The strength of the land still consists in the number of small proprietors tilling their own ground. Two proverbs express an interest in these, e.g.
The poor man's newly ploughed field gives food in abundance,
but there is that is cut off by injustice (xiii. 23).
Better is a mean man that tills for himself[1]
than he that glorifies himself and has no bread (xii. 9).
All the farmers however were not so diligent as those indicated in these passages. One of the numerous proverbs against laziness (then as now a prevalent vice in this part of the East[2]) brings before us a land-owner who is too lazy to give the order for ploughing at the right time, and so when he looks for the harvest, there is none.
When autumn comes the sluggard ploughs not;
so if he asks at harvest-time, there is nothing (xx. 4).
The right use of the gift of speech is another very favourite subject in this anthology. The charm of suitable words is best described in a Hezekian proverb (xxv. 11), but it is well said in xv. 4 that 'a gentle tongue is a tree of life,' and elsewhere that
There is that babbles like the thrusts of a sword,
but the tongue of the wise is gentleness (xii. 18).
The wonderful power of language could hardly at that age have been better expressed than by the saying,
The words of a man's mouth are deep waters,
a gushing torrent, a wellspring of wisdom (xviii. 4).
The standard of family morals is high; a good wife is described as God's best gift (xii. 4, xviii. 22, xix. 14), and the restraints of home are commended to the young (xix. 18, xxii. 6, 15), as in the Egyptian proverbs. Monogamy is throughout presupposed, and a want of respect for either parent is condemned (xiii. 1, xv. 5, xix. 26). The king too is repeatedly held up to reverence (xiv. 35, xvi. 10, 12-15, xix.
