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 Then follows a motto, the first line of which occurs again near the close of the book in ix. 10 (Job xxviii. 28, Ps. cxi. 10), and which stamps the author as belonging to a new and more religious class of 'wise men' (see p. 121),—

The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom,

i.e. the foundation of true wisdom (its 'root,' Ecclus. i. 20) is reverence. The disciple is to begin by taking this upon trust, but when further advanced he will see that it is the shortest way to his goal, true wisdom having an objective existence in the unseen world. At present he is simply to follow the 'direction' of those wiser than himself:—our moralist is as zealous for a tōra as the author of Deuteronomy. But though serious and authoritative, he is never stern; indeed, to enforce his appeal he breaks through a Hebrew writer's usual veil of reticence and describes his own home-life (iv. 3, 4). He can enter into the feelings of the young, for he too has 'borne the yoke in his youth' (Lam. iii. 27), and learned to prefer it to 'unchartered freedom.' The whole of chap. iv. is devoted to a summary of the wise doctrine which he received from his father; indeed, throughout the book he shows a wonderful appreciation of the parental and the filial relations, and, according to Ewald's arrangement (see below), begins each section with an exhortation to listen to parental instruction. He himself feels like a father to his young disciples (iv. 1).

The errors to which his hearers are specially tempted are highway robbery (i. 11-18, iv. 16, 17) and unchastity (ii. 16, v. 3-20, vi. 24-35, vii. 5-27, ix. 13-18). From the time that the simplicity of the ancient life began to give way to the inroads of luxury, we meet in the Biblical writings with complaints of acts of violence leading to murder (see, for instance, in the prophecies, Isa. i. 15, v. 7, xxxiii. 15, Mic. iii. 10, Jer. ii. 34, xxii. 17, Isa. lix. 3, 7, and in a collection of proverbs contemporary with our book, Prov. xxiv. 15, 16). 'At no time,' as Dean Plumptre well remarks, 'has Palestine ever risen to the security of a well-ordered police-system;' even down to the fall of Jerusalem, bands of robbers defied the authority of the central government. The remarkable thing