Writings
מִשְׁלֵי
Proverbs
Instruction in short sayings, built on the claim that the world is learnable.
Hebrew nameMishlei, meaning proverbsChapters31Position2 of 11 in Writings
What is in it
The opening chapters are a parent's long address to a young person, with wisdom personified as a woman calling in the street. From chapter ten it becomes mostly one line sayings, which repay being read a few at a time.
Its confidence that acting well tends to go well is exactly the claim Job and Ecclesiastes were placed nearby to test.
If you read one chapter
Proverbs 8
Wisdom speaking in her own voice, present before the world was made.
Passages worth knowing
- Proverbs 1:7The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.
- Proverbs 8:22 to 31Wisdom present at the founding of the world.
- Proverbs 15:1A soft answer turneth away wrath.
- Proverbs 26:4 to 5Two adjacent verses that flatly contradict each other.
- Proverbs 31:10 to 31The closing poem, an acrostic.
Questions to sit with
- 01
Proverbs 26:4 and 26:5 give opposite advice, side by side. Why put them together?
- 02
The book assumes effort is usually rewarded. What happens to that assumption in Job?