Place of Writing The primary place of writing seems to have been within Judah in general and from Jerusalem in particular. Both Solomon (1:1) and Hezekiah, who likely had his sages collect Solomon proverbs during a time of spiritual revival (25:1), ruled the nation form Jerusalem. This city not only the political but also the spiritual and educational capital of Israel.” “…was Genre The word Proverb comes from the verb (“to rule”) conveying a governing mashal principle of life. means a comparison, similarity, or parallel. Thus, a proverb uses a “Proverb” comparison or an analogy in order to create a pithy, terse, distilled maxim or observation about life. This distillation causes the reader to reflect on what has been said. Such profundity is produced by virtue of the fact that proverbs are compact, memorable, and transferable. Proverbs not only explain what life is like but also make ethical exhortations regarding how life should be lived. Because proverbs capture the repetition and regularity of life through the power of observation, the habitual imperfect form of the Hebrew verb is most commonly used in proverbs. Because the most common form of the book is poetic, parallelism dominates the Book of Proverbs. Parallelism occurs when the second line completes or contrasts the thought begun in the first line. The Book of Proverbs displays a wide variety of parallelism such as synonymous parallelism where the second line repeats or is similar to the thoughts begun in the first line (16:18), antithetical parallelism where the second line contrasts with the first line (15:1), formal or completive parallelism where the second line completes the first line either in result (3:6) or description (15:3) or preference (15:17), synthetic parallelism where the second line amplifies or continues the thought of the first line (16:4), and emblematic parallelism where the second line (or vice versa) explains the first line though the mechanism of a figure of speech known as a
Place of Writing The primary place of writing seems to have been within Judah in general and from Jerusalem in particular. Both Solomon (1:1) and Hezekiah, who likely had his sages collect Solomon proverbs during a time of spiritual revival (25:1), ruled the nation form Jerusalem. This city “…was not only the political but also the spiritual and educational capital of Israel.” Genre The word Proverb comes from the verb mashal (“to rule”) conveying a governing principle of life. “Proverb” means a comparison, similarity, or parallel. Thus, a proverb uses a comparison or an analogy in order to create a pithy, terse, distilled maxim or observation about life. This distillation causes the reader to reflect on what has been said. Such profundity is produced by virtue of the fact that proverbs are compact, memorable, and transferable. Proverbs not only explain what life is like but also make ethical exhortations regarding how life should be lived. Because proverbs capture the repetition and regularity of life through the power of observation, the habitual imperfect form of the Hebrew verb is most commonly used in proverbs. Because the most common form of the book is poetic, parallelism dominates the Book of Proverbs. Parallelism occurs when the second line completes or contrasts the thought begun in the first line. The Book of Proverbs displays a wide variety of parallelism such as synonymous parallelism where the second line repeats or is similar to the thoughts begun in the first line (16:18), antithetical parallelism where the second line contrasts with the first line (15:1), formal or completive parallelism where the second line completes the first line either in result (3:6) or description (15:3) or preference (15:17), synthetic parallelism where the second line amplifies or continues the thought of the first line (16:4), and emblematic parallelism where the second line (or vice versa) explains the first line though the mechanism of a figure of speech known as a
AWoods-Proverbs-Arg.docx