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Easton's Bible Dictionary
A trite maxim; a similitude; a parable. The Hebrew word
thus rendered (mashal) has a wide signification. It comes from a root meaning
"to be like," "parable." Rendered "proverb" in Isaiah 14:4 ; Habakkuk 2:6 ; "dark
saying" in Psalms 49:4 , Numbers 12:8 . Ahab's defiant words in answer to the
insolent demands of Benhadad, "Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself
as he that putteth it off," is a well known instance of a proverbial saying (
1 Kings 20:11 ).
Hitchcock's Dictionary of Bible Names
(no entry)
Smith's Bible Dictionary
(no entry)
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
prov'-erb (mashal, chidhah; parabole (Luke 4:23), paroimia
(John 16:25 , 29)):
By this term mainly, but sometimes by the term "parable" (e.g. Numbers 23:7 ,
18 ; 24:3 , 15 ; Job 27:1 ; 29:1), is translated the Hebrew word (mashal), which
designates the formal unit or vehicle of didactic discourse. The mashal was an
enunciation of truth, self-evident and self-illustrative, in some pointed or concentrated
form adapted to arrest attention, awaken responsive thought, and remain fixed
in memory. Its scope was broader than that of our word "proverb," taking in subject
matter as well as form. The mashal broadened indeed in the course of its history,
until it became the characteristic idiom of Hebrew philosophy, as distinguished
from the dialectic method of the Greeks. The Hebrew mind was not inductive but
intuitive; it saw and asserted; and the word mashal is the generic term for the
form in which its assertion was embodied.
I. FOLK MEANING AND USE
1. The Primitive Sense
The mashal, nearly in our sense of proverb, traces back to the heart and life
of the common folk; it is a native form reflecting in a peculiarly intimate way
the distinctive genius of the Hebrew people. As to the primitive sense of the
word, it is usually traced to a root meaning "likeness," or "comparison," as if
the first sense of it were of the principle of analogy underlying it; but this
derivation is a guess. The word is just as likely to be connected with the verb
mashal, "to rule" or "master"; so by a natural secondary meaning to denote that
statement which gives the decisive or final verdict, says the master word. The
idea of how the thing is said, or by what phrasing, would be a later differentiation,
coming in with literary refinement.
2. The Communal Origin
The earliest cited proverb (1 Samuel 10:12, repeated with varied occasion, 1 Samuel
19:24) seems to have risen spontaneously from the people's observation. That Saul,
the son of Kish, whose very different temperament everybody knew, should be susceptible
to the wild ecstasy of strolling prophets was an astonishing thing, as it were
a discovery in psychology; "Therefore it became a proverb, Is Saul also among
the prophets?" A few years later David, explaining his clemency in sparing the
life of the king who has become his deadly foe, quotes from a folk fund of proverbs:
1 Samuel 24:13, "As saith the proverb of the ancients, Out of the wicked cometh
forth wickedness; but my hand shall not be upon thee." The prophet Ezekiel quotes
a proverb which evidently embodies a popular belief: "The days are prolonged,
and every vision faileth"; which he corrects to, "The days are at hand, and the
fulfillment of every vision" (Ezekiel 12:22 , 23). Both Ezekiel and Jeremiah (Ezekiel
18:2; Jeremiah 31:29) quote the same current proverb, "The fathers have eaten
sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge," in order to announce that
the time has come for its discontinuance. These last two examples are very instructive.
They show how the body of the people put the inwardness of their history into
proverb form, as it were a portable lesson for the times; they show also how the
prophets availed themselves of these floating sayings to point their own message.
Ezekiel seems indeed to recognize the facility with which a situation may bring
forth a proverb: Ezekiel 16:44, "Every one that useth proverbs shall use this
proverb against thee (literally every one that mashals shall mashal against thee),
saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter."
3. Animus of Proverbs
One element of the proverb, which a wide-awake people like the Hebrews would soon
discover, was its adaptability for personal portrayal or satire, like a home thrust.
Hence, the popular use of the name mashal came to connote its animus, generally
of sarcasm or scorn. The taunting verse raised against Heshbon, Numbers 21:27
- 30, is attributed to them "that speak in proverbs" (meshalim); and Isaiah's
taunt in his burden of Babylon (Isaiah 14:4 - 20) is composed in the proverb measure:
"Thou shalt take up this parable (mashal, the King James Version "proverb") against
the king of Babylon." Answering to this prevailing animus of proverbs was a corresponding
susceptibility to their sting and rankle; they were the kind of utterance that
most surely found the national and individual self-consciousness. To be a proverb--to
be in everybody's mouth as a subject of laughter, or as a synonym for some awful
atrocity--was about the most dreadful thing that could befall them. To be "a reproach
and a proverb, a taunt and a curse" (Jeremiah 24:9) was all one. That this should
be the nation's fate was held as a threat over them by lawgiver and prophet (Deuteronomy
28:37 ; 1 Kings 9:7); and in adversities of experience, both individual and collective,
the thing that was most keenly felt was to have become a byword (mashal) (Psalms
44:14 ; 69:11). |
II. LITERARY DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROVERB
1. Discovery of Literary Value
The rank of proverb was by no means attributed to every popular saying, however
the people might set store by it. If its application was merely local (e.g. 2
Samuel 20:18 ; Genesis 22:14) or temporary (note how Jeremiah and Ezekiel announce
popular sayings as obsolete), it remained in its place and time. About the proverb,
on the other hand, there was the sense of a value universal and permanent, fitting
it for literary immortality. Nor was the proverb itself a run-wild thing, at the
shaping of the crowd; from the beginning it was in the hands of "those who speak
in meshalim," whose business it was to put it into skillful wording. The popular
proverb, however, and the literary proverb were and continued two different things.
There came a time, in the literary development of Israel, when the value of the
mashal as a vehicle of instruction came to be recognized; from which time a systematic
cultivation of this type of discourse began. That time, as seems most probable,
was the reign of King Solomon, when in a special degree the people awoke to the
life and industry and intercourse and wealth of the world around them. The king
himself was 'large hearted' (1 Kings 4:29), versatile, with literary tastes; "spake
three thousand proverbs; and his songs were a thousand and five"; and his whole
generation, both in Israel and surrounding nations, was engaged in a vigorous
movement of thought and "wisdom" (see the whole passage, 1 Kings 4:29 - 34). For
the unit and vehicle of this new thought the old native form of the mashal or
proverb was chosen; it became the recognized medium of popular education and counsel,
especially of the young; and the mashal itself was molded to the classic form,
condensed, pointed, aphoristic, which we see best exemplified in the Book of Proverbs
10 - 22:16 --probably the earliest collection of this kind of literature. In this
body of proverbs we see also that instead of retaining the unbalanced single assertion
of the popular proverb, as it appears in 1 Samuel 10:12 ; 24:13, these composers
of literary proverbs borrowed the poetic parallelism, or couplet, which in two
lines sets two statements over against each other by antithesis or repetition,
and cultivated this to its most condensed and epigrammatic construction. Thus
the mashal took to itself a literary self-consciousness and became a work of art.
2. The Differentiation
Up to the time of this literary development a proverb was recognized simply as
a proverb, with little sense of its various phases, except that there was a strong
popular tendency to identify it with satire, and with less thought of the elements
of its life and power. With the refinement of form, however, came a recognition
of its inwardness. Under the generic term mashal, certain elements were differentiated;
not, however, as we are wont to distinguish--parable, fable, apologue, allegory--these
remained undifferentiated. The most fundamental distinction of classes, perhaps,
is given in Proverbs 1:6: "To understand a proverb, and a figure, the words of
the wise, and their dark sayings." Here it seems the word "proverb" (mashal) and
"words of the wise," paired off with each other, are the generic terms; the other
two, the differentiating terms, name respectively the two fundamental directions
of the mashal, toward the clear and toward the enigmatic. Both are essential elements.
The word translated "figure" (melitsah) is rather "interpretation," and seems
to refer to the illuminative element of the mashal, and this was mainly analogy.
Natural objects, phases of experience, contrasts were drawn into the mashal to
furnish analogies for life; Solomon's use of plants and animals in his discourses
(1 Kings 4:33) was not by way of natural history, but as analogies to illustrate
his meshalim. The word translated "dark sayings" (chidhoth) is the word elsewhere
translated "riddle" (Samson's riddle, for instance, was a [~chidhah, Judges 14:13
, 14), and refers to that quality of the proverb which, by challenging the hearer's
acumen, gives it zest; it is due to an association of things so indirectly related
that one must supply intermediate thoughts to resolve them. All of this of course.
goes to justify the proverb as a capital vehicle for instruction and counsel;
it has the elements that appeal to attention, responsive thought, and memory,
while on the other hand its basis of analogy makes it illuminative. |
III. AS UNIT OF A STRAIN OF LITERATURE
1. From Detachment to Continuity
Until it reached its classic perfection of phrasing, say during the time from
Solomon to Hezekiah, the formal development of the proverb was concentrative;
the single utterance disposed of its whole subject, as in a capsule. But the development
of the mashal form from the antithetic to the synonymous couplet gave rise to
a proverb in which the explanatory member did not fully close the case; the subject
craved further elucidation, and so a group of several couplets was sometimes necessary
to present a case (compare e.g. about the sluggard, Proverbs 26:13 - 16). From
this group of proverbs the transition was easy to a continuous passage, in which
the snappy parallelism of the proverb yields to the flow of poetry; see e.g. Proverbs
27:23 - 27. This is due evidently to a more penetrative and analytic mode of thinking,
which can no longer satisfy its statement of truth in a single illustration or
maxim.
2. The Conception of Wisdom
As the store of detached utterances on various phases of practical life accumulated
and the task of collecting them was undertaken, it was seen that they had a common
suffusion and bearing, that in fact they constituted a distinctive strain of literature.
The field of this literature was broad, and recognized (see Proverbs 1:1 - 5)
as promotive of many intellectual virtues; but the inclusive name under which
it was gathered was Wisdom (chokhmah). Wisdom, deduced thus from a fund of maxims
and analogies, became the Hebrew equivalent for philosophy. With the further history
of it this article is not concerned, except to note that the mashal or proverb
form held itself free to expand into a continuous and extended discourse, or to
hold itself in to the couplet form. As to illustrative quality, too, its scope
was liberal enough to include a fully developed parable; see for instance Ezekiel
17:1 - 10, where the prophet is bidden to "put forth a riddle, and speak a parable
(literally, mashal a mashal) unto the house of Israel."
3. In Later Times
The existence of so considerable a body of proverbs is a testimony to the Hebrew
genius for sententious and weighty expression, a virtue of speech which was held
in special esteem. From the uses of practical wisdom the mashal form was borrowed
by the later scribes and doctors of the law; we see it for instance in loose and
artificial use in such books as Pirqe 'Abhoth, which gives the impression that
the utterance so grandly represented in the Solomonic proverbs had become decadent.
It is in another direction rather that the virtues of the mashal reach their culmination.
In the phrasal felicity and illustrative lucidity of our Lord's discourses, and
not less in His parables, employed that the multitude "may see and yet not see"
(Mark 4:12), we have the values of the ancient mashal in their perfection, in
a literary form so true to its object that we do not think of its artistry at
all. |
See also GAMES, I, 6.
John Franklin Genung
Tags:
bible commentary, bible history, bible reference, bible study, define, lesson, mashal, moral, parable, proverb, saying, truth
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