Proverbs 22

 

1 I like Alyce Mckenzie on Proverbs as fitting a post-modern suspicion of systematic accounts.

 

2) Donald Capps has done good work with Proverbs in pastoral care contexts. William Brown of Columbia Sem. has good thoughts on wisdom in Character in Crisis and his fine Ethos and Cosmos

 

3) It's a challenge to preach from Proverbs. One could pick a couple. Once could play with old dayings, especaily when they conflict. One could attack acceptable religious sayings: I'm spiritual, but I DON'T ATTEND CHURCH.

 

4)Remember that proverbs are human wisdom captured in the bible. I see wisdom material as a gloss on DT. 2 paths I give you, life and death, choose life.

 

5)v. 2 stands against the easy assumiton that the rich are being blessed and the poor punished

 

6) Sowing and reaping are moved from economics to the realm of politics in v. 8.

 

7) v. 9 generous= good of eye (tob ayin)see Dt. 15:9-11. Note the poor get bread, not lectures, advice, or shame.

 

8) the Egyptian sayings of Amenemope were found in the 1920s. Some think that the parallels with 22:17-23:11 suggest dependence, cultural interaction, and mutual use of an earlier collection. In any case, it shows that Israel was willing to draw on good sources to provide wisdom, even if not religious.

 

9)   VV.22-3 AGAIN NOTICE THAT WICKEDNESS IS TREATING THE POOR UNFAIRLY. Notice that God is on their side, the preferential option for the poor. Republicans of the newer stripe take note.