Author: Denis Gibson

Here is a summary statement of the purpose of Proverbs. The opening verses contain words of wisdom unmatched in any other literature. The word wisdom gathers up the whole teaching of Proverbs. The facets of wisdom “all shade into one another, and any one of them can be used to represent the whole” (Kidner). Wisdom is instruction, equity, understanding, and judgment. It gives subtilty to the simple. Meaning, knowledge, and discretion are perceived, where to hear is to obey. Wise practice is true wisdom! “The most intensely practical thing in life is godliness.” The one who does not practice godliness is the real fool. Here is the perfection of sanctified sense (Ps. 19:10-11).

The king of Jerusalem, we might think from what follows, was hardly qualified to be the teacher of morality to mankind. Yet, in the Providence of God, does it not make what he taught all the more remarkable, and at the same time provides the most fearful warning to all who read this book. Remember, a greater than Solomon is here, for Christ speaks to us by His Word and Spirit.

To whom are these proverbs mainly addressed? In other words, what is the relationship between Solomon and his “audience”? There are fifteen exhortations to my son in chapters 1-7, and seven more in other chapters. My sons or my children appear four times, all from Solomon. This suggests that the proverbs are from “fathers to sons” rather than from “teachers to disciples,” as some would have them.

It is difficult to give an outline of this Book. It has so many topics but little apparent structure. It mostly runs on from one verse to another. Almost every verse could be a sermon or a principle standing alone. Yet there is a general design that runs through the whole that is always kept in view by the author. Its purpose is to instruct all, young as well as old, in the secret for a life of true joy, for time and eternity. In the end the choice is between Wisdom of God or the Folly of man.

The word “proverb” (mashal) appears only four times in all, (1:1, 6; 10:1; 25:1). The meaning of the words is likeness or resemblance. In this they are akin to the parables of the New Testament. They become “representative statements, not relating solely to a single fact, but standing for, or representing other similar facts” (Perowne).

Liberal-Modernist scholars assert that the Proverbs began as ‘one-liners’ and later expanded to carry a ‘motive-clause’ as the result of an ‘evolutionary’ development! This view attributes to Solomon only a few of these Proverbs. Even some ‘conservative-scholars’ assert that Chapters 1-9 were written long after Solomon’s time. Proverbs 1:1 is a general heading and the rest added by Hezekiah’s men, who put the whole Book together.