The Book Of Proverbs

Who is the Author?

The book of Proverbs is attributed to King Solomon. The very first verse states: “The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel. ”Though the title of Proverbs (1:1) seems to ascribe the entire book to Solomon, closer inspection reveals that the book was formed over a period of several hundred years. It’s difficult to know the precise role Solomon and his court may have had in starting the process that culminated in the book of Proverbs. This process may be compared to the way in which psalms of Davidic authorship eventually led to the book of Psalms. In Israel, wisdom was considered Solomonic almost by definition. Thus, the titles in 1:1 and 10:1 are not strictly statements of authorship in the modern sense.1 It is appropriate that Solomon be named as the primary author of this book, because he was the wisest man on earth (1 Kings 3:12; 4:29–34). Solomon spoke 3,000 proverbs (1 Kings 4:32), of which fewer than one-third are recorded. Solomon’s proverbs make up the core of the book (10:1–22:16; 25:1–29:27). It’s also likely that Solomon is the author of the introductory discourses(chs. 1–9). A careful examination of Proverbs reveals, however, that Solomon is not the only contributor (30:1; 31:1). Furthermore, we know that the final collection of wisdom in Proverbs was not completed until long after Solomon’s death, because Proverbs 25:1 begins a collection of Solomon’s sayings which were transcribed by the men of Hezekiah who lived around 700 BC (250 years after Solomon.2