Old Testament
Poetry & Wisdom
Ketuvim's heart · songs, sayings, laments, and reflections
These books are Israel's poetry: prayer, protest, praise, love song, and hard-won wisdom.
They sit at the centre of the Ketuvim (Writings) in the Hebrew canon and shape the daily prayer life of both synagogue and church.
Period
Contents range from the pre-monarchic period (some Psalms and possibly Job) through the post-exilic era (Ecclesiastes); collected form crystallises between the 10th and 3rd centuries BCE.
Themes
- ·Suffering and the justice of God
- ·The life of prayer
- ·Wisdom, folly, and the fear of the Lord
- ·The vanity of things under the sun
- ·Love as strong as death
Authorship — traditional
The Talmud (Bava Batra 14b–15a) assigns Job to Moses; Psalms to David, gathering ten elder authors — including Adam, Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, Heman, Jeduthun, Asaph, and the three sons of Korah; Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes to Solomon (with Song and Ecclesiastes edited by Hezekiah's men, per Proverbs 25:1).
Authorship — historical-critical
Critical scholarship sees the Psalter as an anthology compiled across centuries and finalised in the post-exilic Second Temple. Job is often dated 6th–4th c. BCE. Ecclesiastes' late Hebrew places it in the Persian or early Hellenistic period. Proverbs preserves older wisdom material re-edited under Hezekiah and later. Song of Songs is usually dated to the post-exilic period despite its Solomonic frame.
The books
Click a book to open it in the reader at chapter 1.
- Job42 ch
Set in a patriarchal-era frame; composed anywhere from the united monarchy to the post-exilic period.
A righteous man loses everything and argues with his friends — and with God — about suffering. God answers not with reasons but with a whirlwind.
- Psalms150 ch
Individual psalms span c. 1000–400 BCE; the Psalter is arranged into its five 'books' by the Second Temple period.
The prayer book of Israel and the church: praise, lament, thanksgiving, penitence, royal and wisdom psalms. It teaches how to speak to God about everything.
- Proverbs31 ch
Ascribed largely to Solomon (10th c. BCE) and to later collections gathered under Hezekiah (8th c.) and beyond.
The wisdom tradition of Israel in short, memorable sayings. Wisdom is personified as a woman standing in the street, calling to the young.
- Ecclesiastes12 ch
Composed in the Persian or early Hellenistic period on the strength of its late Hebrew; ascribed to Qoheleth, the 'assembler.'
A hard-eyed meditation on the vanity (hevel — vapour, breath) of everything under the sun. Its conclusion: eat your bread, love your work, fear God.
- Song of Solomon8 ch
Ascribed to Solomon; usually dated to the post-exilic period.
A cycle of love poems between bride and beloved, read by the rabbis as an allegory of God and Israel and by the church as of Christ and the soul — and always also as itself.