Review in: JOURNAL
OF THE EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 40/4
Review door: Robert L.
Alden
Proverbs. By R.
N. Whybray. NCBC. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994, xxxii + 446 pp., $19.95 paper.
Proverbs
is
the third commentary by Whybray in the NCBC series. His others are on Ecclesiastes
and
Isaiah
40–66. This volume demonstrates the same degree of thoroughness and
competency with the Hebrew text and the secondary literature as the others.
After a
table of abbreviations and a 20-page bibliography, there follows a relatively brief
introduction (18 pp.). Relative to the question of authorship, he apparently sides
with “the majority of scholars [who] now believe that the book contains a good
deal of material originating in the period of the Israelite monarchy” (p. 6;
cf. p. 16). But relative to the date of Proverbs in its present canonical form,
it “cannot be earlier than the early post-exilic period” (p. 6).
Whybray
is not sympathetic to the idea that Israelite wisdom is “secular” or that the
proverbs can be pegged to a certain development in wisdom literature on the
basis of whether or not they mention God. He understands wisdom to be related
and integrated with the rest of the OT. Proverbs complements rather than
opposes the rest of the OT. A strength of this commentary is the author’s efforts
to see connections and organization in the Biblical book. While this is
regularly done through the commentary, he notes in the introduction the
possible connection between Lady Wisdom in the fist nine chapters, but
especially chaps. 8–9, and the noble wife of chap. 31.
Whybray
breaks down the somewhat miscellaneous first nine chapters as a “series of 10
instructions” (1:8–19; 2:1–22; 3:1–12; 3:21–35; 4:1–9; 4:10–19; 4:20–27; 5:1–23;
6:20–35; 7:1–27), interrupted by three insertions (1:20–30; 3:13–20; 6:1–19), preceded
by a preface (1:1–7) and concluded by a “diptych” contrasting Lady Wisdom and
the Woman Folly (chaps. 8–9). There is both miscellany and unity in these nine chapters,
but all the sections more or less expand on the preface and share its
vocabulary. Nevertheless they lack logical arrangement.
One of
the most frequent themes is that young men should avoid evil company and immoral
women. Both terms for these women are understood as “the wife of another man”
rather than non-Israelite women or cult prostitutes (p. 55). Whybray believes that
these chapters were written to upper-class youths, because there are no
references to manual labor, and the Biblical author assumes they were literate.
He explores, but does not support, the possibility that wisdom personified has
extra-Biblical roots and that it has been “demythologized.” “Whatever remnants
of polytheism may be detected in these chapters, there is no question that the
text in its present form is monotheistic” (pp. 28, 119, 120). He devotes
considerable discussion to pivotal words, e.g. “create/acquire” in 8:22 and
“master workman” in 8:30. But usually after a survey of alternatives, the
author fails to endorse any particular view. Occasionally Whybray dismisses a
view as unsupportable, or sometimes he complains that the RSV is speculative, but
he seldom offers a convincingly better solution. There are frequent judgments that
this or that is added or is an intrusion or is subsequent to something more original,
yet there is a reluctance to date such “additions.” Never does the question of inspiration
arise or any discussion regarding at what point the Holy Spirit was active in
the oral or written history of the book of Proverbs.
In the
commentary proper all Hebrew is transliterated. All “footnotes” are in
parentheses in the text using abbreviations and page numbers of those works
cited in the front of the book. The actual words of the RSV are in bold type
scattered through the pages, so it is easy to find your place. Whybray is
familiar with virtually all commentaries on Proverbs and alludes to these
often. The most frequently cited are McKane and Plöger.
In the
comments there is a good balance between genre observations, alternate views of
commentators, structure questions, various translations of given words or phrases,
and notes about hapax legomena or Qere and Ketiv. There are
minimal textual emendations and sidetracks. The author is remarkably
nonpolemical. Homiletic applications are left to the reader. Some verses are
dealt with in a line or two; others with exegetical problems sometimes consume
more than a page. Normally two to four verses are covered on each page. The
further along the commentary goes the more cross references there are to
similar words, phrases, or whole proverbs discussed.
In sum,
the strengths of this rather technical commentary are in the thoroughness of
the discussion of textual problems and in the efforts Whybray makes to see
organization and connections within the book. In the “proverbs of Solomon”
sections of the book most English Bibles set up each proverb as a separate
entity. This commentary seeks to rectify that. If there is any weakness, it is
in failing to endorse particular solutions to the many textual, interpretative,
and translation questions that plague this collection of ancient, cryptic,
Semitic wisdom sentences.
Robert L. Alden
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