Proverbial poetry: its settings and syntax

Meri-ka-re which have much longer literary units.

'Onchsheshonqy is also less philosophically sophisticated

than the earlier works. Gemser warns against seeing a

"straight line of development of Egyptian wisdom and

proverbial literature."¹ Kitchen, particularly aware of

Egyptian wisdom as well as the biblical data, objects to a

unilinear evolution:

First, all lengths of basic unit (especially one to

six lines) occur in all areas, and at all periods.

Again from the mid-3rd millennium onwards there is no

unilinear development in either Egypt or Mesopotamia,

e.g. from 1-line to 2-line and so on.²
The Mesopotamian literature is not much different from the

Egyptian, as the later Akkadian literature contains less

____________________

¹Gemser, "The Instructions of 'Onchsheshonqy and

Biblical Wisdom Literature," in SAIW, pp. 159-60; Emerton,

"Wisdom," p. 229; Kayatz, Studien zu Proverbien 1-9, pp.

4-5; and Crenshaw, "Wisdom," p. 232.

²Kitchen, "Proverbs and Wisdom Books of the Ancient

Near East," p. 88.

essay material than the earlier Sumerian.¹

Some writers reject the nexus between Proverbs and

folk wisdom. Hermisson, following Bentzen's earlier

suggestion, objects to the folk setting as a source of the

Proverbs; instead he puts them in a school environment.²

Some, such as Nel, are hesitant to designate a proverb as

popular or folk if it is found in the setting of the book

of Proverbs.³ Murphy, for example, doubts if there is a

single folk proverb in the biblical text of Proverbs.⁴
Conclusion
In conclusion, a survey has been made of the

various settings and factors which have influenced the

origin and use of the book of Proverbs. A multiplex matrix

____________________

¹Khanjian, "Wisdom in Ugarit," p. 75.

²Aage Bentzen, Introduction to the Old Testament,

vol. 1 (Copenhagen: G. E. C. Gad, 1949), pp. 168, 173; and

Hermisson, Studien zur israelitischen Spruchweisheit, pp.

64-94. Hermisson apparently drew heavily from Andre

Jolles, a German literary critic, in Jolles' Einfache

Formen, 3rd ed. (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1965), pp.

1-22. An interesting discussion of both Hermisson and

Jolles is presented by Fontaine, "The Use of the

Traditional Saying in the Old Testament," pp. 12ff. Cf.

also Crenshaw, "Wisdom," p. 233.

³Nel, "The Genres of Biblical Wisdom Literature,"

p. 138; cf. his The Structure and Ethos, p. 15.

⁴Murphy, "The Interpretation of Old Testament

Wisdom Literature," p. 300; Waltke, "The Book of Proverbs

and Ancient Wisdom Literature," pp. 228-29; and Morgan,

Wisdom in the Old Testament Traditions, p. 32.
has been suggested which would include three basic

components: (1) the scribes and schools; (2) the king and

his court; and (3) the family. One may wonder about the

function of such a diachronic chapter in a discussion

which has as its goal the synchronic grammatical analysis

of proverbial poetry. However, in examining strictly

linguistic approaches, the writer has perceived several

problems. They are: (1) once a linguistic schema

(whether Transformational grammar, dependency grammars,

case grammar, or tagmemics) is opted for, all research is

put aside for a rather priggish analysis of the text

itself; (2) the ignoring of genre development and

historical setting, which, while not necessarily vital for

linguistic analysis, are necessary in the establishment of

a full aesthetic appreciation and adequate understanding

of the texts; and (3) the pragmatic context within which

one understands linguistic symbols must not be limited

merely to the corpus of text being examined nor even the

totality of semiotic signals which compose the language as

a whole, for one must also be acutely aware of the

historical, cultural, sociological, inter/intra-personal

contexts which are present. This chapter attempts to

provide such a background, thereby broadening the scope

and significance of the paper--hopefully without

degenerating into superficiality which often accompanies a

widening of horizons. This chapter, in addition to the

preceding ones, allows one to see where past wisdom and

proverbial studies have gone. Its purpose has been to

demonstrate the need and appropriate slot for a linguistic

analysis of the canonical sentence literature in the

broader domain of wisdom studies. It is within this deep

diachronic framework that the synchronic syntactic

analysis of the text should be appreciated. Rather than

viewing the difficulties of establishing a historical

setting as a muddled maze or an inescapable quagmire to be

avoided at all cost, it should provide a needed loose

tapestry against which the rich hues of a synchronic

syntactic analysis may find its significance. To analyze

the proverbial sentences merely syntactically would be to

examine the beauties of a single thread while ignoring its

relationship to the tapestry which gives the thread its

meaning.

CHAPTER V

THE STRUCTURAL SETTING OF WISDOM

Introduction: Importance of

Literary Form
The multifarious settings of wisdom provide the

generalized scenarios in which the expression of

individual wisdom forms should be understood. It must be

acknowledged, contrary to normal form critical procedures,

that no necessary one-to-one connection can be dictated

between form and Sitz im Leben. Rather, a multiplex

setting as sketched above provides the general historical

arena in which the sagacious word-smith plies his craft.

One should not ignore the form utilized by the sage to

express his wisdom. Certainly the care that he admonishes

the young to take in the verbalization of their ideas into

carefully chosen words (Prov 10:20, 32; 15:28; 25:11, 15)

would be observed by the wise man himself (Eccl 12:10).

As the examination of form has proven to be an

indispensible interpretive aid in psalmic literature, so

too it is fundamental for any real appreciation of the

proverbial corpus.¹ Crenshaw's "Prolegomenon" points out,

____________________

¹Claus Westermann, The Psalms: Structure,

Content and Message (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House,

1980);
in contrast to prophetic studies, the lack of work done on

the isolation of the literary forms characteristic of

wisdom.¹

Muilenburg, introducing rhetorical criticism,

correctly observes that "a responsible and proper

articulation of the words in their linguistic patterns and

in their precise formulations will reveal to us the texture

and fabric of the writer's thought, not only what it is

that he thinks, but as he thinks it."² The importance of

structure in any semiotic system is essential for

understanding the meaning symbolized in that system. Thus

structure should not be viewed as mere literary

____________________

Leopold Sabourin, The Psalms: Their Origin and Meaning

(New York: Alba House, 1970); and A. A. Anderson, Psalms,

in New Century Bible, ed. R. E. Clements and M. Black

(Greenwood, SC: The Attic Press, Inc., 1972). The

historical books have also benefited from the study of form

(e.g., Meredith Kline, Treaty of the Great King [Grand

Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1963]; and R. J.

Vannoy, Covenant Renewal at Gilgal [Cherry Hill, NJ: Mack

Publishing Co., 1978]).

¹James L. Crenshaw, "Prolegomenon," in SAIW,

p. 13. In 1969 Murphy also made a similar observation

(Murphy, "The Interpretation of Old Testament Wisdom

Literature," p. 301). Both of these men have since then

made contributions in the area of form criticism and wisdom

(Crenshaw, "Wisdom," in Old Testament Form Criticism, ed.

J. H. Hayes [1974], pp. 225-64; and Murphy, Wisdom

Literature, in The Forms of the Old Testament Literature

[Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Comp., 1981]).

²James Muilenburg, "Form Criticism and Beyond,"

JBL 88 (1969):7. Cf. also Martin Kessler, "A

Metholodogical Setting for Rhetorical Criticism," in Art

and Meaning, JSOT Supplement Series 19, ed. D. J. Clines et

al. (1982), pp. 1-19.

ornamentation or meaningless rhetorical garnishments.¹

Rather it is only through the form that meaning may be

discovered. One should not fixate on one linguistic level,

since meaning comes at all levels.² To suggest that

words alone are the sole bearers of meaning and that only

propositional truth-valued meaning is significant is to

ignore the text, which proffers meaning down to the

sub-word level of the morpheme and as high as the sentence,

paragraph, and discourse levels.

____________________

¹Porten, "The Structure and Theme of the Solomon

Narrative," p. 95; Luis Alonso Schokel, "The Vision of Man

in Sirach 16:24-17:14," in Israelite Wisdom: Theological

and Literary Essays in Honor of Samuel Terrien, ed. J. G.

Gammie et al. (New York: Union Theological Seminary,

1978), p. 235; Glendon E. Bryce, "The Structural Analysis

of Didactic Texts," in Biblical and Near Eastern Studies:

Essays in Honor of William Sanford LaSor, ed. G. A. Tuttle

(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1978), p.

108.

²Kenneth L. Pike and Evelyn G. Pike, Grammatical

Analysis (Arlington, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics

Publications in Linguistics, 1982), p. 4; E. J. Lovelady,

"A Tagmemic Analysis of Genesis 37" (A Seminar paper

presented to J. R. Battenfield: Grace Theological

Seminary, 1973), pp. 3-4; and Robert E. Longacre, "Some

Fundamental Insights of Tagmemics," Language 41

(1965):73-74. This last article is also found in Advances

in Tagmemics, ed. Ruth M. Brend, in North-Holland

Linguistic Series, ed. S. C. Dik and J. G. Kooij

(Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co., 1974), pp.

11-23. Also vid. Longacre, An Anatomy of Speech Notions

(Lisse: The Peter De Ridder Press, 1976), pp. 255-308 for

a more semantic, deep structural application of this same

principle. Biblical students have tended to fixate

myopically on the word-clause levels in their study of

grammar. W. Kaiser's attempt at lifting awareness to the

paragraph level is both refreshing and disappointing

(Toward an Exegetical Theology: Biblical Exegesis for

Preaching and Teaching [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House,

1981]).
The larger units are not to be viewed merely in an

additive sense, combining words in a linear fashion, for

the discourse itself comes to its audience as a semantic

carrier just as much as individual words. An interesting

example of structural meaning at the sentence level may be

illustrated from Dundes, who writes of a triad of proverbs

which, although the words and imagery are totally diverse,

has a common sentential thrust.
He who is bitten by a snake fears even a rope.

A scalded cat fears even cold water.

Whoever is burned on hot squash blows on cold yogurt.
The point here is not to atomize semantically the imagery

and semantic components of each word, but to stand back and

appreciate the shared message that the sentences generate.¹

Would it not be obviously unproductive to do a word study

on the word "bitten" to discover the meaning of the

proverbial sentence? Thus, all levels of language bear

meaning and each level should be appreciated accordingly.

Ryken correctly states the importance of literary form to

interpretation:
A reader of Scripture is opening the door to

misunderstanding whenever he ignores the literary

____________________

¹Dundes, "On the Structure of the Proverb," p. 105.

Fontaine notes the following examples off: "If it rained

duck soup, he'd be there with a fork." and "If it rained

five-dollar gold pieces, he'd be there with boxing gloves

on" (Fontaine, "The Use of the Traditional Saying in the

Old Testament," p. 65 [cf. Prov 19:5, 9]).

principles of various literary forms. When he fails

to ask literary questions he will go astray.¹

The forms must not be reduced to their truth content;

rather, their aesthetic value must be sweetly savored. One

must not miss the delight in the risible comparison of the

golden ring in a pig's snout with a beautiful woman without

sense (Prov 11:22), nor the disgust at the otiose sluggard

whose hand is too lazy to return to his mouth (Prov 19:24,

cf. also 26:14, 15).² Meticulous care must be taken to

observe the surface structure as the key that unlocks the

deep structure meaning of these terse sayings.³

With all the complexity and multiplicity of the

various form types, one should not miss the unifying

feature--that is, they are all composed in poetry.⁴ With

the current debates on the essential features of Hebrew

poetic meter, parallelism, and line-forms, any discussion

____________________

¹Leland Ryken, "Good Reading in the Good Book,"

Christianity Today (January 17, 1975), p. 6. Cf. also

Robert Gordis, Poets, Prophets, and Sages: Essays in

Biblical Interpretation (Bloomington: Indiana University

Press, 1971), p. 61; and J. J. Gluck, "The Figure of

'inversion' in the Book of Proverbs," Semitics 5 (1977):24.

J. Williams also gives a detailed analysis of form-content

relationships in proverbs (J. G. Williams, Those Who Ponder

Proverbs: Aphoristic Thinking and Biblical Literature

[Sheffield: The Almond Press, 1981], pp. 71-75).

²Thompson, The Form and Function, p. 74.

³Fontaine, "The Use of the Traditional Saying in

the Old Testament," p. 17; and Thompson, The Form and

Function, pp. 15, 48-49.

⁴von Rad, Wisdom in Israel, p. 24.
of proverbial form must bring the present advances of

poetic analysis to bear on the study of proverbial form.

It is interesting to note the lack of integration between

modern poetic discussions and proverbial studies, which,

if they are discussed at all, reflect a simplistic

Lowth-Gray-Robinson Standard Description semantic model.¹

A survey of the form types employed in wisdom is

significant in that it will heighten an aesthetic

appreciation of the imagery and the exacting care the

sages took to convey their thoughts in a form which would

enhance the communication of their message. This chapter

will examine the various forms in the following manner.

First, some of the deep structure thought forms will be

categorized. Second, a catalogue of various types of form

lists will be enumerated. Third, the broad wisdom genres

will be exampled (viz., onomastica, riddles, fables,

etc.). Fourth, a closer look will be taken at

specific proverbial forms (viz., admonition, numerical

____________________

¹For example Thompson's fine work on the function

of Proverbs is marred by a simplistic view of parallelistic

structure which may be pedagogically helpful in introducing

the concept of parallelism but certainly inadequate as a

means of poetic analysis. Thompson, The Form and Function,

p. 61 where he gives examples of synonymous (Prov 17:4),

synthethic (Prov 16:4), antithetic (Prov 12:23) and

comparative (Prov 25:14) parallelisms. Cf. also Bullock's

discussion in An Introduction to the Old Testament Poetic

Books, pp. 41-48. A. M. Cooper's dissertation is a

pleasant exception, "Biblical Poetics: A Linguistic

Approach" (Ph. D. dissertation, Yale University, 1976), pp.

112-40 where he analyzes Prov 8:22-31.

saying, better-than saying etc.). These forms will

demonstrate the sages' concern for and use of a proper

literary expression of his message.
Deep Structure Thought Forms
The function of proverbs in Israelite society is

an area which lends itself to much speculation and which

demands that more attention be paid to proverbs in

non-collectional, user-oriented contexts. Thompson

speculates that there are four basic functions of

proverbs. These are: 1) philosophical (e.g., the

numerical proverb as an attempt of man to order his

world); (2) entertainment (Prov 11:22; 19:24; 26:17; and

possibly riddles in Prov 16:24; 20:17; 22:1); (3) legal (2

Sam 20:18; Prov 11:1; 23:10, which use is also found in

African proverbial folklore); and (4) instructional (the

common call of the "son" to attention).¹ Williams

objects that Thompson's functions are rather arbitrary and

develops the idea that the form has the logical function

of "establishing likenesses and priorities, positing

antitheses, indicating reasons, etc." Williams'

suggestions develop Thompson's category of the

philosohical function of Proverbs, although his underlying

criticism of the speculative nature of Thompson's work is

____________________

¹Thompson, The Form and Function, pp. 68-83. He

also develops these functions in Egyptian and Mesopotamian

texts.

an appropriate caution.¹

Scott's list of deep structural purposes of

proverbs has often been repeated in the literature with

few actually developing its potential in the text. Scott

brilliantly proposes seven deep structure wisdom thought

forms, which are: (1) identity, equivalence, invariable

association (Prov 29:5); (2) non-identity, contrast,

paradox (Prov 27:7); (3) similarity, analogy, type (Prov

25:25); (4) contrary to right order, futile, absurd (Prov

17:16); (5) classification and clarification (Prov 14:15);

(6) value, relative value or priority, proportion or

degree (Prov 22:1); and (7) consequences of human

behaviour or character (Prov 20:4).² These categories

will imbricate at times but provide a useful starting

point in the examination of proverbial deep structure.

Folklore studies have been extremely fruitful as

they have often utilized a structuralist point of view.

Kuusi observes that the imagery used does not determine

the message of the proverb as demonstrated in the examples

above (snake bitten/fears rope). Fontaine distinguishes

____________________

¹Williams, Those Who Ponder Proverbs, p. 104.

Note, in a similar vein that Dundes moves away from a

functional approach to a more "formal" criterion of a

proverb (Dundes, Analytic Essays in Folklore, p. 104).

²Scott, The Way of Wisdom, pp. 59-63; Bullock, An

Introduction to the Old Testament Poetic Books, pp. 159-60;

Crenshaw, Old Testament Wisdom, p. 71; and "Wisdom," p.

230.

between image, message and architectural formula. These

are helpful divisions which are often overlooked by those

who confuse image and message.1 The details of

semantico-logical structures may be seen in Dundes'

formulation: (1) the equational proverb (A = B; "Time is

money," "Seeing is believing," "He who hesitates is lost,"

or "Where there's a will there's a way"); (2) the negation

proverb (A =/= B; this includes Scott's category of relative

value proverbs--"Two wrongs don't make a right" or

"Hindsight is better than foresight"); (3) complementary

distribution (if you have B, you can't have A--"You can't

have your cake and eat it too"); (4) causal (A causes B;

"Haste makes waste" or "Familiarity breeds contempt"); (5)

oppositional causal (A cannot produce B; "You can lead a

horse to water but you can't make him drink"); and (6)

chronological reversal (reverses the usual chronological

order; "Don't count your chickens before they hatch" or

"Catch the bear before you sell its skin").2 Fontaine

____________________

¹Fontaine, "The Use of the Traditional Saying in

the Old Testament," p. 124.

²Dundes, Analytic Essays in Folklore, pp. 110-13.

Dundes also rejects Milner's "Quadripartite Structures,"

Proverbium 14 (1969):379-83 as subjective and atomisitic.

Nigel Barley's brilliant article ("A Structural Approach to

the Proverb and Maxim with Special Reference to the

Anglo-Saxon Corpus," Proverbium, 20 [1972]:737-50).

provides a linguistic-semantic model for proverb analysis.

Cf. also Anna-Leena Kuusi, "Towards an International

Type-System of Proverbs," Proverbium 19 (1972):698-737;

and, more grammatically oriented, "An Approach to

Categorisation of Phrases" Proverbium, 23 (1974):895-904.

has employed these methods with great profit to the

biblical traditional sayings, although, as yet, they have

not been applied to the text of Proverbs.¹

Form List Survey
The types of forms utilized by the wise men have

been listed and examined in recent studies. Two

perspectives may be seen in the various listings of form

types. First, there are those working with ancient Near

Eastern materials either from Egypt, with its

instructional texts, or from in Sumer and its resultant

Mesopotamian materials. Gordon proposes that there are

the following types of proverbs: precept, maxim, truism,

adage, byword, taunt, compliment, toast, short fable,

parable, anecdote and character sketch.² He further

enumerates eleven genres in Sumerian and Akkadian wisdom

texts, citing examples of each type. He lists the

following: (1) proverbs; (2) fables and parables;

(3) folk-tales; (4) miniature "essays"; (5) riddles;

(6) "edubba" compositions; (7) wisdom disputations;

(8) satirical dialogues; (9) practical instructions;