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If it may be regarded as a striking fact that the figures of speech מקור חיּים (a fountain of life), Pro 10:11; Pro 13:14; Pro 14:27; Pro 17:22, and עץ חיּים (a tree of life), Pro 11:30; Pro 13:12; Pro 15:4, as also the expressions מחתּה (destruction), Pro 10:14-15; Pro 13:3; Pro 14:28; Pro 18:7; Pro 10:29; Pro 21:15, יפיח (he uttereth), Pro 12:17; Pro 14:5, Pro 14:25; Pro 19:5, Pro 19:9; סלּף (perverteth), Pro 13:6; Pro 19:3; Pro 21:12; Pro 22:12, and סלף (perverseness), Pro 11:3; Pro 15:4, are only to be found in the first collection, and not in that by the “men of Hezekiah,” it is not a decisive evidence against the oneness of the origin of the proverbs in both collections. The fact also, properly brought forward by Ewald, that proverbs which begin with ישׁ (there is) - e.g., Pro 11:24, “There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth still,” - are exclusively found in the first collection, need not perplex us; it is one peculiar kind of proverbs which the author of this collection has by preference gathered together, as he has also omitted all parabolic proverbs except these two, Pro 10:26; Pro 11:22. If proverbs beginning with ישׁ are found only in the first, so on the other hand the parabolic Vav and the proverbial perfect, reporting as it were an experience (cf. in the second collection, besides Pro 26:13; Pro 27:12; Pro 29:13, also Pro 28:1; Pro 29:9), for which Döderlein^[1] has invented the expression aoristus gnomicus,^[2] are common to both sentences. Another remark of Ewald's (Jahrb. xi. 28), that extended proverbs with אישׁ are exclusively found in the Hezekiah-collection (Pro 29:9, Pro 29:3; Pro 25:18, Pro 25:28), is not fully established; in Pro 16:27-29 three proverbs with אישׁ are found together, and in Pro 20:6 as well as in Pro 29:9 אישׁ occurs twice in one proverb. Rather it strikes us that the article, not merely the punctatorially syncopated, but that expressed by ה, occurs only twice in the first collection, in Pro 20:1; Pro 21:31; oftener in the second, Pro 26:14, Pro 26:18; Pro 27:19-20, Pro 27:22. Since, however, the first does not wholly omit the article, this also cannot determine us to reject the linguistic unity of the second collection with the first, at least according to their primary stock.
But also what of the linguistic unity of Prov 1-9 with both of these, maintained by Keil? It is true, and merits all consideration, that a unity of language and of conception between chap. 1-9 and chap. 10-22:16 which far exceeds the degree of unity between chap. 10-22:16 and chap. 25-29 may be proved. The introduction is bound with the

1. Reden u. Aufsätze, ii. 316.
2. A similar thing is found among German proverbs, e.g.: Wer nicht mitsass, auch nicht mitass (Whoso sat not, ate not).