The Wisdom sayings that appear in Proverbs are usually these short two-line sentences in which the second line runs parallel in some way to the first. Some scholars have classified the different kinds of parallelism you find in the book of Proverbs and I've written the three main forms up here.
An example of synonymous parallelism, where the second line is essentially synonymous with the first — that's found in Proverbs 22:1. It's a classic feature of biblical poetry in general. We'll see it in the Psalms. For an example, "A good name is to be chosen rather then great riches / And favor," parallel to a good name, "is better then silver and gold," parallel to great riches [RSV translation; see note 1]. So the two lines are somewhat synonymous.
In antithetic parallelism the two lines form a balanced pair of opposites, so in Proverbs 10:1, "A wise son makes a glad father / But a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother" [RSV translation].
When the second line seems to complete the thought of the first, it's called ascending parallelism. We find that in Proverbs 11:22, "Like a gold ring in the snout of a pig / Is a beautiful woman bereft of sense." Another feature of Proverbs is that wisdom itself is established as a religious concept. It seems to have some religious value. Proverbs tries to link wisdom with reverence for God and obedience to God.
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