Journal: Grace Theological Journal
Volume: GTJ 11:2 (Fall 1990)
Article: Proverbial Strings: Cohesion In Proverbs 10
Author: Ted Hildebrandt

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GTJ 11:2 (Fall 90) p. 171

Proverbial Strings:
Cohesion In Proverbs 10

Ted Hildebrandt

While most commentators take Proverbs 10–22 as a haphazard collection of proverbial sentences, this paper seeks to show that the sentences are cohesively ordered. The “proverbial string” is proposed as one such larger compositional unit. Four strings were discovered in Proverbs 10 (10:1–5, 6–11, 12–21, 22–30 ) with the sentences bonded by catchwords, rhetorical devices, themes, sound echoes, and shared syntactic constructions. The sentences of Proverbs 10–22 are an artistically woven tapestry with the position of each thread contributing to the beauty of the whole.

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Introduction

For the vast majority of interpreters Prov 10:1–22:16 is a disorderly collage of independent proverbs. J. Thompson complains: “As for our canonical proverbs in particular, they fail to reach us, it would seem, for…they are jumbled together willy-nilly into collections.”1

Some, having discovered common themes or catchwords, allow for small proverbial clusters, but quickly go on to minimize the significance of such canonical collectional processes. So C. Rylaarsdam comments, “Even when two or more successive proverbs deal more or less with the same subject (for example 10:4–5) the connection seems incidental rather than organic.”2

GTJ 11:2 (Fall 90) p. 172

On the other side, P. Skehan, followed by S. Brown, suggests that the whole of Prov 10:1–22:16 is numerically composed of precisely 375 sentences (Solomon’s name = 375) with mechanical 25 verse subunits.3 The chimerical 25 verse sub-units, however, do not stand up to close analysis.

A methodology is needed that will expose and appreciate the principles utilized in constructing the proverbial collections.4 Literary shaping on the level of the collection suggests that there may also be interpretive significance on that level. The focus here will be in demonstrating that Proverbs 10 ...

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