Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible - Proverbs 4:1-27
Prologue To The Book (Proverbs 1:8 to Proverbs 9:18 ). It was common throughout the 3rd to the 1st millenniums BC for collections of wisdom saying to have a prologue preparing for the ‘sayings’ that would follow. Those sayings would then be introduced by a subheading. Proverbs thus follows the usual precedent in having such a prologue in Proverbs 1:8 to Proverbs 9:18, followed by general sayings in Proverbs 10:1 ff headed by a subheading (Proverbs 10:1). It was also common for such a... read more
Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible - Proverbs 4:1-2
A General Appeal To ‘Sons’ (Proverbs 4:1-2 ). The change from ‘my son’ to ‘sons’, which occurs only here as an opening address, may well have taken place because of Solomon’s reference in Proverbs 4:3 to himself as ‘the son of his father’ and ‘the only son of his mother’. He may well have wanted to avoid any implication that he was in general addressing his own son. It does, of course bring out that elsewhere ‘my son’ is to be seen as a composite term addressing a number of people. But that... read more