Virtual Devotions

“Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” Proverbs 31:29-30

Dear Freinds, 
 

In honor of Mother’s Day, I’d like to turn to one of the most beloved passages on womanly virtue in the Bible, Proverbs 31.  This passage is the last word on wisdom in the Book of Proverbs and certainly is worth noting for both men and women, young and old.

For men, especially young men, the Proverbs 31 woman is the type of Godly woman every believing young man should be looking for.  She stands side by side with the allegorical woman, Wisdom, and against the allegorical woman, Folly, found in the opening chapters of Proverbs.  The closing reminder that charm is deceptive and beauty if fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised sums up the matter for as we are told at the beginning of Proverbs, fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

For women, the Proverbs 31 woman may seem like an unattainable goal.  When I first introduced my sister to this passage, she told me she couldn’t live up to the Proverbs 31 woman.  But that isn’t the point.  While we are in our physical bodies, we will never attain the Christ-like nature we strive for, but as Paul tells us we should keeping “pressing for the goal.”  In the same way, the Proverbs 31 woman is a role-model to strive after. 

Proverbs 31 is especially important for those who claim the Bible is demeaning to women.  When I read Proverbs 31, I recall the old commercial where the woman sings, “I can bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan and never let you forget you’re a man.”  The Proverb 31 woman is a wife, an entrepreneur, an investor, a philanthropist, a mother, a teacher and above all, God-fearing.  The Proverbs 31 woman should make any feminist proud.

We can’t see it in our English translations, but the original Hebrew is written as an acrostic poem.  In an acrostic poem, the first line starts with an “A” (aleph in Hebrew) and each subsequent line begins with the next letter of the alphabet.   In this way, the poet can express the completeness of the woman in the style in addition to the words.  She is the perfect woman from A to Z.

Something else we do not have in our modern Bibles is the original order of the Hebrew texts.  Today, Ecclesiastes follows Proverbs, but in the original Hebrew Bible, Ruth followed Proverbs and Song of Songs followed Ruth.  What the Bible then presented was poetic words of wisdom describing a Godly woman in Proverbs 31, followed immediately by a narrative of a most remarkable and Godly woman, Ruth, who happened to be a non-Jew surprisingly enough, and finally another poem in the Song of Songs which exalts the virtues of purity before marriage and the pleasures of love in a marital relationship.

I encourage you to read Proverbs 31, Ruth and Song of Songs this week.  It will help you to prolong the importance of Mother’s Day all week long.

In Christ,

David