Verse 32
32. He spake three thousand proverbs He seems to have first established among the Hebrews this species of gnomic didactic poetry. Of these three thousand proverbs a very valuable though a comparatively small portion remains in the Book of Proverbs, and, perhaps, also in Ecclesiastes. The remark that he spake these proverbs may imply that they were not all written or actually recorded, and so, from being preserved only by oral tradition, they either became gradually lost, or their authorship became uncertain.
His songs were a thousand and five Being the son of the greatest of human lyrists, the sweet psalmist of Israel, he naturally inherited the gift of poetry and song. Of these thousand and five songs there now remain but the seventy-second and one hundred and twenty-seventh Psalms and the Canticles, though the authorship of the latter is a controverted question. But though most of the Proverbs and Songs of Solomon are lost to us, their silent influences, flowing through unseen channels, may have greatly affected both the ancient and modern literature of the East, and may still be studied in the apocryphal books of Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon.
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