The teaching books of the Old Testament include five canonical and two non-canonical books. Canonical books: Job, the Psalter, the Proverbs of Solomon, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs. Non-canonical books: the Book of Wisdom of Solomon and the book of Wisdom of Jesus, the son of Sirach.
Translated by 70, Slavonic-Russian In the Bible and in the Vulgate, the teaching books are placed after the historical books, before the prophetic books. In the Hebrew Bible, they are placed in the third section of the canon (Ketuvim – Writings), except for non-canonical books that are generally absent from the Hebrew Bible.
Forms of Biblical versification
In the original, i.e., the Hebrew text, the teaching books are written in a poetic form, which is largely lost in the translations.
The main feature of Hebrew versification is the parallelism of terms, i.e. the development of judgments in two or more verses.
There are three types of Hebrew parallelism:
1. Synonymous: both terms express the same idea, for example: "Oh my God! do not rebuke me in your anger, and do not chastise me in your anger." Ps. 6:1).
2. Antithetical: the second verse expresses a thought contrary to the idea of the first verse, for example: "A wise son pleases his father, but a foolish son grieves his mother" (Prov. 10:1).
3. Synthetic: the second verse contains expressions that develop or complement the ideas of the first verse, for example: "The law of the Lord is perfect, strengthens the soul; the revelation of the Lord is true, makes the simple wise" (Ps. 18:8).
Synthetic verses often alternate with antithetical ones, and sometimes all three types of parallelism are combined in one stanza (e.g. Ps. 19:7-9).
Stanzas. Parallel verses (two, three, or four) expressing a certain judgment form stanzas of couplets, triplets, etc. For example, Ps. 2 has four stanzas, three verses each.
When verses begin with a regular letter of the Hebrew alphabet, such a versification is called an alphabetic acrostic. Psalms 25, 34, 145 are written in this way, and in the largest Psalm 118, which makes up 17 kafisma, every 8 verses begin with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet.