The often-made observation that Proverbs 1:1–7 stands as an introduction to the book's first collection (chs. 1–9), and by extension, the book as a whole, is hardly controversial. They provide, in Roland Murphy's words, a ‘majestic introduction to the book’ that ‘sweeps the reader up into the goal of wisdom instruction’.Footnote 1 Timothy Sandoval refers to these verses as ‘the hermeneutical key to the entire literary work’,Footnote 2 and William Brown, ‘an all-embracing purpose statement’, setting the agenda for what is to come.Footnote 3 While the significance of these opening verses and their introductory role have generated no shortage of scholarly discussion, however, inadequate attention has been given to showing how these opening verses function in relation to what follows.
A good place to begin is with what exactly it is that Proverbs 1:1–7 is supposed to be introducing. As implied in the words of Murphy, Sandoval and Brown cited above, it has been typical to assume that these verses introduce, not simply the first collection in chapters 1–9, but the book as a whole.Footnote 4 This assumption, however, has not been especially well supported. Michael Fox, for instance, contends that ‘[i]t is likely that the Prologue [Prov 1:1–7] was written by the author of the Ten Lectures as an introduction to the entire book’, noting, quite non-specifically, that it exhibits the same overarching pedagogical aims.Footnote 5 Only a few sentences earlier, however, he observes that the aims expressed in Proverbs 1:1–7 are ‘oriented more to the goals of the lectures than the rest of the book’.Footnote 6 Fox also notes that מזמה (‘prudence’), one of the virtues that will be imparted to the youth in 1:4, is presented as a positive quality only in chapters 1–9 (viz., at 2:11; 3:21; 5:2; 8:12); elsewhere in the book, it is presented in quite a different light (see 12:2; 14:17; 24:8).Footnote 7
It seems more plausible to suggest, then, that Proverbs 1:1–7 was written as an introduction specifically to the book's first collection in chapters 1–9, not the book as a whole.Footnote 8 Further support for this can be found in the repetition of the ‘motto’ in 1:7 and 9:10, that the fear of Yhwh is the beginning of wisdom/knowledge, underscored by the repeated injunction for the wise to ‘increase in learning’ (ויסף לקח) in 1:5 and 9:9. These create a frame around the first collection, bracketing it off as its own self-contained unit within the book of Proverbs.Footnote 9
Further questions emerge when we get into the introduction itself. While there is widespread agreement on how Proverbs 1:1–7 function at a general level, there is in fact significant disagreement on the details. How it is structured? Who is its audience – and is there more than one? What are the aims it hopes to communicate, and how are they weighted – are some more significant than others? While Sandoval breaks these verses into two literary units that address a single audience,Footnote 10 Brown sees a single unit, arranged as a chiasm, addressed to two possible audiences.Footnote 11 More recently, Bernd Schipper has combined these proposals, arguing for two units that together form a chiasm, addressed to two audiences – ‘wisdom for beginners and for the advanced’;Footnote 12 but this, too, is balanced by Arthur Keefer's proposal of a single unit, addressed to a single audience.Footnote 13
In what follows, I will begin by looking at the structure and syntax of these verses with a view to identifying the introduction's audience and addressees. Building on Keefer's analysis, I argue that a single audience is addressed, ‘the wise’ of v. 5, who, as they listen to instruction and increase in their learning, can expect (1) to grow in understanding; (2) to grow in moral virtue; and (3) to take up the mantle and instruct the younger generation to do likewise. From there I will show how these three aims can be traced through the rest of Proverbs 1–9 to demonstrate the programmatic function of the introduction for the book's first collection.
Setting out the aims: an analysis of Proverbs 1:1–7
The introduction is comprised of a title in v. 1; a string of infinitives in vv. 2–4, resumed in v. 6 after what many have seen as an interpolation in v. 5; and it is capped off with the ‘motto’ in v. 7, which, while not syntactically connected with the introduction, thematically fits with what came before. Current consensus is to see the infinitives in vv. 2–4 and perhaps v. 6 as dependent on the title in v. 1, listing off what the reader can expect to gain as they study the proverbs and other sorts of literature contained in the book – so: ‘The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel, are for knowing wisdom and instruction, for understanding words of insight…’ Verses 4–5 identify the book's audience. Whether the ‘naïve and young’ of v. 4 and the ‘wise and understanding’ of v. 5 comprise one audience or two, a constant among interpreters is to see both verses as identifying the book's addressees.
Recently, however, Keefer has called this reading into question.Footnote 14 Beginning with v. 1, Keefer notes that, despite their similarities, nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible do we see titles functioning in this way, woven in with what follows – neither in Proverbs nor elsewhere.Footnote 15 Looking outside the Hebrew Bible, Fox finds support for this reading in the Egyptian Instruction of Amenemope, which shares numerous parallels with the book of Proverbs in general and its introduction in Proverbs 1:1–7 in particular.Footnote 16 However, the parallels identified with the latter are hardly decisive; while there certainly are similarities, Fox himself notes: ‘The nature of the affinities between the two, which lie in formal structure and background assumptions rather than in wording and specifics, points to a more diffuse influence.’Footnote 17
It is of course possible that, while titles do not usually function this way, this particular title, which unlike any other is followed by a string of purposive infinitives and stands as an introduction to the book, is a notable exception. However, this is not the only possibility – nor, suggests Keefer, is it the most likely. It is at least as plausible to see the infinitives in vv. 2–4 and 6 as dependent, not on the title, but on the finite verbs in v. 5:Footnote 18
Let the wise listen (ישמע) and increase (ויוסף) in learning
and the understanding acquire (יקנה) a sense of direction.
This possibility is strengthened by the repetition of דעת, חכמה, and מוסר in vv. 2 and 7, which create a frame, bracketing these verses as a distinct, self-contained literary unit apart from the title.Footnote 19 The repetition of these terms can also be taken to imply that they are mutually interpretive, with v. 7 spelling out the theological orientation of knowledge, wisdom and instruction in the preceding.
What then are we to do with v. 4? As noted above, this verse is unanimously read as introducing us to the audience, whether in part or whole. Accompanying this, however, is a shift in perspective between vv. 2–3 and v. 4: while the implied agent in vv. 2–3 is the student, in v. 4 it shifts to the proverbs (or perhaps the teacher thereof), which have been bracketed out with the title.Footnote 20 But this is only a problem if the young and naïve are taken as (part of) the audience. If, in line with what we saw above, the infinitive in v. 4 depends not on the title in v. 1, but the finite verbs in v. 5, its agent is clarified, the supposed shift in perspective is done away with, and the audience of the book is clearly identified solely as the wise and understanding in v. 5, who in v. 4 are tasked with teaching the naïve and young in the way that they should go.
Further support for this reading can be found in v. 5 itself, wherein the ‘wise and understanding’ are presented not simply as those favourably disposed to receiving instruction, but who proceed to disseminate it to others. The noun לקח, typically translated ‘learning’ in this verse, derives from the root meaning ‘to take/receive’. Usually, the connection is quite plain to see: in Deuteronomy 32:2 it is placed in parallel with Moses’ ‘words’ (אמרתי), referring to the teaching he hopes the Israelites will take to heart. In Isaiah 29:24 it is placed in parallel with ‘insight’ (בינה), referring to the instruction the Israelites will one day learn to accept. Elsewhere in Proverbs it refers more loosely to persuasive speech – the learned speech of the wise in 16:23, or the seductive speech of the foreign woman in 7:21. Thus, Stuart Weeks explains, לקח refers not simply ‘what is learnt or taught, but also the ability to put one's teachings or ideas across’.Footnote 21 This is clearest in Proverbs 4:2, where it refers to the instruction the father received from his father, which he now passes on to his son.Footnote 22
A similar case could be made for the meaning of תחבלות. Bruce Waltke explains that, as a derivative of the word חֶבֶל (‘rope’) or חֹבֵל (‘sailor’), it is used as a nautical metaphor to refer to ‘guidance that enables the insightful to lead himself and others through life like a well-steered ship’.Footnote 23 That it could be used to refer to directing others is suggested elsewhere in Proverbs, where it is placed in parallel with ‘many advisors’ (11:14; 24:6) or ‘plans with counsel’ (20:18), which imply not simply of one's own know-how, but the wise counsel of others. Thus, both לקח and תחבלות in Proverbs 1:5 refer not simply to the instruction or guidance one might receive, but also to that which is disseminated to others – particularly the naïve and young of v. 4.
It is thus possible to summarise the introduction in Proverbs 1:2–7 in the following way: the ‘wise’ and ‘understanding’ in v. 5, who constitute the sole audience addressed in the introduction, are invited to ‘listen and increase in learning’, and to ‘acquire a sense of direction’, and, in doing so, can expect to imbibe the various moral and intellectual virtues set forth in vv. 2–4 and 6–7: (1) to grow in understanding – which, in light of the connection between vv. 2 and 7 is cast in terms of theologically oriented wisdom; (2) to grow in moral virtue;Footnote 24 and (3) to take up the mantle and themselves pass on the wisdom they are taught.
Tracing the aims through the rest of the collection
These being the aims set forth in the introduction, it seems reasonable to suppose that they would permeate – or at least prominently feature – through the rest of the collection. In what follows, I seek to demonstrate that this is in fact the case.
To grow in understanding
If it is not through ‘the proverbs of Solomon’ that one can expect ‘to know wisdom and instruction’ and ‘understand words of insight’ (Prov 1:2), then how is this supposed to come about? Put differently, to what is the reader supposed to ‘listen’ (ישמע) so as to increase their learning and ‘acquire’ (יקנה) a sense of direction (v. 5)? An initial answer comes as soon as we get out of the introduction and into the first instruction:
Listen (שמע) my son, to your father's instruction (מוסר)
And do not forsake your mother's teaching (Prov 1:8).
This injunction to listen, in fact, runs all through Prov 1–9, as the son – who can be taken to stand for the reader – is urged to take up a disposition of receptiveness to what the parents have to teach him.Footnote 25 It is even more pronounced in chapter 4, where even more key terms from the introduction are found:Footnote 26
Listen (שמעו), sons, to fatherly instruction (מוסר)
And pay attention to know insight (לדעת בינה; Prov 4:1).
And a little further on:
Acquire wisdom; acquire insight (קנה חכמה קנה בינה)
Do not forget, nor deviate from the words of my mouth
Do not abandon her, and she will watch over you;
love her, and she will protect you.
Wisdom is foremost – acquire Wisdom (קנה חכמה)!
And with all you have, acquire insight (קנה בינה)! (vv. 5–7).
There is some variation in the language, but in all the exordia – Fox's term for the opening lines of the ‘lectures’ that make up this first section – we find this same sort of appeal from the parents to pay attention to their (or in the case of Prov 3:11, Yhwh's) instruction.Footnote 27 The most significant for present purposes, though, is in chapter 2, which is widely seen as a sort of table of contents for the collection, summarising its main argument.Footnote 28 Here wisdom is associated with the fear of Yhwh, as it is in the book's motto (Prov 1:7; cf. 9:10), albeit somewhat differently: if, in 2:1–4, the son gives heed to his parents’ instruction and pursues wisdom, then, in v. 5, he will ‘understand the fear of Yhwh’ (תבין יראת יהוה) and ‘find the knowledge [דעת] of God’.
On a first look, these verses do not appear to line up: while the motto in 1:7 and 9:10 says that the fear of Yhwh is the beginning of wisdom – usually taken to imply that it is the source of wisdom – the opening of chapter 2 flips the relationship: the fear of Yhwh derives from wisdom. Numerous attempts have, of course, been made to show how these two statements do in fact work together, perhaps by marking different stages of one's educationFootnote 29 or different positions in a scribal dispute.Footnote 30
When we take a closer look at the language, however, it is possible to see how these verses are in fact saying the same thing in different ways. Much of this rests on how we understand the word ‘beginning’ – ראשית in Proverbs 1:7, and תחלה in the parallel statement in 9.10. Nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible do either of these terms actually convey the idea of a thing's source, whether in a temporal or some other sense. They refer, rather, to the first event in a sequence, like the first-fruits of a harvest which give a taste of the crop that is to come.Footnote 31 As such, the introduction in 1:2–7 can be seen to summarise, not subvert the contents of the collection, presenting wisdom as theologically oriented, and in this telic sense, characterised by a right disposition towards Yhwh.
To grow in moral virtue
Though they arrive there by different routes, Sandoval and Brown place this second aim as the foremost of those set forth in the introduction.Footnote 32 Both of them overstate their case. Nevertheless, when we trace this aim through the rest of the collection, its prominence is difficult to dispute. Picking up where we left off in Proverbs 2, a second apodosis running parallel to the one in vv. 5–8 is given in vv. 9–11:
My son, if you accept my words
…
then you will understand righteousness, justice
and fairness – every good path (vv. 1a, 9).
The connection with Proverbs 1:3 is plain to see; it is the only other place, not just in Proverbs, but in all the Hebrew Bible to contain these three terms, ‘righteousness, justice, and fairness’ (צדק ומשפט ומישרים), together in this order.Footnote 33 More broadly, however, the theme can be seen to permeate the rest of the chapter, and indeed the collection as a whole. The two apodoses in Proverbs 2:5–11 are followed by two expected results in vv. 12–19. The first is that giving due attention to wisdom and instruction will serve:
to rescue you (להצילך) from the path of evil
from a man perverse with his speech (v. 12).
Warnings about the ‘wicked men’ in turn map onto concerns about ethical behaviour elsewhere in the collection. In Proverbs 4:10–19, the son is urged to pursue wisdom which will ‘direct him on straight paths’ where his ‘steps will not be hindered’ (vv. 11–12),Footnote 34 in contrast with the paths of the wicked, which here and in chapter 2 lead to all places dark and deathly (2:13–15; 4:14–19).Footnote 35 Many of these same concerns are also addressed in chapter 3, where we also find a positive case of moral virtue spelled out in terms of how to treat one's neighbour and to maintain peace in society (vv. 21–35).
Returning to Proverbs 2, moral virtue is also spelled out in terms of avoidance of the foreign woman (נכריה/אשה זרה; vv. 16–19). The foreign woman has, in recent years, been in the limelight of a great many scholarly debates, none of which I intend to enter into here.Footnote 36 Suffice it to say, the foreign woman is presented in Proverbs 1–9 as posing a threat to social cohesion in the community such that the parents warn in no uncertain terms, both here and throughout chapters 5–7, that falling for her seduction will lead to disaster.Footnote 37
To pass on the mantle
The final aim we saw in the introduction, while present through the rest of the first collection, is not quite as prominent as the others:
to impart to the naïve (לפתאים) shrewdness
to the youth (לנער), knowledge and prudence (Prov 1:4).
While they are introduced to us in the introduction, it is worth noting that neither the naïve (פתאים) nor the youth (נער) are mentioned very often in the first collection. The naïve are addressed several times by Woman Wisdom, who berates them for their love of ignorance (Prov 1:22, 32) or invites them to ‘come to understand shrewdness’ (הבינו פתאים ערמה; 8:5; cf. 9:4, 6). The only other relevant mention of the youth comes in Proverbs 7:7, where the two terms are again used in parallel to a youth who has already begun down the track of falling for the foreign woman.
Nevertheless, the third aim set forth in the introduction is evidently a posture of instruction that is modelled to the reader throughout, providing an example to follow as they take up the mantle to impart shrewdness and discretion to those who need it.Footnote 38 This is most pronounced in Proverbs 4, which opens with the usual injunction to listen to instruction. Several differences here, however, are worth highlighting. Instead of the usual ‘my son’ (בני; singular), v. 1 is addressed to ‘sons’ (בנים; plural). And instead of calling attention to ‘the instruction of your father’ (מוסר אביך) or ‘the teaching of your mother’ (תורת ימך; 1:8; 6:20), we have something more generic: ‘a father's instruction’, or perhaps, ‘fatherly instruction’ (מוסר אב; 4:1).
These differences have, unsurprisingly, sparked considerable debate. Some have tended to downplay their significance, seeing simply another iteration on the generic setting of father–son instruction.Footnote 39 Others have taken the plural בנים as a possible clue for some sort of school setting, noting parallels with several Egyptian instruction texts.Footnote 40 Neither of these proposals, however, are without problems, albeit on opposite poles. On the one hand, the latter reads in too much. The school setting for Proverbs 1–9 remains contested,Footnote 41 and in any case, there is little in these verses to contradict the idea that a familial setting might be in view.Footnote 42 On the other, the former reads too little. While the change is not a dramatic one, the point remains that it is the only instance of the plural בנים in an opening appeal (though it is used as well in the resumptive appeal found in 5:7; 7:24; and 8:32), and the only instance of אב that actually refers to the father figure without a pronominal suffix.
Taken together, these differences gesture towards the fact that what the son is being invited to participate in is something bigger than himself. It is not just ‘my son’ or ‘your father's instruction’, limiting the scope of the instruction just to this particular family unit, because, as the father goes on to explain, what he passes on is that which he received from his own father:Footnote 43
He instructed me, and said to me,
‘Hold onto my words in your heart;
keep my commands and live’ (v. 4).
The expectation, though implicit, is that, having received and internalised his own parents’ instruction, the son will go on to do likewise – indeed, if the tradition is to continue, he must.Footnote 44
Conclusion
In the analysis of Proverbs 1:1–7 above, we saw that the keynote of its address is found in its exhortation for the reader, with the ‘wise and understanding’ as their proxy, to ‘listen and increase in learning’ and thereby ‘acquire a sense of direction’ (v. 5). With that, a latent emphasis is placed on the central role of instruction within the theological vision of Proverbs 1–9, which, not unlike Deuteronomy, sets out a theological framework grounded in divine instruction, mediated by the parents, and oriented towards fearing Yhwh and keeping Yhwh's commands.
The expectation is that, as the reader follows this exhortation, they will be equipped to attain three main aims: (1) to grow in understanding, cultivating a sort of wisdom that is characterised by a right disposition towards Yhwh; (2) to grow in moral virtue, both in the pursuit of ‘righteousness, justice, and fairness’, as well as being equipped with the sensibility to steer clear of the collection's more sinister characters; and (3) to pass on the mantle to the next generation, keeping the tradition passed down in generations gone by alive for generations yet to come.
The introduction's programmatic function in relation to what follows was then demonstrated in the way that each of these aims could be traced through Proverbs 1–9. However, the introduction does not just outline the agenda of Proverbs 1–9 itself; it also indicates how the first collection functions in relation to the collections that follow. Given the likelihood that Proverbs 1–9 was itself written as an introduction to the collections in chapters. 10–29,Footnote 45 it could plausibly be suggested that the ‘proverb’ (משל) and the ‘words of the wise’ (דברי חכמים) in Proverbs 1:6 refer not simply to the contents of chapters 1–9, but to the book's later collections as well – not least because the proverb collections that follow are headed wither with the ‘proverbs of Solomon’ (משלי שלמה; 10:1; 25:1), or ‘words of the wise’ (דברי חכמים; 22:17; 24:23).Footnote 46
This being the case, the introduction in Proverbs 1:1–7 not only sets out the perspective and agenda of the first collection in and of itself, but, as an introduction to the introduction, goes further to underscore the first collection's prefatory function within the context of the book as a whole. Under the umbrella of the first expectation listed above, to grow in understanding (taken as a further corollary of listening to parental and divine instruction, in accordance with the paradigm set forth in chapters 1–9) is that the reader will be equipped with the necessary theological perspective and framework to properly appropriate what the rest of the book has to say. Along these lines, Proverbs 1–9 ends where it began:
Impart wisdom to the wise and they will become wiser still,
Make it known to the righteous and they will increase in learning
The first-fruit of wisdom is the fear of Yhwh
and knowledge of the Holy One is insight (Prov 9:9–10).
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