Genre
This book is wisdom literature, which gives rules of proper conduct, usually in the form of maxims, pithy insights, and “words to live by.” Wisdom literature attempts to show the way things are and the way things should be. Also of this genre are Job, Ecclesiastes, and the book of Wisdom.
The goal of wisdom in this context is to live the good life here and now, marked by length of days, prestige, and prosperity. Wisdom literature highlights patterns of living that brought happiness in the past, and exhorts readers to live those patterns in the hope of finding the same happiness in the future.
The way that wisdom literature teaches is not the way that we are accustomed to being taught in modern society. We want a full and linear explanation of something from beginning to end with all the finer points in between. Wisdom literature does not give us that. Rather, it gives us a thought or an image and invites us to sit with it, to probe the depths of it over an extended period of time. You could spend a lifetime praying with any of these verses and find something fruitful every single time! We usually don’t give ourselves the time and space to sit with scripture like that, and We lose so much when we rush over a passage to get to the next good thing.
Date
The book is very hard to date but most scholars estimate it around 6th-5th century BC, which was during the time of the Babylonian Exile. Perhaps this was someone’s quarantine project?!
General Observations
Jewish tradition attributes the book to Solomon. Tradition says he wrote the Song of Songs when he was young, the wisdom of Proverbs in mid-life, and the disillusioned complaints of Ecclesiastes when he was old.
In actuality, this is a collective work holding up the wisdom of anonymous wise men and women from many walks of life and different time periods. Think of it as someone’s compilation of good quotes.