THE AUTHORITY OF PROVERBS An Exposition Of Proverbs 1:2-6

Bruce K. Waltke*

I. INTRODUCTION The shocking alternative. Our topic, "the authority of the book of Proverbs," is a subdivision of the larger topic, "the authority of the Bible." Carl F. H. Henry, supporting himself on Yale theologian David H. Kelsey,1 notes that during the past half century virtually every contemporary Protestant theologian "along the entire spectrum of opinion from the 'neo-evangelicals' through Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, to Anders Nygren, Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich and even Fritz Buri, has acknowledged that any Christian theology worthy of the name 'Christian' must, in some sense of the phrase, be done 'in accord' with scripture."2 The tricky or concealed drawback in that statement is the qualification "in some sense." "Christian" theologians differ widely in their understanding of the extent to which God speaks in Scripture, and its authority for Christians is relativized by their understanding. Stating the matter cartoonishly, Protestant evangelicals stand under the Scriptures in what appears to liberals as mindless assent and a tendency to absolutize their subjective interpretations; Catholics consciously (and some confessionally oriented Protestants unconsciously) stand alongside the Scriptures with their traditions; classic liberals stand above the Scriptures with the arrogant conviction that through the historical critical method they can find the truth in them; and post-liberals, as Albert C. Outler recently informed us, "stand before the Scriptures . . . to see and hear what may be seen and heard of the mystery of the Lord Almighty."3 *Dr. Waltke is professor of Old Testament, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. He delivered this lecture at Covenant Seminary.

David H. Kelsey, The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967), p. 1. 2 Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1979), IV, 44. 3 Albert C. Outler, "Towards a Postliberal Hermeneutics," Theology Today, 42/3 (Oct 1985).

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A posture of standing under Scripture, however, is the only appropriate one if all Scripture is the authoritative Word of God. Evangelicals adopt this posture not out of mindless assent but because in part the Scriptures demand it. C. S. Lewis in his classic chapter, "The Shocking Alternative," in Mere Christianity made the point that one cannot be intellectually honest and neutral about Jesus Christ. I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." This is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic . . . or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse . . . Let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.4 The same logic applies to the Scriptures. If they claim to be the very Word of God, then they leave us no alternative but either to submit to them or to reject them. They did not intend a third way. The crisis confronting our age, however, has been caused by the gradual erosion of the authority of holy writ among professing Christians. Does Proverbs claim to be a divine word? Many scholars allege, however, that the Book of Proverbs makes no claim to such authority or at best makes an uncertain sound about it. They commonly contend that the book is grounded in humanism. O. S. Rankin, for example, calls the wisdom literature "The Document of Hebrew Humanism." By this he does not mean that the wise men reject the supernatural, but he does mean in part that the wise men "are the rationalists of Hebrew thought and religion."5 Scholars commonly contrast the heavenly authority of the Torah and of the Nebi'm with non-authoritative speech of the earth-bound sage. J. Fichtner, for example, draws this contrast: The prophet speaks in large measure on the basis of the authority

4 5

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1960), pp. 55f.

0 . S. Rankin, Israel's Wisdom Literature: Its Bearing on Theology and the History of Religion (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936), p. 3.

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conferred with his commission and tells his hearers "God's word"; while the wise manespecially in the earlier period!gives advice and instruction from tradition and his own insight without explicit or implicitly-assumed divine authorization. 6

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J. C. Rylaarsdam states that Proverbs differs markedly from the rest of the Old Testament because the wisdom seeker must rely entirely on his natural human equipment. He writes: The men who produced the Bible speak and write in the name of God. They are not men talking about God, or seeking to discover him; they are men to whom God has come and who are seeking to respond to him or to bear witness to him. In Proverbs the authors seek to discover God. Reason, experience, thought, and even elementary science are the means of their quest.7 R. . Y. Scott continues the dichotomy: That priest and prophets were regarded as speaking with divine authority is clear. It is less certain that the same can be said of the "counsel" of the wise man and of the elders.8 Scholars have called the authority of Israel's wise men into question for three reasons: their appeal to experience, to tradition, and their use of 's ("counsel") to characterize their teaching. Appeal to experience: The contrast between the heavenly speech of the priest and prophet with the earthly voice of the sage finds support in the biblical text itself. Contrast the frequently recurring formulae in Leviticus and the prophets respectively, "The LORD said to Moses," and "Thus says the LORD," with this poem that exposes the manner in which a sage coins a proverb: I went past the field of the sluggard, past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment;

6 Johannes Fichtner, "Isaiah Among the Wise," translated by Brian W. Kovacs, in Studies in Ancient Israelite Wisdom (Ed. by James L. Crenshaw; New York: Ktav, 1976), p. 430. 7 J. Coert Rylaarsdam, The Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Solomon in The Layman's Bible Commentary 10 (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1964), p. 10. 8 R. B. Y. Scott, "Priesthood, Prophecy, Wisdom, and the Knowledge of God," JBL 80 (1961), p. 3. (In the Frand 10 Walther Zimmerli, "Structure of Old Testament Wisdom," translated by Brian W. Kovacs, in SAIW, pp. 183f.)

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COVENANT SEMINARY REVIEW thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins. I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw: 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. (Prov. 24:30-34)

In contrast to Moses, who went to the Tent of Meeting and spoke with God, and to Isaiah, who, while in the Temple, was caught up into the divine assembly where he saw and heard God, the sage has no direct word from God but learns by observation of and reflection on earthly phenomena. H. Cazelle, focusing upon the anthropocentricity of wisdom, wrote: Wisdom is the art of succeeding in human life, both private and collective. It is grounded in humanism, in reflexion on and observation of the course of things and the conduct of man.9 Appeal to tradition. The sage also bases his teaching on the authority of tradition. For example, in this lovely poem that gives a direct insight into the home of a godly Israelite, the sage informs his son: Listen, my sons, to a father's instruction; pay attention and gain understanding. I give you sound learning, so do not forsake my teaching. When I was a boy in my father's house, still tender, and an only child of my mother, He taught me and said, 'Lay hold of my words with all your heart; Keep my commands and you will live.' (4:1-4) Moses, by contrast, does not receive the Law from the fathers but directly from God, and the prophets, who submit to Moses, receive its interpretation and application to Israel's experience in haz (i.e., in supernatural "auditions").10 Among the wisdom teachers themselves one observes different accents for

Henri Cazelle, "Bible, sagesse, science," RSR, 48 (1960), pp. 42f. Jepsen, TDOT, IV, 283. 1 'James G. Williams, Those Who Ponder Proverbs (Sheffield, 1981).
10

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their authority. James G. Williams contrasted the bases of authority in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Gospels.11 The sages who authored the book of Proverbs primarily grounded themselves in tradition; Koheleth "devoted himself to explore and to study by wisdom all that is done under heaven" (Eccl 2:12-14), and Jesus, the One wiser than Solomon (Mt 12:42), in contrast to the didactic wisdom of Proverbs and the reflective wisdom of Ecclesiastes, appealed neither to tradition nor to scientific experiment but spoke as the heavenly Son of Man and with an authority that astonished his audience (Mt 7:28-29). Appeal to e Isa. Others deny the wisdom teachers a divine authority equal to Moses and the prophets on account of the words used to describe their messages. Recall that Jeremiah made a distinction between the torah ("law") of the priest, the dabar ("word") of the prophet, and the es ("counsel") of the wise (Jer 18:18). W. Zimmerli, noting this distinction, wrote: Authority rules categorically. Counsel is debatable. . . . It is not the categorical demand for such realizable deed and no other, but rather constant clarification of the "precept" through the justification attached.12 In a subsequent article presented to the Colloque de Strasbourg in 1962, Zimmerli continued to maintain the non-authoritative character of wisdom, albeit with some moderations. On the nature of wisdom he wrote: Recent research into Wisdom has rightly underlined that it is not possible to understand Wisdom as purely profane doing, that shows man as a being who is free from all commitment.13 Nevertheless, as to Wisdom's authority he wrote: Counsel affords a certain margin of liberty and of proper decision. Certainly we cannot say that counsel has no authority. It has the authority of insight. But that is quite different from the authority of the Lord, who decrees.14 G. von Rad in his Theology of the Old Testament quotes with approval Zimmerli's statement, "The sage had no authority to give, for his counsels were of course derived essentially from experience." He elaborated:

12 Walter Zimmerli, "The Place and Limit of the Wisdom in the Framework of the Old Testament Theology," SAIW, p. 316. "Ibid, p. 321. "Ibid.

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COVENANT SEMINARY REVIEW Such counsel does not demand obedience, but it asks to be tested; it appeals to the judgment of the hearer; it is intended to be understood, and to make decisions easier. . . . Experience always remains open to correction . . . wisdom is always open and never brought to conclusion. . . . Her province is not any exclusive understanding of truth.15

Conclusion. Since the book of Proverbs, were we to believe these scholars, does not rest its ladder on which man may ascend on the bar of heaven, but on earthbound tradition, experience, and reflection, therefore, along with the rest of humanism, it threatens to come crashing down to earth. This understanding about the nature and authority of the Book of Proverbs has a profound bearing on the way in which we hear and preach it. Are its teachings about the goodness of marriage (18:22), the need to discipline children (22:15), the imperative to feed your enemy when he hungers (25:21), and not to set one's affections on riches (23:4) debatable human counsel or authoritative divine command? If the former, then we are susceptible to the Serpent's question, "Did God really say?" and we will teach it as the scribes. If the latter, we should humbly accept its doctrines and teach it with the authority that characterized our Lord (Mt 7:28f.). II. THE MEANING OF WISDOM In spite of a broad scholarly opinion restricting the book's authority and in spite of texts apparently validating them, I aim to demonstrate in these lectures that the book of Proverbs intends to speak with the same authority as the rest of Scripture and implies the same shocking alternative. I draw this conclusion on the basis of a proper understanding of the crucial terms "wisdom" and "counsel" and on the exegesis of basic texts within the book. In this first lecture I will look at two terms, hokmh and e s and in the second at Proverbs 1:20-33. Hokmh ("wisdom"), the most important word in Proverbs, is a bi-vocal, that is, it has more than one meaning in the target language at one and the same time. Its accents differ according to the literature, but the following significations are present. "Skill. " In some texts the accent lies on the meaning, "skill," more particularly, "technical skill." For example, the reader of Exodus is told that the tailors who made Aaron's priestly garments were "wise [hokmh] of heart," or

15

Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology (1962), I, 434.

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as the NIV rightly renders the expression, "skilled men" (Ex 28:3). These men had the ability to go out into the field and harvest its flax and from it spin linen thread. They took that thread and on the loom wove the broad cloth and cut the cloth into the ephod, robe, woven tunic, turban, and sash that fit Aaron's body. They mixed dyes of blue, purple, and scarlet and together with spun gold fashioned the priest's glorious garments. The word is used similarly of Bezalel and Oholiab (Ex 35:30). These were chaps who could go out into the forest, cut down some trees, strip off the bark, cut the wood into planks, and fit them together according to the heavenly blueprint and so construct the tabernacle. They were metalurgists as well as carpenters. Out of a solid block of gold they hammered out the lampstand with its base, shaft, flowerlike cups, buds and blossoms. The Bible says that they were filled with the spirit of wisdom, that is, they were skillful. The word is also used technically of sailors who guide a ship across waters without landmarks and land it safely in a foreign port. Psalm 107 pictures a storm in which the ship mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths and the sailors were at their 'wits' (hokmh) end (vs 27). That is, their skills failed them. In other contexts hokmh refers to judicial skill. For example, Moses instructed Israel to help him in governing them: Choose some wise [hokmh], understanding and respected men from each of your tribes, and I will set them over you (Deut 1:12). This is the sort of wisdom for which Solomon prayed: So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong (1 Kgs 3:9). In response to his pleasing prayer the LORD gave the king "a wise [hokmh] and discerning heart" (vs 10). Judicial skill also characterizes the Messiah, "the shoot from the stump of Jesse": The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of the knowledge and of the fear of the LORD" (Isa 11:2). Possessing the skill to get behind the outward appearance of things and to get to the heart of the man, He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears (vs 4). In the Book of Proverbs "wisdom" signifies religio-social skill. The ability

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to relate to God and man, to speak well, raise a family, cope with enemies, handle one's finances, and so on. "Created order."\n addition to "skill," hokmh refers to a fixed order. The two ideas are related. A skilled craftsman is one who knows the properties, the "created order," if you please, of his material. A stone mason is skillful because he understands a stone's properties, a carpenter with wood because he knows its character. I recall the first time I visited Deerfield Village how impressed I was with the Wright Brother's bicycle shop. Prior to my visit I had thought that through luck they flew the first airplane. In their shop I learned otherwise. There I observed a windtunnel, experimental wings, a scientific notebook, and I learned that through the scientific method they uncovered God's hidden laws of aerodynamics. They were skillful because they understood the fixed laws governing flight. In Proverbs the accent falls on this level of meaning, especially in the first nine chapters, the hermeneutical key to the book. Here it designates as von Rad and Gese recognized, the "wholesome, all pervading, divine ordering."16 The overwhelming majority of proverbs find themselves within such a general concept of an order that God created, established, and upholds. Most modern scholars, recognizing this meaning of hokmh, rightly relate it to the Egyptian goddess Ma'at who embodies, as Kayatz put it, "the god-given order of the world."17 The sages in Proverbs represent the many phases of this fixed order that God gave birth to as the first of his works (Prov 8:22). More specifically, as von Rad argued so convincingly, the fixed order entails a cause-effect connection.18 Consider, for example, the proverbs "A wise son brings joy to his father, a foolish son grief to his mother" (10:1), and "Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth" (v.4). The same connection is found in the Egyptian goddess. Kayatz wrote: "In the godgiven Maat the Cause-Effect connexion has its basis. Each man is subordinate to it."19 My own research and reflections on Proverbs has led me to the realization of a three-fold connection: namely, character effects conduct and conduct in turn effects consequences. One may refer to it as "the three 'c's' of wisdom."

Cited by Christa Kayatz, Studien zu Proverbien 1-9 (1966), p. 7. Ibid. p. 6. More precisely, Israel adopted and adapted the Egyptian notion of Ma'at and Hebrew "wisdom." The main differences between Ma'at and Hebrew wisdom is that Ma'at is a goddess to whom all other gods are subject, whereas Hebrew wisdom is a creation of the Lord and is upheld by Him (cf. Prov. 8:22ff.). 18 Gerhard von Rad, Wisdom in Israel (1972), pp. 124-137. i9 Ibid, p. 6.
11

16

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This threefold connection is summed up in the sage's favorite metaphor for wisdom, "Way." One can tell a man's destiny by the way in which he is headed, and the course he chooses its determined by his character. The sage warns his son: My son, do not go in the way with the wicked, do not set foot on their path (1:15). He explains: These men lie in wait for their own blood; they waylay only themselves! Such is the way of all who go after ill-gotten gain; it takes away the lives of those who get it (vs 19). Wisdom then is the fixed cause-effect order that God created and upholds, and the path one chooses depends on one's character. Moreover, it is the sum of all the specific laws of creation found in the rest of the book, laws that cannot be broken. These laws, grounded in the created order, are as certain as the Law of Moses and the word of the prophet. If one obeys them he enjoys life; if he breaks them, he dies. The authority of wisdom literature, however, becomes qualified when one realizes that the expression of the objective reality is subjective. Wisdom, the inner substance, is only known through the sage's coinage. Significantly, in his introductory summary statement of purpose (1:1-6) the sage brings both notions together. The book exists, he explains: for the attaining wisdom (that is, the substance) (vs 2a); for understanding words of insight (that is, the expression) (vs 2b). In the remainder of his statement of purpose he first epexegetes the moral substance, "wisdom," with its many synonyms (vss 3-4) and then epexegetes its expression in verse 6. He unpacks the moral content by first looking at it from the viewpoint of the student-son: for acquiring a just and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair (vs 3), and then from the viewpoint of the teacher-parent: for giving prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the young (vs 4). After a parenthetical statement that the wise will drink up as much of his wisdom as possible (vs 5), he returns to the expressing of wisdom: for understanding proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles of the wise (vs 6).

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Parenthetically, one may note that in the theological system of Heliopolis knowledge and its expression become hypostasized into the gods sja and hu respectively.20 Words not only give expression to wisdom, they actually frame it. Creation is not neutral but interpreted from a philosophical perspective. Bruner observed: Science and common sense inquiry alike do not discover the ways in which events are grouped in the world; they invent ways of grouping.21 Take, for example, the recent fate of the soybean. Scientists used to classify it as Feed, now they classify it as Food. The extra-linguistic referent has not changed but the expression, the framing, of it has shaped a different understanding of the soybean and its use. Our presuppositions and preunderstandings shape, yes, even create, the way in which we see the universe. Bruner sums up: The categories in terms of which man sorts out and responds to the world around him reflect deeply the culture into which he is born. . . . In a sense, his personal history comes to reflect the traditions and the thought ways of his culture, for the events that make it up are filtered through the categorical systems he has learned.22 Proverbs, the expressions of the created order, differ from one society to the next, because of the different lenses through which they see it. In sum, as the philosopher E. Cassirer perceived, substance and expression are inseparable, for expression creates the substance.23 The objective fixed order exists in the relative, subjective expression of it. To demonstrate wisdom's authority in light of its subjective expression, we need now to consider the human author who coined, yes, "created" it. The first part of the prologue, which is also the first verse of the book, introduces us to the one who minted these proverbs, namely, Solomon son of David, king of Israel. Observe more closely, he is both an Israelite and a king. Scholars commonly note that wisdom literature stands apart from the rest of the Old Testament by its detachment from Heilsgeschichte. No mention is made in this literature of God's election of a particular people Israel to bring Carol Reder Fontaine, Traditional Sayings in the Old Testament (1982), p. 42. Cited by Fontaine, Ibid, p. 42. Ibid. 23 E. Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, translated by Ralph Manheim (1964), II.
2 20

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about universal salvation. No reference is made to the fathers, or to Moses, or to the prophets. Only in the first verse is wisdom tied into history. The author is an Israelite, that is, he views the created order through the lens of the covenant community which entails that his preunderstanding has been shaped by the Mosaic law. Recall that when the king took the throne of the kingdom, he wrote for himself on a scroll a copy of the Mosaic law, taken from that of the priests. Not surprisingly, Proverbs never contradicts the Law but upholds it. In fact, one proverb that stands off the beaten track emphasizes the Law's importance: Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but blessed is he who keeps the Law (29:18). Barucq, Scott, and McKane interpret Law here as a reference to the Mosaic Law,24 an interpretation validated by the parallel, "divine revelation." In sum, the Book of Proverbs has a derivative authority from the Law. Note also that the author is a king. Recall here that Israel's king was recognized as son of God through prophetic anointing and by so much, as Proverbs 16:10 asserts, his lips speak as a qesem rendered "oracle" in JB, NEB, NAB, NIV, "divine sentence" in KJV, and "inspired decision" in RSV. Israel's inspired historian traced Solomon's wisdom back to God, conferring divine authority to it (1 Kgs 4:29; [Heb 5:9]). Since wisdom is the charismatic expression of the eternal religio-social order, the sage does not hesitate to designate his teachings by the same words Moses used for his revelation, namely tor (1:8,3:1; 13:14; 28:4, 7, passim) III. THE MEANING OF COUNSEL But what about ~s! Does it relativize categorical hokmh, tor, misva to non-authoritative, debatable "counsel", as Zimmerli argues? Does the sage only "ask that his counsel be tested" or does he authoritatively admonish, "keep my commandments and live." The noun'r occurs about 85 times and its verbal root, y*s, about 45 times. Its meanings range from "counsel," "advice," to "admonition," "prophecy," "immutable will," depending on the social relationship between the speaker and his audience and the situation in which he speaks. If the one giving 's is socially inferior to the one addressed, it is "advice" to be reflected upon and independently enacted according to the hearer's judgment. For example Jethro, from the wisdom attained by age and/or experience gives

24

William McKane, Proverbs (1970), p. 640.

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his "counsel" to Moses on an organizational plan and how to carry out the adminstrative responsibilities for ruling and judging Israel. Moses, however, as chief administrator of the people of God, is not obligated to accept it. Likewise, Absalom was free to accept or reject Ahithophel's good counsel, and Rabshakeh taunted Hezekiah's claim with, "I have counsel and strength for war." On the other hand, when God or the king gives counsel to inferiors it is not open to debate. In contrast to the counsels of men and nation, Psalm 33:10f speaks of the "counsel of the LORD": The LORD foils the plans [*s] of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans [es] of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations. The plans of the nations are temporary and qualified; by contrast the Lord's are eternal and unqualified. The eternal and unyielding counsel of God that thwarted Ahithophel's plans and those of unbelieving nations is revealed through prophets: Remember the former things, those long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are still to come. I say, 'My purpose [es] will stand, and I will do all that I please. From the east I summon a bird of prey; from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose [es]. What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do" (Isa 46:10-11). P. Gilchrist helpfully reminds us that's is translated in the LXX by boul, which occurs in Ephesians 1:11 in the expression "the counsel of his will," that is, the immutable foreordination of God's will; in Hebrews 6:17 in the expression "the unchangeableness of his purpose."25 The word also designates God's immutable plan in Proverbs 19:21: Many are the plans [mahshabt] in a man's heart, but it is the LORD purpose [es] that prevails. The word also refers to Messiah's authoritative, unchangeable plan. One of his names is "Wonderful Counsellor" (Isa 9:6) and his "counsel" is a gift from God's own Holy Spirit (Isa 11:2). As a result he brings to fruition on earth God's eternal purpose for a righteous government. P. A. H. DeBoer observed:

25Paul Gilchrist, TWOT, I, 390.

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Jhwh's counsellor means . . . the one who carries out his counsel. And his counsel is his will."26

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J. Pedersen repeatedly emphasized the authority of the yo'es ("counsellor"). His counsel was "more than a proposal, something that is to be discussed."27 Since the sage expressed the eternal, fixed order of God, his "counsel" is not non-authoritarian but eternal, immutable. For this reason H. Gese rightly insisted that the sage spoke with an authority like that of the prophet. 28 B. Gemser observed that Jeremiah in 18:18 did not mean to distinguish the authoritative speech of the priest and of the prophet with the non-authoritative speech of the sage.29 Skladny's careful study of the oldest collection or proverbs in Israel led him to reject Zimmerli's contention. He wrote: The attitude of unconditional submission to the absolute authority of Yahweh was the sole foundation of wisdom and at the same time of righteousness (and this surrender is ethical rather than programmatic).30 He further validated his position by appealing to H. Brunner's observation that in Egypt "all wisdom teaching grounds its claim in authority."31

CONCLUSION If prophet, priest, and sage all speak with divine authority, how do they differ? The answer lies first in noting that God spoke to them through varying psychologies.32 To Moses he spoke face to face, and to the prophets, he spoke in auditions. The sage, however, did not receive the divine order on a vertical

P. A. H. de Boer, "The Counsellor," Supplement to Vetus Testamentum, 3 (1960):44. 27 J. Pedersen, Israel (\926), I-II, 128. 28 H. Gese, Lehre und Wirklichkeit in der alten Weisheit (1958), pp. 45-50. 29 B. Gemser, "The Spiritual Structure of Biblical Aphoristic Wisdom," Homiletica en Biblica 21 (1962), pp. 146-149. 30 Skladny, Die aeltesten Sprunchsammlungen in Israel (1962), p. 91. ^Ibid. 32 Abraham Kuyper notes some of these differences and argues for a division into the categories of lyric, chokmatic, prophetic, and apostolic inspiration (Principles of Sacred Theology [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963], 520-44, the section on "The Forms of Inspiration.") Cited by Vern Poythress, WTJ, 43 (1986), 260, note 14.

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axis but on a horizontal axis. Through the lenses of Moses and of a godly tradition, and with the Spirit of God upon him, he coined proverbs that accurately and authoritatively expressed the divine will. But these contrasting psychologies lead to another distinction, the hierarchy of authority. Crenshaw goes too far when he says, "In short, between Thus saith the Lord' and 'Listen, my son, to your father's advice' there is no fundamental difference,"33 The story in Numbers 12 teaches otherwise. Recall that when the prophetess Miriam and the prophet Aaron contested the authority of their brother Moses (for all three had the Word of God), the Lord rebuked them for not fearing Moses because he spoke to Moses clearly, face to face, whereas to them he spoke in riddle-like auditions. The more direct mode of revelation to Moses gave him greater authority. The model of greater authority because of the more direct mode of revelation prepares the way for the most direct mode of revelation in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1 instructs us that Christ's authority is greater than any revelation in the Old Testament because His is the most direct revelation of all, the revelation in a Son. According to this understanding the sage speaks from the lowest platform of all because his revelation is most indirect. If tension should arise in the way we read the Law and the Prophets and the book of Proverbs, priority must be given first to the Law and then to the Prophets, and if tension should arise in the way in which we read the Testaments, priority belongs to the New. The difference between them is like that of a hundred dollar bill, a fifty, a twenty, and a ten. All bear the authority of the U.S. government, but some have more weight than others.

33

James L. Crenshaw, " 'Es and Dabar," Prophetic Conflict (1971), p. 123.

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