In the time of David and Solomon, there were official secretaries in the lists of court officials. (2 Sam. 20:25; 2 Ki. 12:10) Whether these scribes in his court wrote and collected his proverbs, we do not know, but the expressions of any ruler of his caliber would be highly regarded and would normally be recorded. It is generally agreed that the book is a collection compiled from other collections.

5. When was Proverbs written and compiled?

⁵ When was Proverbs written and compiled? The greater part was no doubt written down during Solomon’s reign (1037-998 B.C.E.) before his deflection. Because of uncertainty as to the identity of Agur and Lemuel, it is not possible to date their material. Since one of the collections was made in the reign of Hezekiah (745-717 B.C.E.), it could not have been before his reign that the final collecting was done. Were the last two divisions also collected under King Hezekiah’s purview? In answer there is an illuminating footnote to Proverbs 31:31 in the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures​—With References: “Some ed[itions] of the Heb[rew] text display the trigrammaton, or three letters, Chehth, Zaʹyin, Qohph (חזק) that stand as King Hezekiah’s signature to the copy-work done by his scribes to signify that the work had been completed.”