Proverbs 31 explained: A Mother's Advice, a Woman's Strength

A king's mother speaks (vv. 1-2)

Nothing else is known of King Lemuel; tradition often said he was Solomon, but many modern scholars think he was a foreign king, because a word in verse 1 that translations render as a weighty or inspired saying may instead be Massa, a people named in Genesis 25:14. Her names for him in verse 2 also differ between translations, as "the answer to my prayers" or "son of my vows," but both point to a child she had asked God for.

Women and wine (vv. 3-7)

She warns him not to spend his strength on women, which she ties to the ruin of kings, and not to crave drink, which would make him forget the law and take away the rights of the oppressed. Strong drink, she says, belongs to the dying and the bitterly poor so they can forget their misery; some readers hear compassion here, others a pointed contrast between people who may forget and a ruler who must not.

Speak for the voiceless (vv. 8-9)

A king's real task, she says, is to speak up for people who cannot defend themselves and to judge the poor and needy fairly. Read this way, her earlier warnings matter because other people depend on his clear judgment.

A woman of strength (vv. 10-12)

Verses 10 to 31 are a poem in which each verse begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet, one reason many scholars think it was once separate from the mother's advice. Translations call her noble, worthy or virtuous, but the Hebrew phrase suggests strength and capability, the same phrase used of Ruth (Ruth 3:11), and many Jewish families sing this poem at the Friday night Sabbath meal.

Her work and business (vv. 13-24)

She spins wool and flax herself (the distaff and spindle are hand tools for making thread), feeds her household and servants, buys a field, plants a vineyard, sells cloth to merchants and gives to the poor. Scarlet and purple were costly dyes, so this is a well off household, and her husband sits with the elders at the city gate, where town leaders met to settle cases.

Strength, wisdom and praise (vv. 25-31)

She faces the future without fear, speaks wisely with loyal kindness, and her children and husband praise her; the poem closes by urging that she be honored and that her own work earn her praise at the city gate. It ranks fear of the LORD, meaning deep reverence for God, above charm and beauty, which fade, echoing the book's starting point (1:7).

Key verse: Proverbs 31:30

Where Christians differ

Christians differ over whether the poem in verses 10 to 31 sets out a model for wives and women's roles, celebrates strength and initiative open to any woman, or is mainly a picture of Wisdom herself, whom Proverbs earlier portrays as a woman.

Something to think about

When you think of someone whose life truly deserves public praise, what is it about them that earns it?