What is a Proverb?
Excerpt
PROVERB (Heb. māšal, māšāl).† Basically a saying concerned with making an instructive comparison, in form-critical usuage called a mashal. The Hebrew noun is usually thought to be derived from a verbal root mšl “be like, be equal to” but includes a variety of related nuances.
In its most general usage, a mashal is described as a popular saying—sometimes with ancient roots—as at 1 Sam. 24:13 (MT 14) (cf. NIV, “As the old saying goes …”; cf. 2 Pet. 2:22; Gk. paroimía). Elsewhere such sayings are closely associated with the teaching of the wise men (1 Kgs. 4:32 [MT 5:12]; Prov. 26:7, 9;Eccl. 12:9). At Prov. 1:6 they are poetically paralleled with the phrase “the words of the wise (men)” as the most general and overarching of several characteristic forms of wisdom speech (proverbs, parables, riddles); in this connection, the term is employed in the title of the book of Proverbs (1:1) and appears in subsequent headings within the book (10:1;25:1). A number of instances (all in Ezekiel) join the noun māšal with the verb of the same root, with the resulting construction “to utter a proverb” (Ezek. 12:22–23; 17:2; 18:2–3; 20:49[MT 25:5] [RSV “allegories”]; 24:3). More
Myers, Allen C. The Eerdmans Bible dictionary 1987 : 854. Print
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