Proverbs 31 · a question people ask
Is the worthy woman a portrait of a wife, or a picture of wisdom?
The poem asks, "Who can find a worthy woman?" (31:10), and it speaks of her husband (31:11, 31:23, 31:28), her children (31:28), her household (31:15, 31:21, 31:27) and her work (31:13-24). It doesn't give her a name. Christians read the poem in more than one way, and some hold the two readings below together; each rests on verses. Both hold the poem's words as they stand, and both see where it ends: "a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised" (31:30). These notes choose neither reading. They don't apply the poem to any modern debate about women, work, marriage or roles, or to anyone's own home.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
A portrait of a worthy wife
Those who read it this way take the poem as a portrait of a wife and mother. It speaks of her that way: "The heart of her husband trusts in her" (Proverbs 31:11), "Her husband is respected in the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land" (Proverbs 31:23), and "Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also praises her" (Proverbs 31:28). The same book says, "A worthy woman is the crown of her husband" (Proverbs 12:4). And Boaz says the same two Hebrew words to Ruth: "all the city of my people knows that you are a worthy woman" (Ruth 3:11). On this reading the poem praises a woman of the kind the book elsewhere calls "the crown of her husband" (Proverbs 12:4).
Proverbs 31:11 · Proverbs 31:23 · Proverbs 31:28 · Proverbs 12:4 · Ruth 3:11
Wisdom pictured as a woman
Those who read it this way take the poem as wisdom pictured as a woman, at the end of a book in which wisdom calls as a woman: "Wisdom calls aloud in the street. She utters her voice in the public squares" (Proverbs 1:20). The worthy woman's value is "far above rubies" (Proverbs 31:10), and the book said of wisdom, "She is more precious than rubies" (Proverbs 3:15), and "For wisdom is better than rubies" (Proverbs 8:11), with the same Hebrew word for rubies. "She opens her mouth with wisdom" (Proverbs 31:26). The book said, "Wisdom has built her house" (Proverbs 9:1), and "Every wise woman builds her house" (Proverbs 14:1), and the worthy woman "looks well to the ways of her household" (Proverbs 31:27). And she is praised "in the gates" (Proverbs 31:31), where Wisdom called "At the entrance of the city gates" (Proverbs 1:21). On this reading the book ends as its first chapters speak, with wisdom in the form of a woman.
Proverbs 1:20-21 · Proverbs 3:15 · Proverbs 8:11 · Proverbs 9:1 · Proverbs 14:1 · Proverbs 31:10 · Proverbs 31:26-27 · Proverbs 31:31