Proverbs 31: A Woman of Strength

"The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him. What, my son? and what, the son of my womb? and what, the son of my vows?" (31:1–2). The only teaching in the Bible explicitly attributed to a mother is addressed to a king.

"It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine… lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted… Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction. Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy" (31:4–9).

"Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her… She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. She girdeth her loins with strength… She stretcheth out her hand to the poor… She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness" (31:10–26).

"Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates" (31:30–31).

An alphabet of praise

The site checked the library's Hebrew: verses 10–31 begin, in order, with all 22 letters from alef to tav, one verse each, with no gaps (eshet, batach, gemalathu, darshah, hayetah, vattaqom, zamemah, chagerah, ta'amah, yadeha, kappah, lo-tira, marvaddim, noda, sadin, oz-vehadar, piha, tsofiyyah, qamu, rabbot, sheqer, tenu). In the site's reader, open Proverbs 31 in the Hebrew to see each letter marked, as in Psalm 119. The alphabet frames the woman as complete, praise "from A to Z."

Spindle and distaff, purple and fine linen

"She layeth her hands to the spindle (kishor), and her hands hold the distaff (pelekh)" (31:19). Spindle whorls and loom weights are among the commonest finds in Iron Age houses, showing that spinning and weaving were household industries, largely women's work. "Scarlet" (shanim, dyed wool, v. 21), "silk and purple" (shesh, fine linen, and argaman, purple-dyed wool, v. 22) were high-value goods; purple dye came from murex shells processed on the Phoenician coast. She sells "girdles unto the merchant" (literally "to the Canaanite," the trader, v. 24). The poem describes an elite household with servants and land.

Who was Lemuel?

Lemuel ("belonging to God") is otherwise unknown; if massa is the Arabian tribe of Massa (Genesis 25:14), he was a non-Israelite king, and his mother's teaching was received into Israel's book. Aramaic forms (bar for "son" in v. 2; the -in plural in v. 3) support a north Arabian or Transjordanian setting. Jewish tradition (Midrash, Rashi) identified Lemuel with Solomon and his mother with Bathsheba: a later reading, not stated in the text.

Eshet chayil

Chayil means strength, ability, wealth, valour, and an army; ish chayil is a "mighty man of valour" (Judges 6:12; Ruth 2:1). Eshet chayil occurs three times: Proverbs 12:4, 31:10 and Ruth 3:11, where Boaz calls Ruth "a virtuous woman": in the Hebrew Bible order, Ruth follows Proverbs, so the two portraits sit side by side. "Virtuous" (KJV) narrows the word; "capable," "of strength" or "of valour" is closer.

Reception

In Jewish homes 31:10–31 (Eshet Chayil) is sung on Friday evening before the Sabbath meal, a custom attested from the 16th–17th centuries in Kabbalistic circles, where it was also read of the Sabbath and the Shekhinah, and later of the wife of the house. Christian readers have read the poem as an ideal of Christian womanhood, and allegorically of the Church or of Wisdom. Modern readers note both its celebration of women's economic and intellectual agency and its setting in an elite household; it is a poem of praise, not a checklist by which to judge women. See the investigation The Woman of Strength and the Bookends of Proverbs.

The Greek and the digital file

In the Old Greek the poem comes last, after chapters 25–29. The library's digital Greek stores 31:10–26 inside a single slot labelled 31:31, after the end of Greek chapter 29, and verses 27–31 are missing from the file. Their absence is a fact about this digital edition, not about Greek manuscripts (D check; C check against Rahlfs). The Greek poem is not an acrostic: the alphabet does not survive translation, which is why the reader shows the letters only in Hebrew.