Proverbs 25:1

Proverbs 25:1, in plain English

This is a note telling us that what follows are more of Solomon's proverbs, and they were collected and written down by people working for King Hezekiah centuries later.

Why it's here

By Hezekiah's time (around 700 BC), Solomon's original writings had been scattered and passed down orally. Hezekiah's court scholars took on the project of gathering these proverbs together, preserving wisdom that might otherwise have been lost. This shows how seriously ancient Israel took Solomon's teachings.

Who's speaking

The editor or compiler of Proverbs, introducing this collection to readers

Where it sits in the story

This verse is part of Scripture's own story of how the Bible was preserved and passed down. Just as God worked through scribes and scholars to keep His Word safe, these officials were protecting the practical wisdom God had given Solomon for future generations.

The scholarly reading

This superscription identifies a second collection of Solomon's sayings that were transcribed during King Hezekiah's reign in Judah, likely in the late eighth century BCE.

Language and setting

Hezekiah (715-687 BCE) undertook significant religious and administrative reforms, including what appears to have been a scribal project to preserve and organize wisdom literature. The Hebrew verb סָּקַל (saqal, 'to copy') suggests deliberate textual transmission—these weren't casual notations but official documentation. This editorial frame implies that wisdom literature was valued as state resource, part of the intellectual infrastructure of the monarchy.

Voice

The editorial voice—likely Hezekiah's scribes or a later Judean editor—frames the collection that follows.

Significance

This represents the canonization process itself: biblical books were not dropped complete from heaven but were gradually collected, organized, and transmitted. The attribution to Solomon (Israel's archetypal wise king) and the Hezekian recension situate wisdom within institutional authority. This reminds us that the Bible's final form reflects real historical communities making theological choices.

1These are additional proverbs of Solomon, which were copied by the men of Hezekiah king of Judah:

2It is the glory of God to conceal a matter and the glory of kings to search it out.

3As the heavens are high and the earth is deep, so the hearts of kings cannot be searched.

Read all of Proverbs 25 — A new section: proverbs copied by Hezekiah's scribes. A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.