Proverbs 31:10

Who can find a virtuous woman,.... This part of the chapter is disjoined from the rest in the Septuagint and Arabic versions; and Huetius (t) thinks it is a composition of some other person, and not

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The praises of a virtuous woman; forming a Hebrew acrostic. The 22 years begin with the several 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet consecutively; M.

A virtuous woman, whom he may take to wife. Such a person is hardly to be found. Compare . And here he lays down several characters or qualifications of an excellent wife, which are here delivered in alphabetical order, each verse beginning with a several and the succeeding letter of the Hebrew alphabet; which method is used in some, and but in a few places of Scripture, to oblige us to the more diligent consideration and careful remembrance of them, as things of more than ordinary importance. And such this matter is, partly because the good or bad education even of private families, which depends much upon the mother’ s qualifications, hath a mighty influence upon the welfare or misery of commonwealths; and partly because the right education of royal families is in itself a very public blessing, and therefore it is the interest and happiness of whole kingdoms that their kings should have virtuous and pious wives.

Proverbs 31:10 Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price [is] far above rubies.Ver. 10. Who can find a virtuous woman?] Good wives are rare commodities, and therefore precious and highly to be prized, even above rubies. The Hebrews put rarum pro charo, as in 1 Samuel 3:1 Proverbs 25:7; "Let thy feet be precious in thy neighbour’ s house" - that is, let them seldom come there, lest thou become overcheap and undervalued. It is easy to observe that the New Testament affords more store of good women than the Old. When Paul came first to Philippi, few or none came to hear him but women, but they drew on their husbands, and it soon became a famous church. What a rare piece was Priscilla, who better instructed Apollos, ventured her life for Paul, and was such a singular help to her husband that she is mentioned before him as the more forward of the two. Like as was also Manoah’ s wife, and Nazianzen’ s mother. Solomon’ s mother was behind none of them, as appears by this poem, either composed by Solomon as a character of her, as some have thought, or else by herself, for his direction in the choice of a good wife, which would be worthy his pains, though he should fetch her as far as men do rubies - procul prae unionibus precium eius. What a way sent Abraham and Isaac for good wives for their sons! σπανιασπουδαια. - Arist. Ethic.

(c).—THE PRAISE OF A GOOD WIFE. (Proverbs 31:10, sqq.)This is written in the form of an acrostic, the twenty-two verses composing it each commencing with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This may have been done, as in the case of several of the psalms, which are of a didactic character (e.g., 25, 34, 37, 119), to render it more easy for committal to memory. By some writers the acrostic form has been supposed to argue a late date for the poem, but there is no evidence for this. One psalm, at all events, of which there seems no reason to doubt the Davidic authorship—the 9th—is cast in this form. (10) Who can find a virtuous woman?—Various mystical interpretations of the person here implied have been held at different times. She has been supposed to signify the Law, the Church, the Holy Spirit.

Verse 10. Who can find a virtuous woman?] This and the following verses are acrostic, each beginning with a consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet: Proverbs 31:10, א aleph; Proverbs 31:11, ב beth; Proverbs 31:12, ג gimel; and so on to the end of the chapter, the last verse of which has the letter ת tau. From this to the end of the chapter we have the character of a woman of genuine worth laid down; first, in general, Proverbs 31:10-12; secondly, in its particular or component parts, Proverbs 31:13-29; and, thirdly, the summing up of the character, Proverbs 31:30-31. I. Her general character. 1. She is a virtuous woman - a woman of power and strength. אשת חיל esheth chayil, a strong or virtuous wife, full of mental energy. 2. She is invaluable; her price is far above rubies-no quantity of precious stones can be equal to her worth.

VIII. The Virtuous Woman. Chap. Proverbs 31:10-31 This short Appendix differs from the other Sections of the Book of Proverbs in having one subject throughout, and in being in form acrostic or alphabetical. Each verse begins with a letter, taken in order, of the Hebrew alphabet. There is nothing in the contents of the Section to throw light upon either its age or authorship. The alphabetical arrangement cannot safely be regarded as a proof of a late date of composition. A similar arrangement occurs in several Psalms and in the opening chapters of the Book of Lamentations; and some at least of these must be assigned to a comparatively early date. It is more probable that the arrangement in question, belonging as it does for the most part to didactic poems, was a device adopted to assist the memory. (See The Book of Psalms, Vol. i. Introd. p. xlviii. in this Series; and Bp Perowne on Psalms 25:1.) The LXX reverse the order of two letters of the Hebrew alphabet here. The same two letters are transposed in the Hebrew in three (chaps, 2, 3, 4) out of the four alphabetical poems in the Book of Lamentations. See Comm. on that Book in this Series. Introd. pp. 354, 5. The picture here drawn of woman in her proper sphere of home, as a wife and a mother and the mistress of a household, stands out in bright relief against the dark sketches of woman degraded by impurity, or marred by imperfections, which are to be found in earlier chapters of this Book (Proverbs 2:16-20; Proverbs 5:1-23; Proverbs 7; Proverbs 22:14; Proverbs 23:27-28, and Proverbs 11:22; Proverbs 19:13; Proverbs 21:19). Corruptio optimi pessima. We have here woman occupying and adorning her rightful place, elevated by anticipation to the high estate to which the Gospel of Christ has restored her. It is an expansion of the earlier proverb: “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord” (Proverbs 18:22).

See the introduction to Proverbs. Rubies - Better, pearls. See the Proverbs 3:15 note.

10. Who can find a virtuous woman — This translation is unhappy.First, the word “virtuous,” whatever may have been its original sense, now lost, according to its common modern use, as applied to