How to Read Proverbs

by Tremper Longman III

Longman's later-published companion volume to How to Read the Psalms is better than the first--at least, to me it was. While I enjoyed and profited from his Psalms volume, I found How to Read Proverbs to be an even more profitable study.

Longman establishes the identities of Woman Wisdom and Woman Folly and seeks to show how the decision of which path to choose is a theme that ties through the sometimes seemingly unorganized bulk of the book. He addresses the often contradictory nature of various proverbs within the collection and how we can read a proverb that says one thing and observe something quite the opposite around us. He finishes his book with three different thematic studies in Proverbs.

Perhaps the most beneficial chapter is where Longman addresses a reading of Proverbs through the lens of the New Testament, arguing that while we cannot read Proverbs only through the prism of the New Testament, we must not ignore the lessons to be learned when reading Proverbs in the light of the New Testament.

Without getting into too much more detail, I definitely would recommend a reading of this book as well as its companion on the Psalms. Longman does an excellent job of taking the sometimes difficult poetic sections of the Old Testament and explaining them in such a way that the lay person can find a greater amount of interest and profit in reading them.

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The Editors do not advocate everything taught by the authors of the books we review. Like us, these authors are fallible humans and those who choose to read these books should measure them by the bible, the one true standard.