of Proverbs can best be described as a wisdom anthology or collection. Because there are seven subheadings in the book that name speakers or compilers (1:1; 10:1; 22:17; 24:23; 25:1; 30:1; 31:1), we can more properly speak of a collection of collections. Why do people make collections of proverbs, and how do the compilers expect them to be used? One contemporary bibliography of proverbs has 9,051 entries, most of them proverb collections.13 Some collections are created to preserve oral traditions