This chapter ranges together the oldest proverbial material – i.e. the previously oral maxims that form the bedrock of the ‘proverb’ genre. These are to be found in the main sayings collection in 10:1-22:16, also in 24:23-34 and in the many variants in 25-9 and in the miscellany of animal sayings and lists in Proverbs 30:7-33. The role of all these sections in ethical guidance, itself not monochrome but characterized by difference and contradiction, is explored.

Chapter 5 describes the rhetorical and theological relationship between the Elijah/Elisha narratives and the greater book of Kings, both the Solomon stories on one hand (1 Kings 1–11) and the episodes dealing with Israel’s and Judah’s political demise on the other (2 Kings 9–25). It argues that Elijah and Elisha become the “hereditary carriers” of two theological concepts introduced through Solomon: the hope that children might surpass their ancestors in life-giving wisdom and that the temple might provide a durable paradigm through which to imagine Yhwh’s ongoing care for Israel’s land and people together. In this sense, Elijah and Elisha “prophetize” the Davidic promise of 2 Samuel 7, showing that Yhwh responds to sin with a power capable of reversing death. The chapter likewise maintains that a series of Davidic kings – Joash, Hezekiah, and Josiah – “re-royalize” the two prophets’ characteristic acts of resurrection and other forms of life preservation as depicted in 1 Kings 17–2 Kings 8. Because Elijah functions as their typological ancestor, these prophet-kings become the seeds through which Israel’s redemption after catastrophe might be imagined.

This chapter demonstrates how the oracles provoked by the illnesses of Abijah and Hezekiah work in combination to structure the presentation of Judah’s and Israel’s monarchic past as envisioned in the Book of Kings. Royal illness frames prophetic oracles which are used to confirm the validity of the Davidic dynasty and to condemn the dynasties of the North. Eventually, however, the oracles are expanded through a later redaction to frame the destruction of both Israel and Judah. This chapter concludes with an excursus on Hezekiah’s illness as it is featured in the Isaianic tradition, where the focus shifts to highlighting the link between the king and his people rather than the king and his dynasty.