Proverbs 31 explained

The mother warns her son, "Don’t give your strength to women" (31:3), and in Hebrew that strength is the worthy of the poem's first line: "Who can find a worthy woman?" (31:10). And the book whose first chapter says "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge" (1:7) praises, near its last verse, "a woman who fears the LORD" (31:30).

The last chapter opens with a heading: "The words of King Lemuel—the revelation which his mother taught him" (31:1) (tap taught). The heading calls them the words of King Lemuel, which his mother taught him; the one speaking in them is his mother, and the WEB sets them in quotation marks from 31:2 to 31:9. She begins, "Oh, my son! Oh, son of my womb! Oh, son of my vows!" (31:2). Then come three things for a king. "Don’t give your strength to women, nor your ways to that which destroys kings" (31:3). "It is not for kings, Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes to say, ‘Where is strong drink?’" (31:4). And "Open your mouth for the mute, in the cause of all who are left desolate" (31:8) (tap Open). Here is what almost everyone misses: the reason she gives for the second is about other people. Kings are not to drink "lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the justice due to anyone who is afflicted" (31:5). And her last words say what a king's mouth is for: "Open your mouth, judge righteously, and serve justice to the poor and needy" (31:9) (tap poor, needy).

The mother says, "Don’t give your strength to women" (31:3). The poem begins, "Who can find a worthy woman?" (31:10). In Hebrew strength and worthy are one word, chayil, and the poem has it once more in "Many women do noble things" (31:29) (tap worthy).

Proverbs 31:3 · Proverbs 31:10 · Proverbs 31:29

חַיִלchayilsay KHA-yil

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "strength, efficiency, wealth, army", and among its senses "ability, efficiency, often involving moral worth". Strong's: "probably a force, whether of men, means or other resources; an army, wealth, virtue, valor, strength". The chapter has it three times, and the WEB gives it three ways: "Don’t give your strength to women" (31:3), "Who can find a worthy woman?" (31:10), and "Many women do noble things" (31:29), where do noble things is chayil with the verb do. Proverbs has chayil five times in Hebrew, three of them in this chapter. A worthy woman is eshet chayil, the two words of "A worthy woman is the crown of her husband" (Proverbs 12:4) and of Boaz's words to Ruth, "you are a worthy woman" (Ruth 3:11).

"Open your mouth for the mute, in the cause of all who are left desolate" (31:8). When have you seen someone speak up for a person who couldn't speak up for themselves, and what did it take?