruchsammlungen in Israel." Gnomon 36 (1964):

297-300.

Plöger, Otto. "Zur Auslegung der Sentenzensamtlungen des

Proverbienbuches." In Probleme Biblischer

Theologie: Gerhard von Rag zum 70. Geburtstag,

pp. 402-15. Edited by Hans Walter Wolff. Munich:

Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1971.

Ringgren, Helmer. "Sprüche." In Sprüche; Prediger; das

Hohe-Lied; Klagelieder; das Buch Esther, pp. 1-

122. Translated and edited by Helmer Ringgren,

Artur Weiser, and Walther Zimmerli. Das Alte

Testament Deutsch: Neues Göttinger Bibelwerk, vol.

16. 2d revised ed. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and

Ruprecht, 1967.

Robert, A. "Le Yahvisme de Prov. x, 1-xxii, 16; xxv-

xxxix." In Memorial Lagrange: Cinquantenaire

de l'École Biblique et Archélologique Française

de Jerusalem (15 novembre 1890- 15 novembre 1940),

pp. 163-82. Paris: Librairie LeCoffre (J. Gabalda

et Compagnie), 1940.

Rylaarsdam, J. Coert. "The Proverbs." In Peake's Com-

mentary on the Bible, pp. 444-57. Edited by

Matthew Black and H. H. Rowley. Camden: Nelson,

1962.

604

Scott, Melville. Textual Discoveries in Proverbs, Psalms,

and Isaiah. New York: Macmillan Company, 1927.

Scott, R. B. Y. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes: Introduction,

Translation, Notes. Anchor Bible, vol. 18.

Garden City: Doubleday and Ccmpany, 1965.

Skladny, Udo. Die Ältesten Spruchsammlungen In Israel.

Göttingen:. Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1962.

Story, Cullen I. K. "The Book of Proverbs and Northwest

Semitic Literature." Journal of Biblical Litera-

ture 64 (1945): 319-37.

Sturdy, J. "The Original Meaning of 'Is Saul Also Among

the Prophets?' (I Samuel X: 11, 12; XIX:24)."

Vetus Testamentum 20 (April 1970): 206-13.

Thompson, John Mark. "The Form and Function of Proverbs

in Ancient Israel." Unpublished Ph.D. disserta-

tion„Vanderbilt University, 1965.

Trible, Phyllis. "Wisdom Builds a Poem: The Architecture

of Proverbs 1:20-33." Journal of Biblical Litera-

ture 94 (December 1975): 509-18.

Toy, Crawford H. A Critical and Execetical.Commentary of

the Book of Proverbs. International Critical

Commentary, vol. 16. New York: Charles Scribner's

Sons, 1899.

van der Weiden, W, A. Le Livre de Proverbes: Notes

Philologiques. Biblica et Orientalia, vol. 23.

Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1970.

Vischer, Wilhelm. "L'Hymne de la Sagesse dans les

Proverbes de Salomon. 8:22-31." Études Théo-

logiques et Réligieuses 50 (n.d.): 175-94.

Wallis, Gerhard. "Zu den Spruchsammlungen Prov. 10, 1-

22, 16 und 23-29." Theologische Literaturzeitung

85 (1960): 147-48.

Whybray, R. N. "Some Literary Problems in Proverbs I-IX."

Vetus Testamentum 16 (October 1966): 482-96.

Whybray, R. N. Wisdom in Proverbs: The Concept of Wis-

dom in Proverbs 1-9. Studies in Biblical Theology,

vol. 41. Naperville, Ill.: Alec R. Allenson, 1965.

605

E. Hebrew Wisdom

Albright, William Foxwell. "Some Canaanite-Phoenician

Sources of Hebrew Wisdom." In Wisdom in

Israel and in the Ancient Near East: Presented

to Professor Harold Henry Rowley, pp. 1-15.

Edited by Martin Noth and D. winton Thomas.

Vetus Testamentum Supplements, vol. 3. Leiden:

E. J. Bri11, 1955.

Alonzo-Schökel, Luis. "Motivos Sabienciales y de

Allianza en Gn 2-.3." Biblica 43 (1962): 295-

316.

Alt, Albrecht. "Die Weisheit Salamos." In Kleine

Schriftenzur Geschchte des Volkes Israel, pp.

90-99), vol. 2. Munich: C. H. Beck'sche Verlags-

Buchhandlung, 1952.

Audet, Jean-Paul. "Origines Comparées de la Double

Tradition de la Loi et de la Sagesse dans le

Proche-Orient Ancien." Trudy 25. Nezduradnego

Kongressa Vostokovedov: Moskva 9-16 Avgusta

1960, vol., 1, pp. 352-57. Moscow: Izdatelystvo

Vostocnoj Literatury, 1962.

Baumgartner, Walter. Israelitische und Altorientalische

Weisheit. Sammlung Gemeinverständlicher Vorträge

und Schriften aus dem Gebiet der Theologie und

Religionsgeschichte, vol. 166. Tübingen: Verlag

von J. C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1933.

Baumgartner, Walter. "The Wisdom Literature." In The

Old Testament and Modern Study: A Generation

of Discovery and Research; Essays by Members of

the Society for Old Testament Study. Edited by

H. H. Rowley. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957.

Beauchamp, Évode. Les Sages d'Israë1, ou le Fruit d'une

Fidelité. Quebec: Presses de l’Université

Laval, 1968.

Bjørndalen, Anders Jørgen. "'Form' und 'Inhalt' des

Motivierenden Mahnspruches." Zeitschrift für

die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 82 (1970):

347-61.

607

Cazelles, Henri. "Les Débuts de la Sagesse en Israël."

In Les Sagesses du, Proche-Orient Ancien:

Colloque de Strasbourg, 17-19 Mai 1962, pp. 27-

40. Bibliothèque des Centres d'Études Supérieures

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France, 1963.

Coats, George W. From Canaan to Egypt: Structural and

Theological Context for the Joseph Story.

Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series,

vol. 4. Edited by Bruce Vawter. Washington,

D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1976.

Coats, George W. "The Joseph Story and Ancient Wisdom:

A Reappraisal." Catholic Biblical Quarterly 35

(July 1973): 285-97.

Conzelmann, Hans G. "Wisdom in the New Testament." In

The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible:

Supplementary Volume, pp. 936-60. Nashville:

Abingdon, 1976.

Crenshaw, James L. "Method in Determining Wisdom Influ-

ence upon 'Historical' Literature." Journal of

Biblical Literature 88 (June 1969): 129-42.

Crenshaw, James L. "Popular Questioning of the Justice

of God in Ancient Israel." Zeitschrift für die

Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 82 (1970): 380-93.

Crenshaw, James L. "The Samson Saga: Filial devotion or

Erotic Attachment?" Zeitschrift für die Alttesta-

mentliche Wissenschaft 86 (Fall 1974): 470-504.

Crenshaw, James L. "Wisdom." In Old Testament Form

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Trinity University Monograph Series in Religion,

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Trinity University Press, 1974.

Crenshaw, James L. "Wisdom in the Old Testament." In

The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible:

Supplementary Volume, pp. 932-36. Nashville:

Abingdon, 1976.

Crenshaw, James L., ed. Studies in Ancient Israelite

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House, 1976.
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Donald, Trevor. "The Semantic Field of Rich and Poor in

the Wisdom Literature of Hebrew and Accadian."

Oriens Antiquus 3 (1964): 27-41..

Duesberg, H.; and Franken, I. Les Scribes Inspirés:

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Please report any errors in this document to Ted Hildebrandt:

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