Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/1393

 peoples; the tendencies of that time towards intercourse with distant regions; the deep peace which followed the subjugation of the confederated nations - all these are features which stamped the time of Jehoshaphat as a copy of that of Solomon. Hence we are to expect in it the fostering care of the Chokma. If the author of the introduction and editor of the older book of Proverbs lived after Solomon and before Hezekiah, then the circumstances of the case most suitably determine his time as at the beginning of the reign of Jehoshaphat, some seventy years after Solomon's death. If in chap. 1-9 it is frequently said that wisdom was seen openly in the streets and ways, this agrees with 2Ch 17:7-9, where it is said that princes, priests, and Levites, sent out by Jehoshaphat (compare the Carolingian missi), went forth into the towns of Judah with the book of the law in their hands as teachers of the people, and with 2Ch 19:4, where it is stated that Jehoshaphat himself “went out through the people from Beer-sheba to Mount Ephraim, and brought them back unto the Lord God of their fathers.” We have an evidence of the fondness for allegorical forms of address at that time in 2Ki 14:8-11 (2Ch 25:17-21), which is so far favourable to the idea that the allegorizing author of chap. 1-9 belonged to that epoch of history. This also agrees with the time of Jehoshaphat, that in the first collection the kingdom appears in its bright side, adorned with righteousness (Pro 14:35; Pro 16:10, Pro 16:12-13; Pro 20:8), wisdom (Pro 20:26), grace and truth (Pro 20:28), love to the good (Pro 22:11), divine guidance (Pro 21:1), and in the height of power (Pro 16:14-15; Pro 19:12); while in the second collection, which immediately begins with a series of the king's sayings, the kingdom is seen almost only (with exception of Pro 29:14) on its dark side, and is represented under the destructive dominion of tyranny (Pro 28:15-16; Pro 29:2), of oppressive taxation (Pro 29:4), of the Camarilla (Pro 25:5; Pro 29:12), and of multiplied authorities (Pro 28:2). Elster is right when he remarks, that in chap. 10-22:16 the kingdom in its actual state corresponds to its ideal, and the warning against the abuse of royal power lies remote. If these proverbs more distinguishably than those in chap. 25-29 bear the physiognomy of the time of David and Solomon, so, on the other hand, the time of Jehoshaphat, the son and successor of Asa, is favourable to their collection; while in the time of Hezekiah, the son and successor of Ahaz, and father and predecessor of Manasseh, in which, through the sin of Ahaz, negotiations with the world-