introduction or prologue to and hermeneutical key for all that follows.59 R. C. van Leeuwen has argued that the root metaphors that underlie the material in Proverbs 1–9 are not the notion of the two ways, or Woman Wisdom, but rather the polarities of Wisdom/Folly, good/wicked, life/death, which reflect the limits Yahweh has set on life.60 There is also an epilogue in Prov. 31:10–31 which is an acrostic poem about the good wife or possibly about Woman Wisdom. In between these two ends of the book
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