Proverbs

Chapter 31 is the book's final chapter and divides cleanly into two parts, each with a distinct voice and subject. The first section (vv. 1-9) is headed "The words of King Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him." This is the only passage in Proverbs explicitly attributed to a woman — Lemuel's mother — and it is royal instruction: advice from a queen mother to a king son. She opens with intensity: What, my son? What, son of my womb? What, son of my vows? She warns him against women who destroy kings, and against wine and strong drink that make princes forget the law and pervert the judgment of the afflicted. But she makes a careful distinction: give strong drink to him that is ready to perish, and wine to those of heavy hearts — let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more. The prohibition is not absolute; it is specifically about the king's use of drink in a context where he must judge with clarity. For those who have no power to lose, drink may bring merciful forgetfulness. She concludes with the positive charge: open your mouth for the dumb, in the cause of all appointed to destruction; open your mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy. The second section (vv. 10-31) is an acrostic poem — each verse in the Hebrew begins with a successive letter of the alphabet, from aleph to tav. Its subject is the eshet chayil: the woman of valor, or virtuous woman. Who can find her? Her price is far above rubies. The description is comprehensive and detailed. The heart of her husband safely trusts in her. She does him good, not evil, all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax; she rises while it is yet night to provide for her household and her maidens. She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard. She perceives that her merchandise is good. She stretches out her hand to the poor and reaches to the needy. Her husband is known in the gates among the elders of the land. She makes fine linen and sells it; delivers girdles to the merchant. Strength and honor are her clothing; she shall rejoice in time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband praises her: many daughters have done virtuously, but you excel them all. The poem ends with the book's final theological judgment: favor 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. The book that began with the fear of the LORD as the beginning of wisdom ends here — with the fear of the LORD as the ground of a woman's worth and praise.