Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament: Proverbs

The biblical book of Proverbs is an example of wisdom literature that was common in the ancient Near East. The non-biblical writings of the sages used literary forms and dealt with themes that appear also in Proverbs: themes such as the meaning of creation, the value of hard work, and the importance of moral integrity. Proverbs is a collection of sayings, poems, and guiding principles that exhorts its readers to seek the higher ideals - knowledge, discipline, piety, and order - and offers guidance on how to live in harmony with God, others, and oneself.

Through exacting translation, technical notes, and insightful commentary, Richard Clifford sheds new light on the book of Proverbs. He focuses on the rhetoric of Proverbs to demonstrate how the book fosters a lifelong search for wisdom and to enable readers to see how its instructions and maxims are concerned with contemporary issues. Clifford unveils the fascinating aspects of Proverbs - its wit and irony, honesty and profundity, drama and conflict, and, ultimately, its concern with wisdom as a fundamental option in life.

Written within the historical-critical paradigm, this commentary on Proverbs 1-9 ventures to overcome the bifurcation of "historical" and "literary" perspectives in biblical interpretation. Avoiding novel propositions about composition as well as claims for alternative reading strategies, it strives to take the text seriously at the philological, structural and compositional levels in order to indicate the book's amplitude and potential.

Over twenty-five years in the making, this much-anticipated commentary promises to be the standard study of Proverbs for years to come. Written by eminent Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke, this two-volume commentary is unquestionably the most comprehensive work on Proverbs available.

A comprehensive commentary on the book of "Proverbs". It translates and explains the meaning and literary qualities of the sayings and poems that comprise the final chapters. It focuses on comparable sayings in other wisdom books, particularly from Egypt, and makes use of medieval Hebrew commentaries.

Published by Biblia Hebraica, Proverbs takes the Hebrew text and translates it beside the Greek, offering a unique opportunity to look at both scripts side by side.

Includes: Commentary on Proverbs -- Commentary on Ecclesiastes -- Commentary on Song of Solomon.

Contents: 1. Proverbs 1-9 -- The ten instructions -- The additions to the instructions -- A comparison of the original instructions -- The wisdom poems -- Proverbs 9 -- Proverbs 6:1-19 -- The prologue: Proverbs 1:1-7 -- The composition of chapters 1-9: Conclusions -- 2. Proverbs 10:1-22:16 and 25-29 -- Compositional criteria -- Compositional types -- Detailed analysis -- Summary and conclusions -- 3. Proverbs 22:17-24:34 -- Proverbs 22:17-24:22 -- Proverbs 24:23-24 -- 4. Proverbs 30-31 -- Proverbs 30:1-14: The 'words of Agur' -- Proverbs 30:15-33 -- Proverbs 31:1-9: The 'words of King Lemuel' -- Proverbs 31:10-31 -- 5. The redaction of the book -- Proverbs 1-9 and 31:10-31: The framework -- The intermediate sections

This is a new and ground-breaking study of the nature and origins of the earliest material in the book of Proverbs, drawing on evidence from Israel and neighbouring countries in the ancient Near East. This literature has widely been believed to have originated as paedigogical material, designed for the education of future administrators in the royal bureaucracy from the time of Solomon.

This text presents exegetical study of Proverbs 10:1-22:16. Proverbs are neither statements of this-worldly cause and effect nor universally applicable doctrines of divine order.

In this book, Claus Westermann argues that Israel's early wisdom literature grew out of an oral tradition that reflected an agrarian setting. Dealing primarily with Proverbs 10-31, Westermann demonstrates how the wisdom literature evolved into a form of poetry that had greater universal appeal as the people of Israel became more urbanized. A distinctive feature of Roots of Wisdom is Westermann's use of other wisdom sayings, particularly those from ancient Africa, to illustrate the logical progression of wisdom poetry from simply observational to being more universal in character.

This superb academic text examines in detail the history of the interpretation of the woman in Proverbs 31. It also provides ground breaking form critical, philological and Christian worldview studies on the 'Valiant Woman'.

Ignatius Catholic Study Bible with an introduction, commentary, and notes by Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch ; and with study questions by Dennis Walter.