MICHAEL V. FOX University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706 The book of Proverbs, read as a whole, presents a main topic amidst its numerous and divers maxims and observations. This topic, scarcely touched on elsewhere in ancient Near Eastern Wisdom Literature, is wisdom—not just wise behavior or wise teachings but wisdom itself, the human intellectual power, both as knowledge and as a faculty. The book of Proverbs is not only about doing; it is about knowing. This