Proverbs, III

She's right okay, yeah, let me repeat this for the for the TV audience there She's saying starting from you know Proverbs 22 22 and 23 do not exploit the poor because they're poor Do not crush the needy in court for the Lord will take up their case and we'll plunder those who plunder them Her Jennifer's comment is that she she holds a job where they are in the business of Extracting money from people who owe it in some way and taking perhaps legal action to do that right and So how do you deal in a situation like that? How do you how do you remain true to scripture in the calling of scripture in that kind of situation? What do you think Sandra has an idea? Okay, right okay. Yeah, and to condense that comment which is a good one I think hits the nail in the head. There's a difference between exploitation and Collecting money that is owed okay, and so I don't think it would be right to say well on the slide I'm gonna start forgiving all kinds of debt until I lose my job, you know That wouldn't be the way to handle it But you just as should be served and so if people have bought something on time and they're and they've run out of time Then you know you need to get they should pay what they owe now if you if you encounter a worthy case Where they've really had to suffered some ill fortune and some illness or whatever and you see that these are genuine honest worthy people who are in trouble Then you might take note of them and try to bring some help to them not by forgiving the debt They owe your company and thus being disloyal to your job But by perhaps alerting a church or some individuals that could help of this particular need that that's I think the way to handle it Keeping the two issues a bit separate now the other question that came up was how do you how do we Let me see if I can remember exactly how you put this how do we know if we feel that we should be helping the poor More than we are we can't help everybody all at once. How do we go about deciding? How do we prioritize? Our actions how do how do we go about doing something since we can't do everything who's got an idea on that one? I'm not going to call on Sandra again because she's got she's she could teach this class better than I can now I want to give other people a chance Yes, you haven't had anything right okay. Yeah several things combined there. She's commenting on an experience She had in India where you and those who've been in third-world situations Really know what it is to have a press around you of all kinds of needy people and there's you know You could empty your pitiful wallet and you would even wouldn't even begin to scratch the surface and the crowds will begin to swell and There it you know you you need to I think reflect on how can I best help in this situation? I was in a similar situation in Uganda where you know what? I could have offered monetarily would would not have been perhaps rightly applied in you know if I just started pulling out bills and such and I needed to remember that what I was there for you know I was there for Spiritual service which is really more important in that situation and Christian said it was more important than Then then monetary aid and yet we also had to be wise in terms of of even giving out our address and say you know We we will work through certain leaders in the churches You know so you you do have to be wise, but I guess what I what I'm what I learned was I don't want to just erect a barrier and say Poor people deserve to be that way they you know That's not the case and then to say that it is sometimes to dishonor their maker yes Right. Yeah, the comment there is that it's far more valuable to teach people how to fish Then it is to simply give them a plate of fish which will eventually be exhausted and then You know then they have nothing, but if they learn to fish they can supply themselves prime example of that I have a friend a British friend Who grew up in Kenya and is very interested in the content of Africa and has spent some time there and He's he worked for the world bank too, so he he knew financial things and such and he said one of the problems during remember the Ethiopian crisis One of the problems with some of the milk products that were sent down there They sent down powdered milk and such and sometimes there would arrive a glut of milk powder that would do two things It would it would put any Struggling milk industry immediately out of business because of course Immediately milk would have milk value because it just got in this huge shipment of milk So anybody who's trying to get a dairy business going would immediately be put out of business and then he said secondly a lot of times They'd end up lining their soccer fields with this milk powder, you know They had more milk powder than they needed what they really needed was help in establishing them cells They didn't need so much to hand out as a help in establishing themselves So he spent his time going around doing training on crop rotation and and the use of proper use of fertilizers and such So we want to be wise and what we do I'm sorry I got to move on here. Is that all right? Sorry guys. Okay. Well, let's just touch on a few more themes And we got to get out of these first nine chapters. We got a lot of other chapters to cover yet and again I'm picking things that particularly speak to me. So there are other themes here and and they may not be the ones You may say why'd you leave out that one? That's the one that spoke to me. Well, we're just I'm the teacher So I can choose ones I like well one of them one of them that I particularly like and you can bring yours up in the questions to One that really strikes me is what I called teach ability and after that last comment I'm the teacher and I can choose what I like. This is the kind of ironic that I'm going to talk about teach ability But look at chapter nine chapter nine verses beginning in verse seven Chapter nine beginning in verse seven whoever corrects a mucker invites insult whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse Do not rebuk a mucker or he will hate you Rebuke a wise man and he will love you instruct a wise man and he will be wise or still Teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the holy one is understanding For through me your days will be many and your and yours will be added to your life If you're wise your wisdom will reward you if you are a mucker you alone will suffer I'm really keying on that first portion there That contrasts a wise person and a mucker a mucker does not receive rebuk well A wise person does that is to say a wise person is teachable. Let's look at one other verse chapter 17 Verse 10 a rebuked impresses a man of discernment More than a hundred lashes a fool The reason this speaks to me is I realize that there are temptations in our lives to think that I can learn certain things from certain people I could learn a lot from some people and the temptation is to think and from some other people I can learn very little and that is a mistake There's also a sense of feeling you know I've arrived you know I have a ma gts or an ma c or an md or whatever I've arrived now and and I'm the one who knows this stuff And I don't really learn from people who haven't achieved this qualification or whatever That is a grave mistake and that's a sign of a lack of wisdom We should be open and teachable open to rebuke now there's a right way to rebuke There's a right way to correct there's a right way to make constructive criticism the adjective is constructive Speaking the truth in love so we want to do it that you know when we're when we're dealing with one another We want to do it in that spirit But a wise person is open to that and is thankful You know a word a rebuked impresses a man of discernment more than a hundred lashes a fool And we need to be how can how can we receive that kind of thing in my own life I think I have to be secure enough in the Lord not in who I am But in the Lord that someone can say, you know, I don't like the way you're doing this or I think you're Erring in this area and I can say You're right. Yeah, I take that point. I'll try to improve. I'm not perfect God accepts me. Remember those buttons that we older teenagers used to wear Please be patient with me. God has not finished with me yet I see a few of you people smiling you're giving yourselves away if you've heard of those because those are back in the 60s But that's true God is not finished with us yet and we should be willing to receive that review and and and appreciate it when it's constructively given I remember when we were in Germany having a thought The thought suddenly strikes me. I may have said this already in class far earlier. Did I talk about Just coming from grant German from from learning German No, okay, then I'll talk about it briefly just as kind of an illustration at this point Right after I was got out of language school in Germany My German was not great. You can imagine, okay I had a lot of passive knowledge that I've learned in the classroom, but I hadn't had to activate a lot of it and and yet as I listened to older Missionary speak because I had just been studying all the grammar I could pick out their grammatical errors the ones that they made consistently You know that he's using the wrong this preposition. He's using it with the wrong case You know he's using the date of case instead of the accusative case because I had just been studying that Now it would never in a million years have dawned on them to ask me for help with their German You know, they were the ones who were fluent and I was the one who needed help It wouldn't have dawned on them to think I need to they needed to be teachable by me But I sitting there I could see their flaws Now sometimes we older Christians need to realize that the younger Christians the babes in Christ to whom it's all fresh And new could correct us and remind us of the basics and let us know that we've been practicing some wrong You know, we've been conjoining the wrong preposition with the wrong case for some long time now And so we need to be teachable And that's once we realize that that's what God wants us to be then that makes it a whole lot easier to receive criticism now sometimes people Criticize us in hurtful ways and we need to have the courage then to say I take your point, but could you say it in love And that's fair enough too But teachability is a thing that look for that and write it in your margin when you see things that call us to be teachable A couple of other things of course there's there's an emphasis work and the wonderful images of the sluggard In chapter six I won't go over those at this point I've mentioned also dissension and how that's sort of the acceptable Christian sin Sometimes to sow words of dissension. We need to be very careful about that because that's the seventh of the seven things the Lord hates remember and also in Paul's lists both in Romans 13 and in Galatians 5 of the worst of sins dissension is right there in their midst the sowing of dissension That that is a thing that comes up in these there's also something in these early chapters That reminds me of the song of songs. That's a book that we will get to yet this semester look at chapter five Beginning in verse 15. This sounds if if we didn't know it was from the book of Proverbs you might even think this is from That that Solomon's song of songs beginning in verse 15 Drink water from your own sister and running water from your own well Should your springs overflow in the streets your streams of water in the public squares Let them be yours alone never to be shared with strangers 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 may you be ever captivated by her love Why be captivated my son by an adulterous why embrace the bosom of another man's wife For a man's ways are in full view of the Lord and he examines all his paths The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him the cords of his sin hold him fast He will die for lack of discipline lead astray by his own great folly Now what interest me in this um is this whole notion It's talking about the wife of your youth okay that woman you married or that man I think we can reverse this and also talk about when you're gonna talk about your husband's breasts You know you can trust me there But well, I think we can reverse the imagery in some way if that's all right And it and it actually says I'm sorry I put that on film you can edit that if you like Yeah rewind to kind of but but listen to what it says it says it doesn't say Learn to live with her Learn to live with him Get along with him you're in it for the long haul everyone knows it marriages a lot of work And a lot of pain a lot of toil and everyone knows that it goes from the honeymoon down from there You know it does it doesn't use that kind of imagery. It's not sort of like it's your duty. So do it. It says May you ever be captivated by her love Now the question is how can that happen How can we How can we actually be captivated captivated by the love of this person that we live with all the time

There's no easy answer to that of course, but I think I think it begins with respecting that person Really showing love to that person Loving according to 1 Corinthians 13 Accentuating the positive, you know I know that I know that my wife could look at me And I know there things that I do that that that bug her and she could have focused on my foibles and and my My mole hills would now be mountains and I could have done the same with her But by God's grace, you know, I think we have learned to appreciate You know, she has learned to dislike hair. You know, she doesn't like men with hair You know, I know she's I know she's lying, but I love it when she lies that way, you know But we could we could you can focus on the negatives or you can focus on the positives and watch and watch what God can do You know in terms of of strengthening the strengths You know, and there's nothing more delightful than to think You know, not only has she been good for me, but I've been good for her And and really love can grow howard Hendrix talks about his His intimacy with his wife and his his first 20 years of marriage as a 20-year warm-up Now that is not the wisdom of the world The world says it does go from bad to worse You know at best you end up in an in a silent sort of cold war And you just stick it out because because you're a beautiful person But that's not what this says is be captivated by her love and that's what we should strive for. Yes, Matt Okay, I'm gonna condense this and I may or may not succeed in getting exactly what you're talking about But the the um the idea that I think Matt is bringing up here is It is quite easy to because of the various things we read in the book of Proverbs It's quite easy to take them certain ones at face value and misapply them You know, how do you how do you both Exercise rebuke and receive rebuke and without that get getting over into dissension for instance And so what is the regulative principle that enables us to draw on them rightly? Good question will come to that in just a minute, okay, because when we talk about what a proverb is I think that's the key. What is a proverb? How do we apply it? So we need to get there yet, okay? Okay, so that that section I just I love that one and let me say one more thing about it If this is not enough, you know, the notion of the The wonder of of a captivating relationship which is possible If that's not enough to attract us to it we do have the reminder in verse 21 for a man's ways are in full view of the Lord And he examines all his paths And the evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him the cords of his sin hold him fast He will die for lack of discipline let us stray by his own great folly. I don't think there are many who have Engaged in sin who later are glad Our sins what we think our exercise of freedom does end up ensnaring us I was talking to a young man in my office even this week who was who was sort of lamenting the way a certain thing had gone And he felt a little guilty for for some things that had gone on and you could tell that he would if he could erase that past He would very readily do it and life would be far simpler Look a proverb says the evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him not calling this friend of mine a wicked man I'm just assuming that as an illustration to say we really can't weave a tangled web And so the temptations of sin should we should look beyond the immediate Gratification that they appear to present to realize where that will all lead and how the difficulty that will be hours and unraveling it To say nothing of the fact that that our ways are in full view of the Lord and just you know while we're on the subject of marriage Just don't underestimate your weakness Those of you who are married Don't think that wow that could never happen to me because anything can happen to any of us but for God's grace and Sometimes you know I read a very tragic story of a of a Christian minister who Was attracted to a young woman in his congregation, but he knew that she would never be interested in him Just couldn't happen and so he allowed himself to spend some time with her on working on different projects and You know and get to know her and enjoy her company and so forth because he knew that she was the safety She was the guard. She was the gate. She would stop him. You know, she would never be interested in him Well, the problem was he sent one day discovered to his sort of Frightened surprise and partial delight that she was in fact interested in him the problem was by that point He was leaning toward her like this Expecting her to hold him from falling and when she opened the gate even a crack he fell And so don't underestimate your weakness keep those safe guards keep those fences well erected Oh, well, I could go on about that But you you probably know a whole lot more about these things than I do especially you guys that are in the M.A.C Program already studied some of this stuff Well, let's let's move on to the next section Which is Proverbs chapter 10 Beginning in verse one This is the section that is comprised of almost exclusively sentence sayings the little short sentence sayings Furthermore in the first five chapters actually six chapters 10 to 15 We have a large proportion of what we earlier learned are antithetical parallelisms Notice how if you just look at your Bible how the second half of each verse begins with but you know And that's indicative of an antithetical parallelism first verse a wise son brings joy to his father But a foolish son grief to his mother this but that this but that righteous but wicked wise but foolish And so it goes through the first six chapters up to the end of chapter 15 Now many have tried to discover an overarching picture Overarching structure for these chapters not not only the up through 15 But the whole section chapter 10 all the way to twenty two sixteen. That's called the the solomonic collection Notice the title is the Proverbs of Solomon And I used to have students try to outline this book and they really got frustrated when they got into this section Because then how can I outline this is just one thing and then another thing and then another thing and that's true of all the chapters Well, it is a little frustrating and it is difficult And some are convinced that we will never find any kind of coherent overarching structure Remember we talked about the book of Proverbs especially the section is being kind of a multivitamin Okay, where you get a little bit of this a little bit of that a little bit of the other thing in every chapter And that that remains true to this day But the question is is that all there is to be said one does occasionally sense some kind of Purposeful arrangement as we're reading through this Some sense that the that the Proverbs are not merely random There does there do seem to be these little mini-groupings and sometimes they're there almost seems to be what I call vicinity repetition In other words one one thing will be said and then maybe something else will be said in between and then it'll come back to that earlier theme It's not that they're just Group tightly together, but there's what maybe vicinity repetition taking place. Let me give you a couple of examples In chapter 15 beginning in verse 13 15 beginning with 13 Notice the repetition here a happy heart makes the face cheerful But heart ate crushes the spirit a discerning heart seeks knowledge But the mouth of a fool feeds on folly all the days of the of the oppressed are wretched But the cheerful heart has a continual feast notice the repetition of heart That seems to be intentional one perhaps one saying reminded the compiler reminded the one who put this Altogether of another proper relating to heart and so forth and they were they were then joined together Another example would be Chapter 16 verses 20 to 23 Whoever gives heed to instruction proffers and blessed as he who trusts in the Lord here we have teachability again The wise in heart are called discerning and pleasant words promote instruction Understanding is a fountain of life to those who have it but folly brings punishment to fools The wise man's heart guides his mouth and his lips promote instruction. What is repeated there instruction? Okay That word in particular is repeated a number of times So it's obviously there's kind of a little chain of Related proverbs given there and I could give many other examples of that What this does is raise the question of whether the collection is really just a grab bag where someone dumped all the sayings into a hat and then pulled them out Willie nilly or whether there is not a purposeful arrangement to these proverbs And that's an important question you might say well, what's the difference? Well, what would be the difference if we discover that the proverbs are purposely arranged How would that affect our interpretation? Okay, we could look for themes Yeah, Steve Okay, context would need to context would need to be considered in a different way You know, you'd think if someone purposely juxtapose this proverb to this next proverb to this next proverb Then what is what is the purpose in that juxtaposition? How does my understanding of the third one? How is it affected by the one that went before and the one that went before that rather than saying there's no sense There's no structure. There's no intentionality to this arrangement So each is an isolated isolated tidbit and the only context I can have for understanding this one is to find other Sayings that touch on that same theme and collect them together as I did with personal property, you know proverbs on personal property Now what I want us to do at this juncture is to take about Let's see. I want us to take about 15 minutes maximum to break up into our small groups I try to do this from time to time so you can talk to each other With my permission and if you would if you would look at chapter 10, which is the very beginning of this section Chapter 10 verses Verses 1 to 11 and what I want you to do there is to is to read those chapters together in a group and then to reflect on whether there is a An apparent purposeful arrangement To these verses and if there is what it is and what its significance might be And now recalling that this is in that section that is generally regarded as just a half hazard collection this that the other thing Rather thrown together. I want you to see if that's what you find here Chapter 10 verses 1 to 11 and we'll stop when the big hand reaches the two and that will yeah Then we'll debrief and then we'll take a break Okay, well your task whether or not you chose to accept it was to Look at chapter 10 verses 1 to 11 and ask whether there seem to be indications of an intentional structuring an intentional arrangement Of these particular verses because after all it does appear on the surface to be just a little bit of this and a little bit of that one thing after another Perhaps unrelated Now as I was cruising from group to group I didn't see a great deal of discovery there. I saw some you know and people were working diligently But maybe this is a little harder than I thought and actually I've read an article on this and But and in fact, I'll tell you the name of the article and and I dare you to read it Let's see wait a minute through the way this if I can find the name. Yeah, the name it's by a fellow I met whose name is Knut Heim He's a German and it's written in English thankfully and the article is entitled co-referentiality structure and context in Proverbs 10 1 to 5 Okay, so that let's you know it the title simpler than the text anyway So I did have a little bit of an advantage in seeking some of these things out because I was more or less testing his theory for those first five verses But the bottom line I think and and you'll have to take this on faith if you didn't get that far to discovering some of these things The bottom line is there do seem to be and there seems to be an increasing sense on the part of people who are really studying this section of an intentional structuring to the section I think if we if we look first of all for repeated words or phrases such as we have in verses one and five A wise son brings joy to his father but a foolish son grief to his mother when you get to five He who gathers crops and summer as like a wise son but he who sleeps during harvest Is a disgraceful son all right now when you encounter that in the Old Testament Often there's what we call inclusio or an envelope structure where you sort of end where you began You you you you begin with one thing and then you end with that so as to sort of encompass or envelop a little unit So that's a trigger to think maybe this is some kind of unit now Now notice that the wise son is described in verse one is bringing joy to the father and grief to his mother Now verse five we're talking about wise and disgraceful sons still But notice in verse five it's talking about the wise son gathering crops in summer But he who sleeps in harvest is a disgraceful son so this wisdom According to verse five the wise son is displaying his wisdom in his industry and in his timely in gathering of crops Now the question is is there any relationship between that and the intervening verses Well look at verse two Ilgotten treasures are of no value but righteousness delivers from death All right, well, maybe maybe that's addressed to the wise son as well You know talking about the About gain about treasures And look at verse four lazy hands make a man poor but diligent hands bring wealth Okay, treasures in verse two wealth in verse four seems to be talking about You know that whole issue of of of what is Ilgotten what is well-gotten How it's gotten through diligence there does seem to be something of a relationship and in this article I read he goes and he rings all the changes on that and shows it terminologically and and In terms of theme and so forth and works from the Hebrew text and so you'll have to trust me on some of that That there is a greater relationship than is at first apparent But notice we're getting kind of a structure. We've got one in five more or less paralleling each other Two and four to some extent paralleling each other and what's in the middle verse three the Thank you Yes half credit on the test okay for that one Um, yeah, verse three Uh, but notice in the middle the but the Lord does not let the righteous go hungry But he thwarts the craving of the wicked. So what are we talking about there? Well again, it's talking about gain Provision receiving what you need talking about the satisfaction of hunger the Lord does not let the righteous go hungry And so notice that in this little unit if that's what it is at the very middle is a focus on the Lord Okay, so It is a chiasm. Yeah, it's it's it's a b and in the The the x the center the central Folkrum the the most important thing to focus on and then b a that's what we call a chiasm or chiasm now um What this means then is as you As you interpret These proverbs if you if you discern that unit then context suddenly becomes relevant then it's worth looking at What is the relationship between these proverbs that otherwise appear to just be juxtaposed now very quickly looking on to And I think what I'll do if if it's all right with our taper back there I may just go for another 10 or 15 minutes and then stop okay Well end early and so we will just skip that break is that gonna work Christy? Is that all right? Okay? Is that all right with you guys and you just get off early? Okay? Hold me to it. I'm sure you will if you look at at verse six going on We again encounter a lot of repetition Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked We noticed I was as I was cruising groups we noticed that there were some different translations of that the Hebrew word is actually covers It's the same so blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked So maybe we ought to translate it that way the memory of the righteous will be a blessing But the name of the wicked will rot the wise and hard accept commands, but a chattering fool comes to ruin The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out He who winks maliciously causes grief and a chattering fool comes to ruin The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life But violence covers the mouth of the wicked now there again you see clear Sort of envelope structure where it began with this phrase violence covers the mouth of the wicked Inverse six then in verse 11 violence covers the mouth of the wicked Verse six at the beginning blessings crown the head of the righteous Verse 11 the mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life Okay, so you it does seem that there's some kind of a unit perhaps going on and inside that we have reference to the chattering fool coming to ruin And then in the center of that we have in verse nine the reference to the man of integrity walks securely That he who takes crooked paths will be found out now we could go ahead and explore that but to me that suggests Some kind of intentionality to the structuring if you then were to go on Which I'll do just ever so briefly in verse 12 notice that verse 12 says hatred hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs. I remember the verb rendered in the NIV overwhelms is actually covers Violence covers the mouth of the wicked then verse 12 hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrong You have sort of a linguistic chaining together a catch word device. It's sometimes called so that it appears that Verse 12 and the unit maybe if if if there is a unit that it introduces Is intentionally linked to what went before a little linguistic link and verse 12 then I think there's another key as in perhaps because Verse 12 hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs Reminds me or sounds the same as what we come to in verse 18 he who covers his hatred in NIV translates it conceals But the word again is the same covers he who covers his hatred has lying lips, but whoever spreads slander is a fool Notice again that you have hatred and and covers in verse 12 and again in 18 covers his hatred as lying lips and that's suggestive of a unit versus 13 and 14 Talk about wisdom is found on the lips of the discerning, but a rod is for the back of him who lacks judgment Wise men's store of knowledge, but the mouth of a fool invites ruin In verse 17 he who heads discipline shows the way of life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray There seems to be some thematic parallelism there and then at the center of that we have this very interesting juxtaposition of verses 15 and 16 the wealth of the rich it is written the wealth of the rich Is there fortified city? But poverty is the ruin of the poor Before we go on to the next I mean if we just read that That's a that's an observation is the statement of a parent fact But it's sort of and that's probably a a saying that would have been known, but it's sort of in Qualified or corrected in verse 16 the wages of the righteous Bring them life But the income of the wicked brings them punishment The idea being that yeah the well the the rich May view their wealth as a fortified city and the poor yes view their poverty as their ruin But in fact wealth or poverty is not so much the issue rather the wages of the what righteous brings them life I was saying in the break to someone that you know Jesus promised Abundant life and he's hardly in a position to promise that which he did not experience And yet he did not have a place to lay his head So obviously life does not you know our lives are not consistent the things that we own So the rich are are mistaken if they think of their wealth as a fortified city And in fact it'll come back to this much later. I think it's in chapter 18 verse 11 The wealth of the rich is their fortified city An unscalable wall they imagine it to be So again an interesting sort of later Qualification of that now that's I want to stop there and just say that's just a taste of what I think is going to be increasingly Becoming apparent as more and more people study these sections with this kind of question in mind It's a little hard to do without without learning Hebrew to do it because sometimes those catch words You need to know the Hebrew to do it, but some of it you can do without that So I encourage you to look for relationships and not just assume well it's haphazard I'm not I don't really think it is and I think it will become increasingly apparent as people continue to pursue that now any comment or question right there Yes Right very good in fact that's in the article Hey, it is canoe time also observed that and he observed verse one positive negative verse two negative positive verse three positive negative verse four negative positive Verse five positive negative, but then he broke it there because verse six is again positive negative So it kind of it's a little odd, but it broke that alternation in the sense or all that right alter alter Alternating yeah alternating It broke that by doing again positive negative. Yeah good. I'm glad. I'm glad y'all found that. It's in the article You may want to read yes, Steve good question the question is this verse one as the beginning of a section creative theme for multiple chapters Maybe maybe that's a good question worth pursuing the whole again the whole address is to The father Enjoining his son to give he'd not only to his instruction, but his to his mother's instruction And and the whole goal is is to have a wise son that will bring joy to the father or to you know to his his earthly father Let me just tell let me tell you a couple of other things that are fascinating about this section And I think I will reserve the finishing off of proverbs for the first session next time But let me tell you a couple of other things that I find fascinating about this particular section One is and and I first heard this from Bruce Waltke It was I think discovered by a fellow named Patrick ski and I think it was his name But he and this is strange. Okay, I admit it. It's strange But he points out that in this in this solomonic collection 101 to 2216 There are three hundred seventy five Proverbs now. Why is that of interest? Well three hundred seventy five is the numeric value of The name Solomon so if you assign if you take the name Solomon in Hebrew Shalom O And you assign the number value to each of those letters It comes out to three seventy five now. I know you think I'm weird, but you already thought I was weird So why work why worry about it now But the the curious thing about that is that's not the only number that's of significance and In fact, I don't have it with me, but Roll and Murphy and his in his treatment of this and others have drawn attention It was really Patrick ski and in first who drew attention to a number of very interesting numeric values in this book Now the question arises is it possible That that could be more than just coincidental that the central solomonic collection could have this the number of proverbs that correspond to the numeric value of his name Is that possible and that that's intentional I think it's possible sure Just because we wouldn't choose to do it that way by the way, you know in English The the letters of the English alphabet don't have numeric values assigned We use Arabic numerals one two three four five and we don't assign Numbers numeric value to the letters of our alphabet and but in Hebrew they do So alif is one and bait is two and so forth and so on So I think it's possible and I think if Solomon is the one who compiled his master collection here How many proverbs did he write after all three thousand and if he were to make a selection He needs he needs to somehow decide how many It may well have dawned on Solomon or some later compiler some of if a later compiler is actually responsible for this Solomonic collection to use that as the numeric value Now let me point out something else interesting too if you look at chapter 16 There's something curious about the first verses in chapter 16 Verses one to nine and let me just read them to you and you tell me what's what's unusual about them Just from your sense of having read this book, you know, you finish that now you finish proverbs now So tell me what's striking about these particular verses one to nine To man belong the plans of the heart but from the Lord comes the reply of the tongue all a man's ways seem innocent to him But motives are weighed by the Lord Commit to the Lord whatever you do and your plans will succeed The Lord works out everything for his own ends even the wicked for a day of disaster The Lord detests all the proud of heart be sure of this they will not go unpunished through love and faithfulness sin as a tone for Though the through the fear of the Lord a man avoids evil When a man's ways are pleasing to the Lord he makes even his enemies live at peace with him Better a little with righteousness than much gain with injustice In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps Again, we're dealing with a bit of a unit here because you notice one in nine pretty much A ringing the same bell and I think you could work out even a little tyasm here if we were to take time to do it But what's striking about this particular group of verses? Yeah, Brian the Lord has mentioned in all but one Versailles is the exception that proves the rule But that is that is interesting because on average in this portion of the book of proverbs The name the name of the Lord Yahweh comes up about every seventh or eighth verse Whereas in this group of nine verses The the name of the Lord appears in all but one and why is that significant? Well curiously enough this this this set of nine verses is pretty much dead center In the Solomon collection if you were to count all the verses before it and all the verses after it you'd find that this section is Just right about within one verse of being right in the middle Okay, is that significant? Well, yeah again, I think it is just as in ten one to five We saw the focus in the middle on the Lord for this whole collection There's this concentration on the Lord simply underscoring what the motto has already said the the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom There's more To learn about the book of proverbs I remember once when I was working in On my degree in Cambridge at a garden party I think I may have mentioned this in this class the guy a guy came up to me and asked me what I was working on and I said I'm working on in the Old Testament and he said is there anything still to be done there? Believe it or not there is and this there's a lot still to be done here Just in in adjusting ourselves and seeing these things and beginning to understand that the way we write is not necessarily the way They would have written And I think as we do that we will learn new things God has more truth to break forth from his word than we have yet seen It won't be different truth But it will be enriching to us now. I said I would stop early So I'm gonna stop early. I have bated you all evening talking about what is a proverbs? I haven't forgotten We'll deal with that next time