Wisdom Literature

Proverb

Probably mostly of it written by Solomon, and some other wise men can have tribute, and compiled after his death around 715-686 BC

One sentence summery “ Counsel for everyday life. Godly advises, but not always timeless truths. 31 Proverbs – ready to be read every day.”

 In 1.king 4.29-34 it tells about Solomon’s wisdom and proverbs.

Proverbs are for the practical life, as the Psalms for the spiritual life. But they go in the opposite direction: Psalms describe the cry of the heart arousing from people about the circumstances of life and show them turning to God. Proverbs collects the wisdom of God in a clear and known language, which can be applied in many practical and known situations in life. We can see comparisons, metaphors, poetic expression or strong contrasts.

Proverbs is divided into three parts.

Main parts of Proverbs:

Cap 1-9 Wisdom way of man and creation, e.g. “Fear of the Lord is the foundation of wisdom. Knowledge of the Holy One results in good judgment. (9.10)”

Chapter 10-24 Deliverance and deliverance, e.g.” Commit your actions to the Lord, and your plans will succeed. (16.3)”

Chapter 25-31 Worship and sanctuary (written I Hezekiah’s time)” Evil people don’t understand justice, but those who follow the Lord understand completely. 28.5”

This section is best known for his final poem about a wife of noble character (31.10- 31) As a woman I love these verses, and often come back to them and enjoy the perspective in them. I this time I also learned from the webpage below, that each verse begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. ( www.biblesiden.no)

We can see timeless truths in Proverb - which is repeated in NT – here are some:

8.17 I love all who loves me. Those who search me will find me.

Matt 7,7: everyone who seeks, finds  

Gal.2.20 : Son of God who loved me, Seek, and ye shall find.

To love Christ and to follow him is to love wisdom and practical living out the principles found in Proverbs, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Ecclesiastes

It records an intense search for the meaning of life. Many of the questions are known for us living today. In fact that is an amazing thing – how things written more than 2500 years ago can be so actual. It has a negative way of writing and gives not much solution to a good life  - before in the end Ecc.12.13:

” Fear God and obey His commands, for this is everyone’s duty. God will judge us for everything we do, including the secret thing, whether good or bad.”

Also in ch.3.12-14 it is mentioned a good life with God.

I found it interesting that the expression “under the sun” mention 28 times, – can mean “here on earth without God”.

The way of writing negatively is a known literary tool used to make the reader understand how it not should be. Without that man understands what is wrong, it will not be able to listen to and understand the positive. ( www.biblesiden.no)

One of my favorite verses from my youth is Ecc.11.9 -10  - it opened the world for me – “I could do all I want – take it all in “– as long as I took Jesus with me on the journey.

Songs of Songs  -

A book of love, marriage and godly relationship as it should be.

In 1.King 4,32 we read King Solomon wrote 1005 songs –some of them might be in this book. Traditionally the book has been tribute to Solomon – but some may think it is written to him.

It is a book of Hebrew poetry – characterized by parallelism, things from the nature is very much used as pictures. Through history there has been different ways of looking at the book – from being a secular love song – wedding song, to a picture of God and his chosen people or a picture of Christ and the church. ( Nm.p.191)

The male and the female/ groom and bride show all of the affection and romance that people universally associated with being and growing in love.