This volume completes Bible scholar Michael V. Fox’s comprehensive commentary on the book of Proverbs. As in his previous volume on the early chapters of Proverbs, the author here translates and explains in accessible language the meaning and literary qualities of the sayings and poems that comprise the final chapters. He gives special attention to comparable sayings in other wisdom books, particularly from Egypt, and makes extensive use of medieval Hebrew commentaries, which have received scant attention in previous Proverb commentaries. In separate sections set in smaller type, the author addresses technical issues of text and language for interested scholars.

The author’s essays at the end of the commentary view the book of Proverbs in its entirety and investigate its ideas of wisdom, ethics, revelation, and knowledge. Out of Proverbs’ great variety of sayings from different times, Fox shows, there emerges a unified vision of life, its obligations, and its potentials.