Reading: Proverbs 22-24, Psalm 5

Today we finally move on from Solomon’s long recitation of wise sayings and meet our second speaker in the book of Proverbs. This section is not credited except to say that the speaker is of “the wise.” This list of wise sayings is less familiar and more commanding, as if from a public teacher rather than a father to a son, though the speaker still calls the listener “son” a couple of times. The upshot of all this is that this part of Proverbs looks a lot like something taught to many students rather than just the royal children of it’s time. Where Solomon’s section was personal, this is public. Solomon was speaking at home, this is more like public school.

That being said, there isn’t really all that much difference in the instructions here. The “wise” again appeal to placing trust in the God of Israel, though in this case they suggest that following their instruction is how one shows they trust the God of Israel, whereas Solomon said one must already have the fear of the Lord or the instructions would be useless. They warn against debauchery of various sorts, against envy, against mistreating the poor and the powerless, or giving advantages to the rich and powerful.

I find it most interesting how immensely practical instructions like be not one who gives pledges for debts sit right next to personal behavior instructions about picking good friends and avoiding people given to anger. The admonition not to move a boundary stone (and so steal land) is right there with avoiding drunkenness. The instructions in Proverbs make little distinction between public and private life. This is one of the more difficult applications of this kind of literature to our present day. Today we put extremely high walls between the public and the private. Your behaviors at home are “your business” or “my business,” and are so supposed to be excepted from scrutiny. Ancient societies believed no such nonsense, and you can see it in their wisdom writing. The character of a person was assumed to be consistent, formed by the life they lived and the story they believed about the world around them. If a person was angry and dishonest at home, they could not be trusted in public. If a person disobeyed the commands of the God of Israel in private, they were just as subject to judgment as if they disobeyed in public. The tight interweaving of personal behavior and practical instruction dealing with property, money, and business deals looks strange to us, but was a matter of course to them. There are cultures today were business deals look much more like relationships than contracts. This is from one of them.

Unlike the long series of wise sayings we got from Solomon, this section is rather self-contained. It has an introduction, a bunch of instructions, and a nice closing. It reads like a primer in wisdom, relatively easy to memorize and repeat on command, and which contains all the basics of a good life for a child in kingdom era Israel. It is a bit of a pity that this kind of thing fell by the wayside in education, as it is far more useful to have memorized this kind of good advice than a list of historical events, mathematical equations, or physical laws (and I enjoyed all those things!). The internet can answer those kinds of questions for us. It is going to have a much harder time telling us what kinds of friends to have. What moral choices to make. How to live a good life. Perhaps we have all been memorizing the wrong things.