The Books of Wisdom

Job lives in the land of Uz, a blameless man with ten children and great flocks. In the council of heaven Satan claims that Job serves God only for what God gives him, and in one day Job loses his herds, his servants and all ten children. Struck next with sores from head to foot, he sits in the ashes, and his friends Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar sit with him in silence for seven days.

Then Job curses the day he was born, and the debate runs to chapter 31, with the three friends speaking in three rounds. The friends insist that suffering is the payment for sin, and Job holds to his innocence and asks God to answer him. A younger man, Elihu, speaks next. Then the LORD answers Job out of the whirlwind with questions about creation. Job repents, the LORD rebukes the three friends, and Job prays for them and is restored.

Psalm 1 sets the way of the righteous beside the way of the wicked, and Psalm 2 sets the LORD's King on Zion. Book One follows with the prayers of David, most of them cries out of trouble. Book Two adds the sons of Korah and the confession David made after his sin with Bathsheba, and it closes with the prayer for the king in Psalm 72.

Book Three speaks for a nation in ruins, and Psalm 89 asks where God's promise to David has gone. Book Four answers with the prayer of Moses and the psalms that say the LORD reigns. Book Five brings the redeemed home, sets the King at the LORD's right hand, climbs to Jerusalem with the songs of ascents and ends in five psalms of praise.

Proverbs opens with its purpose, to give wisdom and discipline to the young. In chapters 1 to 9 a father speaks to his son. He warns him against men who lie in wait for blood and against the adulterous woman, and Wisdom herself calls out in the streets and tells how she stood beside God at creation. Chapter 9 sets two houses side by side, the feast of Wisdom and the feast of Folly.

From chapter 10 come the sayings of Solomon, which set the righteous beside the wicked and the wise beside the fool. Thirty sayings of the wise follow, then more proverbs of Solomon copied by the men of King Hezekiah. The book closes with the words of Agur, the charge the mother of King Lemuel gave him, and the poem of the wife of noble character.

The Teacher opens his book with his motto, that everything is futile. The sun, the wind and the rivers go round and return, and nothing is new under the sun. He tests pleasure, great works, wealth and wisdom, and finds that the same death comes to the wise man and the fool. Chapter 3 sets out a time for everything and says that God has made everything beautiful in its time.

He watches the tears of the oppressed, the house of God and the riches that never satisfy. From chapter 7 he weighs one thing as better than another, and sees one fate come to the righteous and the wicked. Often he tells his reader to eat, drink and enjoy the work God gives. Chapter 12 calls the young to remember their Creator before old age, and a closing voice adds that God will bring every deed into judgment.

The Song opens with the woman's longing for the king and the praise the two give each other. Spring calls her out to him, and she charges the daughters of Jerusalem not to awaken love until the time is right. One night she searches the city for him and holds him fast when she finds him. Then the procession of Solomon comes up from the wilderness on his wedding day, and he praises his bride and calls her a locked garden, which she opens to him.

In chapter 5 she is slow to open her door, and when she opens it he is gone. The watchmen beat her as she searches, and in the search each praises the other again, until she says that she belongs to her beloved. In chapter 8 the two come up from the wilderness together, love is named as strong as death, and she calls him once more.