ABSTRACT
Our focus here will be on the dialogue in Proverbs about the practice of giving gifts and bribes, both for its intrinsic value and as an example of a ‘heteroglossality’. This will also facilitate a dialogue with one influential scholar, McKane, who, noting the existence of contradictions within Proverbs, sees them as providing evidence for his theory that the book reveals the reinterpretation of secular wisdom in a Yahwistic direction. It will be argued that the contradictory attitudes towards the giving of bribes and gifts in Proverbs are better understood as being deliberately included ‘to goad the wise’ to reflect on the merits and demerits of this practice. Proverbs 6.20- and 21.14 constitute a framework around a dialogue about the subject involving 15.27, 17.8, 17.23, 18.16 and 19.7.
