An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 129: Don’t annoy kings, or be fooled by foolish fools (Proverbs 16-20)

Proverbs 16-20
Don’t annoy kings, or be fooled by foolish fools.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Proverbs 16

“The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.”

This chapter is a mixed bag of proverbs proper, unlike the earlier chapters that were more about needing to surrender to God in order to gain wisdom. Some of that sentiment is expressed in some of the proverbs here, such as V3 “Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established” seems to imply. There are quite a few verses dedicated to how a king should behave, and how others should behave in order not to annoy a king; “The wrath of a king is as messengers of death: but a wise man will pacify it”, and as with some previous chapters of Proverbs there’s one that has made it into general parlance – V18 “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”

The line in the quote is dropped in and then skipped over. What makes a person wicked is touched upon later in the chapter - lying and generally being unpleasant – but the idea that even evil is the work of God is swiftly brushed aside. This is not a new idea for the bible – Satan was doing God’s work in the book of Job, for example, even though he had the temerity to disagree with God. Saul goes mad because God sends spirits to torment him. And it must stand to reason, in a cosmology where one God created everything and has supreme power, that evil must stem from God. This leads to the thorny problem of why God would do that, and generally we are left with the somewhat unsatisfactory answer given in Job – because He’s God, and you’re just a human and couldn’t possibly understand.

Proverbs 17

“A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren.”

Another mixed bag of proverbs. Once again there are plenty of variations on the theme of wise men keeping quiet where fools open their mouths – echoed by Wittgenstein with his “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”, and Socrates reply to the Delphic Oracle’s assessment of himself, that he is wise because he knows that he knows nothing.

There are a lot of proverbs in this chapter that reproof “fools”, which seems to me a bit harsh; rather than insult and avoid them, surely it would be better to educate them? This could be some kind of translational artefact that renders a very subtle word implying somebody with wilful ignorance (of God), or perhaps not. “Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly”. Also, “A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare him” – we’ve had at least two or three versions of that before, although at least this version doesn’t seem to blame the mother for a foolish child.

Proverbs 18

“Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom.”

This first verse seems like a justification for a monastic kind of life – to separate onself (from other people?) in order to seek wisdom. However, later on “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD”. “Thing”? Well, I’ll let that slide. But Proverbs is starting to sound like Father And Son by Cat Stevens. Which, if this is still Solomon to Rehoboam, I guess it is father to son advice. I can feel a barrel being scraped here now, though. You’d get just as profound advice from Baz Luhrman’s Everybody’s Free To Wear Sunscreen.

Proverbs 19
“A foolish son is the calamity of his father: and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping.”!

Here is a very good example of what I mean about proverbs and aphorisms being an unreliable guide to life. How does this gibe with the verse from last chapter about finding a wife being a good thing? Providing, it would seem, that she is not argumentative (because why should a marriage partner have contrary opinions?)

And also, come on Book of Proverbs. Editing! Verse 5 “A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape”, then a mer e four verses later, “A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish”. You can even see them both at the same time. Not only that, but this particular sentiment has been expressed many times before in this book.

Really, the rest of this chapter is all the same advice that has been dispensed before as well – the wise hear, the fools don’t, don’t hang around with fools and so on and so forth.

Proverbs 20

“The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the LORD hath made even both of them.”

This chapter is still a mixed bag of proverbs, but these seem a bit better than the previous few, as if a fresh writer has gathered them in. Yes, there are still repetitions of some old favourites,such as V2 “The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion: whoso provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul” and a couple of verses where God is interested in trading standards again, but there are also some new sentiments expressed, some that don’t just give pat answers, such as V9 “Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?” and I liked V29 “The glory of young men is their strength: and the beauty of old men is the gray head”, that’s rather sweet and is a good way of saying that everyone has something to offer and people shouldn’t all be measured by the same standards. Or is that me expressing my own prejudices through an aphorism that supports them?

I was getting a bit weary of Proverbs at this point, but this chapter is quite refreshing, hopefully it will continue with a bit more variety next time.