Proverbs

I finished the lecture on Proverbs yesterday. Here is something to think about. Proverbs 1:1-7 is kind of a prologue to the whole book, with verse 7 explaining the beginning of wisdom. Everything through Proverbs 9 is a part of father-son and mother-son chats explaining about woman wisdom and woman folly. Then you have a lot of chapters of general proverbs.

One thing to note is that proverbs as a genre are not meant to be taken as absolute truths. By that I mean that if it says that something will happen to the sluggard and something else to the industrious it is possible for that to be backwards in how it plays out. In other words, don't read it the same as you would read Paul's commands in Ephesians, for example.

Most of us know Proverbs 31:10-31. What is interesting is to note Proverbs 31:23. This verse does two things. One is that it links everything back to the opening. This passage describes the virtuous wife, but it is not written to women. It is still written to the son who is receiving instruction. It also links to Ruth as Ruth immediately followed Proverbs in the Tanakh. Ruth was this virtuous woman.