01/17/10

Yes, I skipped yesterday.  There are 3-6 days of slack built in to each month's schedule, and I used one of January's yesterday...

Genesis 47-50

In Genesis 47, Joseph brought five of his brothers before Pharoah, who asked their occupations.  The explained that they were all shepherds, from a line of shepherds.  Pharoah tells Joseph to settle his family in Goshen, and if any had "special ability," to put them in charge of Pharoah's own livestock.  Joseph then introduced Pharoah to Jacob, who blessed him.  Joseph then settled his family in "the best part of the land, the district of Rameses" and provided them with food.

The famine was still in effect, and the people of Egypt came to Joseph.  First, Joseph "collected all the money that was to be found in Egypt and Canaan in payment for the grain they were buying," then he took all of the livestock of the people in exchange for food, and then Joseph "bought all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh."  Joseph established a law - "still in force today" - that one fifth of all of the produce in Egypt belonged to Pharoah.  And "the Israelites settled in Egypt in the region of Goshen...acquired property there and were fruitful and increased greatly in number." 

As Jacob aged, he made his son Joseph swear to return his body and bury him where his fathers were buried.

In chapter 48, the dying Jacob called Joseph to him, and told him of the promises of God Almighty to "make you fruitful" and to give the land of Canaan "as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you."  He said that Joseph's sons would be reckoned as sons of Jacob "just as Reuben and Simeon" were.  Any subsequent children born to Joseph would be Joseph's, "reckoned under the names of their brothers."  And then Jacob blessed Ephraim and Manasseh, but he crossed his arms to give the right-hand blessing to the younger brother.

Chapter 49 shows Jacob's blessings for his sons.  After giving those blessings, and instructing his sons to bury him where Abraham and Sarah are buried, he dies.

Genesis concludes in chapter 50 with the burial of Jacob.  He is mourned in Egypt, then Joseph informs Pharoah of his (Joseph's) oath to bury Jacob in Canaan.  A large group goes up, they mourn Jacob, and bury him.  With their father buried, Joseph's brothers are concerned, again, that he will take revenge upon them for their actions selling him into slavery.  He reiterates that while the meant ill, God meant well by it, and that he holds no grudge.  Joseph lived to 110 years old, and was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.

Thoughts, questions, issues
• It seems as if Joseph was personally responsible for selling the entire population of Egypt into slavery under Pharoah.  Before the famine, the people had money, livestock and land - afterwards, they had nothing.
• There is a parallel between Isaac's blessings on Esau and Jacob, and Jacob's blessings on Manasseh and Ephraim.  In each case, the younger son gets the blessing that "should" have gone to the older.  Unlike the case of Isaac, Jacob knew and understood who he was blessing.
• The odd statement that I noted in chapter 35 about Reuben and Bilhah leads directly to Reuben's blessing.  Jacob tells him that "you will no longer excel, for you went up onto your father's bed, onto my couch and defiled it."
• Some of the blessings don't seem much like blessings.  Such as "Simeon and Levi...cursed be their anger...I will scatter them in Jacob and disperse them in Israel."  Or "Issachar is a rawboned donkey...he will bend his shoulder to the burden and submit to forced labor."

Proverbs 13:1-12

The in this set of verses, the focus on the speech continues, as well as truth and integrity.  Verse 7 is one that, unlike so much of the book of Proverbs, does not have an obvious surface meaning.

"One man pretends to be rich, yet has nothing;

another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth."

I don't know what to make of that.  It does not appear to be an instruction.  If describing particular conditions, it is not clear to me what those conditions would be, not with any specificity.  It's just an odd verse, and uncharacteristically obscure in this context.  I strongly suspect that there are cultural and linguistic barriers that leave this less clear than it would have been at the time.

01/14/10

Genesis 40-42

In Genesis 40, Joseph is joined in prison by the Pharoah's cupbearer and chief baker, both of whom have displeased Pharoah.  During their first night they each of a dream, which they share with Joseph the following day.  Joseph interprets the dreams (saying "interpretation belongs to God") and informs them (correctly) that the cupbearer will be restored to his position in three days, and the baker will be hanged.  The cupbearer promises to remember Joseph, but promptly forgets him upon being restored in his position.

Chapter 41 starts with Pharoah's dreams.  He dreams of seven fat cattle being consumed by seven skinny cattle, and seven full ears of corns being swallowed up by seven thin ones.  He sends for his wise men and magicians but no one can interpret the dreams for him.  Then his cupbearer remembers Joseph.  Pharoah calls for him from the prison.  Joseph says that he can't interpret Pharoah's dreams but that God will give Pharoah the answers that he wants.  He then says that the dreams represent seven years of plenty which will be followed by seven years of famine.  Pharaoh needs to go throughout the land and stockpile food during the years of plenty to survive the years of famine.  As Joseph clearly has the support of God, Pharoah appoints him to be the overseer of this effort.  Joseph becomes the most powerful man in Egypt (other than Pharoah) and gathers huge stores of food during the next seven years.  He also marries and has two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.  And then the famine begins, and he opens the storehouses and sells food to Egyptians.  "And all the countries came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the world."

In chapter 42, some of the men from other countries turn out to be Joseph's brothers, all of whom other than Benjamin have been sent to Egypt by their father to buy grain.  He recognized them and spoke to them harshly, accusing them of being spies looking for weakness in Egypt.  He told them that to prove they were not spies, one of them would be held and the others must go get their youngest brother.  He had Simeon taken and bound, then gave the rest of them grain and sent them back, holding Simeon hostage until they returned with the youngest brother.  In each of their sacks, he also placed the money which they had used to buy the grain.  Jacob/Israel refused to let them take Benjamin to Egypt, as he had already lost Joseph, and now Simeon.

Thoughts, questions, issues
• Each time that Joseph is asked to interpret a dream, he gives essentially the same response - I can't do that, but God can.
• The dream interpretations are in keeping with everything else that we know about Joseph in Egypt.  God is helping him, providing for him, supporting him.  In other words, preparing him and using him.
• On the surface it might seem strange that Joseph recognizes his brothers but none of them recognize him.  But there are legitimate reasons for this to be the case.  For one thing, he was the youngest of that group and likely changed more than any of the others.  For another, he was seeing them in a group, as he had seen them before, whereas they were also used to seeing him in the group.  And there was no reason for him not to expect that travelers from Canaan might be his brothers, but they had sold him into slavery and he was now a figure of great power and authority.
• Joseph's brothers are in fear when they see that they've got both the grain they bought and their money, too.  It seems a strange response, but he kept their brother Simeon, and they are, I suspect, frightened simply because they don't know what's going on.  Do they think that they just effectively sold Simeon into slavery in Egypt?

Proverbs 12:1-14

It occurs to me, as I go through this process, that I don't recall ever hearing a chapter of Proverbs read in a service, or a sermon preached on a chapter of Proverbs.  And I think I see why.  There are a couple of meta-messages - wisdom is good, the righteous are better than the wicked, God loves righteousness and wisdom - but no narrative structure and no message cohesion.  There are a lot of pithy sayings, some good imagery and metaphorical and poetic language, but not much that builds on what came before or prepares for what comes next.  The lessons all come in little chunks, and they are almost all surface lessons, valuable, yes, but not warranting much in the way of commentary.

01/12/10

Genesis 33-36

In Genesis 33, Jacob returns home.  He meets with his brother Esau, and they throw their arms around one another and reconcile.  Esau doesn't want the gifts of sheep and cattle, but Jacob insists.  They settle back into Canaan, with Jacob buying land from "Hamor, the father of Shechem."  "There he set up an altar and called it El Elohe Israel."

I said yesterday that Dinah had disappeared from the narrative, but she returns in chapter 34.  She is raped by Shechem, the son of Hamor.  His claims to be in love with her, and tells his father that he wants her for his wife.  Hamor tells Jacob, but Jacob's sons have found out what happened and are furious.  They deceitfully agree to intermarry with Hamor's people if, and only if, the men are all circumcised.  The "Hamorites" agree and all the men are circumcised.  Three days later, while the men are all recovering from the procedure, "still in pain," Simeon and Levi take their swords and kill every male in the city.  Then "the sons of Jacob" loot and plunder the city.  Jacob is upset, feeling that this will make it much harder and more dangerous for them to live there, but his sons think that doing otherwise would have meant allowing that their sister be treated as a prostitute.

Genesis 35 - God appears to Jacob and tells him to return to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar.  So he has his family give up all of their "foreign gods" and "rings in their ears" and he buries them "under the oak at Shechem."  The return to Bethel and Jacob builds an altar "and called the place El Bethel."  God again tells him that his name shall be Israel and that "a nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will come from your body.  The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you."

As they moved on from Bethel, Rachel went in to labor and struggled to give birth.  As she was dying, she named her new-born son Ben-Oni (son of my struggle) but Jacob called him Benjamin (son of my right hand.)  Rachel was buried.  Eventually, they return to Hebron.  Isaac "died and was gathered to his people, old and full of years."  Esau and Jacob buried him.

Chapter 36 lists the descendants of Esau, sometimes called Edom.  First, he and Jacob separated, much as Abram and Lot had done earlier, because the land could not support all of their wealth (livestock).  Then we get "the account of Esau the father of the Edomites."  Notable descendants are mentioned, as well as chiefs and kings of his line.

Thoughts, questions, issues
• Jacob deceived his father to get his older brothers blessing on the belief that his father was on his deathbed.  He then left the area and spent 20 years in Laban's service.  But when he comes back, not only does Esau greet him, Isaac is still alive.
• To save myself from repetitively apologizing for repeating myself, I'm going to define an acronym.  Whenever you see MSW, that's a "Modern Sensibilities Warning."  That means, "yes, I know that I'm looking at this particular issue through the lens of my chronological snobbery, and I'm aware of the potential for misunderstanding, or just plain missing, the point."
• The reference to Israel ("Shechem had done a disgraceful thing in [or against]] Israel") in 34:7 seems anachronistic.  That same chapter refers in every instance to "Jacob's sons" and "Jacob's daughter."
• MSW:  If he wants to marry the girl, why did Shechem "violate" here first?  Wouldn't it make more sense to wait?
• What is there in what has gone before to make anyone thing that the kind of behavior exhibited actually warranted retribution?  Lot offered his daughters to a mob.  Simeon and Levi were sons of Leah, but several of their brothers were the product of (MSW) rape.  (Certainly there's no reason to think that Bilhah and Zilpah had any input whatsoever in their bearing Jacob's children.)
• Sly and clever, I suppose, to deal with the Hamorites the way they did, but dishonest, too.
• There's an odd statement in the middle of chapter 35, saying that "Reuben went in and slept with his father's concubine Bilhah, and Israel heard of it."  There's no obvious connection between that comment and what precedes and follows it.  Presumably, there's a reason for it being there, but the placement seems very strange.
• There are, I believe, five sons listed by three wives.  Most of which are not names that I recognize.  And presumably, many, if not most, are not to be heard from again.
• The one notable name (to me) from the Esau genealogy was Amalek, who I presume was the father of the Amalekites.

We've now been introduced to the 12 tribes of Israel:

Sons of Leah
• Reuben
• Simeon
• Levi
• Judah
• Issachar
• Zebulun
Sons of Rachel
• Joseph
• Benjamin
Sons of Rachel's maidservant Bilhah
• Dan
• Naphtali
Sons of Leah's maidservant Zilpah
• Gad
• Asher

Proverbs 11:1-15

The themes continue to repeat.  Wisdom, following wisdom, righteous vs. wicked, speaking wisely, plainly and truthfully - it's difficult to summarize a set of 16 proverbs.  To the extent that they have a common theme, well, they don't.  There are some extolling honesty in this set.  Some extolling humility.  Others condemning gossip and praising the man of understanding who "holds his tongue."

01/11/10

Genesis 30-32

In chapter 30, Rachel, upset that her sister Leah is bearing sons to Jacob (four so far - Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah), sends her maidservant Bilhah to Jacob to provide children for her.  Bilhah bears two sons (Dan, Naphtali).  Leah, who had stopped having children, sent her maidservant Zilpah to Jacob, and he fathered two more sons (Gad, Asher).  Then Leah gives Rachel some mandrakes which Reuben had gathered in exchange for the right(?) to go and sleep with Jacob again, and she eventually produces two more sons (Issachar, Zebulun) and a daughter (Dinah).  Then "God remembered Rachel...and opened her womb."  She bore a son (Joseph) and prayed for another.

After the birth of Joseph, Jacob went to Laban and expressed a desire to return to his "own homeland."  Laban wanted him to remain, knowing that God had blessed him through Jacob, but said he could leave if he wanted, and "name your wages."  Jacob proposed to take all "speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat."  Laban agreed, then promptly removed all of the described animals from the flock and into the care of his sons, and three days travel away from where Jacob was tending his flocks.  Jacob peeled strips of bark from trees, exposing white wood, and putting those strips into the watering trough "so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink."  And the animals mated in front of the trough and had spotted or streaked offspring, which he separated from Laban's flock.  He did this when the strong animals mated but not the weak, so the weak animals went to Laban and he kept the strong.  "The man grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and maidservants and menservants, and camels and donkeys."

In Genesis 31, Jacob sees a change in Laban's attitude towards him.  Then the LORD tells him to "go back to the land of your fathers."  He calls Rachel and Leah in from the fields, and describes for them the ways that Laban has been unfair to him, and a dream in which God encouraged him to leave.  They gather together all of the children, and all of Jacob's herds and flocks and head back to Canaan, without telling Laban.  In the process, Rachel takes Laban's "household Gods."

Laban (of course) pursues, and catches up with them in the hill country of Gilead.  They talk, and Jacob says that he left without telling for fear that Laban would take his daughters, Jacob's wives, from him by force.  And he agrees that "if you find anyone who has your gods, he shall not live."  They search the entire camp but do not find the gods (which are hidden in Rachel's camel's saddle, and she refuses to stand up from it, claiming that she's having her period).  They set up a pillar of stone at that spot, and agree that neither shall pass it to harm the other.  The next morning, Laban kissed and blessed his daughters and grandchildren and turned back towards his home.

Chapter 32 deals with Jacob's return home.  He knew when he left that his brother Esau wanted to kill him, and he knows that he must deal with Esau.  First, he divides his party into two groups, on the grounds that if Esau finds and destroys one, the other will survive.  Then he gathers groups from his herds and sends them ahead with messengers, as a gift to Esau.  That night, he sent his two wives, 11 sons (no mention of his daughter) and possessions across the ford of Jabbok.  Alone on the other side, he wrestled with a man until daybreak, and then the man injured Jacob's hip.  Jacob demands a blessing, and the man tells him, "your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel [he struggles with God], because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."


Thoughts, questions, issues

• This passage, chapters 30-32, introduces us to Israel, and 11 of the 12 tribes of Israel.
• One of the hardest things to do when documents from antiquity is to avoid seeing everything through the lenses of our modern culture.  Because there's very little in this book that isn't offensive to our modern sensibilities.  Consider the multiple wives sending their maidservants in to be impregnated by their husband.  Leaving aside the question of sexual fidelity, the maidservants are clearly chattel, unworthy of consideration or contribution to a decision.
• The disappearing Dinah would seem to show the same thing.
• Laban has "household Gods."  This is, of course, before the revelation on Sinai and the handing down of the ten commandments.
• It's interesting, and a bit uncomfortable, to see reference to what is generally a fairly personal and private aspect of a woman's life in a story like this.
• Is the putting of the stripped wood into the trough an "old wives tale?"  Was that a cue for God to create streaked or spotted animals?  Or is there (which would shock me) some actual biological fact at play here?
• The dishonesty is rampant.  Laban agrees to a price and quickly attempts to reduce, if not eliminate, it.  Jacob cherry picks from Laban's herd.  Rachel steals her father's household Gods.  None of this seems to be a character flaw.
• It says that Jacob is alone and wrestles with a man.  As the man is never identified, and claims to speak for God, it is clear that a) the man is an angel or b) the man is an incarnation of God's power or c) the man that Jacob wrestles with is himself.  The first option seems the most likely.
• I don't know enough anatomy for the hip reference to mean anything to me, if it's something specific.  I don't get it.

Proverbs 10:17-32

More parallelisms, again mostly antithetical.  These parallelisms will make up most of the remainder of the book. 


Thoughts, questions, issues

• Nine of these verses present a comparison between the righteous and the wicked.
• Six of them are related to the lips or tongue, that is, to thinks that people say.  (There is significant overlap between these verses and the righteous vs. wicked verses that I've already noted.)  Jesus would later say that "the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.'" (Mt 15:18)  The question is, do the things come affect what a man is, or merely reveal it?  Certainly the latter, but I think that these Proverbs imply the former, as well. 
• Three verses relate to the LORD, to his blessing, his way, and the fear of him.
• One verse extolling wisdom, one extolling discipline, and one condemning sloth ("the sluggard"), comparing him to "vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes."
• That adds to 21, but again, there's overlap in these 16 verses.

1/10/10

Genesis 27-29

In Genesis 27, Isaac, aging and blind, wants to bless his elder son (and favorite) Esau.  He sends Esau out to hunt, telling him to return and prepare a meal for him, and receive his blessing.  Esau goes out hunting, but Rebekah, having overheard, encourages Jacob (her favorite) to kill a goat, prepare a meal, and receive Esau's blessing.  He protests that Isaac won't be fooled, as Esau is hairy and Jacob isn't, but Rebekah prepares the goatskins and hangs them on Jacob's neck and arms.  Jacob feeds Isaac and receives the blessing intended for Esau, including "be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you."  Esau returns, prepares a meal for Isaac and prepares to receive his father's blessing, only to find that his younger twin has already received it.  Isaac blesses him, but not with the same blessing.  Esau determined that he would kill has brother as soon as the days of mourning for their father had passed.  Rebekah hears this and encourages Jacob to leave for Haran, to escape his brother's wrath, and also to look for a non-Canaanite, non-Hittite wife.

Genesis 28 features the story of Jacob's journey to Haran.  He actually goes at the behest of his father, as Isaac wants him to find a wife from his own people.  He stops and sleeps in Bethel, and has a dream.  In his dream, he sees a ladder (or staircase) reaching to heaven, with Angels traveling up and down upon it.  At the top, God stands and tells him

Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land.

In Genesis 29 Jacob arrives in Haran where he meets his mother's brother Laban, and Laban's daughters (Jacob's cousins) Leah and Rachel.  He stays and works for Laban, who agrees to give him Rachel as a wife after 7 years.  When the 7 years ends, there's a wedding feast and Laban brings his daughter in to Jacob, but he discovers the following morning that it was Leah rather than Rachel.  Laban explains that they don't give the younger daughter in marriage until the older is wed.  The upshot is that Jacob remains for seven more years, and then marries Rachel.  He loves her, but Leah, who is unloved, begins having children, while Rachel remains barren.  At least, that's the case through the end of chapter 29.

Thoughts, questions, issues
• "The Wilkes' always marry their cousins." 
  

  - Gone With The Wind

  
  There's a lot of that going on here, but I guess it lasted a lot longer than I was really thinking earlier in the week.
• One of the striking things about the patriarchal stories is how dishonest they are.  From the repeat denials of the identity of wives to Jacob's lie to get Isaac's blessing, we actually see very little in the way of admirable behavior.
• The issue of the "stolen" blessing is another one that doesn't sit well with our modern sensibilities.  Why is it that Isaac cannot just bless Esau the same way?  If there is some kind of essential or mystical quality to the blessing, why can't he withdraw it from Jacob?  It's an odd passage, and it reads very oddly now.
• "We are ... climbing ... Jacob's Ladder ... Children of the cross..."
• I've lost track, already, of how many times the LORD has promised the "promised land" to Abraham and his sons.
• And the dishonesty shows itself again, with Laban sending Leah rather than Rachel in to Jacob.
• How old is Rachel?  If she's of a marriageable age when promised to Jacob, well, she's 14 years older before the wedding.  That seems...unfair.  Unrealistic.  Yet another example of a time scale that seems questionable.
• Obviously, bigamy wasn't a concern.  Polygamy was a realistic and acceptable practice.

Proverbs 10:1-6

Whereas the first several chapter of Proverbs, most of which focused on the benefits of wisdom, read best in paragraph form, with themes and "thought units" that are more than a line or two, chapter 10 begins a new style or form of text.  Here are what we generally think of as proverbs, aphorisms of advice or information or wisdom.

The verses in this section express ideas using a poetic technique of parallelism,

proverbial sayings in poetry of two lines each (distichs).  The parallelism [in this section] is almost always antithetical¹.

That is, a positive quality is described as a producing a positive result, but ("but" being the key word to an antithetical parallelism) the absence or opposite of that good quality brings about a negative result.

e.g., Proverbs 10:12
Hatred stirs up dissension,

but love covers over all wrongs.

¹ - Arnold, Bill T., Beyer, Bryan E. - Encountering the Old Testament, 1999, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI, p. 318

01/09/10

Genesis 24-26

Chapter 24 features the familiar story of Isaac and Rebekah.  Abraham wants to find a wife for his son Isaac from among his own people.  He sends a servant to "Aram Naharaim," to the town of Nahor, where the servant finds Rebekah drawing water from the well.  After some discussion with Rebekah, in which she responds in the way that the servant had prayed to the Lord that she would, she agrees to go back and become Isaac's bride.

In chapter 25, Abraham, having taken a new wife, fathers more children (including Midian), but still "left everything he owned to Isaac" when he died.  He was buried (by his sons Isaac and Ishmael) in the cave in Hebron with Sarah.  The rest of the chapter gives genealogies, at least for one generation, for Ishmael and Isaac.  As for Ishmael, "His descendants settled in the area from Havilah to Shur, near the border of Egypt, as you go toward Asshur. And they lived in hostility toward all their brothers."  Isaac and Rebekah have twins, Esau and Jacob.  Esau is the older, but sells his birthright to his brother Jacob in exchange for a meal, for "some bread and some lentil stew."

Chapter 26 features the third iteration of the "she's my sister, not my wife" story.  First it was Abram and Sarai in Egypt with Pharoah (GEN 12).  Then it was Abraham and Sarah in Gerar with Abimelech (GEN 20).  Now it's Isaac and Rebekah in Gerar with Abimelech.  And there's more echoing in the second half of the chapter, as Isaac and Abimelech (and Phicol the commander of his forces) negotiate a pact over a well, much as Abraham and Abimelech (and Phicol the commander of his forces) did at Beersheba (GEN 21).

Thoughts, questions, issues
• Isaac and Rebekah are cousins, as her grandfather Nahor was Abraham's brother.
• We've seen a lot of tribal intermarriage in this book.
• It's not clear to me what Rebekah's motivation would be.  If the Lord has told her to go, we don't hear about it.
• The end of the last verse in chapter 24 is, to our modern sensibilities, odd.  Isaac marries Rebekah and "was comforted after his mother's death."  That isn't what we would normally consider to be an important outcome of a marriage.
• Abraham took another wife and had more children, but was buried with Sarah after his death.
• I commented earlier that I'm not sure I understand exactly what "despise" means in the Old Testament.  We see it again in chapter 25, as Esau "despised" his birthright.  There seems to be a "turned away from" or "rejected" kind of connotation.
• It's not clear how cheaply he sold it.  If he was actually dying of hunger, well, it was the price of life.  The passage doesn't seem as if his situation were desperate, but again, it's not clear.  At least not to me.
• I'm starting to feel very stupid about this "sister not wife" story.  How is that I've read Genesis at least a couple of times and never realized that it came over and over again?¹  And if it appears over and over again, there must be a point, right?  Why don't I see it?
• The story of the treaty between Isaac and Abimelech in chapter 26 is so similar to the story of the treaty between Abraham and Abimelech in chapter 21 that I wonder (again) if this isn't one story, corrupted and told twice.  To emphasize two of the points of similarity, in both stories, Abimelech is accompanied by Phicol, and in both stories are we given a variant of "to this day the name of the town has been Beersheba."

Proverbs 9

Thoughts, questions, issues
• "The fear of the LORD" in verse 10 is an echo of chapter 1.  Indeed, it's really the central point of the book.  If one came out of Proverbs with nothing else, it seems to me that it's been of value.
• There is some practical wisdom in this chapter.  "Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult" is not debatable.  Anyone who has spent any time on the internet has seen this section in action many times.

¹ - I suppose that if you aren't reading it, start to finish, in a fairly short time period, it's actually not hard to miss.  And most Bible reading, at least in my experience, tends to be in small chunks from different books.  Certainly, the act of commenting as I go is forcing me to notice things that I've never really noticed before.

² - Chapter 9 in paragraph form:

Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out its seven pillars. She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine; she has also set her table.  She has sent out her maids, and she calls from the highest point of the city.  "Let all who are simple come in here!" she says to those who lack judgment.  "Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed.  Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the way of understanding. 

"Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult; whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.  Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you. Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning. 

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.  For through me your days will be many, and years will be added to your life.  If you are wise, your wisdom will reward you; if you are a mocker, you alone will suffer." 

The woman Folly is loud; she is undisciplined and without knowledge.  She sits at the door of her house, on a seat at the highest point of the city, calling out to those who pass by, who go straight on their way.  "Let all who are simple come in here!" she says to those who lack judgment.  "Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious!"  But little do they know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of the grave.