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Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes are the wisdom text of the Old Testament of the Holey bible. In the following essay I am going to compare and contrast the three texts commenting primarily on the issues of wisdom, life and death, reward and punishment and Gods role in human life. I will briefly comment on the each book I am about to use in order for the readers to better understand the divine knowledge that is kept in the Holy scriptures. My personal opinion together with the biblical findings will be presented in this given essay. Proverbs is probably the only text that is not written or narrated directly by God. The proverbs were the pieces of human daily wisdom about virtually every aspect of ones life and was written by people and for people.
Proverbs indeed are written in different styles and usually present logically defined statements. Job is possibly the oldest book to be written in the Old Testament because it comments on some time that is considered to have occurred before Moses. Job was written by some righteous wise man called Job who loved God and was tested by both God and Satan. Therefore the Job story can be called a biography of a righteous man and his testimony of how God acted in his life. Ecclesiastes is believed to have been written by King Solomon towards the end of his life. We all know that Solomon was loved by god and was given riches and fame.
Later on in his life Solomon turned away from God to the number of his wives and concubines. Yet still at the end of his life Solomon understood that God was more important that the riches or females and once again turned to God with repentance. He wrote this book to show meaningless of life without God. Ecclesiastes is the book that speaks about the ephemeral life that will end for both rich and poor, dumb and smart, and thus considered anything meaningless in this changing life. He believed that only God had meaning and could provide certain support and the hope of great tomorrow.
Speaking about the wisdom three books have some similarities as well as differences on the given matter. Proverbs believe that it is important to be wise to prosper in life and succeed. The wisdom was thought to have come from God and the fools were rebuked. So The fear of the lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction (Prov. 1: 7) and for the Lord giveth wisdom; out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding (Prov. 2: 6). Ecclesiastes is more philosophical stating that wisdom is meaningless and does not free the wise person from grief. So, for in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increase knowledge increase sorrow. (Eccles 1: 18).
Thus Ecclesiastes state that wisdom is not so important in the long run, because a person will die anyway. As for Job, this book states that people die even without wisdom (Job 4: 21). Later in the book when he gets severely sick (thing caused by Satan who decided to try Job and win a bet with God that Job will give up his faith) he starts to question his wisdom. He does not understand why the wise and righteous are punished. He asks is wisdom driven quite from me? (Job 6: 13) Job understood that in mortal humans there can be no wisdom and states with him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding (Job 12: 13). Speaking about life and death the three books also have some similarities as well as some differences in them.
Proverbs mention life and death only in chapter 18 verse 21, when speaking about death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof and possibly meaning that life and death are for the most part are influenced by the human acts, deeds and tongue. Job speaks about life and death only when after being so sick and depressed he wanted to commit a suicide so that my soul choose strangling, and death rather than my life (Job 7: 15). This book means that in some cases death is even better than life making the concept of death and life rather abstract and vague. Ecclesiastes also commented that the life was worse than death therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit (Eccles 2: 17). He believes that meaningless life is bad and no different from death or no life for who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spent as a shadow? (Eccles 6: 12). Solomon speaks about the doom and that no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit, neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.
Therefore we see that in this regard the three scriptures are different on the topic with proverbs speaking about the control of life and death by the human forces, Job speaking about superiority of death over life in times of struggle, and Ecclesiastes speaking about meaningless of life and importance of death. Speaking about the rewards and punishment I would like to note that the three scriptures are rather similar in this one. The proverbs believe that the deeds cause either rewards or punishment. Thus to him that south righteousness shall be sure reward (Prov: 11: 18) while a man of great wrath shall suffer punishment (Prov 19: 19). Thus we see that proverbs that are written by people for people speak about deeds now that guarantee either rewards of punishments in the future.
The Ecclesiastes on the other hand believes that even the rewards and punishments are meaningless because for the living know that they shall die: but the dead not know anything, neither have they any more a reward: for the memory of them is forgotten. As we can see that the rewards during the life or after death have no meaning because the person who ultimately dies cannot use these earthly rewards. Job speculates on the meaning of the reward and punishment during life and is confident that rewards should come for ones work, thing that reminds the Proverbs and the good deed-reward, bad deed-punishment system. In conclusion I would like to note despite some differences between the two texts Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes have one certain thing in common. This is the importance of God and his role in human life.
Proverbs believe that with the help of God, everything including trade success and good health can become possible. Job throughout his book comments on the importance of God and his help in Jobs life, the thing that only gives Job hope and preserves him from committing suicide. On the other hand, Ecclesiastes believes that God in the only meaningful thing in the meaningless life and people should fear God but fear thou God (Eccles 5: 7) and be ready to meet the creator. As we have seen our chosen books Job, Ecclesiastes and Proverbs are somewhat similar and somewhat different from each other.
The fact that these books were written by different people and at different time made most of the things appear somewhat dissimilar. The only thing that all three have in common is the importance of God in ones life, a thing that does not change with time or with people. Bibliography: Holy bible, New international version, Gideon Brothers Press, 2001 (reprint).
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