Well, this new Bible study on Proverbs is going to be pretty short and sweet but very good. I hope it's gonna be a three-part series on this great book. It's 31 chapters. Oh, before I forget a little tip, I usually do this all the time.
I need to get back into the swing of things. But one thing that many people love to do with the 31 chapter book of Proverbs has on so many great little short pithy statements. I have a lot to share with you about that. But they read one chapter a day.
So whatever month a day of the month it is, if it's the thirteenth day of the month, you're gonna read Proverbs chapter 13. If it's the 28th day of the month, Proverbs chapter 28. And that's really, really great. It's a wonderful little practice I have it to get into because there is just so much little snippets, nuggets of wisdom in here.
I mean, you really can't sit there and read it cover to cover. Chapter one to 31, it's not really narrative at all. It is just a whole collection of treasury of very wise sayings that are very short. So it's a good idea to actually take it in like a drip system.
Like when you're watering your plants or your orchard, which I'm doing a lot at springtime as of this recording. So I'm out there in the garden a lot and my orchard doing a lot of watering. So you really want to drip system. If you overload your plants, your soil with too much water too fast, it runs all over the place.
And you end up basically watering all your weeds and your grass all around the base of your trunk. So you don't want to do that. You want to drip system. That's Proverbs.
You want to drip system. So reading one chapter a day is a really nice little habit to get into. So I just wanted to mention that. But this chapter, I should say this lesson is about just introducing the book.
I do that for every single Bible study, spend one hour setting the tone, setting the foundation, building the foundation, and then however many lessons afterwards diving into it. So this lesson is introducing the book of Proverbs. This first section here is more introductory on what the Proverbs are, Old Testament literature, making some definitions. And then we're going to get into some important topics like title, authorship, dating, structure, key themes, typology, all that kind of stuff.
And then the second lesson, in fact, you can consult with the syllabus and the suggested reading. I don't know, 10 books or so. There's always plenty more to read than that. But whatever these 10 books will be just plenty sufficient to consult in some of the big commentaries that I really like.
And then of course, the actual lesson. So there's only three. This one is introducing the book. The second one is called Embracing Lady Wisdom.
And that will make sense as I explain the key themes of the book. And then the third lesson is going to be Lady Wisdom's teachings. Like most Bible studies, I do in fact, every single Bible study thus far and probably afterwards is really just tackling the particular book in chunks of chapters. So this lesson will be chapters one through five and next lesson is going to be five through eight or whatever it is.
But that's not going to really be the case for Proverbs. It's going to be more thematic because it is this collection, this treasury of why sayings. As I explained in the structure in the harmony of this book, there really isn't really a rhyme and a reason to these various verses chapter after chapter. But I'm ahead of myself, so let's get into that.
But I just wanted to explain really quickly what we're going to be doing for this short, short study, this three part series. So with that, let's look at introducing the book of Proverbs within the context of the Old Testament, Wisdom Literature. And to kick us off, I have a great quote from your Catholic introduction, The Old Testament, which says that the book of Proverbs is a collection of short sayings, an anthology or treasury. I like the word treasury, honestly.
It's a treasury of short sayings expressing the basic principles for leading a prudent and virtuous life. It is the foundational book of the Wisdom Literature collection. It lays out the fundamental principles of wisdom, which in Hebrew is Hochma. I'll explain more later, or Prudence for Living and all wisdom books may be viewed as building upon it, either by dealing with apparent exceptions to the principles it lays out, such as Job and Ecclesiastes, or by further development of the principles themselves, such as Wisdom of Solomon and Sirak.
End quote. All right. So this is really true. I mean, when you think of the Wisdom Literature collection now in the Wisdom Literature collection, I should clarify, these are the books.
So I actually do put Psalms in the Wisdom Literature collection. Some commentaries do not. Some do or it's kind of like an an ancillary to the Wisdom collection. I think that's false.
I am pretty, I dig my heels in on the fact that Psalms is part of the Wisdom Literature collection. The reason why I say that just really quickly is one example is because Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and that's a big theme that you're going to find here and there in the Psalms themselves. In fact, the entire Psalter is the worship and fear of the Lord. So anyways, that's one of the big reasons why I think Psalms is Wisdom Literature, but I digress.
So you got Psalms, Job, and then you have the Trilogy of Solomon, which is Proverbs here, Ecclesiastes and Solomon. And then Catholics have two other books that unfortunately Protestants and Jews do not have, although they should because they are inspired scripture, that would be Wisdom of Solomon and Sirak. So this is a pretty rather short collection, honestly, seven books. And it's just a wonderful approach to how do we live life in a wise, holy, virtuous, righteous way.
And Proverbs is, I think, by and far the number one book of the Wisdom collection. Now, Wisdom of Solomon and Sirak also have a lot of what Proverbs does. But Protestants, again, don't have those books, so they're looking to Proverbs as its great treasury of collections. And in the Catholics, they don't really read the Old Testament as much, so they don't really know what, aware of Psalm and Psalm and Sirak.
But nevertheless, Proverbs is just that quintessential book on wise sayings, and it is the foundation for all the Wisdom literature as well moving forward. So I want to define some of these things here. What exactly is Wisdom? Let's talk about that first.
And then also a little farther down to the notes here. I want to talk about what are Proverbs. Okay, so first Wisdom. Now, as this previous quote pointed out here, Wisdom in Hebrew is Hochma, or in Greek it's Sophia.
Now, Sophia is easy to remember because we all know people in our lives and our circle of influence, name Sophia, it's a very beautiful name. But they're the same thing. Hochma, Sophia is Wisdom. Now, here's another great quote for you.
Oh, actually, let me just tell you this. Now, in the ancient Near Eastern cultures, everybody really did have some kind of Wisdom collection writings to some degree or another. Then our Catholic Bible has a really great list. And I didn't reproduce it here in the notes, but I'm thinking about it right now.
So in the introduction to Proverbs, there's a whole gigantic paragraph of all the various other ancient Near Eastern cultures who have some kind of document on Wisdom literature. So the biblical tradition is no different. What makes the biblical literature different is this emphasis on the divine, right? The fear of the Lord and the sense of righteousness as a foundation for Wisdom in all of life.
That's a big distinction, I think, to save generalization between secular ancient Near Eastern Wisdom accounts and the biblical account. So with that in mind, what is Wisdom in Hochma in the Old Testament? Well, here's a good quote from your Catholic Bible dictionary. It says in the Old Testament, Wisdom was most often a matter of practical knowledge and other senses of Wisdom derived from this primary sense.
So practical knowledge is the primary sense of Wisdom. The Hebrew word translated Wisdom often referred to the skill of a tradesman. Likewise, to the Wisdom of the Artisan, the sailor, the weaver with Wisdom in the specific sense expressing notions of skill or ability. I'm actually paused this quote right there.
A good example of this. So practical knowledge, the artisan, the tradesman, the weaver, the sailor, and all these different related examples. A good example of this actually is back in Exodus 31. So after Moses had received instructions to build the tabernacle, God basically gave him a blueprint of the heavenly tabernacle and told him, build the tabernacle based on the instructions that I revealed to you in your heavenly vision.
And there's two characters, a buzzalilil and a holy ab. This is back in Exodus 31. These two characters are famous for receiving Hochma, Wisdom, skill, ability in order to build all the various artifacts of the tabernacle, the tabernacle itself, the furniture, the sacred vestments, the sacred vessels and instruments and whatever it might be. So that's a really good example in terms of the skill of the tradesman, the skill and ability, the buzzalilil and a holy ab in Exodus 31, received Hochma for the practical knowledge in order to build all of these different things.
Alright, so that's a closed parenthetical comment on that. Let's go on with the quote. It says, by simple extension, the administrative skill of the able government leader or judge was also called wisdom. I'll pause again.
So of course, skill and ability in a practical sense in the political arena, you need wisdom in order to govern righteous, or I would say rightly, fairly, justly knowing when to enforce justice or mercy, knowing how to find out the truth of matters, make good decisions on behalf of your people, when to go to war, when not to go to war, how to have good diplomacy, et cetera, et cetera. So in order to be a good leader or a good judge, you need to have Hochma, this practical knowledge as well. Alright, what goes on? Finally, Wisdom could refer to the skillful discernment of the righteous in making godly moral choices.
Those who are most knowledgeable were also accounted among the wise. And the wisest of all was Solomon. His wisdom was legendary and earned him the admiration of all who met him. In quote.
I'll talk a lot more about Solomon here in just a little bit. So more to come soon. So this is wisdom, right? Knowing how things work in the practical arena, in government and government affairs, economics, you could say.
And then of course, also knowing how things work in the order of the divine, the soul. So there's various ways to define wisdom. I mean, I've read over the years at different interpretations. And one thing that I've consolidated in my brain, this is just my definition.
I'm not saying that this is something that you should necessarily memorize or you could repeat it if you want to, of course. But based on this biblical understanding, I think a good way to understand wisdom is ordering all things. And this is my own definition again. Okay.
So ordering all things according to their nature and proper end in God's design. I'll say that again. I probably should have put it in the notes, but I didn't. It's ordering all things, understanding honestly, it's understanding and ordering all things according to their nature and proper end in God's design.
So God does, as I'll explain a little bit more to come in this introduction, God's wisdom is inherent in all of creation. In order to understand creation, you have to understand it according to God's design, what its proper end is, how it functions according to its own nature. So if you're trying to impose something on some kind of creation or creature that's not according to its nature, it's proper end, you're going to make a mistake. So I'm going to make up something random.
Okay, let's just pick a screw versus a nail. I just totally made this up. I hope it makes sense. I hope it's a good analogy.
If you take a screw and you try to hammer that screw into a board, you're not going to get very far. A screw is meant to be screwed, right? So you take your drill gun or your screwdriver and you twist that sucker into the wood. All right, the same thing is driven nail.
You don't take a nail and you try to jam it into the wood with a drill gun, you're going to take a hammer. So it's a simple silly example and you can get more complicated. This is also here's a more complicated controversial example. Human sexuality.
Human sexuality is between a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage that is for the procreation of children and the union of the spouses. All right, so whether you're using a simple example of how to put a screw into some wood or you're using a much more serious complicated controversial example of what sex is designed to be for in the context of marital union love, if you're trying to enforce or use sexuality contrary to God's design, then that's not wise. That's foolishness, right? So however you want to look at the whole spectrum of life, it's ordering and understanding things according to their nature and their proper end in God's design.
That's how I've always just kind of grasped on the bat. I'm sure it can be tweaked here or there, but I hope that's helpful for you. Okay, so then moving on, then one other aspect about nature of the nature of wisdom in the concept or the context of Israel was that the wisdom of Israel is given through the viddit king. That's really, really important.
Really, it's given through Israel via the viddit king and it's universal in nature. It's not just meant for Israel. So it's not like we're reading the wisdom literature here at Proverbs and then our other future Bible studies. We're going to talk about Ecclesiastes, Solomon, wisdom of Solomon, Sierra, and all these great books, Job, Psalms, all this whole collection, right?
And we're like, oh gosh, it's really nice to get a glimpse of what Israel thought about things. Well, actually we're the recipient says Gentiles as well. Any human being, no matter when they lived and where they lived and where they come from, wisdom is geared to instruct every single human being through the viddit king, right? So basically the wisdom is meant for the evangelization of all the nations.
How can nations understand God's design and live their life accordingly, right? So this is important because the Mosaic covenant, briefly here, let me explain a couple things here, contrasting David's covenant with Moses' covenant. And if you want more on this, go to second, well, you can read 2nd, same with chapter 7. In fact, I'm going to take you there and read a verse in just a second.
But my Bible study on 1st and 2nd, I talk about the distinctions between the Mosaic and the viddit covenants in a lot more detail. But just a couple of brass tacks here, the Mosaic covenant was very exclusive. It was really just about Israel. They're trying to separate themselves from the nations and live according to God's laws.
And eventually, of course, there should be a light to the nations. In fact, Moses talks about this in Deuteronomy. But things really shift and change with the viddit covenant. It's very inclusive.
It's very inclusive. It's very universal in nature. Because David understood through his covenant that he and his successors, his heirs of the viddit king, had a role to bring God's wisdom to all peoples. Now, I'm going to share just one quick verse to prove this point here.
And that's in 2nd Samuel, chapter 7, verse 19. This is right after the prophet Nathan gives him the great news of the viddit covenant. Because briefly, the context is David wakes up one morning. I don't think he just woke up randomly.
But you've kind of been thinking for a long time. I want to build a temple for the Lord. And at first, Nathan says, great two thumbs up, buddy. Go ahead and do it.
But then at night, God says, Nathan, hold the phone. It's really, that's a really nice gesture. I appreciate that. You're very cute.
But you're not going to build me a temple. Your son will build me a temple or a house. And I'm going to build you a house, a dynasty. So there's all this play on the word, house, which is by eat.
So anyways, go back to the Bible study for more. So after he says your covenant is going to be phenomenal and amazing. It will last forever. It'll be an eternal covenant.
Your son will always be on the throne, etc. Then David turns to God in prayer. And he says in verse 19, This was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord God, you have spoken also of your servants, house for a great while to come. And you have shown me Torah, Adam, in literally in Hebrew.
Unfortunately, the revised and version says, you've shown me future generations. Well, that's kind of weak sauce. I don't know why the translator translated it, future generations, maybe because they're connecting it with the future generations of his lineage or the divinity covenant. It's probably where they're going with that.
But Torah, Adam is the Hebrew and it's even in the footnote here in the Bible. That's very simple, Hebrew 101. Okay, Torah means instruction or law and Adam is humanity. So you have shown me a law for humanity is what the Hebrew says.
Well, what does that mean? Well, some really good commentators out there are talking about this in context with the wisdom literature that David understands that his covenant is meant for the blessings of all nations, which is tied with the Abrahamic covenant, the third blessing of Abrahamic covenant. So what is this law for all humanity? It's not the Mosaic covenant, it's the vidic.
And specifically, it's the wisdom of the vidic king to go to all nations. And this is going to be seen most especially in King Solomon. We'll get there in just a little bit. So this is a good little verse here to talk about how David probably understood and I think didn't understand his the responsibility of his divinity covenant.
So wisdom was the means by which nations would be evangelized. And this is going to again take place in the story of Solomon. So on that point here, let me share with you another quote this time from a different commentary of Catholic study Bible, which says the wisdom books are suited to the instruction of non Israelites in the rudiments of responsible living, beginning with the fear of the Lord. I'm more to say on that later.
Gentiles, through contact with the inspired teaching of Solomon and the sages who carried on his legacy could thus be drawn closer to Yahweh and made ready to accept the truth of his revelation. This too helps to explain why the wisdom books speak it down to earth easily understood experiential language to which peoples of all backgrounds can relate. End quote. All right, so that's really beautiful here to understand that.
Okay, we talked about we defined what wisdom is a moment ago. And now it's really what's the purpose of wisdom. The purpose wisdom is to instruct all people Israel and non Israelites alike in the fear of the Lord. That's that one in very clear, easy to understand experiential language so that way they can live a life of virtue and holiness in order to live again, live a life according to one's proper and in God's design.
So I think that's really, really helpful that these various commentaries help us to understand which is the what is wisdom, ho'amah, this skill, practical knowledge as well as righteous skill in living a righteous life and what its purpose is who the audience is, which is every single human being. All right, so I hope that's helpful. Now let's go into some various introductory topics like title, authorship dating. I've got to say about that with Solomon.
And then I also wanted to find what proverbs are and the literary techniques that are employed in teaching proverbs because it's not just one kind of cut and paste methodology that there's very beautiful artistic literary devices that's being used. So we have a lot to say. So the first point title, well, that's pretty straightforward. It comes from chapter one verse one where it says the proverbs of King Solomon, let me flip to Proverbs one.
I was in Second Samuel seven. So the Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, King of Israel. That's how this whole thing is introduced and that's the title in Hebrew, Greek and Latin in their various different languages. So Mishle, Sholomo or Potomai, Solomonos or Lieber, Proverbiodum, Solomonis, depends on the language, it's the same exact thing, the Proverbs of Solomon.
But that very simple title brings us to the great discussion of authorship. Is it really composed by Solomon? If so, how and maybe it's composed in part and not in whole, well, I'm going to talk about all that right now. Hey, this is Dr.
Neck. Thank you so much for listening to this course sample. If you enjoyed it and want to listen to the entire lesson, please become a student over at Scripture and Tradition.com where you can listen to this entire course, but also all the other courses that we have available in the S&T audio library where you can listen to them on demand, however, and whenever you want. So thank you so much.
God bless you and keep setting your Bible.