“The Words of the Sages”: The Thirty Maxims

The book of Proverbs is a series of collections of proverbs and lessons, intended, as its prologue says, to inculcate learning and wisdom. Though appropriate for everyone, it is especially targeted at young men of the professional class, who are counseled not to join gangs and warned not to associate with the wrong type of woman. They are encouraged to control their behavior and their speech, to act deferentially to their superiors, to be mindful in all their dealings with others, and to seek the right kind of wife. The acquisition of wisdom is strongly advocated, for wisdom will enhance life. The lessons are often couched as advice to a son from parents, both mother and father. The book encourages its readers to conform to the norms of its society—both moral and ethical norms as well as conventional decorous behavior—for doing so will lead to a successful life. It offers foolproof recipes for respectability and prosperity; unlike the books of Job and Ecclesiastes, it does not entertain the notion that doing the “right” thing may not always lead to a good outcome. Similar collections of proverbs are known from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and one section of the book (22:17–24:22, or part of it) may have drawn on an Egyptian collection known as “The Instruction of Amenemope .”