Delve Into The WritingsSýnishorn

DAY 1 – INTRODUCTION

The Writings are the third major division of the Old Testament. They’re a much looser grouping than the first and second divisions. They’ve been drawn together from a wider range of traditions, genres (types of literature), and time periods. In this chapter, the books of the Writings will be considered by genre, so that the story behind each book can be understood by comparison with the stories behind other books that are similarly written. 

Three of the books in the Writings are collections of song lyrics. These songs were composed over the course of many centuries. Psalms contains nearly 150 worship songs that were written for individual or community use over a period of some 700 years, from the time of Moses up to the time when the Jerusalem temple was rebuilt. Song of Songs is a much smaller collection of wedding songs, only half a dozen, that could have been used for years in marriage celebrations before being gathered together. Lamentations contains five songs that all mourn the destruction of Jerusalem.

The Writings also contain several books from the “wisdom” tradition. This was a school of thought that flourished in Israel and in other countries of the ancient Near East. It sought to provide practical instruction for life by contemplating the realities of human experience. In Israel, the wisdom tradition had the immeasurable benefit of recognizing the true God and including an appreciation for his ways in its contemplation. The wisdom teachers loved to formulate and collect “proverbs,” pithy sayings that expressed vital truths about life in a compact and striking way. King Solomon was one of the most outstanding of these teachers, and two collections of his sayings, one likely created in his lifetime and the other gathered a couple of centuries later, constitute the bulk of the book of Proverbs. Solomon may also be the author of Ecclesiastes, a book that weaves such sayings together with autobiographical musings to provide a perspective on life that complements the one in Proverbs. Wisdom teachers also cast their reflections in the form of dialogues between people who took turns making poetic speeches. The book of Job provides an example of this type of wisdom literature.

PRAYER: Thank You, Lord, for the gift of Your Word. Help me to meditate on it day and night.