Crawford Howell Toy

“ Proverbs does not offer the good of society as an aim of action, though it takes for granted that good conduct will promote the happiness of all. Assuming human freedom it at the same time assumes that the ills of life may be overcome by a wise employment of man's resources, and it silently regards universal happiness on earth as the goal of human development. Its religious scheme is the simplest form of theism; religion is reverence for God and obedience to His laws; Though the sages doubtless recognized the temple-cult as of divine appointment and obligatory, they lay no stress upon it ”

“ In all the Wisdom books virtue is conceived of as conterminous with knowledge. Salvation is attained not by believing but by the perception of what is right; wisdom is resident in the soul and identical with the thought of man. Yet, with this adoption of the Greek point of view, the tone and spirit of this literature remain Hebrew.
The writings of the sages are all anonymous. No single man appears as creator of the tendency of thought they represent ”

“ In general it is the simple homely virtues that are enjoined on men in Proverbs—there is no mention of courage, fortitude, intellectual truthfulness, and no recognition of beauty as an element of life; the ethical type is Semitic, not Hellenic, and the sages emphasize only those qualities that seemed to them to be most effective in the struggle of life; their insistence on the practical, not the heroic, side of character is perhaps in part the consequence of the position of the Jewish people at that time, as also the silence respecting international ethics belongs to the thought of the times. ”

“ The reference seems to be not so much to the variety and complexity of phenomena as to the impossibility of construing them rationally or in such a way that man may foresee and provide for his future. Man is in the clutches of fate (ix. 11, 12) : there is no observable relation between exertion and result in life: the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong; success does not attend wisdom, knowledge and skill; men are like fish taken in a net or birds caught in a snare.
3. Human life, Koheleth declares, is unsatisfying. ”

“ A more plausible theory is that the author is an honest thinker, a keen observer and critic of life, who sees that the world is full of miseries and unsolved problems, regards as futile the attempts of his time to demonstrate an ethically active future life, and, recognizing a divine author of all, holds that the only wise course for men is to abandon the attempt to get full satisfaction out of the struggle for pleasure, riches and wisdom, and to content themselves with making the best of what they have. ”

“ There was nothing in their general position to make them inhospitable to ethical conceptions of the future life, as is shown by the fact that so soon as the Egyptian-Greek idea of immortality made itself felt in Jewish circles it was adopted by the author of the Wisdom of Solomon; but prior to the 1st century B.C. it does not appear in the Wisdom literature, and the nationalistic dogma of resurrection is not mentioned in it at all. Everywhere, except in the Wisdom of Solomon, the Underworld is the old Hebrew inane abode of all the dead, and therefore a negligible quantity for the moralist. ”

“ The reports of the earlier wise men, men of practical sagacity in political and social affairs, have come to us from unfriendly sources; it is quite possible that among them were some who took interest in life for its own sake, and reflected on its human moral basis. But, if this was so, no record of their reflections has been preserved. The class of sages to whom we owe the Wisdom Books did not arise till a change had come over the national fortunes and life. ”

“ His conception of Yahweh shows a mingling of the high and the low. On the one hand, he regards him as supreme in power, controlling the destinies of Babylonia and Egypt as well as those of Israel, and as inflexibly just in dealing with ordinary offences against morality. But he conceives of him, on the other hand, as limited locally and morally—as having his special abode in. the Jerusalem temple, or elsewhere in the midst of the Israelite people, and as dealing with other nations solely in the interests of Israel. ”

“ God, the author of all, seeks out the past in order to make it once more present; it is impossible to add to or take from the content of the world, impossible to change the nature of things, to effect any radical betterment of life ”

“ Solomon reminds kings and rulers that they will be held to strict account by God, and, urging them to learn wisdom from his words, proceeds to give his own experience: devoting himself from his youth to the pursuit of wisdom he had found her to be a treasure that never failed, the source and embodiment of all that is most excellent and beautiful in the world— through her he looks to obtain influence over men and immortality, and he concludes with a prayer that God would send her out of his holy heavens to be his companion and guide.
The second part of the book (x.-xix.) ”

“ Though the intellectual world of the sages is different from that of the prophetic and legal Hebraism, they do not break with the fundamental Jewish theistic and ethical creeds. Their monotheism remains Semitic—even in their conception of the cosmogonic and illuminating function of Wisdom they regard God as standing outside the world of physical nature and man, and do not grasp or accept the idea of the identity of the human and the divine; there is thus a sharp distinction between their general theistic position and that of Greek philosophy. ”

“ Nor do the sages go beyond the old position in their ethical theory: they have no philosophical discussion of the basis of the moral life; their standard of good conduct is existing law and custom; their motive for right-doing is individual eudaemonistic, not the good of society, or loyalty to an ideal of righteousness for its own sake, but advantage for one's self. They do not attempt a psychological explanation of the origin of human sin ”

“ It may be assumed that the social corruption in Jerusalem was such as is usually found in wealthy communities, made bolder in this case, perhaps, by the political unrest and the weakness of the royal government under Zedekiah. No such charges are brought by the prophet against the exiles, in whose simple life, indeed, there was little or no opportunity for flagrant violation of law. Ezekiel’s own moral code is that of the prophets, which insists on the practice of the fundamental civic virtues. ”

“ There are other sayings in the book that appear to be at variance with its fundamental thought. Wisdom is praised in a number of passages (iv. 13, vii. 5, 11, 12, 19, viii. 1, ix. 16, 17, x. 2, 3) , though it is elsewhere denounced as worthless. It may be said that the author, while denying that wisdom (practical sagacity and level-headedness) can give permanent satisfaction, yet admits its practical value in the conduct of life. This may be so; but it would be strange if a writer who could say, “in much wisdom is much grief,” should deliberately laud wisdom. ”

“ It is in keeping with their whole point of view that they claim no divine inspiration for themselves: they speak with authority, but their authority is that of reason and conscience. It is this definitely rational tone that constitutes the differentia of the teaching of the sages. For the old external law they substitute the internal law: conscience is recognized as the power that approves or condemns conduct (ψυχή, Ecclus. xiv. 2; συνείδησις, Wisd. Sol. xvii. 11) . Wisdom is represented as the result of human reflection, and thus as the guide in all the affairs of life. ”

“ There can thus be no social contact between man and God, no communion of soul, no enthusiasm of service. Moral conduct is to be regulated not by divine law (of this nothing is said) but by human experience. ”

“ It is not easy to determine whether the book is all from the same author. On the one hand, it may be said that one general theme—the salvation and final prosperity of the righteous—is visible throughout the work, that God is everywhere represented as the supreme moral governor of the world, and that the conception of immortality is found in both parts; the second part, though differing in form from the first, may be regarded as the historical illustration of the principles set forth in the latter. ”

“ But to regard Hezekiah as a Jewish Pisistratus is to ascribe to the time a literary spirit of which the extant documents give no hint; the literature of the age was wholly occupied with the past history, the religious conditions and the political fortunes of the nation, subjects alien to the book of Proverbs. The objections to the Solomonic age as the time of origination of the book apply also to the period extending from Solomon through the 6th century. But there are considerations that lead us to put its origin still later. One of these is the non national character of the thought. ”

“ The conception of the world and of human life as controlled by natural law, a naturalistic cosmos, is alien not only to the prophetic and liturgical Hebrew literature but also to Hebrew thought in general. Whether borrowed or not, it must be late; and its resemblance to Greek ideas suggests Greek influence. The supposition of such influence is favoured by some critics (Tyler, Plumptre, Palm, Siegfried, Cheyne in his Jewish Religious Life after the Exile, and others) , rejected by some (Zeller, Renan, Kleinert and others) . ”

“ Babylonia, though nowise superior to Egypt morally, is favoured and applauded because it is believed to be the instrument for securing ultimately the prosperity of Yahweh’s people. The administration of the affairs of the world by the God of Israel is represented, in a word, as determined not by ethical considerations but by personal preferences. There is no hint in Ezekiel’s writings of the grandiose conception of Isa. xl.-lv., that Israel’s mission is to give the knowledge of religious truth to the other nations of the world ”

“ There is no sacredness or dignity in man or in human life: man has no pre-eminence over beasts, seeing that he and they have the same final fate, die and pass into the dust, and no one knows what becomes of the spirit, whether in man’s case it goes up to heaven, and in the case of beasts goes down into Sheol—death is practically the end-all ”

“ Obviously the purpose of the paragraph is to point out the wisdom of enjoying life in the time of youth while the physical powers are fresh and strong, and the impotency of old age has not yet crept in. ”

“ Ezekiel was married (xxiv. 18) , had his own house, and comported himself quietly as a Babylonian subject. But he was a profoundly interested observer of affairs at home and among the exiles: as patriot and ethical teacher he deplored alike the political blindness of the Jerusalem government (King Zedekiah revolted in 588) and the immorality and religious superficiality and apostasy of the people. He, like Jeremiah, was friendly to Nebuchadrezzar, regarding him as Yahweh’s instrument for the chastisement of the nation. ”

“ The motive assigned for right doing is individualistic utilitarian-the advantage accruing to the man either through the laws of society or through the rewards dispensed by God. This motive, which is the one assumed throughout the Old Testament, is effective for the mass of men, and becomes ethically high when the advantage had in view is of an elevated moral character. ”

“ It is a special grievance that the wicked when they die are buried with pomp and ceremony, while men who have acted well are forgotten [4] in the city (viii. 10) .
6. That the author does not believe in a happy or active future life appears in the passage (iv. 2, 3) quoted above. The old Hebrew view of the future excluded from Sheol the common activities of life and also the worship of the national god (Isa. xxxviii. 18) ; he goes even beyond this in his conception of the blankness of existence in the underworld. ”

“ The ritual law was substantially completed by the end of the 5th century B.C.; it became the object of study, and thus arose a class of scholars, among whom were some who, under the influence of the general culture of the time, native and foreign, pushed their investigations beyond the limits of the national law and became students and critics of life. ”

“ In the earlier time marriages between Jewish men and Canaanite women seem to have been not uncommon; whether (outside of Herod's family) there were marriages with foreigners in the Greek period we have no means of determining.
Proverbs is remarkable for the attention it gives to kings. The prophets have nothing to say of them as a class. One passage in the Pentateuch (Deut. xvii. 1 5-20) prescribes that the Israelite king shall be the opposite of Solomon-he shall not accumulate horses, wives, silver and gold, and shall study the law. ”

“ Proverbs treats the king, in a quite modern way, as a member of society. He is described ideally as ruling by the might of wisdom (viii. 1 5, 16) , and as controlled in his administration by truth, kindness and justice (xx. 8, 26, 28) -the Wicked ruler who oppresses the poor is condemned as not reaching the ideal standard (xxviii. 3, 5, 16) . ”

“ The historical and prophetical books and the Pentateuch are wholly concerned with the nation. For them Israel is the centre of the world, the point around which all other things revolv¢%every other people derives its claim to consideration from its relation to Israelthe only subject deserving attention is the extent of the Jewish nation's obedience or disobedience to its divinely given law, on which depends its prosperity or its adversity. In Proverbs there is a notable absence of this point of view. The name Israel and the terms temple, prophet, priest, covenant, do not occur in the book. ”