Proverbs 31:10

Proverbs PORTRAIT OF A MATRONProverbs 31:10 - Proverbs 31:31 . This description of a good ‘house-mother’ attests the honourable position of woman in Israel. It would have been impossible in Eastern countries, where she was regarded only as a plaything and a better sort of slave. The picture is about equally far removed from old-world and from modern ideas of her place. This ‘virtuous woman’ is neither a doll nor a graduate nor a public character. Her kingdom is the home. Her works ‘praise her in the gates’; but it is her husband, and not she, that ‘sits’ there among the elders. There is no sentiment or light of wedded love in the picture. It is neither the ideal woman nor wife that is painted, but the ideal head of a household, on whose management, as much as on her husband’s work, its well-being depends. There is plenty of room for modern ideals by the side of this old one, but they are very incomplete without it. If we take the ‘oracle which his mother taught’ King Lemuel to include this picture, the artist is a woman, and her motive may be to sketch the sort of wife her son should choose. In any case, it is significant that the book which began with the magnificent picture of Wisdom as a fair woman, and hung beside it the ugly likeness of Folly, should end with this charming portrait. It is an acrostic, and the fetters of alphabetic sequence are not favourable to progress or continuity of thought.

But I venture to suggest a certain advance in the representation which removes the apparent disjointed character and needless repetition. There are, first, three verses forming a kind of prologue or introduction { Proverbs 31:10 - Proverbs 31:12 }. Then follows the picture proper, which is brought into unity if we suppose that it describes the growing material success of the diligent housekeeper, beginning with her own willing work, and gradually extending till she and her family are well to do and among the magnates of her town { Proverbs 31:13 - Proverbs 31:29 }, Then follow two verses of epilogue or conclusion { Proverbs 31:30 - Proverbs 31:31 }. The rendering ‘virtuous’ is unsatisfactory; for what is meant is not moral excellence, either in the wider sense or in the narrower to which, in reference to woman, that great word has been unfortunately narrowed. Our colloquialism ‘a woman of faculty’ would fairly convey the idea, which is that of ability and general capacity. We have said that there was no light of wedded love in the picture. That is true of the main body of it; but no deeper, terser expression of the inmost blessedness of happy marriage was ever spoken than in the quiet words, ‘The heart of her husband trusteth in her,’ with the repose of satisfaction, with the tranquillity of perfect assurance. The bond uniting husband and wife in a true marriage is not unlike that uniting us with God.

Proverbs 31:10 . Who can find a virtuous woman? — Here he lays down several qualifications of an excellent wife, which are delivered in alphabetical order, each verse beginning with a several letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It may be proper to observe here, that the versions, in general, agree in reading this, a strong woman, the words, אשׁת חיל , being literally, a woman of strength, or firmness: but then it must be observed, that it is equally applicable to strength of body or strength of mind: and therefore may with great propriety be rendered, as in our translation, a virtuous woman, or a woman of a strong, firm, and excellent mind.

APPENDIX (c).—THE PRAISE OF A GOOD WIFE. ( Proverbs 31:10 , sqq. ) This is written in the form of an acrostic, the twenty-two verses composing it each commencing with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This may have been done, as in the case of several of the psalms, which are of a didactic character (e.g., 25, 34, 37, 119), to render it more easy for committal to memory. By some writers the acrostic form has been supposed to argue a late date for the poem, but there is no evidence for this. One psalm, at all events, of which there seems no reason to doubt the Davidic authorship—the 9th—is cast in this form. (10) Who can find a virtuous woman?—Various mystical interpretations of the person here implied have been held at different times. She has been supposed to signify the Law, the Church, the Holy Spirit.

10 . Who can find ] It is no easy thing to do. a virtuous woman ] The R.V. follows the order of the Heb.: A virtuous woman who can find? , giving emphasis by the arrangement of the words to the subject of the whole Section. virtuous ] Lit. a woman of might , or power , or capacity ; γυναῖκα ἀνδρείαν , LXX; mulierem fortem, Vulg. The conditions of woman’s life and her social position in those times and countries must be borne in mind. Comp. Proverbs 18:22 ; Proverbs 19:14 . The rendering virtuous is retained in R.V., and no better English representative of the Heb. word could probably be found. But virtuous must here be understood, not in the restricted sense which, in this connection, it has come to have in our language (though in that sense the phrase appears to be used in Proverbs 12:4 , and perhaps in Ruth 3:11 ), but in the wider sense of “all virtuous living” (Collect for All Saints’ Day), or of “all virtues” (Collect for Quinquagesima Sunday). The idea of capacity (comp. men of capacity , Genesis 47:6 , where the Heb. word is the same) is involved in the description which follows. Our English word honest (= honourable , as in Romans 12:17 ) has in like manner come to have a restricted meaning, as it is now commonly used. rubies ] See Proverbs 3:15 note. VIII. The Virtuous Woman. Chap. Proverbs 31:10-31 This short Appendix differs from the other Sections of the Book of Proverbs in having one subject throughout, and in being in form acrostic or alphabetical.