There are five books that are normally classified as the Poetical Books.

There are three books in the Bible that have been referred to as "books of wisdom."

• Job
• Proverbs
• Ecclesiastes

 TITLE OF THE BOOK

It is customary in the ancient world to use as the title of a book the first word or sentence in that book. The same thing is done in Proverbs. The title is given in the first verse of the book.

The Hebrew word translated "proverb" is Mashal. It comes from the root verb that describes the act of ruling or reigning or exercising dominion. That means the Proverbs are more than mere catchy sayings. They are rules for living. They are given so that the Lord might have dominion over your life.

They are concentrated truths. It is like frozen orange juice. You merely add water and it will expand.

There are several contributing authors to the Proverbs. They were collected over a long period of time. The early chapters are attributed to Solomon. We see this in Proverbs 1:1. This gives us a great insight into the reason behind the writing of this book.

The kingdom of Israel was at its highest pinnacle of glory. The glory of the world in that day was Israel and the glory of Israel was Jerusalem and the glory of Jerusalem was the Temple. It was the greatest wonder in the world.

Yet there were already cracks in the kingdom. The unity of the nation was already being threatened. At the death of Solomon, the northern tribes would pull out of the Union. The kings and the priests who followed would be corrupt.

It is in the midst of this situation that God gives a book telling how to live godly in an ungodly world. This brings us to the purpose of the book.

The purpose of the book of Proverbs is given to us in Proverbs 1:2-6. It is to know wisdom.

The stated purpose of the Proverbs is that we might know wisdom. This brings us to an obvious question. What is wisdom?

Webster's Dictionary might give one definition. It might define wisdom as having a high degree of knowledge or in being practical in your decision-making skills. The Bible presents quite a different picture of wisdom. It is seen in the book of Exodus.

In this passage, the Lord is giving Moses instructions as to the preparation of the garments of the high priest.

The Proverbs give you guidelines on how to run your life. It is a handbook for running the Christian race. It is your life's Owner's Manual.

Once you know that you need wisdom and that wisdom is to be found in the Bible, where do you start? You start with the next verse of Proverbs.

This is the BIG idea in the book of Proverbs. It is placed right at the beginning of the book. It is also found right at the end of the book of Ecclesiastes.

Do you see it? The fear of the Lord is both the BEGINNING as well as the END of wisdom.

What is this fear of the Lord? What does it mean to fear God? First let me say that the Hebrew word for "fear" is FEAR. When we speak of fear, we can refer to two types.

1. A Fear that Drives Away.

Imagine that we are all back in the 2^nd grade. It has been a long time since I was there, but imagine that which brought fear. One of the things that might fill you with fear is the schoolyard bully. He is big and he is mean and he is out to make your life miserable. If he is big enough and if he is mean enough and if you are small enough, then his coming just might fill you with fear and trembling and mortification and a terror that causes your knees to shake and a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach that is known as fear. You are afraid for good reason. He is stronger than you are and his intentions toward you are for evil.

2. A Fear that Brings Wonder.

What kind of fear is present when we speak of the fear of the Lord? It is a little of BOTH. Our fear of the Lord is a fear of awe and wonderment, a fear that would have us draw near.

But it is also a fear that is accompanied by trembling. Those two words go together when we speak of the Lord's presence.

It is not mere respect or reverence, though it includes that. It is the realization that God is a lot bigger than I am and that He does what HE wants. It includes a respect for God's authority. It means that you believe what He says is true and that you order your life accordingly.

If you have not stood in the presence of God and feared Him, then you have not stood in the presence of God.

I love the depiction given to us by C.S. Lewis in his Chronicles of Narnia when the children first hear about Aslan, the Christ-figure in the book. They ask whether Aslan is a man.

It is the beginning of wisdom to realize that God is great and wondrous and majestic and that He is to be approached with awe and wonderment and with fear. This is not a fear that drives away, but a fear that draws near.

For the most part, the Proverbs are given in the form of couplets. The clauses of these couplets are related in terms of parallelism.

Most poetry in the Hebrew language was not made up of rhyming words, but of rhyming thoughts and ideas. There are four major types of parallelism used in the Proverbs.

In addition to these, there is a 3-yet-4 pattern that is seen in chapter 30.

The book of Proverbs does not follow a specific outline. Much of it is presented in short, pithy sayings. Yet there is an overall pattern that can be seen.

Proverbs tells a story. It is the story of a young man. He begins by deciding which school he shall attend -- the School of Wisdom or the School of Folly. Recruiters from both schools come and make their pitch.

The young man decides to enroll in the School of Wisdom. From chapters 10-29 he takes classes (graduate and post graduate level). Upon graduation, he goes out and he finds a good woman to be his wife.

• The fear of the LORD prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be shortened (Proverbs 10:27), but Abel died early.
• When a man's ways are pleasing to the LORD, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him (Proverbs 16:7), but Paul's enemies never ceased their efforts to destroy him.

1. While the Bible is all true, it does not contain all truth. And while other religious writings contain some truth, they are not all true. Scholars tell us that Proverbs 23:13 - 24:22 seem to be derived from Egyptian proverbs. They are written by people who did not know the Covenant God, but they said some wise things that are right on the mark. Look also at the King of Lemuel in Proverbs 31:1-5. Who is this man? We are not told. The Septuagint tells us that he was the king of Massa. That would make him an Arab king. Yet he said some things that are true.

There is a principle here. It is that all truth is God’s truth. That means we Christian should be able to learn from others and that we should never be arrogant about our faith.

2. The Book of Proverbs do not give us a rose-colored view of the world. It presents the world as a place where bad things really do happen. Tragedy strikes and trouble comes and Proverbs doesn’t make those things go away, but it does give you wisdom on how to deal with it.
3. Christians are called to be street-smart. We are to have common sense. We ought to know about what works and what doesn’t work. On of the best ways to be street-smart is to go to the Proverbs and learn how the world works.

 Ecclesiastes was a part of five books known as the Megilloth - the "Scrolls." These five books were read at special feast days throughout the year.

Ecclesiastes was read by the Jews each year at the Feast of Tabernacles - that time when the Jews would gather to Jerusalem and build booths in which they would reside for that week.

A booth is a temporary shelter. And they would read this book which would remind them that life is temporary and that only those things you do for the Lord will make a lasting difference.

1. Hebrew Title: Qoheleth.

This book is a sermon. It includes bad news and good news. The "bad news" has given the book a bad name. The reason for this is that the Preacher does not given simple pat answers to complex problems.

The main question asked in this book is this: What is life all about? The Bible is not afraid to raise the hard issues. It asks why should I try to be good? Does it matter?

After all, sometimes things go better for me when I don’t try to serve God. So why bother?

The people in our generation are asking these same questions. This book ought to be studied by all of our young people. There is only one answer to the questions that are being asked by people today. The answer is found in the living God.

Before he died, Francis Schaeffer said that if he had an hour to talk to someone about Christ, he would talk for the first 45 minutes about how there are no answers. He would teach about the hopelessness of man. Only then would he share Jesus as the answer. And that is what Ecclesiastes does.

Assuming that Solomon is indeed the author, the book would have been written around 945 B.C. It seems to have been written later in Solomon’s life.

Solomon had been one of the greatest of the Hebrew kings. His reign was one of peace and prosperity. It has been said that what David won through war, Solomon preserved through peace. And yet, there was a dark side to Solomon’s reign. With all of his reputed wisdom, he found himself turning away from the Lord. It began very gradually. He entered into marital alliances with the surrounding countries. He took to be his wives the daughters of the surrounding pagan nations. And as those wives came to Israel, they brought with them their pagan gods.

Ecclesiastes is a journal of a man’s search for meaning in life. Much of that search takes place apart from God. The conclusion will be that life apart from God is empty.

1. The futility of life "under the sun" (1:2, 14).

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

"Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher, "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity." (Ecclesiastes 1:1-2).

The word "vanity" is the Hebrew word habal and literally refers to a small breath of wind, a breeze. This is seen in Isaiah 57:13 where we read:

But the wind will carry all of them up,

And a breath (habal ) will take them away.

When used figuratively, this word refers to that which is "worthless, vain or empty." This was also the name of Adam’s son, Abel.

When you wanted to emphasize a point in Hebrew, you repeated it. Jesus did this ("Truly, truly"). By repeating this word ("vanity of vanities"), the writer expresses the superlative. He does the same thing in the Song of Solomon ("Song of songs"). The idea here is that there is an emptiness which is above all other emptinesses. The Preacher wants to emphasize and underline and boldface this point.

ALL IS EMPTY!!!!!

Don’t take it from me. Take it from Solomon. Take it from the wisest man who ever lived. Take it from the man who tried everything there was to try, who did everything there was to do. Take it from the King of the Upper Class. It is all empty.

Life without God is meaningless and empty. When we take God out of the equation, the world makes absolutely no sense. You are born in one hospital and you die in another hospital and what happens in the "between time" doesn’t change either of those facts.

Life is transient. Everything you have and everything you are will one day be forgotten. And that is the message of Ecclesiastes. It portrays life "under the sun." It is a rather depressing picture. It is depressing because life without God is always depressing.

The good news is that God has not left us "under the sun." For Christians, life is not "under the sun" but rather WITH THE SON. And that makes all the difference in the world. There is a little rhyme taught to me as a child which goes:

"Only one life, will soon be past,

Only what’s done for the Lord will last."

There is a principle here. It is the principle of permanence. The only permanent things are our service to the Lord. They may be forgotten in this life, but they are written where it counts.

2. The importance of serving God throughout life (11:9 - 12:1, 13-14).

The author shows that the meaning of life is not to be found in experiencing the things of this world. True meaning is found only in serving the Creator.

3. Learn to Enjoy the Journey.

Like so many of the books of the Old Testament, the title for the book is taken from the first verse that appears in the book.

The title of the book is itself a superlative. When you wanted to place the stress of importance upon something in the Hebrew language, you repeated it. Thus we read of the "Holy of Holies" -- that most holy place or of the "King of Kings" -- the most exalted of kings. The author does this same thing in the first verse of this book.

The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. (Songs 1:1).

From this title, it has been traditionally concluded that Solomon is the author of the song. But it could also be that the song is ABOUT Solomon and that the author is unknown. There are within the book several Greek and Persian words. This means that if Solomon were the original author, then it is likely that a later editor updated the language and, in doing so, added the Greek and Persian words.

On the other hand, we read in 1 Kings 4:32 that Solomon authored 3000 proverbs and 1005 songs. If this is also his song, then it is the one that won the Grammy Award, for it is the "Song of Songs."

1. The Allegorical Interpretation: The entire book is seen as an allegory dealing with the Lord's love for His people Israel. That view began among the rabbis and has passed over into the Christian Church, making it an allegorical view of Christ’s love for the Church.

The problem in this view is that an allegory typically attempts to assign meanings to all of the different parts of the story and this simply will not work in this song.

2. The Cultic Interpretation: The poems in the book are poems that were used in the ritual of marriage and were read or sung at the ceremony. The Song of Solomon is then seen as a part of the ancient liturgy and is a reflection of the ritual of a poetic people.
3. The Shepherd Interpretation: This sees the Song of Solomon as a drama or a story depicting King Solomon trying to woo a Shulamite maiden to become a part of his palace harem. However, the Shulamite maiden is in love with a hometown boy, a shepherd. At the end of the story, she rejects all of the splendor of the palace and returns to the hometown boy. In this view, Solomon is the villain of the story.

• The Song itself only describes two people and not three. They speak to one another as "my beloved" and "my love." Both delight in one another and there is no hint of a secret lover hiding in the wings.
• Making Solomon out to be the villain takes all of these passages that speak of love as merely the lustful urgings of an evil and twisted man.
• To view the Shulamite as leaving her legal husband to return to her shepherd lover would make her an adulteress rather than a heroine.

1. The Typical Interpretation: This view holds that King Solomon is a type of Christ and that the bride is a type of the Church. This interpretation is different from the allegorical view in the sense that an allegory has to have meaning in every phrase, while the typical view does not necessarily have to do that.

In this way, we can see this as both a love song between two people and, at the same time, we can see illustrations of our love relationship with the Lord.

2. The Natural or Literal interpretation: This view simply takes the Song of Solomon at face value. It is a series of very beautiful, lyrical love poems with much to teach the people of God.

The Song of Solomon was one of the scrolls of the Megilloth, the scrolls that were read at the various feast days. Song of Solomon was traditionally read at the Passover. This tells me something of how the Jews viewed this book. It was a love story, but it also carried with it certain spiritual connotations. The love story between this man and this woman was mirrored in the love story of God and His people.

There are two primary characters:

1. Solomon (the Hebrew actually reads Shelomoh): Means "peaceful."
2. Shulamith: This is the feminine form of Shelomoh.

These two names are the masculine and the feminine of the same root. This is Mr. and Mrs. Solomon.

In addition, there are several brothers to the Shulamite who are mentioned and there is also a chorus who are described as "the Daughters of Jerusalem."

Although this is a poetic song and not a narrative, we can take the lyrics and put them together to see something of a story unfold.

• The story begins in the land of Ephraim where there lives a maiden with her brothers and mother. They work the land and she labors in the vineyard but has no time to spend on herself and her skin is deeply tanned by the sun.

• One day as she is working in the fields, she meets a stranger and it is love at first sight. She initially takes him for a shepherd and asks where he keeps his flocks of sheep.

• They speak words of love to one another and when he departs, he promises to return for her in the spring.

• She waits and she dreams for his return and then, one day, he does return. But it is not as a shepherd but as the reigning King.

• Solomon comes and takes his bride and they return to the city of Jerusalem.

• A temporary separation takes place in chapters 5-6 as the bride awakens to find that her husband is gone. She searches for him.

1. The name of God (Yahweh) is not mentioned within the book.
2. The book is never quoted in the New Testament.
3. Both Jerome and Origen tell us that the Jews would not permit their young people to read this book until they were 30 years of age.

1. God is concerned with all of life, not merely that which takes place in church on Sunday morning. He is the God of all of life. All of life is all of God’s. He is with you on the golf course and in the movie theater and is involved with every realm of human endeavor.

The Song of Solomon shows God’s concern with all of life. This speaks against the heresy of Dualism that says the body is bad and only the spirit is good. God is concerned with all things. He is the redeemer of the commonplace.

2. God is concerned with our sexuality. He created sex both for reproduction as well as for enjoyment within the proper bounds of marriage.

Some people tend to define sin by how much they enjoyed it. But sex was invented by God and meant to be enjoyed, albeit within the bounds of marriage.

3. All of life reflects our relationship with God. Therefore we should not be surprised to find parallels between this love story and our relationship with Christ.

The New Testament likens the marriage union to that which exists between Christ and His church. As you read of the depth of love that exists between Solomon and his bride, you remember that this is an illustration of how much God loves you.

4. The Scriptures contain love songs. You come to the Bible looking for doctrine and instead you find this love song. There is a warning here. It is possible to have all of the right doctrines and still miss the love. When we ignore the romantic part of our life, we miss something important.