As I’ve read and reread Proverbs 25 and 26, I’ve totally failed to accomplish what I’ve done for several chapters now, and find a unifying theme into which I could shoehorn most of the verses or even a large portion of them. Yet these chapters skip from reflections on kingly wisdom to legal tactics to the blessing of good news to relations with one’s neighbor to critiques of the fool to concerns about lying and deceit. Along the way there are repeats of proverbs from previous chapters, as in 25:24 and 26:15. How in the world to pull all that together in a 20-minute sermon for this Sunday? I’m not going to try.
Instead of finding a unifying theme in the content of all these proverbs, I’d like to reflect on the method of expression that recurs over and over here. One commentary just calls it an abundance of “nature similes.” So we have 25:13, “Like the cold of snow in the time of harvest are faithful messengers to those who send them; they refresh the spirit of their masters” and the homely and vivid 26:17, “Like somebody who takes a passing dog by the ears is one who meddles in the quarrel of another.”
But the similes don’t just involve nature, so 25:18, “Like a war club, a sword, or a sharp arrow is one who bears false witness against a neighbor” and 26:23, “Like the glaze covering an earthen vessel are smooth lips with an evil heart.”
What’s going on here is a particularly intense use of analogy as a way to express and make clear various thoughts about human behavior and character. The only mention of God in these two chapters comes at the beginning in 25:2, “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.”
The hiddenness of God is a recurring biblical theme. We don’t see God directly or understand God clearly. Thus much of our language about God, like our language about the mysteries of our own selves, takes the form of analogy. We compare God to something in our experience all the while realizing that God is in many ways not like what we experience. God is our Father, but in many ways unlike a human father. God is our Rock, but very much unlike a literal rock. Even saying God is good forces us to admit that God is beyond our experience of limited and imperfect goodness. So, as Thomas Aquinas argued, much of what we say about God is analogy, an expression of truth about God couched in comparisons with objects and persons we do experience.
Since God is the creator of the world, which a few Scriptures teach us reflects His glory, and human beings are made in God’s image, then we might expect that even our talk about ourselves will need to make use of analogy to get at that which is inexpressible in literal language. We do it all the time, whether we’re talking about an emotion by saying we feel “blue,” or expressing our opinion of a new car by saying it is “cool.”
Someone with a little linguistics or philology training could show how a huge portion of our daily conversation is in fact metaphorical or analogical. Even the word “literal” is an image picturing a word or phrase that conforms exactly to the letters (litera) with which it is written trying to get at the notion of a conformity to actual fact which is contrary to metaphorical or analogical expression.
All this is to say that it is not just the glory of kings, but of all human beings to search out the mysteries of God as they are found in human experience, whether in interactions between neighbors or in trying to discern truth and falsehood. Part of the gift of human language is to employ good analogy to explore and express that divine mystery as we find it all around us and within us.
And as we come to the Lord’s Table this Sunday, we meet yet another metaphor or analogy which we call a Sacrament, because in our participation in this picture of Jesus’ body and blood, we actually receive what is being pictured. We meet our Lord there and move beyond the image into the reality of God. It’s a very good analogy.