Wisdom or Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr Keeps An Extra Brain On Hand At All Times

The book of Proverbs is Solomon’s best-selling publication and one of the most popular books in the Tanach. All but two chapters are attributed to him. In the very first verses he sounds like Schoolhouse Rocky peddling Saturday morning education: “As your body grows bigger, your mind must flower. It’s great to learn, ’cause knowledge is power!” Solomon’s first koan is a doozy. According to him, respecting God is the beginning of knowledge (1:7). It turns out to be one of his favorite themes (also see 3:5, 9:10). Reverence for the man upstairs is apparently the elixir of life Tommy Creo spent so much time searching for (9:11, 10:27, 14:27).

Solomon pulls aside the youth for a heartfelt avoid assholes speech. He isn’t sweating your affiliation with Regina George and the Plastics, he’s more concerned about you hanging out with Billy Loomis (vv. 10-15). And he’s even more adamant about avoiding hotheads (14:17 & 29, 15:18, 22:24, 29:11). Better cancel that playdate with Tommy DeVito. Solomon’s smart guy starter kit repeatedly highlights keeping your damn mouth shut as as essential guideline, even if you have to sew it closed like Weapon XI Deadpool. Better to be Silent Bob than Jay (13:3, 17:28, 18:21). But for the parents of Stu Macher and Wade Wilson he suggests keeping a good piece of hickory handy (23:13-14). Solomon talks about taking off his belt more than Pootie Tang. Modern experts may advise against spanking, but, like Julius Rock, Solomon thinks having a belt for every offense is the most effective method (13:24, 22:15, 29:15). In his opinion, counting to 10 is for boxing referees, timeouts are for the Chicago Bears and grounding is for airplanes.

And while Solomon’s tough love disciplinary advice may be controversial, it’s hard to argue with his softer side. He has nothing but kindness for the poor. They’re just rich people without money (22:2). Don’t be like Cal Hockley. We’re all in the same boat. Solomon puts an all-caps emphasis on charity (14:31, 19:17). At the same time, he downplays money and pushes education harder than Brain Johnson’s mom (3:13-15, 8:10-11, 16:16). Slackers get no love here. Jeff Lebowski’s reputation as quite possibly the laziest man in Los Angeles County won’t earn him an audience with this king (6:6-11, 26:14). And he has some strong words for Otis Campbell, too (20:1). Solomon clearly experienced one too many drunken encounters in his day. He even remixes “Pink Elephants On Parade” and donates the proceeds to Moderation Management (32:29-35).

He dips back into controversy when he opens up about women, though. Dude has fewer kind words for the ladies than Herbert H. Heebert. He talks about ballbreakers so much you’d think every woman out there is causing more grief offscreen than Maris Crane. A guy with so many rumored wives should be an expert in their behavior, but if women are as troublesome as Solomon indicates, why did he marry so many? He calls women harpies (19:13b, 27:15) and hellcats (21:9, 25:24). He says camping solo in a wasteland is better than living with a woman (21:19). It doesn’t matter if she’s smoking hot (11:22). Solomon goes so far as to say finding a good wife is nothing short of a miracle (19:14). His observations almost play like a Henny Youngman routine.

Be smart. Be kind. Respect God. Pick your friends and lovers carefully—and beat the hell out of your delinquent kids. That’s Proverbs in a nutshell.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Solomon’s sexual escapades inspired another book, Song of Songs, a Giacomo Casanova dude diary that can be viewed three ways: (1) allegorically, (2) perversely or (3) just for the articles. All this soft-core Scripture entry is missing is a tasteful centerfold. Most of the book reads like an Ebony Clarke novel with a horny female narrator who rarely holsters her Envy Adams voice. Chapter 1 immediately finds her worked up from listening to Exile’s “Kiss You All Over” (v. 2). You can almost hear the heavy breathing.

A plain reading of verses 4 and 5 indicates a woman who doesn’t fit in with the virginal fair maidens who frequent Solomon’s California king. This girl works outside, sports a George Hamilton tan and confesses she hasn’t taken care of her “vineyard.” But Solomon likes a little diversity—like Mary Jackson, he sees fine in every color. An allegorical reading of the same text suggests her dark complexion is a metaphor for immoral behavior, which doesn’t fit the surrounding context. Verse 8 even sees Solomon drop a Mark Darcy “just the way you are” line, encouraging her not to change.

The foreplay continues in chapter 2 when the previous chapter’s body kisses advances to oral sex with our breathy narrator describing her man’s junk as a tree, before going down on him: “In his shade I took great delight and sat down, [a]nd his fruit was sweet to my taste” (v. 3). The fact he was peeping on her harder than Edward Morris beforehand doesn’t bother her one bit—she’s more interested in his stamina (v. 9). Solomon reciprocates with his own hot and heavy descriptions of her, filling the entirety of chapter 4 with male gaze flattery. As Paddy Carmody would say, “You’re built the way a woman ought to be built.” That’s right. He thinks her body is a wonderland. Quick, someone cue up John Mayer. But, like a true gentleman, he starts with the eyes (v. 1). Eyes that make his heart beat faster (v. 9) and “confuse” him (see 6:5). As Shelley Darlington would say, “The eyes are the nipples of the face.” We’ve all been there. But when he compares her Lady Godiva hair to goats running down a mountain it’s harder to relate. I guess he’ll be her Dixie chicken, if she’ll be his Tennessee lamb. Like Peter Mitchell, he’s familiar with women and structural design. He calls his lover’s neck a tower and her nose a citadel (7:4). Bow chicka wow wow. It sounds like McLovin is on the scene. And, like most dudes, he’s obsessed with boobs. As Jerry Seinfeld would say, “A leg man? Why would I be a leg man? I have legs.” Solomon equates his lover’s breasts to “two fawns” (v. 5) and fruit clusters that are worth the climb: “You’re the cutest thing I ever did see. I really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree” (see 7:7-8, Eddie Curtis translation). And, in the final section, he focuses his attention squarely on her “garden,” a metaphor repeated five times in as many verses. Her vadge is also referred to as a spring, a well of fresh water and a flowing stream (v. 15). Yep. It’s go time. After polishing Solomon’s nob (2:3), she anticipates him returning the favor: “May my beloved come into his garden and eat its choice fruits!” (v. 16). Get a room, guys.

Chapter 5 continues the steamy narrative with her going full Ashley St. Ives, “I have taken off my dress, how can I put it on again?” (v. 3). Someone cue up Nelly, because it’s gettin’ hot in here. Unlike Darcy McGuire, she isn’t ashamed of her pervy inner monologue. But who’s gonna condemn her insatiable sex drive after hearing her head-to-toe description of Solomon’s hot bod? Clark Kent hair? Check (v. 11). Patrick Verona features? Oh yeah (v. 13). Jacob Palmer abs? You better believe it (v. 14). In just seven verses she encapsulates an entire evening at the Xquisite Strip Club. It’s no wonder these two are banging at all hours. According to chapter 7, they’re horizonal all night (vv. 10-11) and first thing in the morning it’s back to the vineyard to see if her flower has reopened (v. 12). Renowned Torah scholar Rashi interpreted these verses to indicate an early morning Bible study session, which sounds suspiciously like a youth pastor trying to dodge a thousand legitimate questions about sex. It’s almost impossible to buy that the text is intending anything else when it reads like a snippet from Larry Hubbard’s A Guide for the Lonely Guy: “Soon the primal fire began to burn in Lady Hookstraten’s body. Her hips twitched and trembled as each fireball from Oliver’s powerful cannon erupted like molten lava into the quivering mouth of her ever-fluttering love purse.” Or, as Rashi might say, “They studied Torah passionately.”

Song of Songs is the ultimate 80’s hair metal tune, complete with wildly euphemistic language to describe the exchange of body fluids. The sultry book culminates in chapter 8 with an intimate relationship’s natural progression: jealousy. Once everyone has witnessed the couple’s unabashed Gomez and Morticia Addams PDA and she’s allowed dude to “drink from the juice of [her] pomegranates,” there’s no going back (vv. 1-2). Who wouldn’t be clingy after the intimacies these two shared? Her possessiveness reaches Elena Gilbert levels when she drops the ominous reminder (threat?) that “love is as strong as death” (v. 6).

Older and wiser still, it’s believed Solomon likely penned Ecclesiastes in the final years of his life. Widely considered the most controversial book in the Tanach, it was almost excluded from Scripture entirely. Ecclesiastes finds Solomon in Jobu Tupaki mode, using his Alphaverse enlightenment to pessimistically ponder the meaning of life. As Elektra King would say, “There’s no point in living, if you can’t feel alive.” Chapter 1 dives right in with Solomon belting out a lively rendition of “Take This Job and Shove It” (vv. 2-3). He’s more down on the workplace than Peter Gibbons (see 2:22-23, 3:9, 4:6, 5:15-16). And it only gets worse from there. Solomon relentlessly drives his point home on the redundant and fleeting nature of life. According to him, every day is Theresa Gelbman’s birthday. This is not the cup of coffee you want to start your day with. Reading Ecclesiastes is equivalent to listening to Eeyore sing “Circle of Life” (vv. 4-8). It’s catchy, sure, but depressing as hell. Worse still, there’s nothing we can do to make things fresh. We’ve been cast to replace actors who did it better before we ever got here. It’s all remakes and sequels: “[T]here is nothing new under the sun” (vv. 9-10). What a drag.

And for a guy who specifically requested an NTZ-48 power-up, he doesn’t exactly promote higher learning here: “[I]n much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain” (v. 18). He even encourages Jane Eyre not to read so much (12:12). But it’s not just easy targets like work and school he questions. In chapter 2 he goes after hedonism, committing fully to the research. He tours wine country with Miles Raymond (v. 3), builds a house with George Monroe (v. 4), advocates for a public playground with Kanji Watanabe (v. 5), buys slaves with William Ford (v. 7), indulges in wealth and women with Oliver Queen (v. 8)—but none of it makes a difference. No matter what he explores, the outcome is the same (v. 11). As Buckaroo Banzai would say, “No matter where you go, there you are.”

Chapter 3 kicks off with Solomon’s poetic list of opposites. You know the one. Pete Seeger liked it so much he turned it into a chart-topping single. There’s no denying the grim catchiness of verses 2-8. He covers everything from the maternity ward to the funeral home, offers some E-I-E-I-O advice to Old McDonald (v. 2), states the obvious to the LEGO Master Builders (v. 3b), wastes his breath on Keller Dover and the participants of Hoarders (v. 6) and gives a shoutout to Pierre Bolkonsky (v. 8). He isn’t wrong, but his gallows logic is an acquired taste: “I congratulated the dead who are already dead more than the living who are still living. But better off than both of them is the one who has never existed” (4:2-3a). Yikes. Ecclesiastes should include the suicide hotline at the bottom of ever page (also see 3:22, 6:3-5, 7:1, 11:8). Rich or poor. Smart or stupid. Hero or villain. Doesn’t matter. It all ends the same. Everyone is equal in death (2:14-16). As Tyler Durden would say, “You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.” This realization inspires Solomon to go full John Keating and motivate everyone to carpe diem. Eat, drink and be merry is how he puts it (8:15). Solomon says YOLO more than Drake and Lil Wayne. Work hard. Drink a tall one. Hang out with your favorite girl. His advice sounds like a 90’s beer commercial (9:7-10). And who can say he’s wrong? This Bud’s for you.

In case you’re still not convinced, he drops the Private James Ryan aging gif in chapter 12 to emphasize the point (vv. 1-8). Life comes at you fast. I know what you’re thinking. Where does God fit in to all of this? Despite writing with a gun barrel in his mouth, Solomon doesn’t forget his Maker: “He has made everything appropriate in its time … there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it” (3:11-14). Solomon repeatedly spells out how to view 8k resolution God: R-E-S-P-E-C-T (see 3:14, 5:7, 7:16-18, 8:12-13). And while Deep Thought computed 42 as the ultimate answer to Life, Solomon has a different idea: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is [respect] God and keep his commandments, because this applies to every person” (v. 13). It’s kinda refreshing to run across a Bible big shot working things out the hard way, even if his last word is harder to stomach than a Balki Bartokomous recipe.