Proverbs 31:30

Favour is deceitful, and beauty [is] vain,.... A well favoured look, a graceful countenance, symmetry and proportion of parts, natural or artificial beauty, are vain and deceitful; oftentimes under

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.

Favour; comeliness; or, as the next clause explains it, beauty, which commonly gives women favour or acceptation with those who behold them. These are the words either, 1. Of her husband, continuing to praise her. Or, 2. Of Bathsheba, giving the sum of what she had said in few words. Is deceitful; partly, because it gives a false representation of the person, being ofttimes a cover to a most deformed soul, and to many evil and hateful qualities; partly, because it doth not give a man that content and satisfaction which at first view he promised to himself from it; and partly, because it is soon lost, not only by death, but by many diseases and contingencies. That feareth the Lord; which character is here mentioned either, 1. As the crown of all her perfections. Or, 2. As a key to understand the foregoing passage of that wisdom, and fidelity, and diligence, which proceeded from or is accompanied with the fear of God.

Proverbs 31:30 Favour [is] deceitful, and beauty [is] vain: [but] a woman [that] feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.Ver. 30. Favour is deceitful.] Some marry by their eyes, and some by their fingers’ ends. Dos, non Deus, makes such marriages, but they commonly prove unhappy. There is esh, esh, fire, fire, of debate and discord between that ish and ishah, that man and wife, where Jah is not the matchmaker, as the Cabbalists have collected. Favour will fade, and beauty wither; a herd of pox will mar the fairest face, and of a Nireus make a Thersites. Forma bonum fragile est, saith one poet; Res est forma fugax, saith another. But better than they both the prophet Isaiah, "All flesh is grass, and the glory thereof as the flower of the field." All these outward accoutrements are non tantum fallacia quia dubia, verum etiam insidiosa quia dulcia, saith Lactantius; because there is no trusting to them, so there is great danger in them, as Absalom and his sister Tamar found in their beauty. But a woman that feareth the Lord.] That is indeed the crown of all commendation, as that which makes one "all glorious within," amiable and admirable beyond belief. Nicostratus, in Aelian, himself being a cunning artisan, finding a curious piece of work, and being wondered at by one, and asked what pleasure he could take to stand gazing as he did on the picture, answered, Hadst thou mine eyes thou wouldst not wonder, but rather be ravished as I am at the inimitable art of this rare piece. So if men had saints’ eyes to see the beauty of holiness, the excellency of the new creature, they would prize and prefer it before the shining rubbish of all earth’ s beauty and bravery. But as Augustus, in his solemn feasts, gave to some gold, to others gauds and trifles, so doth God to some give his fear, to others beauty, wealth, honour, and with these they rest contented. But what saith the Psalmist? "The Lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Sion," - q.d., The blessings that come out of Sion are choice blessings, even above any that come out of heaven and earth. She shall be praised.] Shall live and die with honour. The body of honour is virtue, the soul of it humility. Whosoever rises without the one, or stands without the other, embraces but the shadow of a shadow; may be notable or notorious, cannot be truly noble. Ovid. Seneca.

(30) Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain.—Outward graces do not last; praise that will be real and enduring is for those only who fear the Lord, and, out of regard for Him, perform the duties of life as the “virtuous woman” here described.

Verse 30. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain, c.] III. Here is the summing up of the character. 1. Favour, חן chen, grace of manner may be deceitful, many a fair appearance of this kind is put on, assumed for certain secular or more unworthy purposes it is learned by painful drilling in polished seminaries, and, being the effect of mere physical discipline, it continues while the restraint lasts; but it is שקר sheker, a lie, a mere semblance, an outward varnish. It is not the effect of internal moral regulation; it is an outside, at which the inside murmurs; and which, because not ingenuous, is a burden to itself. 2. Beauty, היפי haiyophi, elegance of shape, symmetry of features, dignity of mien, and beauty of countenance, are all הבל hebel, vanity; sickness impairs them, suffering deranges them, and death destroys them. 3. "But a woman that feareth the Lord," that possesses true religion, has that grace that harmonizes the soul, that purifies and refines all the tempers and passions, and that ornament of beauty, a meek and quiet mind, which in the sight of God is of great price- She shall be praised.] This is the lasting grace, the unfading beauty.

30. that feareth the Lord] Thus does Wisdom, true ever to herself, return in her last utterance to her first (Proverbs 1:7), and place once again the crown on the head of the godly.

The last lesson of the book is the same as the first. The fear of the Lord is the condition of all womanly, as well as of all manly, excellence.

30. Favour — ηο, (hhen,) grace; that is, gracefulness of person — comeliness. Is deceitful — Illusive.