Today we will look at the five poetical books in the Old Testament. Although these are some of the most beautiful books in the bible, they are also some of the most misunderstood. These books were written for the honor and glory of God, however, some of the “Seminaries” today try to use these books to dishonor God and blame Him for things He didn’t do.
Since the content of these books are so different we will again look at them one by one.
Job: Writer unknown.
Possibly Job. Some attribute this book to Moses, some to Solomon, and some to
Elihu. The time line indicated within the book would establish Job as having
lived during the Patriarchal period. For Instance; the Exodus nor the
Passover are ever mentioned in the book of Job. Job had established himself as
the priest of the family (Job 1:4-5) which would indicate the Mosaic Law had not
been established. There are also twenty five places in this book where Yahweh is
mentioned. Yahweh was used during the Patriarchal period . This time line would
pretty well rule out Solomon as the author.
Psalms: This book is a
collection of Poetry written by several people. David is the key character in
the book, however, he is only attributed as writing 73 of the Psalms. If you
read Acts 4:25 and Hebrews 4:7 you will find these writers also attribute
Psalms 2 and 95 to David. 12 of the Psalms are written by Aspah, 9 to the sons
of Korah, 2 to Solomon, and Heman (with the sons of Korah), Ethan, and Moses
each are credited with 1 Psalm. 51 (minus the two attributed to David by the NT)
of the Psalms were written by anonymous writers.
Question: Were the 51
Psalms attributed to anonymous writers add to the cannon because they felt David
wrote them?
Proverbs: Early in his
reign as king, Solomon wrote most of the book of Proverbs. Agur (Proverbs
30)and Lemuel (Proverbs 31) contributed some of the later sections. Solomon is
said to have written about three thousand proverbs, and those contained in this
book may be a selection from these (1 Kings 4:32). In the New Testament there
are thirty-five direct quotations from this book or allusions to
it.
Ecclesiastes: One
of the short books in the bible and was written by Solomon. This book was said
to have been written around 935b.c. which was late in Solomon’s
life.
Verse one of this book lists the author as “son of David, king in
Jerusalem.” Although others of David’s sons were king in Jerusalem, none had the
wisdom (Ecc. 1:16) nor the wealth and power (Ecc. 2:4-9) that Solomon had.
Solomon was also known for his proverbs (Ecc. 12:9). All this clearly indicates
it was Solomon who wrote this book. The key-note of the book is sounded in (Ecc.
1:2)
“Vanity of vanities! saith the Preacher,
Vanity of vanities! all is vanity!”
In other words, all man’s efforts to find
happiness apart from God are without result.
Song of Solomon (Song of Songs): We know that Solomon wrote this book because of the similarities between the style and vocabulary as compared to Ecclesiastes. This is also concluded by the references to geographical locations (SS 6:4) and his wealth (1 Kings 4:26-33). We also know the book was written early in Solomon’s life. Before he died, Solomon was known to have 700 wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:4) and this book gives very small numbers of wives and concubines (SS6:8).
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