Alley-O

Alley-O.  “The big ship sails on the Alley-Alley-O / On the last day of September.” This week brings in the last day of September and its melodious nursery rhyme. Especially in verses two and three, the children’s song sings of the canals and ports, perhaps in Manchester, England, where a cargo captain considers risking the rough sailing conditions, apparently pressed by his boss to meet contractual agreements to depart before October 1^st when long-haul shipping usually shuts down for the winter. Verse two warns: “The captain says that it will never, never do / On the last day of September.” Pressed by finances into folly, verse three laments: “The big ship sank to the bottom of the sea / On the last day of September.”

This old song was often part of our children’s bedtime routine, but never verses two or three. Those verses are so sad that modern editors didn’t even print them in newer editions of Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes. Conceivably, older generations of children were able to sing sad songs without spoiling the fun, especially if they lived in Manchester, England, where the big ships would sometimes sink on the last day of September. Songs normalize tragedy.

The point, however, for this last week of September is neither nostalgia nor cultural commentary, but the power of a proverb. The highly refined ability to organize, analyze, and summarize complex information into a simple, memorable, and replicable saying is frankly rare and vastly special, yet so modest that it welcomes anonymity and being lost to folklore. “Proverb is the wit of one, and the wisdom of many” (Lord John Russell). The wise make complexity look easy, though it never is. Every culture has proverbs, such as: “haste makes waste,” and “fortune favors the bold,” but it is the unique contribution of biblical proverbs to fuse true wisdom with the fear of the Lord. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Prov. 9:10).

Biblical proverbs are sourced in revelation more than merely observation. While God affirms his wise sayings as the supreme examples of "wisdom from above” (James 3:17), the biblical and the cultural proverbs are not automatically antagonistic toward each other when common ground is shared. In fact, biblical writers occasionally acknowledge cultural proverbs as also coming from God, though indirectly and outside the process of the inspiration of Scripture. Paul comfortably knew and quoted from local poets (Acts 14:11-18; 17:22-28; Titus 1:12) without yielding to their authority. Solomon may have incorporated some proverbs from an Egyptian source, though Solomon clearly maintained editorial discretion. (Notice the “thirty sayings” in Proverbs 22:20, which seems to be an oblique reference to the thirty chapters of The Teaching of Amenemope, that loosely resemble Proverbs 22:17-23:14).

Using cultural proverbs is not theologically “wrong" if they are put to a better use. Even Egyptian gold comes from God’s mines, as Augustine of Hippo argued: “For, as the Egyptians had not only the idols and heavy burdens which the people of Israel hated and fled from, but also vessels and ornaments of gold and silver, and garments, which the same people when going out of Egypt appropriated to themselves, designing them for a better use” (On Christian Doctrine, Book II, Chapter 30). God’s wisdom, like God’s rain, falls upon both “the just and the unjust” alike (Matt. 5:45). Those who know God see him everywhere.