The kingly poetry—Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon—also reflects the relative gender emphases of its times. The terms “man” and “men” are sometimes generic, including male and female, and at time specific, meaning male. In the English Standard Version, the words “man” and “men” appear 339 times in the kingly books of poetry. “Woman” and “women” appear 32 times. The related terms “he” and “him” occur 1,202 times, compared with 201 times for “she” and “her.”
Using the ESV for the books of poetry, other terms that are more distinctly male or female can be counted as follows:
- son(s) 89
- daughter(s) 20
- father(s) 41
- mother(s) 22
- king(s) 106
- queen(s) 3