Commentary on Proverbs: From The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary

By Richard L. Schultz

Comprehensive, accessible, and fully illustrated--this commentary on Proverbs is a must-have resource.

You want a deeper understanding of the Scriptures, but the notes in your study Bible don't give you enough depth or insight. This commentary was created with you in mind.

Each volume of The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary is a nontechnical, section-by-section commentary on one book or section of the Bible that provides reliable and readable interpretations of the Scriptures from leading evangelical scholars. This information-packed commentary will help you gain a deeper understanding of the Bible in your own personal study or in preparation for teaching. It tackles problematic questions, calls attention to the spiritual and personal aspects of the biblical message, and brings out important points of biblical theology, making it invaluable to anyone seeking to get the most out of their Bible study.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781493424542

Richard L. Schultz

Richard L. Schultz is the Carl Armerding and Hudson T. Amerding Professor of Biblical Studies at Wheaton College. Over the past three decades, he and his wife, Carol, have taught many laypeople and students to study the Bible using the materials in this book.

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© 2012 by Baker Publishing Group

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Ebook short created 2019

Previously published in The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary edited by Gary M. Burge and Andrew E. Hill in 2012

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ISBN 978-1-4934-2454-2

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Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Abbreviations

Introduction

Commentary

1. Foreword (1:1–7)

2. Prologue: Introducing the Way of Wisdom (1:8–9:18)

A. The Initial Appeals of the Parents and Lady Wisdom (1:8–33)

B. The Commendation of Wisdom (2:1–4:27)

C. Warnings against Folly, Especially Sexual Infidelity (5:1–7:27)

D. Wisdom’s Final Appeals (8:1–9:18)

3. Proverbial Collections: Advanced Instruction in Wisdom (10:1–29:27)

A. The Original Solomonic Collection (10:1–22:16)

B. Sayings of the Wise: Admonitions for Societal Relationships (22:17–24:22)

C. More Sayings of the Wise: The Necessity of Honesty and Diligence (24:23–34)

D. The Later Solomonic Collection (25:1–29:27)

4. Epilogue (30:1–31:31)

A. Agur’s Message: Relying on God’s Word, Learning from His Work (30:1–33)

B. The Message of Lemuel’s Mother: A Call for Royal Justice (31:1–9)

C. Lady Wisdom Exemplified (31:10–31)

Time Lines

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Abbreviations

Proverbs

Richard L. Schultz

Introduction

There are few Old Testament books as attractive to the modern reader as the book of Proverbs. Four reasons for this appeal can be suggested: the brevity of its basic unit, its universal and timeless nature, the practical focus and range of its everyday subjects, and its rhetorical appeal to modern intellectuals. Nevertheless, each of these features presents its own unique challenges. First, the individual proverbs often appear to be arranged somewhat arbitrarily, so that readers seem compelled to interpret each one without the benefit of literary context. Second, the book of Proverbs shares so many formal, verbal, and conceptual elements with ancient Near Eastern proverbial collections that its claim to be part of the uniquely inspired Word of God has been questioned. In addition, Proverbs appears to reflect few of the central themes of Old Testament theology. Third, the pragmatic emphasis of the book, especially within the proverbial collections, obscures its theological foundations, some of which may be implicit and presupposed. Fourth, the terseness of expression and frequent juxtaposition of clauses, especially in the original Hebrew, impede the attempt to translate or interpret those proverbs with the usual degree of certainty.

Title and Authorship

The book of Proverbs contains several proverbial collections, each of which has its own brief title (10:1; 24:23; 25:1; 30:1; 31:1) or introductory section (22:17–21). The initial title in 1:1 (The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel) identifies the book’s dominant (but not only) literary form and author. This title is expanded in 1:2–7, which state the objectives and foundational premises of this wisdom text in a manner that parallels 22:17–21 and several Egyptian instructional texts. The titles of the proverbial collections in Proverbs 10:1 and 25:1 similarly associate their contents with Solomon, which fits the portrayal of his reign in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles. According to 1 Kings 3:12, God granted Solomon a wise and discerning heart that manifested itself in his judicial decisions, international relations, the temple construction project, encyclopedic knowledge, and literary compositions. These are described most fully in 1 Kings 4:29–34, which makes several important claims: (1) Solomon’s wisdom was God-given and surpassed that of all of his contemporaries. (2) During the united monarchy under Solomon, some Israelites had sufficient knowledge of and access to wisdom writings of the East (probably Mesopotamia, not Arabia) and Egypt to warrant such a comparison between Solomon and his contemporaries and to establish Solomon’s international reputation. (3) Solomon’s literary output included more than three thousand proverbs (which could have included many of the 950 verses in the book of Proverbs), as well as more than one thousand songs.

This tablet from Nippur (eighteenth century BC) containing Sumerian proverbs is