Page 103 - The Poetic Books - Student Text

living and harlots. None of them will part with it from motives of generosity and charity.
But while they grasp it fast with both hands, God will pull it out from between their
fingers, and toss it irrecoverably from them. Should they even be permitted to hold it all
their days, death, that terrible messenger, shall at last drag them from it; nor shall their
glory descend after them to the grave, but that wickedness by which they acquired it
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shall lie down with them in the dust and torture their souls in hell.

Some experts invent ways to organize the material. They might recognize repeated words but suggest
the repetition was for purposes of memorizing. Seeing the proverbs as nothing more than independent
sentences put together in “atomistic” fashion, they want to rearrange the proverbs in a more logical way.
William McKane, for example, proposes three classes. Class A sentences are old wisdom concerned with
the education of the individual for a successful and harmonious life. Class B concern the community
more than the individual. Class C contain God-language. He then proceeds to discuss the proverbs in
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their chapters according to his analysis of content and rearrangement.

The result chops up the proverbs from one another in their original places and glues them back together
in a different order. Chapter ten has Class A proverbs (vv. 1, 4, 5, 8, 13, 14, 15, 19, 26), Class B (vv. 10, 11,
12, 17, 18, 21, 23), and Class C (vv. 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 16, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32). Obviously 10:4
and 10:26 are about laziness, so they should be discussed together along with others about individuals.
Hatred stirring up conflict (10:12) and leading others astray through ignoring correction (10:17) are
about community. Class C verses contain most of the references in the chapter to the righteous and the
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wicked.

Inclusio None of these approaches are completely satisfying. The assumption is made
that a proverb is a short, unconnected piece of wisdom. Therefore, proverbs can
Catchword
be mixed up and reshuffled without damaging them. But Hebrew poetry uses a
Summarization variety of poetic forms to mark the beginnings of topics. We cannot discuss some
of these in English or other languages. Hebrew has its own set of sounds. Other
Janus structures can help us distinguish topics in rough paragraph form. These
structures include: inclusio (marking off a literary unit by matching the end with
Keywords the beginning), catchword (repeated in order to stitch the saying together),
summarization (an initial or final compact theme statement), and janus (a
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Chiasm transition statement looking backward and forward).

When we begin reading Proverbs 10, we observe the repetition of “wicked” (10:2
“ill-gotten”, 3, 6, 7, 16, 20, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 32) and “righteous” (10:2, 3, 6, 7, 11, 16, 20, 21, 24, 25, 28,
30, 31, 32). These are catchwords stitching the unit together. We might also notice the repetition of
“but” in each verse. The chapter is about the very great differences between the righteous and the
wicked, a difference discussed through chapter fifteen. We might expect such an emphasis since
Proverbs 1:3 announces that the book includes instruction about “what is right and just and fair.”

168 George Lawson, Commentary on Proverbs (Grand Rapids: Kegel Publications, 1992), 115.
169 William McKane, Proverbs (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970), 415.
170 Ibid., 415-427.

171Waltke, Proverbs, vol. 1, 47.
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