1Annotations include: * Strongs Hebrew and Greek Numbers included * Bullinger's Figures of Speech defined with examples * Bullinger's Companion Bible Appendices where discussed * Inline verses added from King James Version text * Replaced abbreviated words with whole words * Edits to original text where words or letters were missing or wrongly transcribed. -- Starting with an introduction to the Book of Proverbs itself, going into the opening verses in order to understand exactly what the purpose and function of Proverbs is, how it was used in Old Testament times. And once we get through the background and the introduction, then we're going to cover difficult verses. We're not going to take Proverbs and go all the way through it like we've done with the [epistles]...People have problems because they forsake the Word. Now in every culture basically, there has been the study of wisdom. We have it in our culture; philosophy. Philosophy is a combination of two Greek words, phileo, which means what? Love. And sophos, which means wisdom. It's the love of wisdom and that's philosophy. phileo - Strong's Greek: 5368sophos - Strong's Greek: 4680 And in Greek culture you had the "sophos" who were the wise ones. In Egyptian culture you had people who were supposed to be wise people. Wisdom people. They wrote what they called wisdom literature. In all the cultures of the East, the Greeks, the Romans. Every civilized culture basically has had the study of wisdom, and they had people that were known as wise people; Plato, Aristotle, Socrates. But the thing is if they reject the Word, what wisdom is really in them? World wisdom. The word for "wisdom" in German is "wissenshaft". But the word for philosophy is "weltwissenshaft". It means world wisdom. World wisdom is philosophy in German. In English it's philosophy which is the love of wisdom. So wisdom in basically every civilized culture has stood at the top. As a matter of fact, the top degree you can earn in college is a doctor of philosophy. The love of wisdom. A doctor of the love of wisdom.Now doctor, if you ever look it up in the Bible in the New Testament, it's a translation of the Greek word didaskalos*, which means "teacher". So all a doctor of philosophy is, is a teacher of wisdom, basically. And again in every culture, you've had those who were supposed to be teachers of wisdom. Doctors of philosophy, who were supposed to be the smart ones in the culture. But without the wisdom of God, without going to God's Word you'll never have real wisdom. The wise are ashamed. The scribe's pen is in vain, like it said here in Jeremiah. didaskalos - Strong's Greek: 1320 And that's the elder of the gate, the elder of the gate. He's the one that was supposed to be one of the wisest in the community that sat at the city gate in order to judge things that came up, problems that they encountered. And as a matter of fact, you might want to jot down Deuteronomy 22:15 and Ruth 4:1 and 2, where it talks about elders of the gates. But here is a good description, I thought, of an elder, because Job says (talking about his previous status) . . .