CHAPTER XXXI. Critical Notes 1-9 Divine Commands from a Mother's Lips 10-31 A Model Matron HOMILETIC COMMENTARY ON PROVERBS INTRODUCTION AND PREFACE. The Hebrew word for proverb _(mashal)_ means a comparison. Hence it includes more than we generally understand by the English word, viz., a pithy sentence expressing in a few words a well-known or obvious truth. When books were few it was most natural that observations on life and manners should be compressed into the smallest possible compass: hence proverbial teaching has been employed from the most remote antiquity. It is highly probable that all proverbial sayings were at first literally _comparisons,_ as this would tend to fix them more indelibly upon the memory. But the word by degrees came to express that which we now understand it to signify. Although a few more lengthy discourses are found in this book, it consists mainly of a few short proverbial sentences, often illustrated and enforced by most striking metaphors. It has been almost universally received by both Jewish and Christian writers as the inspired production of Solomon. The most convincing proof of its canonicity is the fact that the New Testament contains many quotations from it. Compare Prov. iii. 11, 12 with Heb. xii. 5, 6; Prov. iii. 34, with Jas. iv. 6; Prov. x. 12, with 1 Pet. iv. 8; Prov. xi. 31 _(Sept.),_ with 1 Pet. iv. 18; Prov. xxii. 9 _(Sept.),_ with 2 Cor. ix. 7; Prov. xxv. 21, 22, with Rom. xii. 20; Prov. xxvi. 11, with 2 Pet. ii. 22; Prov. xxvii. 1, with Jas. iv. 13, 14. But, were these wanting, its superiority to every other book of a similar character would constitute a most weighty internal evidence of its Divine inspiration. Moses Stuart says of it: "All the heathen moralists and proverbialists joined together cannot furnish us with one such book as that of the Proverbs." And Wordsworth remarks: "The Proverbs of Solomon come from above, and they also look upward. They teach that all true wisdom is the gift of God, and is grounded on the fear of the Lord. They dwell with the strongest emphasis on the necessity of careful vigilance over the heart, which is manifest only to God, and on the duty of acting, in all the daily business and social intercourse of life, with habitual reference to the only unerring standard of human practice, His will and Word. In this respect the Book of Proverbs prepared the way for the preaching of the Gospel, and we recognise in it an anticipation of the apostolic precept: 'Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord.'" Dr. Guthrie considered that "the high character which Scotsmen earned in by-gone years was mainly due to their early acquaintance with the Book of Proverbs." (_Sunday Magazine,_ Oct., 1868, p. 15.)