Wisdom Books
Five poetic-wisdom books: Job's theodicy, the 150 Psalms, Solomon's Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. The lyric and contemplative voice within the Hebrew canon. ASV (1901).
Source context· Egyptian-Hebrew stream · Egypto-Chaldean cultural impulse
- Stream
- Egyptian-Hebrew
- Cultural impulse
- Egypto-Chaldean (3rd post-Atlantean cultural age)
- Composed
- c. 500 BCE
- Written down
- Greco-Latin (4th post-Atlantean cultural age) manuscript epoch
- 1Job — Job — the righteous sufferer and the divine speeches
The prose prologue (the wager between God and the satan); the long poetic dialogue between Job and his three friends and the young Elihu; the divine speeches out of the whirlwind (chs 38-41) — Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?; Job's surrender; the epilogue restoring his fortunes. The Bible's central theodicy.
20,348 words - 2Psalms — Psalms — the prayer book of Israel and the church
The hundred and fifty psalms — the prayer book of Israel that became the prayer book of the church. Hymns of praise, individual and corporate laments, royal psalms, wisdom psalms, songs of ascents, psalms of penitence, the great Hallel. The Psalter divided into five books echoing the Torah.
48,169 words - 3Proverbs — Proverbs — the wisdom literature of practical life
The classical Hebrew wisdom collection. The long opening discourse on the personified figure of Wisdom (chs 1-9) — I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. The proverbs proper, mostly two-line antithetical maxims. Closes with the Eshet Hayil — the song of the virtuous woman (31:10-31).
16,933 words - 4Ecclesiastes — Ecclesiastes — vanity of vanities — Qohelet's meditation
The voice of Qohelet — the Preacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities; all is vanity. The radical critical wisdom — labour, pleasure, wealth, wisdom itself examined and found wanting under the sun. To everything there is a season (ch 3). Closes: Fear God and keep his commandments — for this is the whole of man.
6,086 words - 5Song of Solomon — Song of Solomon — the song of songs
The biblical erotic-mystical poem — the song of songs, which is Solomon's. The dialogue of bride and bridegroom — read literally as love-poetry of the deepest order, allegorically by Jewish tradition as God and Israel, by Christian tradition as Christ and the soul (or Christ and the Church). The supreme love-song of the Hebrew canon.
2,888 words
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