Hey y’all,

My little sis (inlaw) is leading a discussion at a women’s group at her uni today on Proverbs 31 and I was wondering what people think about it.  What’s the main point?  What’s the primary application? Is it only for women? Is it for women at all?  Why is it there?  etc…

Hopefully this will make for an encouraging thread.

I never thought there was any secret or complicated meaning in Proverbs 31. It’s a straightforward list of the desirable characteristics in a wife…

G’day,

What is interesting is that in the Hebrew Canon (which contains a different ordering to our English Versions which are based on the LXX), Proverbs is followed by Ruth. So you go from the theory of the ideal wife to what one looks like in practice.

Yours in Christ,
Mark

To what extent does Ruth (the person) fulfill Proverbs 31 though? I can see some similarities…

who is Proverbs 31 for?

I think it is a mistake to see Proverbs 31 as only being about the ideal wife, as I also think that the passages in the Pastorals are not only applicable to church leaders.

I think we can all see things in these passages that apply to all of us, whether we are women or church leaders or ordinary geezers, including males.

Hi all,

Mark, thanks for the interesting tip!

Hmmm… interesting stuff.

I guess I’ve always taken it to be an extension of the personification of wisdom which occurs throughout the book of proverbs.  Sure, there’s definite application for wives contained in it, but I guess in its literary context I’ve always taken it primarily as a ‘fleshing out’ of the ‘wisdom character’ who calls from the streets for the young to take note.  Given that throughout proverbs wisdom and folly are personified as two women, this seemed to me to be a likely continuation.  Is this too great a stretch, do people think?  I’ve probably sprouted it to a few people as absolute truth in my time.....

The notes in the NET Bible endorse the understanding of the passage as a personification of wisdom:

The book of Proverbs comes to a close with this poem about the noble wife. A careful reading of the poem will show that it is extolling Godly wisdom that is beneficial to the family and the society. Traditionally it has been interpreted as a paradigm for godly women. And while that is valid in part, there is much more here. The poem captures all the themes of wisdom that have been presented in the book and arranges them in this portrait of the ideal woman (Claudia V. Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs, 92-93). Any careful reading of the passage would have to conclude that if it were merely a paradigm for women what it portrays may well be out of reach—she is a wealthy aristocrat who runs an estate with servants and conducts business affairs of real estate, vineyards, and merchandising, and also takes care of domestic matters and is involved with charity. Moreover, it says nothing about the woman’s personal relationship with her husband, her intellectual and emotional strengths, or her religious activities (E. Jacob, “Sagesse et Alphabet: Pr. 31:10-31,” Hommages à A. Dont-Sommer, 287-95). In general, it appears that the “woman” of Proverbs 31 is a symbol of all that wisdom is. The poem, then, plays an important part in the personification of wisdom so common in the ancient Near East. But rather than deify Wisdom as the other cultures did, Proverbs simply describes wisdom as a woman. Several features will stand out in the study of this passage. First, it is an alphabetic arrangement of the virtues of wisdom (an acrostic poem). It was a way of organizing the thoughts and making them more memorable (M. H. Lichtenstein, “Chiasm and Symmetry in Proverbs 31,” CBQ 44 [1982]: 202-11). Second, the passage is similar to hymns, but this one extols wisdom. A comparison with Psalm 111 will illustrate the similarities. Third, the passage has similarities with heroic literature. The vocabulary and the expressions often sound more like an ode to a champion than to a domestic scene. Putting these features together, one would conclude that Proverbs 31:10-31 is a hymn to Lady Wisdom, written in the heroic mode. Using this arrangement allows the sage to make all the lessons of wisdom in the book concrete and practical, it provides a polemic against the culture that saw women as merely decorative, and it depicts the greater heroism as moral and domestic rather than only exploits on the battlefield. The poem certainly presents a pattern for women to follow. But it also presents a pattern for men to follow as well, for this is the message of the book in summary.

I’m not sure I’m entirely convinced: wisdom is not elsewhere personified as a wife (although wisdom is my sister, see Prov 7:4) nor can I find anywhere in Proverbs where marriage is used to represent the possession of wisdom. Finally, when wisdom is personified elsewhere, wisdom is never attributed to the personified wisdom (as it would be in this understanding of Prov 31:26).

Enkidu wrote

nor can I find anywhere in Proverbs where marriage is used to represent the possession of wisdom.

and there are crowds that agree with him.

I must say the thought of sitting down at the city gates talking while my wife does all that work does sound appealing.

Craig B getting up and running away fast before getting a clip under the earhole

Whispering so his wife does not hear that they have a 50 / 50 house rule at home, I make the mess and my wife cleans it up.

Actually I had some fun with this proverb one day with some closed brethren, whose factory I walked into to see one of the guys who was having a bit of an arguement / discussion ( a nice one) with his wife and sister and friend who wanted him to do a little welding job for her and she said if he didn’t do it she would do it.

He was getting a little frustrated and was saying in jest woman get back to the kitchen and out of my way :) - it really was in good fun. He made the mistake of asking my thoughts to which I replied, **** I’m a proverbs 31 kind of guy, how about we go and have a yak while your wife and the girls do the work here for you, he was cleaning thick mud of some earth moving equipment

We all had a great chuckle over that one.

Blessings craig

[quote author="Enkidu Jones"]The notes in the NET Bible endorse the understanding of the passage as a personification of wisdom:

I’m not sure I’m entirely convinced: wisdom is not elsewhere personified as a wife (although wisdom is my sister, see Prov 7:4) nor can I find anywhere in Proverbs where marriage is used to represent the possession of wisdom. Finally, when wisdom is personified elsewhere, wisdom is never attributed to the personified wisdom (as it would be in this understanding of Prov 31:26).

Hey Enkidu,

I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t think it’s marriage on view here specifically, but more so that in Proverbs wisdom is personified by a woman throughout, and contrasted against that other woman, folly. (9:13)

Throughout she is given various relationships, Proverbs 8:32 seems to use the mother relationship, sister(as you said, in 7:4) and Proverbs 7:4 seems to be making a more general statement about the relationship.  It’s not a specific type of one, (Ie, sister, mother) but a general statement about the closeness of that relationship.  The doublet:

Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call understanding your kinsman

seems to me to indicate the closeness of the relationship, not the particular type.

Now, given this position, I think it allows me to agree (mostly) with the NET Bible commentary because this personification appears throughout Proverbs.  Just a few quick examples I grabbed:

# Proverbs 1:20
Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares;

# Proverbs 4:6
Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you.

# Proverbs 8:1
Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice?

# Proverbs 8:11
for wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her.

# Proverbs 9:1
Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out its seven pillars.

# Proverbs 14:33
Wisdom reposes in the heart of the discerning and even among fools she lets herself be known.

Proverbs 8 and 9 has the battle between the two women(wisdom and folly) for the attention of the young men.  It hardly then seems unfitting for the book to end the personification with this personification of wisdom ending in a marriage context.

What do you all reckon? Enkidu?

Cheers,
Peter

This is thinking out loud, not something I’ve thought a lot about, but ...

The bits of Prov 31 before the passage under discussion say, in effect, that the best thing for down and out people to do is to get drunk and drown their sorrows. Kings are above such remedies, but the plebs have no hope.

Given that, can we take anything from Proverbs 31 too literally?

Is it possible that the whole passage is being ironic in some sense? Of course we don’t leave the down and out to drown their sorrows, and of course we shouldn’t expect our wives to go around doing all the work while we men sit at the city gates pontificating about the world.

If so, then it sort of gets to Kutz’s conclusion in a different way. It’s urging all of us to be industrious, faithful, virtuous - by ironically suggesting that there’s no point sitting around waiting for someone else to do all those things on our behalf. By asking, “can anyone find a wife like this?”, the answer is expected to be something like, “no, nor should you expect to find those things in another - it’s unreasonable. Look for them instead in yourself.”

Then of course, if we read them with our “Jesus glasses” on, we see that He, as true Wisdom, has achieved righteousness for us. He is the ‘good wife’ we are all seeking. And He is the salvation of the poor and downtrodden, who turn to Him rather than booze.

As I say, those are thoughts that just came to me and they might be bollocks, but I toss them into the mix to see what others think.

Hi Warren,

Don’t have time to react to the rest of your post, but the bit about the husband sitting at the city gate I believe does not refer to the fact that he’s a lazy bum while his wife is industrius.  I think it means that he’s a respected man in the city (an appointed official even?) and as such presides over issues.  These were commonly heard at the city gate back in those days, so I’m told…

Can anyone confirm that one?

Cheers,
Kutz