Blog Sabbath 2009!

And with the conclusion of the Book of Proverbs, it's time for the annual November - December MRtB Sabbath!

I read only six Books this year, but that included the massive and in some ways daunting Book of Psalms. In total, I've finished 20 of the Bible's 66 Books now, so I'm 30.3% of the way in. I read 256 chapters, though, which brings me up to 659 out of 1189, well over halfway through (55.4%). I'm at 55.7% of the way through in Verses, having completed a whopping 16401 out of 31102.

I stayed on task pretty well in 2009, despite the trouble that the Books of Job and Psalms gave me. I covered 5299 verses over the course of the year, down from 7124 last year but well over the 4687 in 2007 and 206 in 2006). I have 5829 verses to go to reach the New Testament, which would be a nice break point; it's an ambitious goal, but I will see if I can finish off the Old Testament in 2010. That would put the end of the whole project sometime in 2012. Mercy.

So, whatever readers there may be: Have lovely winter holidays of your choosing. I may well be back for a few pieces of unfinished business -- Elaine's request for me to read the book about the rabbit, for instance -- but we'll get back to actual Bible-readin' sometime around the new year. Ecclesiastes ho!!!

Proverbs 22-31: Wrapping Up Proverbs

The specific material we have been looking at in the last few posts – the entire stretch from Proverbs 10 to halfway through Proverbs 22, in fact – falls under the heading “Proverbs of Solomon.” In today’s reading, there are several subdivisions, and the content starts to change up a bit from Proverbs 25 to the last chapter, Proverbs 31.

Proverbs 22 - 24 for Dummies

The first half of Proverbs 22 still comes under the “Proverbs of Solomon” label. The second half of Proverbs 22, all of 23, and the first half of 24 are labeled “Sayings of the Wise.” The second half of 24 is labeled “Further Sayings of the Wise.” There are some minor stylistic differences here from the material we’ve been going through, but it certainly covers the same terrain in terms of themes. It has the same basic teachings about what’s good and what’s bad. And here, as a public service, I present the summary list!

Good Things:

A good reputation
Prudence
Humility
Fear of God
Bringing up children well
Being rich
Generosity
Purity of Heart
Graciousness
Disciplining children
Being skilled
Restraint
Being wise (x6)
Listening to your parents
Having advisers
Rescuing people in trouble
Honesty
Doing the outside work first, and making sure your crops are planted before building your house.

This last, very specific piece of wisdom (24:27) reminds us that the Bible comes from a specific time and place, one where the outside work generates food to sustain life and housing is a luxury. Presumably, Eskimos and those of us living in food-abundant technological societies are given a pass on this one.

Bad Things

Being wicked
Being poor
Sowing wickedness
Unfaithfulness
Kissing an adulteress
Mocking (x2)
Oppressing the poor (x2)
Giving gifts to the rich
Crushing the needy in court
Being friends with a hot-tempered man
Backing the debts of others
Moving an ancient boundary stone (x2)
Gluttony (x2)
Being too excited about riches
Eating the food of a stingy man
Speaking to a fool
Encroaching on the fields of the fatherless
Withholding discipline from children
Envying sinners (x3)
Drinking too much (x2)
Cavorting with prostitutes
Plotting evil
Faltering
Pretending you didn’t know that other people were in trouble
Being a biased judge
Giving false testimony
Revenge
Burglary
Gloating
Rebelling against the king

So there you have it! All the does and don’ts, in a convenient list form!

Proverbs 25 – 29

This section is called “More Proverbs of Solomon,” but Chapters 25 and 26 in particular are quite a bit different than the previous Proverbs of Solomon. The first half of Chapter 25 consists of what I am calling “Proverbs of Court” – pieces of advice for kings and people going to a king’s court. The second half of 25, and almost all of 26, are mostly analogies. These vary from the obvious to the cryptic:

Like the one who seizes a dog by the ears
is a passer-by who meddles in a quarrel not his own. (26:17)

As a dog returns to its vomit,
so a fool repeats his folly. (26:11)

Like a lame man’s legs that hang limp
is a proverb in the mouth of a fool. (26:7)

Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day,
or like vinegar poured on soda,
is one who sings songs to a heavy heart. (25:20)

I spent quite a while trying to figure out whether 26:4-5 was a flagrant contradiction:

Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
Or you will be like him yourself.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
Or he will be wise in his own eyes.

Well, maybe. Or maybe the Bible is just expressing a paradox to the effect that “you just can’t win when you’re talking with a fool!” That’s some catch, that Catch 26:4-5.

Proverbs 27-29 return to the same style and themes of Proverbs 10-22. In fact, these Chapters often return to the exact same words, even whole Verses, of earlier Chapters. There are a fair number of reruns here in Proverbs.

Proverbs 30

This Chapter is called “Sayings of Agur,” Agur having been either an “oracle” or the son of a Man from Massa; the interpretation isn’t clear. I’m betting on “oracle,” though, as his sayings are pretty mystical. Which is to say, trippy:

Who has gone up to heaven and come down?
Who has gathered up the wind in the hollow of his hands?
Who has wrapped up the waters in his cloak?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is his name, and the name of his son?
Tell me if you know! (4)

The leech has two daughters.
“Give! Give!” they cry. (15)

Much of the chapter consists of a peculiar kind of list, a type I’ve noticed one or two other examples of in earlier passages. In Agur’s Sayings, the form goes “There are four things that [are {x}], three things that [are {synonym of x}], and then a list of four items.

There are three things that are stately in their stride,
four that move with stately bearing:
a lion, mighty among beasts,
who retreats before nothing;
a strutting rooster, a he-goat,
and a king with his army around him. (29-31)

There are three things that are never satisfied,
four that never say, ‘Enough!’:
the grave, the barren womb,
land, which is never satisfied with water,
and fire, which never says, ‘Enough!” (15-16)

This is a pretty cool riddle form, but I’m not sure what they are really supposed to mean, why they are supposed to be significant. There’s only one that seems straightforward; I think that in 18-19 Agur is trying to make the ancient joke that woman are just too darn inscrutable. He chooses his words poorly, though, and would likely get laughed out of the bar if he were to repeat them today:

There are three things that are too amazing for me,
four that I do not understand:
the way of an eagle in the sky,
the way of a snake on a rock,
the way of a ship on the high seas,
and the way of a man with a maiden.

Really, how does a guy get to be oracle without understanding that last bit?

Proverbs 31

The final Chapter of Proverbs is split in two sections. The first are the Sayings of King Lemuel, or actually the sayings of King Lemuel’s mother. He reports that she warned him that he, as a king, should avoid women, wine, and beer, that he should be a fair judge, and that he should defend the rights of the poor and the needy.

Part two is the Epilogue: The Wife of Noble Character. In 21 Verses, this passage describes the Proverbial dream girl. She is, you may have heard, worth far more than rubies. (10) It is pretty specific about tasks appropriate to a pre-modern agricultural society, but the gist is that a good wife is hard-working, smart, trustworthy, generous, even-keeled, religious, and responsible. She doesn’t need to be charming or pretty, but those things aren’t important in the long run anyway.

Proverbs 19-21: Proverbs and the Poor, Proverbs in the Marketplace, and other good advice.

Let's begin with my favorite Proverbs from #19, just because it's fun to imagine them cross-stitched, or carved on a plaque, hanging on a kitchen wall:

A foolish son is his father's ruin,
and a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping.
Houses and wealth are inherited from parents,
but a prudent wife is from the Lord. (13-14)

Proverbs and the Poor

The Proverbs continue to be a mixed batch here in Chapter 19, but five of the twenty-nine happen to deal with the poor. They are the following:

Better a poor man whose walk is blameless
than a fool whose lips are perverse. (1)

Wealth brings many friends,
but a poor man's friend deserts him. (4)

A poor man is shunned by all his relatives --
how much more do his friends avoid him!
Though he pursues them with pleading, they are nowhere to be found. (7)

It is not fitting for a fool to live in luxury --
how much worse for a slave to rule over princes! (10)

What a man desires is unfailing love;
better to be poor than a liar. (22)

OK, Verse 1 is straightforward enough, and Verse 22 is a bit disjointed but means basically the same thing. What is a little more surprising is Verses 4 and 7, with what appears to be a negative attitude about the poor. On one hand, the observation that it's easier for people who are well off to attract friends could be passed off as a neutral observation, a simple statement of the way things are. But this is a book of wisdom, as we have been repeatedly told, and the assumption is that all its verses have moral weight. Looked at in this light, Verses 4 and 7 acquire the sense of "It's obnoxious to be poor, so you have an obligation to avoid poverty." Harsh!

The class dynamics of 19:10 are a little puzzling too. I can remember a time back in Exodus that the Bible was all about slaves getting to rule over their masters, but it seems here like there has been a turn towards the Conservative. Well, these are the Proverbs of Solomon, after all, and Solomon is a king, and kings are not known for their calls for the poor to rise up and throw of their chains.

Proverbs in the Marketplace

Again, Proverbs 20 has the usual mix-and-match, but I'm picking out a handful that have to do with economic life.

There are a lot of Proverbs about laziness, including these:

A sluggard does not plow in season;
so at harvest time he looks but finds nothing. (4)

Do not love sleep or you will grow poor;
stay awake and you will have food to spare. (13)

Well, fair enough. A certain amount of get-up-and-go is required to prosper here in our modern age, but it's reasonable to assume this was all the more so when food supply was never far from anyone's mind.

Another thread of Proverbs concerns economic fair play:

Food gained by fraud tastes sweet to a man,
but he ends up with a mouth full of gravel. (17)

More explicit, and more common, are Proverbs about weights and measures. This seems a little comical to us today, but that's only because we generally HAVE standard, regulated weights and measures, and have lost sight of how difficult it is to conduct fair exchanges when you have to renegotiate the rules every time.

Differing weights and differing measures --
The Lord detests them both. (10)

The Lord detests differing weights,
and dishonest scales do not please him. (24)

Then there's this odd little gem:

"It's no good, it's no good!" says the buyer;
then off he goes and boasts about his purchase. (14)

Again, you could see this as a wry observation about human behavior. But as with 19:4 & 7, this comes in a list of moral injunctions, so we have to assume it has moral weight. My guess is that it is criticizing the buyer for his hypocrisy, but I'm not sure.

I'm even less sure about 20:16.

Take the garment of one who puts up security for a stranger;
hold it in pledge if he does it for a wayward woman.

Baffled. Anyone?

Mixed in with these commercial Proverbs, of course, are the continual reminders that, although the material world is important, there's something even importanter. Care to guess?

Gold there is, and rubies in abundance,
but lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel. (15)

Tricked you! You thought it was going to be "wisdom!"

Proverbs 21

The grab-bag goes on. Themes that we've just looked at are repeated:

The sluggard's craving will be the death of him,
because his hands refuse to work. (25)

A fortune made by a lying tongue
is a fleeting vapor and a deadly snare. (6)

There's a different note sounded about the poor:

If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor,
he too will cry out and not be answered. (13)

And encouragement of thrift:

He who loves pleasure will become poor;
whoever loves wine and oil will never be rich. (17)

In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil,
but a foolish man devours all he has. (20)

But the very, very most interesting Proverb of Chapter 21 -- one of the most interesting sentences in the whole book to date, really -- is this:

To do what is right and just
is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. (3)

WOAH WOAH WOAH WOAH WOAH!!! This is big news, as it appears to very casually undermine much of the Law of Moses. And it is strange to see this notion ascribed to Solomon, since we've already read through Kings and Chronicles that sacrifice was very important indeed for many, many generations after the death of Solomon. Indeed, if memory serves God was still judging kings and the fates of Israel and Judah according to the orthodoxy of their sacrifices, punishing them not just when altars were set up to other gods but when altars to God were set up not according to code.

So this is a rather explosive verse to find tucked in with the nagging-wife Proverbs, which may well be wise counsel to choose well in marriage but which must have always been a bit of comic relief:

Better to live on a corner of the roof
than share a house with a quarrelsome wife. (9)

Better to live in a desert
than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife. (19)

Next time: Proverbs 22-31: the Sprint

Today's Text: Proverbs 19-21

Proverbs 17 - 18: The Weakness of Categories; The Power of Language

Proverbs 17

My first thought for this go-round was that I'd extend my typology of Proverbs from last time and do a proverbial census. This is the kind of thing that, if all goes well, could lead to a pie chart, which would of course be awesome.

It started off well enough, with two new categories added to the ones from last time (dubious assertions, tautologies, judgments): assertions of faith and Proverbs of reward and revenge, the promises of better life for the virtuous and punishment for the evil, which I also talked about last time. But as I began the business of fitting each Proverb into one of the categories, I found my definitional edges starting to crumble.

Take 17:26, for instance:

It is not good to punish an innocent man,
or to flog officials for their integrity.

My first impulse was "judgment," a statement of principle. But then, you could also be a little cynical and call it a dubious assertion, for surely anyone who has read Machiavelli can imagine situations where it might be a good idea to punish some innocent men in order to preserve peace, prosperity, and public order. Or on the other hand, you could call it a tautology: the definition of "innocent" is more or less "those not deserving punishment."

Similarly with Verses 21 & 25:

To have a fool for a son brings grief;
there is no joy for the father of a fool.

A foolish son brings grief to his father
and bitterness to the one who bore him.

My first thought was "judgment"; they are an assessment that foolishness is bad. But then I thought, wait a minute, that's a pretty dubious assertion -- I know people whose children are kind of numbskulls, and they are happy enough in general and have reasonably good relationships with their kids too. Too, there's a whiff of tautology here in the obviousness of the statement, the idea that a parent wouldn't want they child to have bad qualities hardly being breaking news.

So, I gave up the categorizing.

Proverbs 18

In reading this Chapter, I noticed statements that seemed to imply a philosophy of knowledge. That's not to say that this chapter is "about" a philosophy of knowledge, mind you -- the individual Proverbs seem as much a grab-bag as ever. What set me off was probably 18:4

The words of a man's mouth are deep waters,
but the fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook.

Now a statement like this leaves lots of room for interpretation, of course, but it also seems to suggest that it doesn't want to be interpreted too much. It seems to argue for the concept of "Keep It Simple, Stupid" or of Occam's Razor. This might be a comfort for someone trying to dredge some understanding out of Derrida or Kant. Calls to prefer "common sense" over that too-fussy book larnin', though, are dangerous; they tend to render people resistant understanding or appreciating the workings of complex systems, and most systems are complex systems.

The chapter has numerous admonitions that it is better to shut up and listen than to shoot your mouth off.

A fool finds no pleasure in understanding
but delights in airing his own opinions. (2)

A fool's lips bring him strife
and his mouth invites a beating
A fool's mouth is his undoing,
and his lips are a snare to his soul. (6-7)

He who answers before listening --
that is his folly and his shame. (13)

The idea that you should shut up when you don't know what you are talking about is of course a compelling one, especially to anyone reading the reader comments on the average newspaper article. But there is also a very conservative element at play here. Solomon the King is famously wise -- he's really made it the hallmark of his brand -- and here he is saying that people who aren't wise should just shut the hell up. It is awfully convenient for him and his hold on power.

Because certainly, the author of Proverbs 18 understood the power of language. Check out Verse 17:

The first to present his case seems right,
till another comes forward and questions him.

Or the odd Verse 8:

The words of a gossip are like choice morsels;
they go down to a man's inmost parts.

This is perhaps an unfortunate metaphor, as the first thing that jumps into most heads about "choice morsels" is that they are tasty and highly desireable. I think the intended concept, though, is that gossip will worm its way into a person's inner being and be destructive there, rather than nourishing. Another curious metaphor follows at Verse 21:

The tongue has the power of life and death,
and those who love it will eat its fruit.

Bizarre imagery aside, the idea seems fairly clear: language is powerful, and knowing how to use language confers power.

Next Time: Proverbs and the Poor, Proverbs in the Marketplace, and other good advice.

Today's Text: Proverbs 17 - 18.

Proverbs 7 - 16: 235 Propositions

As we continue on into the Book of Proverbs, there is a break in style beginning with Proverbs 10. Chapters 7, 8, & 9, though, continue in the same vein as the material we were looking at last time. Chapter 7 is a warning against spending time with adultresses, and Chapter 8 is another paean to wisdom; Chapter 9 is a little folktale contrasting wisdom and folly.

Proverbs 7:6 - 22 is an uninterrupted narrative, which came as a real treat -- it had been a long time! It begins:

At the window of my house I looked out through the lattice.
I saw among the simple, I noticed among the young men, a youth who lacked judgment. (6 - 7)

This young guy has the misfortune to meet a woman whose husband is out of town. She kisses him with a brazen face and invites him home to check out her fine Egyptian linen sheets, which she has perfumed with myrrh, aloe, and cinnamon. After some smooth talking on her part,

All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter,
like a deer stepping into a noose. (22)

Now, I don't want to be unduly cynical, but having such an relatively long, detailed, and sexy story suddenly pop up in the text made me think about the exploitation paperbacks of 50 years back, a briefly popular genre that allowed publishers to print prurient sexual material under a paper-thin disguise of social criticism. Is it possible that this tale -- the sad story of the poor unfortunate lad who gets tricked into a terrible terrible night of hot cinnamon-scented sex with the beautiful, assertive, seductive woman -- was an occasion for more chortling, smirks, and elbowing in the ribs than solemn contemplation? No way of knowing, I suppose.

Chapter 8's praise of wisdom extends to a kind of personification, with capital-W Wisdom speaking in first person:

The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works,
before his deeds of old...

I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence,
rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind. (22, 30-31)

It is unusual to see an abstract virtue assigned a voice in the Bible, and it recalls for me a speech you might expect to hear from a god or goddess of wisdom in a pantheon. If you are willing to read this passage metaphorically, it's not too hard to accept it as a literary device, a way of praising wisdom by pretending to personify it. A strict Biblical literalist runs into another trouble spot here, though, as Wisdom is elevated to a minor god and we find ourselves once again confronted by a whiff of polytheism.

The Book of List

The heading for Proverbs 10 is Proverbs of Solomon, and what follows is a list of aphorisms that lasts for at least the next six chapters. These do not seem to be organized in any particular order, and the chapter breaks seem fairly arbitrary as well. Every individual verse, unless I am mistaken, is in the form of a couplet, the two halves of which often express opposite forms of the same idea (e.g. The Lord abhors dishonest scales, but accurate weights are his delight. (11:1))

The Proverbs assert the same values that we saw praised in the Psalms. They are pro-wisdom, of course, and also pro-honesty, pro-obedience, pro-work, pro-patience, and pro-charity. They are also pro-righteousness, although I still get question marks in my head when I see righteousness, which could reasonably be defined as "that which is praiseworthy," described as worthy of praise. The Proverbs are, as you might expect, anti-wickedness. They are anti-pride and anti-sloth, against mocking, lying, and shooting one's mouth off. And like the Psalms, they frequently offer promises of long life, prosperity, and security to the righteous and threats of destruction to the wicked.

The fear of the Lord adds length to life,
but the years of the wicked are cut short. (10:27)

The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it. (10:22)

The righteous man is rescued from trouble, and it comes on the wicked instead. (11:8)

The Lord tears down the proud man's house but he keeps the widow's boundaries intact. (15:25)

Three Kinds of Proverbs

There are probably a lot of ways that you could categorize this long list of moral statements, but three categories leapt out at me as I read. This is not to say "there are three kinds of Proverbs"; my three types are potentially overlapping and not comprehensive. Nevertheless:

The Tautologies

Quite a few of the Proverbs, at least in the English translation we are reading, are so circular as to be nearly meaningless. A particularly vivid example is Proverb 11:13,

A gossip betrays a confidence,
but a trustworthy man keeps a secret.

It is certainly a wise statement in the sense of being true, since it essentially recites the definition of "gossip" and "trustworthy." It adds little beyond this, however. Similarly, 15:13 doesn't tell us much we didn't already know:

A happy heart makes the face cheerful,
but heartache crushes the spirit.

Or 12:17:

A truthful witness gives honest testimony,
but a false witness tells lies.

And when 16:27 tells us that A scoundrel plots evil, there is nothing to be done but nod in agreement. That's what a scoundrel does, all right!

Most of the Tautological Proverbs are not quite so blatant. Take 10:26:

As vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes,
so is a sluggard to those who send him.

Well, yes. A sluggard is essentially someone who is annoyingly slow or lazy. So, to say that sluggards are annoying adds nothing that is not already inherent in the word "sluggard." People curse the man who hoards grain, begins 11:26 -- but then, unpopular anti-social behavior is already implied in the word "hoards." Again, the Proverb is stating a truth that is uncontestable, but only because it is circular.

The Dubious Truths

The Dubious Truths are confident assertions that, once you think about them, are vulnerable to obvious counterexamples.

Hatred stirs up dissension,
but love covers over all wrongs. (10:12)

For lack of guidance a nation falls,
but many advisers make victory sure. (11:14)

A kindhearted woman gains respect,
but ruthless men gain only wealth. (11:16)

These are probably better thought of not as hopelessly naive musings, but as statements of principle, of the way that things should be in a just society, all other things being equal.

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,
but he who hates correction is stupid. (12:1)

A man's riches may ransom his life,
but a poor man hears no threat. (13:8)

He who spares the rod hates his son,
but he who loves him is careful to discipline him. (13:24)

It would be unkind and unrealistic to think that Solomon, or his eventual amanuensis, really believed that all smart people love discipline, that the poor are safe from crime, and that indulgent parents hate their children. Once again, we must be looking at figures of speech, poetic ways of saying "It's good to discipline kids," "Being too rich can get you in trouble," and "It's a good idea to listen to constructive criticism."

Proverbs of Judgment

The Proverbs that are most user-friendly are the ones that simply state a principle. They make a judgment. Mind, this is not to criticize them. After all, wisdom is "good judgment" and the Proverbs are supposed to be all about the wisdom. So here, according to Solomon (or whomever), are some nuggets of pure wisdom:

Like a gold ring in a pig's snout
is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion. (11:22)

How much better to get wisdom than gold,
to choose understanding rather than silver! (16:16)

These are, however, surprisingly rare. To eyeball these six chapters, the majority of Proverbs seem to fall into the Dubious Truths category, with Tautologies leading Proverbs of Judgment among the minority categories.

Three Favorites

A heart at peace gives life to the body,
but envy rots the bones. (14:30)

Yeah!

Better a meal of vegetables where there is love
than a fatted calf with hatred. (15:17)

Well, I'm a quasi-vegetarian, and I like cows.

Grey hair is a crown of splendor;
it is attained by a righteous life. (16:31)

A very Calvinist sentiment, reflecting the idea that people who please God will live a long time while the bad guys are cut down in their prime. Whatever! It makes me think of my mom!

Next Time: I bet this list continues.

Today's Text: Proverbs 7 - 16.

Proverbs 1 - 6: Bring on the Wisdom!

In the last entry, looking forward to the book of Proverbs and trying to imagine what I would find in it, I had the vague notion that it might be like Polonius' famous advice speech in Hamlet -- you know, "neither a borrower nor a lender be" and all of that. Well, to my considerable amazement... I was right. Proverbs really is a lot like Polonius' famous advice speech in Hamlet!! It is suggestions for right living, couched as a long speech from a father to his son, and even -- forgive me -- has some of the long-winded and too-obvious qualities of the Shakespeare speech.

Each chapter begins with a variation of "Listen to your old man, you little punk." Proverbs 4, for example:

Listen, my sons, to a father's instruction;
pay attention and gain understanding.
I give you sound learning,
so do not forsake my teaching. (1-2)

Proverbs is very big on "wisdom," and spends a lot of time talking about how awesome wisdom is. This is the aspect of the Book that seems a bit tedious; in these first six chapters at least, it often seems as though the writer is spending more time stating how great wisdom is than he is actually dispensing any wisdom.

Good Advices

Much of the wisdom, once it arrives, can be generalized into two ideas: Obey God, and Don't Be Evil. An example of the first idea appears, with the difficult-to-verify claim that belief in God is healthful, in Proverbs 3:

Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord and shun evil.
This will bring health to your body
and nourishment to your bones. (7-8)

An example of the latter concept arrives early in Proverbs 1:

My son, if sinners entice you, do not give in to them
If they say, "Come along with us;
let's lie in wait for someone's blood,
let's waylay some harmless soul;
let's swallow them alive, like the grave,
and whole, like those who go down to the pit;
we will get all sorts of valuable things and fill our houses with plunder; throw in your lot with us, and we will share a common purse"--
my son, do not go along with them, do not set foot on their paths;
for their feet rush into sin,
they are swift to shed blood. (10-16)

This is certainly not bad advice at all, and indeed I hope any of you dads out there are discouraging your kids from joining bands of opportunistic killers. It's just that telling someone that they shouldn't hang out with opportunistic killers because they are violent and sinful seems like a bit of a restrained argument. (What I suspect might be really going on in passages like this, really, is that the "for" doesn't exactly mean "because," but something slightly different that is hard to render in English. This would go a long way toward explaining why the logic of the Old Testament so frequently seems off-kilter. But who knows; I know absolutely nothing about the linguistics involved.)

The most prominent piece of concrete guidance given in Proverbs 1-6 is that you should try to avoid hanging around with adulteresses. It's rather implied that you should avoid collaborating to create adulteresses too, although this is never directly stated. In a frank and earthy passage, the writer spells it out for his son:

May your fountain be blessed,
and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
A loving doe, a graceful deer --
may her breasts satisfy you always,
my you ever be captivated by her love.
Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress?
Why embrace the bosom of another man's wife? (5:18-20)

In addition to further admonitions against adultresses and prostitutes, Proverbs 6 has the very famous warning against laziness:

Go to the ant, you sluggard;
consider its ways and be wise!
It has no commander,
no overseer or ruler,
yet it stores its provisions in summer
and gathers its food at harvest

How long will you lie there, you sluggard
When will you get up from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest--
and poverty will come on you like a bandit
and scarcity like an armed man. (6-11)

Six or Seven Things God Hates About You

And it also has a list that immediately caught my eye as resembling the kind of thing you might expect to find if the capital-B Bible was like a small-b bible, a straightforward handbook of rules and tips for proper conduct, practice, and belief. It is a list of the six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestible to him:

haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
a false witness who pours out lies
and a man who stirs up dissention among brothers. (16-19)

Although the numbering is a little confusing -- which one is the one that the Lord finds detestible, but doesn't hate? -- this is an extremely interesting list. It is almost the opposite, if you think about it, of the Ten Commandments. The one consists of ten rules (most, admittedly, in the negative -- thou shalt NOT) you should follow; whereas the Proverbs 6 list implies six or seven things to avoid. It's interesting that the list isn't better known -- unless it is, and I've just somehow missed it all these years.

Marginalia!

Today's reading included something I haven't seen for many months: a marking in the margins of this Bible. Extremely long-time readers might recall that I am the first and only owner of the official project Bible, so this notation -- a simple bracket alongside Proverbs 3:21 - 22 -- was undoubtedly made by me. Why I found this passage significant, or when it was that I was poking around in Proverbs, though -- of this, I have no memory at all.

My son, preserve sound judgment and discernment,
do not let them out of your sight;
they will be life for you,
an ornament to grace your neck. (3:21-22)

NEXT WEEK: More Proverbs!

This Week's Text: Proverbs 1 - 6

Psalms 144 - 150: End of the Psalms

The stretch from Psalm 144 to Psalm 150 -- the final Psalm! -- begins with Praise be to the Lord and ends with Praise the Lord, and in between there are numerous praises sung to the Lord. What is not praise is mostly affirmation: statements to or about God that indicate his magnificence, power, mercy, love, and justice. What is left over is petitions: requests for the destruction of enemies and foreigners, and for peace and prosperity.

There is nothing in these final seven Psalms about the sorrow and despair of one who feels failed by God, and relatively few complaints about the vindictive enemies and evil-doers who have it in for the Psalmist. Other than that, they are fairly representative of the whole set of 150. They cover familiar topics and employ the Psalmic style: an energetic, declaritive, loosely structured poetry with a fairly narrow range of themes and images. They are rich in ringing phrases and chockablock with abrupt shifts of topic and mood. Having been composed for singing or chanting one at a time, they make -- as I have often complained -- for a tedious, numbing experience when read through en masse.

Reading the Psalms as an Outsider

There are some styles of music that, as an occasional guitar noodler, I enjoy playing even though I don't especially enjoy listening to them. Heavy Metal, bluegrass, and a lot of folk music fall into this category. Others will differ, of course, but for me these are musics that are best experienced as a performer, not as a listener. And to stretch a point, maybe this is somewhat true of the Psalms as well. To a worshiper -- to someone in the actual act of "Praising the Lord" -- the Psalms may be a rich library of texts, and therefore of practices, that enrich and add structure to that experience. To their original writers and to someone using them in the context of religious practice today, the affirmations and petitions of the Psalms may be perceived as ringing with the most sacred holy truths.

To an outsider to this experience, however, there is an arid and lifeless quality to the Psalms. In their singleminded assertions, stripped of anything like argument or narrative flow, it is hard to find anything like inspiration. They have been, to be sure, different from anything else we've encountered so far in the Bible, certainly unlike the epic historical accounts and the lists of stern Mosaic Law. The poetic Book of Job, although I found it equally inpenetrable as Psalms, was at least steeped in theological ideas, whereas Psalms itself consists merely of thousands of essentially unconnected religious statements. There is not enough development of ideas in Psalms for anything but the loosest theological concepts to be apparent, and even these are often at odds with each other: God is merciful, and vengeful; God is all-loving, and has abandoned me; God reigns over all kingdoms, and will protect me from the foreigners.

I knew when I picked the Bible up that it would not be a wholely unified document, but I did not realize just how much of a... scrapbook it would turn out to be. The range of materials is quite a bit broader than I realized. I don't recall exactly what I expected from the Psalms, but I don't think I expected them to be no more (and no less, I suppose) than the hymnal tucked in among the histories and prophets. Yet that's pretty much what they are.

Progress Report!

Reading Psalms, the longest book of the Bible, took 21 posts spread over 5 months and 6 days. Having completed Psalms, I've got through 19 of the 66 Books of the Bible: 28.8%.

Well, that's all fine and good, but I've also completed 628 of the Chapters of the Bible, or 52.8%! Or 16401 of the Verses, 52.7%! I'M MORE THAN HALFWAY THROUGH, PEOPLE!

NEXT TIME: Here come Proverbs! Which I expect to be... somewhat like Psalms, except pithier? And more addressed to everyday life, rather than religious practice? I guess I imagine Proverbs as being like Polonius' long advice-giving speech in Hamlet. I bet I'm wrong. But here's an advantage Proverbs is sure to have over Psalms: it's only 31 Chapters long!

We'll tuck into it next time!

This Week's Reading: Psalms 144 - 150