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contains only two (Pro 10:26; Pro 11:22) figurative proverbs, while it would be altogether foolish to deny that these two, because they were figurative proverbs, were Solomonic, or to affirm that he was the author of only these two, so it is self-evident that the Hezekiah-collection, which is principally a collection of figurative proverbs, must contain many proverbs in which a different kind of parallelism prevails, which has the appearance of a looser connection. Is it not probable that Solomon, who had an open penetrating eye for the greatest and the smallest objects of nature, composed many such proverbs? And is e.g., the proverb Pro 26:23,
Dross of silver spread over a potsherd -
Burning lips and a wicked heart, less beautiful, and vigorous, and worthy of Solomon than any antithetic distich? If Ewald imagines that the 3000 proverbs which Solomon wrote were all constructed according to this one model, we are much rather convinced that Solomon's proverbial poetry, which found the distich and the tetrastich as forms of proverbs already in use, would not only unfold within the limits of the distich the most varied manifoldness of thought and form, but would also within the limits of the Mashal generally, run through the whole scale from the distich up to octastichs and more extensive forms. But while we cannot accept Ewald's criteria which he applies to the two collections, Prov 10:1-22:16 and chap 25-29, yet his delineation of the form and kind of proverbial poetry occurring in chap. 1-9, Pro 22:17., is excellent, as is also his conclusion, that these portions belong to a new and more recent period of proverbial poetry. Since in Pro 22:17-21 manifestly a new course of “Words of the Wise” by a poet later than Solomon is introduced, it is possible, yea, not improbable, that he, or, as Ewald thinks, another somewhat older poet, introduces in 1:7-9:18 the “Proverbs of Solomon” following from Pro 10:1 onward.
But if Solomon composed not only distichs, but also tristichs, etc., it is strange that in the first collection, chap. 10-22:16, there are exclusively distichs; and if he constructed not only contrasted proverbs, but equally figurative proverbs, it is as strange that in the first collection the figurative proverbs are almost entirely wanting, while in the second collection, chap. 25-29, on the contrary, they prevail. This remarkable phenomenon may be partly explained if we could suppose that not merely the second collection