A proverb is a short, wise saying generally intended to promote successful living in common life. It capsulizes the wisdom of experience, and becomes familiar in a culture through repetition over a long time (1 Samuel 10:12; 24:13). Proverbs were prevalent not only within Israel's oral and written tradition but also among all nations of the ancient world. The OT proverbs present concise, practical truths often in the form of Hebrew poetic parallelism. The book of Proverbs is the primary biblical example of a collection of proverbs, but other books in biblical wisdom literature (i.e., Job and Ecclesiastes) as well as some of the Psalms also contain many proverbs (cf. Proverbs 1:1). Solomon spoke 3000 proverbs (1 Kings 4:32; cf. Proverbs 1:1; 25:1; Ecclesiastes 12:9), of which only a lesser portion are recorded in the OT.

This topic is from the Lockman Foundation.