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 and of Delitzsch. Both are agreed that the older Book of Proverbs extends from i. 1 to xxiv. 22, i. 1-6 (or 7) being the descriptive heading of the work, and i. 7 (or 8)-ix. 18 a hortatory treatise, by the author, more or less introductory to the sayings which follow. The date of the collection of the latter Ewald places at the beginning of the eighth century; that of the heading and introduction in the middle of the seventh. Towards the end of the seventh century the three appendices (xxii. 17-xxiv. 22, xxiv. 23-35, xxv. 1-xxix. 27) were added; the contents of the two former were derived from two popular proverbial collections, while the latter was a great and officially sanctioned anthology dating from the end of the eighth century. The remaining parts of the book (xxx. 1-xxxi. 9, and xxxi. 10-31) Ewald assigns to the seventh century. Delitzsch (whose view is perhaps the most conservative one still tenable) dates the publication of the first Book of Proverbs as early as the reign of Jehoshaphat (referring to 2 Chr. xvii. 7-9). To its editor he ascribes not only the authorship of i. 1-ix. 18 but the conclusion of the 'older book' by the words of the wise, xxii. 17-xxiv. 22, while a later editor is responsible both for the supplementary sayings of the wise, xxiv. 22-34, and for the great Hezekian collection, of which he thus ensured the preservation. The same person probably appended the obscure sayings of Agur (xxx.) and of Lemuel (xxxi. 1-9), possibly too the closing alphabetic poem (xxxi. 10-31), which is assigned by Delitzsch to the pre-Hezekian period. Both Ewald and Delitzsch are substantially agreed as to the existence of a genuine Solomonic element in both the great anthologies (especially in the first), but upon very conjectural grounds.

One point only remains to be considered, however briefly. The Book of Job has already furnished an example of the poetical fiction of the non-Israelitish authorship of a Hebrew poem. It is possible enough that this and the similar instance of the Balaam-oracles were not alone in Hebrew literature. Nor are they so, if a view of the first words of the headings in Prov. xxx. 1, xxxi. 1, which has found many friends, be correct, and we may render in the one case, 'The words of Agur the