JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on biblical theology, continuing our series on books written by Solomon. Today we take a look at Proverbs 31. Tom and Jason begin with a consideration of the strong words of a mother to her royal son. As we’re about to hear, these words have a great deal to do with God’s people today. The rest of the podcast concerns the portion of Proverbs 31, focused on the wife of noble character. Jason carefully walks through these verses. He demonstrates by his explanation of the Hebrew verbs used here that the Proverbs 31 woman should not be seen as doing 1000 things at the same time. English translations routinely translate these verses in the present tense. However, Jason argues the verbs point in a different direction. This chapter primarily celebrates things she has done in the past. It is a look back at a life well lived. We’ve included a link to Jason’s notes on Proverbs 31 in our show notes. These notes will be a great help.

TK: Welcome to GearTalk, Tom and Jason, and actually we’re talking together, both of us, except you have way more snow than we do, I think.

JD: We did. We got a Kansas City Blizzard this weekend, which is not equal to other blizzards that I’ve experienced, but for Kansas City, it’s the fourth largest snowfall in recorded history.

TK: Really,

JD: it was. The wind was rocking the windows and snow was perfectly horizontal and it blasted us for about 24 hours and left us in spots with a foot of snow.

TK: I’ve laughed often that you guys are the most northern people in Kansas City. If you were at Jason’s house, you would know it for sure. Or at his office, he has like seven mooses somewhere on display there. So probably you were the families celebrating the snow more than any family.

JD: I laughed that when Teresa and I were newly married and I was in seminary at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, 40 minutes north of Boston, we would get a Nor’easterly and it would dump in one weekend three feet of snow and everything would shut down and that would be a signal to us. It’s time to go get in our car and drive north because all the roads are going to be cleared off and we can have a day trip up in the mountains, and that’s what we would do over and over again. We love the outdoors and you may be right that we were one of those that were most excited and least intimidated by all the storm this weekend.

TK: Well, praise God for all the variety we get and I didn’t intend to make this a transition, but it’s kind of what we get with these books of the Bible that we’re talking about. We get different varieties of things and there can be certain passages or things that you look at and you go, “I avoid that, I don’t understand it, I don’t like it.” And so just using that analogy for a second, a certain passage might feel like a snowstorm that we say, “I’m going to avoid that,” and later on you feel like, “Oh, it actually wasn’t that bad. I actually enjoy it.”

Today we’re going to be in Proverbs 31. Two chunks here, two different chunks that we’re going to talk about. But before we get there, I want to just reflect a little bit on what we heard in Proverbs 12 from Dr. Bierig last week. So if you haven’t listened to it, last podcast, we played a sermon which Jason recommended from one of his colleagues and I hadn’t heard it before we have, I previewed it for playing it on the podcast. Jason was there alive. But Jason, I find his approach quite helpful.

JD: Well, he’s a dear brother who has bathed himself in the book of Proverbs. He serves as vice president of undergraduate studies and Dean of Spurgeon College here at Midwestern Seminary where I am a professor. And every time I hear him preach, and it even seems progressively increasingly, as I’ve heard him preach over the last six years, I’ve just seen a man who’s become more bold and more clear and more saturated with gospel and more resonating with holiness. And it’s just, he’s a joy to have as a brother, very like-minded and an excellent communicator. And I’m glad that we were able to tap into a book that he actually wrote his dissertation on considering the theology of Proverbs and have an excellent example of an expository sermon from an entire chapter, which is not the way either of us have heard sermons from Proverbs, but it was an exemplary approach, I think, worth emulating.

TK: Agreed. I think he did a great job tying the Proverbs that seemingly like, “Oh, we just switched from this to this to this,” packaging them together and saying, “This is how life works,” and helping to navigate that. So again, if you haven’t listened to it, I’d encourage you to go back and listen to the sermon, the example sermon in Proverbs chapter 12, and pray that if you are someone who is preaching, teaching, leading groups that you would use it as a model.

JD: Yes, that is our hope, Tom. We are coming to the end of an extended series. We didn’t have a clue how long it would take, but an extended series on books that Solomon wrote. And we started out with a general grasp of wisdom and considered Ecclesiastes. Then we turned to Song of Songs, and we’ve been spending several weeks now in the book of Proverbs, introducing the basic structure of the book, the nature of a proverb itself, and reflecting on how to read the Proverbs, some of them as general truths that are correct in certain settings, others as absolute Proverbs, and many of them as promises, but eschatological promises that are not realized as true in the present, but will be proved true in the lasting future. Then we gave that week to Dr. Biereg’s sermon on Proverbs 12. And today we’re coming to the end of this book, Tom. And as you noted, we’re looking at the second of these concluding oracles from now one called Kim King Lemuel. And we’re going to reflect on his oracle and then consider the final poem that runs from verses 10 through 31, a very familiar poem regarding what the ESV renders the excellent wife. So that’s where we’re heading today. And I want to tee you up, Tom. You’ve actually preached several times on these final words of Lemuel. And so I want you to just share with us some takeaways from this particular oracle and how it functions here as one of the two main concluding speeches of wisdom in this book.

TK: you‘re right. I have used this in preaching. I’ve used it with groups. I’ve used it with young men. And it can be forgotten almost like—because when people mention Proverbs 31, typically what they’re talking about is the concluding part that we’re going to talk about what you just mentioned, the excellent wife, as the ESV says it. But we have this beginning part and part of what makes it maybe strange for people is we have a king Lemuel that nobody knows, nobody knows anything about him. So we don’t maybe know what to do with him and what I would say as well. He’s in Scripture. It’s important. And we have, again, royalty who a parent is talking to a royal son. And this is instruction for how he ought to think about his life and how he ought to live. And we mentioned that actually the entire book of Proverbs frames itself like this. This is a book for the royal sons growing up. The way we would think about it then as far as, as far as I’m reading these words, it’s not, it’s not just strange words for a strange king that I don’t know anything about because as sons and daughters of the living God, this is what we are called to be in this earth.

JD: We become royalty.

TK: We become royalty. And so reading this, a word to a son, and you go almost get a start. So I’m going to read it right now, Proverbs 31 to short, short chunk here. She says, “What are you doing, my son? What are you doing, son of my womb? What are you doing, son of my vows?” And the way I like the Hebrew poetry here, the way it’s, it’s working almost like a Hebrew parallelism, you’d almost like train tracks that the second line, if you want to use it, it can be a technical term for poetry. But the second line in your Bible builds upon the first, it’s in parallel to it. Here we’ve got three. “What are you doing, my son?” I have a relationship with you. I am the queen mother, and you are the royal son. “What are you doing?” you can just imagine she’s saying you’re wasting your life. And she says, “What are you doing, son of my womb?” Like I bore you. It doesn’t, you didn’t just happen to me, son. I had something to do with who you are. Then “What are you doing, son of my vows?” I made promises. There are things that are expected of you, and it appears like you’re not doing them, but you need to think hard about it. So here’s the thinking. Do not give your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings. It’s not talking about just any women here, almost as if it’s degrading a whole gender, because we’re going to get a whole section here talking about you need to pursue an excellent life. That’s the goal of the book of Proverbs. So don’t give your strength to that wayward woman who is going to destroy you. And then she goes on to something else that would destroy people. “It’s not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to take strong drink.” Like the job of a king is to have all his senses about him because he has a job to do. So your job is not just to entertain yourself or to somehow almost like the word slip in me right now, but that thought of medicate yourself so that you’re not perceiving life in its fullness. You’re the king. So a king needs to be aware of what’s going on because he has power to act. And I can just imagine the royal son living in a way that the queen mother is saying, “You are not acting like somebody who’s going to be in a position where you can be impacting whole lives here. You need to be different.” So then it’s going to say, she’s going to say, “Give strong drink to the one who’s parachuting wine to those in bitter distress, let them drink, forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more.” Just a little aside to those two verses, the point of these verses is not that people in other positions in life should be getting drunk. That’s not the point. Her point was there’s a whole category of people. They don’t have to think hard about what they’re doing because they’re not in your position. So it’s almost like saying, “You are in a spot. You can’t do those things.” So if there was a group that should be doing those things, it’s people who are parachuting, people who are in deep distress. You are in a spot. You should be helping the poor. Here’s your job. As the royal son, and I would just say to the church as royal children, “Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute, open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.” That—a call to God’s people to do not live in kind of a stupor or a way where you’re wasting your life. And a lot of us have been impacted by John Piper’s book Don’t Waste your Life. That sort of idea of you have been called to something, live in that way. Use your mouth. Open your mouth. Don’t just stand silently and watch things, but things happen that you actually have a voice. Use it. And there’s a whole group of people that you can help. So “Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Do something. Defend the rights of the poor and needy.” And I find this to be not just a compelling call to King Lemuel, but to all those who are God’s royal children. Don’t medicate your life in that sense of “I’m just going to try to live my life” and don’t waste it throwing it away in areas a challenge for—actually men and women right now—pornography, or to be a great example. “Don’t give your strength to women.” That would be the picture of forbidden women would be the picture. Not just women. It’s obviously again—the excellent wife is a prize pictured in Proverbs like you live rightly. This is the prize and we’re going to get into that. But here, don’t give your strength away because you have strength that belongs. It was given to you for something else. So use it in that way. So Jason, love to hear you reflect and add on there. But that’s been something that I have found for me. Obviously for if you’re going to preach it, hopefully it applies to your own life. But in speaking to young men in the spot they’re at, don’t feel like because you’re 18, 19, 20, 21, you have a free pass to those verses of verses three through seven, you have a free pass to waste your life. Because you don’t, because actually if that sort of stuff, so again, I talked about pornography, that idea of if the ways of that destroy kings, that sort of stuff destroys people who can be saving people. It’s devastating that it happens, but this warning really does fit. So Jason, what would you add here? How would you push this any different ways?

JD: Well, I wouldn’t go in different ways, Tom. The thought that those made in God’s image who are called to fill the earth, subdue, have dominion, as you said, have been given such high responsibility. The charge is to one person, you, okay, do not give your strength to women plural. And then moving from women to wine. That’s good. You have these two elements that are at one’s disposal, as it were, if you have power. And such a call, as you said, to not abuse the strength that you have and get misdirected, misguided from your principal call of not living for yourself, but living for the care of others. The Hebrew in those three questions in verse two is, is actually quite striking. I understand why the ESV added what it did. “What are you doing, my son? What are you doing, son of my womb?”

The Hebrew though is even more arresting. All it is, it just raises the question, “What, my son? What? Son of my womb? What? Son of my vows?” you get this sense of desperation, like a mom, looking at a son who is at a crossroads and has already made bad decisions. And the mom just crying out, “You were made for something greater. Don’t waste your life.” And Proverbs ends on that high call, an oracle from this mother operating as a prophetess in the life of her child. And King Lemuel, apparently, held onto it, received it for himself. And now it’s put in this book at this climactic point at the end of this extended piece of reflections on wisdom, the seventh voice, as it were, in this collection that gives guidance on the right path.

And it’s the path that Messiah Jesus walked. And it’s the path that those who find refuge in him are to walk as we embody our own royal calling of reigning with God, underneath God, over his world, fulfilling the original creation mandate and not to get distracted with women plural, not to get distracted with strong drink—both of which are unhelpfully intoxicating and in doing so misguide us from what we’re called to do and be as men of God, underneath the ultimate king.

And so I just think it’s such a poignant way to end this book that has called people to walk in the right way.

TK: That thought of it appears that the flavor is, like you said, a desperate mother and she’s saying, “What, what are you doing now?” I think it’s a call to a people where it’s not saying, “Have you lived perfectly to this point?” It’s not like you said, it’s an arresting spot though. “Oh, I’ve been wasting my life.”

JD: And the fact that—go ahead, sorry,

TK: I was just going to say—a call to repentance.

JD: May it be so.

TK: “I cannot live this way anymore.” So the idea isn’t that he wasted his life; therefore, he can have no further purpose. It’s, “Quit doing what you’re doing. Be who you were called to be.”

JD: Yes. And it’s—again, I open my words with this, but the fact that this is an oracle that his mother taught him, she gave him this instruction and he held onto it, such that he was able to contribute this piece to a book such as this, recognizing these words from my mom were words of God and I passed them on—not just for myself. They weren’t intended to just be for me. They’re for all those wise noblemen who read this book, who hope in the Messiah: “Turn from your wickedness and don’t waste your life, live with purpose, live with meaning.” That’s the final call of this book.

And then we get the conclusion. So the final charge is this call to not get distracted, but to live with right purpose. And what that’ll mean is you open your mouth for the mute, which I think means when you have the opportunity to make decisions on behalf of others, you’re working for the broken, you’re working for the needy, you’re seeking justice for the destitute, the poor, to defend their rights. That’s what I think it’s that royal mouth of decree to stress that strong people, the way that they distinguish themselves as having godly strength is that they’re using it not to abuse, but to support and uphold and build up.

TK: Right. Right. I think any person—doesn’t have to be a young man, obviously—hearing this at any stage in life can hear this oracle and ask the Lord, “Lord, help me walk out my royal calling. And habits I have maybe of a different version of giving my strength or of medicating myself with something that keeps me from being fully aware of what’s going on in the world.” Like you said, it’s intoxicating. “I, Lord, I want to have my eyes wide open to this world you put me in, and I want to live fully in this way.”

So I think it should for all of us be a call to do what we read in verses 8–9: open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Be who you’re called to be. Open your mouth, judge rightly, defend the rights of the poor and needy. And I would say in any setting you’re in: Don’t just think, “Well, I’m not a king.” We’re all—if we know the Lord Jesus Christ—his royal family. So this is written to us.

JD: That’s right.

So now Tom, yeah, we redirect here. And we redirect because the book itself, the ending of this book may come from these words of the oracle that King Lemuel’s mother taught him because there’s no heading, but there is a sense in which after verse nine, something new happens because all of a sudden we get into a pattern of poetry that is what we call an acrostic. And so I think that the readers would recognize automatically there’s something distinct here in that beginning in verse 10 all the way down to verse 31, the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet are consecutively guiding these—each line of Hebrew poetry, every line beginning with a consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

And the first opening line is in the ESV an “excellent wife,” literally in Hebrew, it’s called “‘iššâ ḥayil,” and that word hyal means strength. So a strong wife, which has been interpreted here as an excellent wife or a noble woman, a woman of character, a woman of dignity, a woman of strength. And the question is raised, “Who can find such a woman?” And it sets us up for really reading this beautiful poem at the end of Proverbs.

We always have to ask, why would an author choose to write a poem with an acrostic? And in this instance, every possible tool for shaping words—that is, every letter of the Hebrew alphabet—every possible tool for shaping words is utilized in order to highlight this excellent, noble, dignified, strong wife, and the need for men to surround themselves or maybe for every man to surround himself with this kind of a woman, not going after women plural, but finding the right one and praying that God would shape her, and women reading this and saying, “I want to become this kind of a woman.”

This book that opened with portraying wisdom figuratively as a woman—and I noted on a past episode, ḥāḵmâ in Hebrew for wisdom, like other abstract nouns that you can actually hold like a highlighter or a board or a computer—these are tangible things that you can hold in your hand, but things like wisdom and law and understanding are non-tangibles, but they’re nevertheless real. We call them abstract nouns. And in Hebrew, abstract nouns are generally feminine grammatically.

We noted how Solomon at the beginning of the book appears to use this to his advantage. Wisdom is not just because it has grammatical feminine gender—it doesn’t mean that it’s somehow a feminine characteristic—but he uses this book that—he writes his wisdom to his royal sons, to his royal son, ultimately to the Messiah, calling this nobleman to walk in the ways of wisdom. And he notes that young men are going to desire women. And so he takes the feminine gender of the Hebrew term ḥāḵmâ and uses it to say wisdom is desirable, but there’s also a temptress, Dame Folly, who is alluring and outwardly seductive and she’s a danger. She will lead you to the grave. So guard yourself for the right woman, and within the rest of the book, that woman is Lady Wisdom.

But now here at the end of the book, Tom, we come to a portrait of Lady Wisdom embodied—that every man who gains such a woman celebrates—and this poem is a celebration of such a woman.

TK: And we talked about it before: this passage has been for some of us—we’ve maybe heard it presented almost as if it’s a joke, like this is an unattainable standard. This lady never rests. She’s awake 24 hours a day, can never accomplish—no one could ever accomplish what this person does because she’s always doing like 17 things at the same time. And I had made a comment. I think we’re in trouble anytime we make jokes about passages before we preach or teach from them because we’re undercutting what it’s teaching.

But Jason, there’s strong reason to say that it’s actually not presenting a woman who’s doing 17 things at the same time. So how would you break down this passage and maybe correct that thinking that she’s the unattainable woman? And I just don’t even want to think about it because she makes me too tired.

JD: Yeah. Yeah. In my own ministry, Tom, I’ve found that women generally struggle with this text, feeling unable to match up to its ideals. And then I’ve also, having a ministry my entire life to young men, many of whom are seeking a wife, they have read this text. And they’ve said, “I can’t find such a woman.” And I just feel, oh, I think people are misreading this text. And my hope is that in the next moments we’ll free up women’s consciences to see this not as something they need to be right now—especially young women—but something they need to aspire to.

And young men to recognize that this portrait here is not the portrait of the young woman in her late teens or early 20s, but is actually the portrait of a woman in her 60s or 70s. And this is not an overview of her daily planner, but is rather an overview of a well-beautiful life lived. And so I want to reflect on that a little bit.

And so yes, we can start by just diving in and making some reflections on the whole. There’s an introduction to this poem and a conclusion. And both of them stress the high value of a good wife. That’s what frames this poem, an excellent wife, or a strong woman who can find—she is far more precious than jewels. That’s how this poem opens.

And then the poem concludes: “Charm is deceitful and beauty vain. But a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her works praise her in the gates.” Now the gates are the city gates, and that statement at the end of the poem calls us back to the center of the poem where the gates are mentioned.

And what’s fascinating to me, Tom, is one of the elements that’s fascinating is that there’s only one line in this entire poem where we actually don’t hear about the wife of noble character. Instead, we learn about her husband who is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land.

TK: I was just going to say this can be one of the problematic things in people’s interpretations because you can get a thought: “Great, she’s working so hard and he’s sitting almost as if he’s sitting playing checkers in the park.” And that’s not what’s being pictured here.

JD: No, the mention of the gate and the mention of the elders means that this husband is holding an office within the city where he is operating in this instance like a politician. He is overseeing the commerce, the trade, the business dealings, the protection, the well-being of the entire city.

And he’s able to do it because everything at home is in right order, and it’s in right order because the excellent wife has taken care of matters. Now, that’s a beautiful picture and it’s a picture that every man should wake up to, that the way the normal pattern of life works is that God made men to be married to one woman, and called him as the primary provider, the primary protector, but he will only flourish because he has a compatible, highly strong, highly wise, highly diligent woman who is managing things at home.

And because everything at home is at peace, he’s able to address the major issues that are being addressed in the entire city. Were things at home in chaos, he would not be qualified to do what he’s doing. So her husband is known at the city gates when he sits among the elders of the land, and his success there is due to the fact that the woman, his wife, is an amazing woman. And she’s developed this over a course of time such that her works praise her at the city gates.

Now, within the structure, I’ve noted the frame and I’ve noted the center, and one of my former professors, Duane Garrett, has observed how the entire poem is actually set up like a stair-stepped pyramid. We call it a chiasm where the farthest parts of the poem actually relate to one another and you like climb the steps and there are these parallel corresponding notes.

At the beginning of the poem and at the end of the poem, you move higher into the poem until you get to the center, which is verse 23. So in verse 10, the high value of a good woman: an excellent wife who can find—she’s far more precious than jewels. And then the end of the poem: “Charm is deceitful, beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

Then you move in one tear to the husband who benefits or has benefited from this wife. And for I don’t know if I should read all the parallels through the whole poem. Maybe I’ll just highlight the parallels themselves and then we can, before we read the poem, reflect on a few additional elements and then I’ll read the poem as I understand it. How does that sound, Tom?

TK: I think it works really well. I think that word, “chiasm,” can sound confusing to people, but if you imagine you’re like sitting in a cathedral and you’re facing the front of it and you’re expecting the one side of the cathedral will be mirrored on the other side so that you get a wall on one side, wall on the other, and then you move in—for instance, you’re going to get the columns are going to look similar and the roof is going to have a similar; if you went five feet in on one side, you’re expecting the other side does the same thing. That’s what you’re saying, right?

JD: Yeah, there’s balance.

TK: It’s balanced. And I’m expecting when I see one thing, I bet the opposite side of this almost cathedral, I’m going to see the exact same thing.

JD: That’s right. So, we could say there’s an A and then there’s an A prime, a B and then a B prime—and by the prime we just mean that’s the balancing part at the end.

So the beginning starts out with the high value of a good wife in verse 10, and then the end in verses 30 and 31 also stress the high value of a good wife. Then we move to the B line. The husband has benefited from the wife in verses 11 and 12, and then at the end of the poem in verses 28 and 29, the husband and the children have praised the wife. So they’ve benefited from her and then at the end of the poem, they’ve praised her.

Next, the C line: the wife has been one who’s worked hard in verses 13 through 19, and then in verse 27, again, it stresses that the wife has worked hard. The D portion: verse 20, the wife is given to the poor, and then at the end of the poem, the wife has spoken wisdom. So both outward actions.

Then the E lines: the wife had no fear of snow (verse 21A) and then verse 25B, the wife had no fear of the future. The F lines: children were clothed in scarlet (verse 21B) and then verse 25A, the wife is clothed in dignity. The G lines: she’s made coverings for a bed and the wife has wore linen (verse 22), and then verse 24, she’s sold garments and sashes.

And verse 23 standing on its own—the only line where the husband is in focus and the wife is not in focus—the public respect for the husband. So there’s this beautiful balancing. I love what you said about the cathedral. Yet there’s the sense of correspondence between the beginning of the poem and the end of the poem that appears to be like an intentional structuring that adds to the beauty of the whole and draws attention both to the excellent wife—”who can find”—and she’s worthy to be praised, and then the center where the husband has been known in the gates where he has sat among the elders of the land.

And so the first note that I draw attention to is just there is this beautiful balancing in the poem that’s bringing, saying to the first readers of this, as we’ve said, targeted toward the next heir to the throne, Solomon as king, having been taught by his father, is now teaching his son, David’s grandson, and ultimately teaching the Messiah what his wisdom looked like.

And here at the end of this book, the wise son will surround himself over time with this kind of a woman, and it provides a vision for what womanhood is. A wise woman should seek to become and it elevates for men this: you need to see as you’re even seeking a wife—to be seeking a woman who’s aspiring to this kind of vision.

So I want to talk about that now, Tom, the type of vision that is actually laid out. And I’m going to differ here from the ESV and many modern translations, and I hope I can present it in a way that is helpful and clear for our listeners.

As any reader of this text in English can see, translators have usually rendered all of Proverbs 31:10 through 31 in the present tense. So beginning in verse 11, for example, it says: “The heart of her husband trusts in her.” This is a present-time reality, and “he will have no lack of gain.” “She does him good and not harm all the days of her life.” “She seeks wool and flax.” These are all present-time verbs.

But the challenge is that the dominant verb forms—Hebrew verb forms—used in this passage (and there are two of them in Hebrew, we would call them the Qatal form and the Wayyiqtol form, the perfect verb and the vav consecutive perfect verb), both of which elsewhere are normally translated as past-time verbs because they by their nature portray an event as complete as a whole. And so it fits very naturally to render these verb forms—and this is the normal pattern elsewhere in the Old Testament—as past-time realities.

When one removes the introductory comment and the concluding statement, there are actually 19 katal verbs and nine vayiktol verbs. In contrast, excluding the frame, the introduction and the conclusion, there are five other kinds of verbs. They’re called yiktol verbs or imperfect verbs, all of which can legitimately be rendered as habitual or recurring past actions when these verbs show up in past-time contexts.

Now the translators have taken these five verbs—which are themselves commonly future-oriented or present-time verbs (they can be present-time when they’re action verbs)—and they’ve let their interpretation of those five verbs cause us to render the 28 other verbs which are normally translated as past actions to render them as present.

And I just don’t think that’s how they’re supposed to be read because these yiktol verbs, the five of them, which by their nature express incomplete action—you don’t see the beginning or the end—and so you could either render them as future, something that will happen, something that happens recurringly, or that used to happen recurringly.

And I think because of the 28 occurrences of qatal and weqatal verbs that we’re supposed to actually render the five yiqtol verbs as past habitual actions. Now, most people read this as a daily planner and as a woman who’s involved in 17 different things at one time because they’re reading them all as present-time realities. The English translations typically do this. Right. They treat it as if this poem is portraying what a woman is doing in present time rather than what a woman has done in the past. And in those five instances, habitually, regularly, frequently, recurringly in the past. And yet, I think that the 28 normally past-tense verbs should inform our reading of these five yiktol verbs and treat them as habitual past actions.

And what this is going to result in is that the woman, this meditation on the noble, the strong, the dignified, the excellent wife, is actually set up not as telling us who this woman is but who she was and who she has been. As if what we’re reading here is a tribute done on the 70th birthday of a woman or perhaps at her funeral, looking over her past life and a husband celebrating who she was.

TK: So, Jason, like I’m looking at verse 13 right now, she seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands. That picture we get in English is this is a thing she is doing right now. And her hands are busy, but you’re saying the Hebrew—and we could ask, how did the Greek translators when they made the Septuagint? How did they read the Hebrew? But the Hebrew is not necessarily reading it that way because in most of the Old Testament, the same verb forms would be translated using English past tense in a verse like that.

JD: Correct.

TK: So instead of “she seeks wool and flax,” it would be “she sought wool and flax and worked with willing hands.” It’s something she did, not something she’s doing.

JD: That’s right, Tom. So why don’t I just read these 22 verses following the pattern of translation I’ve just set forth? And in the instances of the five yiqtol verbs, you’re going to hear the action as I portray it is a recurring action. And we see this specifically in verse 11 where he, the husband, never lacked gain, or in verse 14, where she would bring her food from afar, meaning it was a habitual or recurring pattern, or in verse 18, her lamp never went out at night, or verse 21, she was never afraid of snow. These are recurring activities, but written looking backward at what her general tendencies were, and the implications for our interpretation are going to be significant.

But why don’t I just read this poem? I’ll leave it in the ESV, but I’m going to modify the verb forms to move them from present time to past time. And I think our listeners will be able to recognize quite quickly the significance of this for our interpretation and our application. And I pray that even as we consider these things, that readers will find here words of hope, words to aspire to, and that the perfect wife will be something that will be seen not as unattainable, but as something to pray for—that women will see something that they can long to become over their lifetime and that young men will gain a more accurate perspective in the type of women they should be looking for, those who are aspiring to these things. And yet, recognizing, “I’m not there yet, but with God’s help, I want to be this kind of wife for you.”

So, let me read the translation as I would lay it out.

TK: Can I just make one comment here? And you’re not doing this because you prefer this and you just say, “Wow, I would want these to be past tense” because it’s weary, and you’re saying, no, actually, this is what the language does. And the English is doing something that actually is not reflected in the Hebrew. So it’s not like we get to pick and choose tenses and change them willy-nilly. You’re just saying that English is actually doing something that the Hebrew isn’t doing.

JD: The English translators have commonly arrived at Hebrew poetry and acted as though the various verb forms are functioning in ways different than they are elsewhere in the Hebrew Old Testament. And what I’m proposing is that no, we’re supposed to be reading the verb forms in proverbial wisdom and in the poetry of the Psalms in the same way that we would if we were looking at one of Moses’ sermons in Deuteronomy or in the narrative of the book of Judges—that the Hebrew grammar has not altered and that we need to carry the same pattern over and see how that informs our theology.

So, let me read for us the poem as I understand it was intended to be given: “An excellent wife who can find? her worth is far more than jewels.” That’s the introduction. Then we read the reflections:

“The heart of her husband trusted in her, and he never lacked gain. She did him good and not harm all the days of her life. She sought wool and flax and worked with willing hands. She was like the ships of the merchant. She would bring her food from afar, and she rose while it was yet night and provided food for her household and portions for her maidens. She considered a field and bought it. With the fruit of her hands, she planted a vineyard. She dressed herself with strength and made her arms strong. She perceived that her merchandise was profitable. Her lamp never went out at night. She put her hands to the distaff and her hands held the spindle. She opened her hand to the poor and reached out her hands to the needy. She was never afraid of snow for her household, for all her household were clothed in scarlet. She made bed coverings for herself. Her clothing was fine linen and purple. Her husband was known in the gates when he sat among the elders of the land. She made linen garments and sold them. She delivered sashes to the merchant. Strength and dignity were her clothing, and she laughed at the time to come. She opened her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness was on her tongue. She looked well to the ways of her household and never ate the bread of idleness. Her children arose and called her blessed. Her husband also, and he praised her. Many women did excellently, but you surpassed them all.”

Now the conclusion: “The charm is deceitful. The beauty is vain. A woman who fears the Lord, she is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, so that her works may praise her in the gates.”

Tom, instead of what the woman who fears the Lord does, the description in this poem is describing what she did and what she used to do. Because her children have risen and blessed her, we’re not reading about a prospective spouse for a young bachelor, nor is she a young woman who is becoming such a woman. Instead, what we’re seeing here is a woman whose character, whose labors have already benefited her home, already served those under her care. This is a woman whose years have already passed, whose family is now celebrating the type of woman she has become. These are more like a lifetime achievement award or a tribute at a funeral, as I already said, and not a picture of her daily planner. She did not necessarily stay up late every night or get up early every morning. She did whichever may have been needed when it was necessary. She didn’t necessarily have ongoing concurrent businesses in real estate and farming and tanning and textiles, but over the years, she’s done all these things. These were right. These behaviors are typical, not constant and simultaneous, and therefore what we see in this poem is a portrait of the perfect woman, but the perfect woman becomes more possible to find in the present because the perfect woman in the present is one who’s seeking to attain this, not who’s already become it.

This is the—I mean, Tom, oh my goodness, after 30 years of marriage, my 53-year-old beauty is—she has become this increasingly. I’ve just seen it over the years, caring for our six kids and now our two sons-in-law and our three grandchildren through the seasons of suffering, the seasons of winter and the seasons of spring and summer and fall, how life just takes its journey and its toil and the wrinkles have made wisdom. The gray hair is indeed a sign of dignity, and now my wife is a go-to for young women aspiring to beauty. And I just love that this woman that I’m married to now is not the woman I married 30 years ago. And I’m sure you would say the same about Sarah. She

TK: Absolutely

JD: Our wives have become something they were not. And that is what God intended and God would desire for you and I to pause and to be able to celebrate the woman they are now, the woman they are becoming and reflect backward and praise God and praise her. That’s what God intends from this poem.

TK: And there are things that any godly man would say who’s talking about anything he’s done—he would say, “I have to say I could not do this without my wife. It would be impossible.” So even describe like the man in this poem, how he’s described as known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land—whatever that means in verse 23. If you were able to ask that man, “Tell us about it, your greatness,” whatever he’s going to say, he’ll let me tell you about my strength and how much my wife plays into it. Part of every single story I’m telling, she is part of it.

JD: That’s absolutely right.

TK: I was laughing to myself as you were reading your thing, just thinking we just came through Christmas season and thinking about all of the joy that our family felt and every meal we had, decorations—you can go on and on and on. If it was me alone, it would look so different. It would be a far different household if we were just saying, “Yep, it would be me alone doing these things.”

Jason, just thinking about this: If you were preaching on this, you’re teaching on this, you have an application to a young man seeking a wife, you have an application to women. What application would you have to someone who would say, “I haven’t been these things at all”? And then I’d like another application—how would you use this in relation to Christ and the church?

JD: First of all, somebody would say, “My life hasn’t been this.” I would say the power of the gospel is that change is possible because our God is powerful, that saving grace, blood-bought saving grace does not just justify us, make us right with God—purchased at the cross was the power to become who we are not now. So it would be similar, my advice would be similar to both men and women, but going back to Lemuel’s mother’s wisdom: “What? My son? What? Son of my womb? What? Son of my vows? What are you doing?” Repent and pursue the portrait of godliness, the portrait of wisdom laid out here at the end of this book.

And it’s portrayed, I’m proposing, not as what to accomplish all in one day—like, “Okay, I’m going to start engaging in all these different things”—but rather it’s setting out a pattern of life that is to be sought, a life to be emulated over the long haul, the type of portrait of what you are seeking to become, both as the man at the city gate who surrounded himself with this kind of a woman and as the woman herself. And so the step one would be repent and then pray, find a godly community where you can live out a passion to become this kind of man who surrounded yourself with this kind of woman and seek godliness for all that there is to you, meaning all that you’re able to do, take your part in fulfilling the role that’s been set out here.

And then, Tom, as for Christ in the church, every marriage is a parable and Christ is exalted through the lives of his saints. Christ fulfills his mission of overcoming enemy gates and blessing the nations, he fulfills it through his church. The bride’s success becomes the success of the king. And so we’re gaining a portrait here. I think he even at the climax, the ultimate end and climax of Proverbs, of the ultimate wise one who surrounded himself with what he is making his bride into—an ultimately wise bride who by the shaping of the church and the work of the church in this increasing holiness.

So here we’re talking about the figure. How is it that this Proverbs 31 woman and this Proverbs 31 man serve as types, pointers to the greater ultimate relationship and the way that Christ is exalted in this world is through his people? It’s the success and surrender of the church to its calling. It’s not wasting its life—that the mission of Christ is operative. The spirit of Christ Jesus is working through his church to fulfill his purposes and therefore the successes of the church, the dignity, the strength, the nobility of the church itself magnifies the greatness of our Savior and magnifies the husband who is overseeing all things well.

And so those are some reflections on how this book in the writings penned significantly, substantially by Solomon becomes an instrument for awakening hope in the Messiah and a desire to be a part of his kingdom—to recognize him as the great bridegroom who will return for his bride and who is building his kingdom through his people and his wisdom both stands to represent us before God but also becomes a pattern for us to follow. And this book displaying wisdom, wisdom embodied, now at the end in this wife of noble character, this excellent strong wife and this husband who sits among the elders of the land and praises his woman—their model marriage is in and of itself a pointer to what is to come and the praise that the husband gives his bride is a praise that the church will receive as the blood-bought people of God who have become instruments in the hands of our shepherd and great husband to fulfill his mission on earth and the family of God has been expanded and flourished under his care and through the servant-hearted, purposeful living of the bride, and we’re seeing an image of it here at the end of the book of Proverbs.

TK: It’s really good. You were the first person who ever told me—and it was such a help—that these acrostic poems, the ones that follow the Hebrew alphabet, so if we said it in English, we’d go from A to Z, that idea of a completeness we would do this if we talk to somebody and said “Give me the A to Z of being an electrician or being an auto mechanic or something like give me the A to Z of cars” what I need to know—that thought of we are getting a comprehensive picture here and that idea is if we’re going to make fun of this little passage, we’re going to miss this comprehensive picture of this. However, this is the portrait of what it does look like in an individual wife but also this is what the church looks like. So instead of kind of making fun of it or putting it in a category of “not going to happen” or “unattainable,” instead put it in a category of “that’s the goal,” and that’s where we’re looking, going back to the oracle that King Lemuel’s mother taught him: “What, my son, this is not who you are.”

So, I pray that all of us might hear these words and receive them as they were intended and put in scripture for that purpose.

JD: Amen.

TK: So, Jason, this has been great going through this. Next week we have the joy of hearing another interview for a preaching book, and it’s coming out on the very day our podcast is coming out. I look forward to it, Tom.

TK: All right, blessings on your day in snowy Kansas City.

JD: That’s right.

TK: All right, bye.

JY: Thank you for joining us for GearTalk. For resources related to biblical theology, visit handstotheplow.org and jasonderouchie.com.