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Two sentences from the great eighteenth-century English aphorist Samuel Johnson can serve as a motto to Proverbs and to this commentary. 'Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.' The book of Proverbs does not primarily provide information; its instructions are remarkably empty of 'content' and its maxims, when rephrased, are often trite. Rather, it informs by giving its readers a perspective. To quote Johnson on the achievement of Alexander Pope: 'New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new.' Proverbs is about vision and action. From the Preface
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