Is Proverbs beyond a commentary?

Proverbs starts with two major imperatives: To remain/remember, and to Quest

You find them both in Proverbs 2.1ff

My son,

Remain/Remember

if you receive my words
and treasure up my commandments with you,
making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;

Quest

yes, if you call out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver
and search for it as for hidden treasures,
then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.

So is wisdom learned from childhood or discovered in maturity?

The answer lies, I think, in the very first verses of Proverbs:

To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance
,
to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.

Proverbs is meant to be read, memorized, and meditated upon. You start with the words and you treasure them. But they are riddles. The repetitions, the alterations as you go through them (for instance) are meant for reflection. Wisdom is both initial gift and later gift.

In other words, while there are unambiguous principles that must be drawn from Proverbs, and which you violate only if you hate life and love death, Proverbs is not supposed to make sense on first reading. It is supposed to tease you, confuse you, and frustrate you. Anyone trying to figure out order and the reasons for the variations on a statement will experience this confusion and frustration. It is precisely wrestling with the text as you live your life that is supposed to teach you wisdom.

In other words, Proverbs teaches by training. God did this for Israel with manna. Later he commanded them to keep the Sabbath Holy but only after he had trained them with manna to gather food on six days and have leftovers on the Seventh. Likewise, in Ephesians 1.3ff, Paul teaches readers to pray and worship by involving them in his prayer and worship. Reading the Epistle out loud in a worship service is not simply the transmission of a message but the beginning of a practice.

So Proverbs is supposed to be read, memorized, and spoken aloud. It is not exhausted by the meaning of its statements. Those statements could be made much more succinctly without all the repetition. Nor would the point of Proverbs be exhausted if one was able to figure out the patterns and see a theological rationale. The Proverbs are the tools God uses to raise wise children. They are puzzles that one should play with. (I’m tempted to point out that they are God’s version of the computer program in the book, Ender’s Game, but I’m not sure how many of you would get it. And I haven’t finished the book yet so something might happen that spoils the analogy).

When will you be able to say you understand Proverbs? I don’t know. But I do know that you would be better served to think of using the book as your primary goal.

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