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Trinity/After Pentecost · The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

Proverbs 25:6-14

More Proverbs of Solomon

Esther before Ahasuerus, Artemisia Gentileschi
Esther before Ahasuerus, Artemisia Gentileschi, c. 1628–1635Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York · public domain

Overview & Insights

“It is better to be told, ‘Come up here,’ than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.” (Proverbs 25:7)

These chapters are introduced by a superscription indicating that they are from Solomon by way of the “men of Hezekiah.” The sayings break from the admonitory style of 22:17–24:34 and resemble those of chapters 10–22:16. However, these sayings are much more vivid, and in chapters 25–27 they form larger units (“proverb poems,” as they have been called). Explicit comparisons are frequent. We are unable to say much about the general setting of the collection, but the ambience of the court predominates in chapters 25–27. The characteristic sound patterns (assonance, alliteration, catchwords, etc.) mark this collection just as they did the previous chapters. For the sake of brevity these patterns will not be emphasized here, but the reader is referred to the studies of McCreesh, Sound (index), and for chapters 25–27 in particular, R. Van Leeuwen, Context and Meaning in Proverbs 25–27 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988).

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What does Proverbs 25 counsel?

Do not exalt yourself before the king or claim a place among the great; humility, patience, and a word fitly spoken are the wisdom the passage commends (Proverbs 25:6–14).

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