The mind of kings is unfathomable
Prv. 25:1
Kings and rulers come and go.. Some leave legacies of wisdom, some just empty halls of greed and debt.
Did King Solomon really write Proverbs as tradition suggests - or was it the co-created project of later generations claiming the wise king’s fame?
Modern scholarship suggests the latter.
The first verse of today’s chapter offers a rare and fascinating backstage glimpse into what may have been the process by which the complication of proverbs - and possibly more books of the Hebrew Bible - emerged and evolved:
גַּם־אֵ֭לֶּה מִשְׁלֵ֣י שְׁלֹמֹ֑ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר הֶ֝עְתִּ֗יקוּ אַנְשֵׁ֤י ׀ חִזְקִיָּ֬ה מֶלֶךְ־יְהוּדָֽה׃
These too are proverbs of Solomon, which the officials of King Hezekiah of Judah copied:
Prv. 25:1
Why do we suddenly get this reference to the process behind the proverbs? It isn’t quite clear but by unpacking this verse a bit more we might get a better sense of what it is about and why it still matters.
Hezekiah was the thirteenth king of Judah - descended from David and Solomon. He is famous for his sweeping religious reforms, demanding strict worship of YHWH alone, demolishing other deities’ temples and religious symbols. He ruled Judah through the tumultuous decades of the 8th century BCE, confronted with rising tensions with the Assyrian empire, witnessed the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE and barely escaped the empire’s wrath when the siege on Jerusalem was surprisingly lifted in 701 BCE.
Codifying the biblical canon as foundational faith-text for the monotheistic Judaism he helps to solidify, and venerating his ancestral Judaic legacy seem to fit King Hezekiah’s profile. What does it mean that the scribes in this 8th century BCE king copied or recycled the teachings of a king who ruled two centuries earlier? Whether these were compiled by Hezekiay, retrieved from different sources, or composed from scratch with an ancient attribution, Scholars suggest that the reformer king commissioned this project in order to compare his reign to the fabled King Solomon. By linking his kingship and piety to that of the greatest philosopher king he also refers to the last of the kings of the briefly united kingdom of Judah and Israel. Even the Babylonian Talmud suspected that Hezekiah did more than quote the prior generations but actually authored much of the Wisdom literature:
“Hezekiah and his scribes authored the Prophetic Book of Isaiah, Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes ”
Although we may never know the answer to the history of this book’s composition, the next verse at least alludes to the possibilities that the mystery surrounding its origin may have been intended while also venerating the righteous king’s wisdom:
כְּבֹ֣ד אֱ֭לֹהִים הַסְתֵּ֣ר דָּבָ֑ר וּכְבֹ֥ד מְ֝לָכִ֗ים חֲקֹ֣ר דָּבָֽר׃ שָׁמַ֣יִם לָ֭רוּם וָאָ֣רֶץ לָעֹ֑מֶק וְלֵ֥ב מְ֝לָכִ֗ים אֵ֣ין חֵֽקֶר׃
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,
And the glory of a king to plumb a matter.
Like the heavens in their height, like the earth in its depth,
Is the mind of kings—unfathomable.
Prv. 25:2-3
In this historical hide and seek game, what we may have here is an authorial nod to the intentional mysteries surrounding the provenance of Proverbs while praising the royal mandate that made it a household name. So who really wrote this Book of Wisdom?
Who knows? Whoever wrote these chapters left us a precious legacy that endures far beyond fame or flesh.
Image: King Hezekiah on a 17th century painting by unknown artist in the choir of Sankta Maria kyrka in Åhus, Sweden
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