Today we conclude our series on the book of Proverbs by looking at what has become known as the Proverbs 31 woman. When I began planning this series, I knew I was going to address this passage even though I didn’t know what else I was going to talk about. But, I wanted to address this, because it has become one of the most used, and in my opinion, most abused scriptural passages, at least for a portion of the church. In her wonderful book A Year of Biblical Womanhood, Rachel Held Evans says “In the [Fundamentalist] Christian subculture, there are three people a girl’s got to know about before she [hits puberty]: 1) Jesus. 2) Ronald Reagan, and 3) the Proverbs 31 woman… Wander into any Christian women’s conference and you will hear her name… [and] Visit a Christian bookstore, and you will find entire women’s sections devoted to books that extol her… [visit any] Christian College” and you will find guys wanting to date her and girls trying to be her.
Now, I do have to admit that I did change Rachel Held Evans quote a little because she didn’t originally use the term fundamentalist, but instead talked about the evangelical church, but I reject the cooption of that term. In the past few decades Fundamentalist Christians rejected the term fundamentalist because of the negative connotations that began to accumulate with that term, and instead started calling themselves evangelical, but we in the middle or progressive side of the church need to fight against the claiming of that word, because we too can and are evangelical, without being fundamentalists, but that’s just me on a personal tangent.
Anyways, the woman portrayed in proverbs 31 has been held up in the conservative church as the ideal, the standard against which women are judged, except that the portrayal of the ideal woman they hold has actually nothing to do with what is being portrayed here, nor does their model of the traditional and ideal woman match anything that’s traditional as their image and role for women is very new. And so, I am going to propose an entirely different way of seeing and viewing the Proverbs 31 woman, that I believe is not only more authentic to the text, but also to the tradition of the passage. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First things first. Way back in our first message on Proverbs one of the things I said was that while proverbs are true, they are not always universally true, that is that different proverbs are true in different circumstances and so they will often contradict each other, such as we say that absence makes the heart grow fonder but out of sight, of mind. Both are seemingly true, even though they say the opposite. Similarly, proverbs can’t always be taken literally.
So, for example, as we are thinking about marriage and raising children, which I thought could be a separate subject to discuss from proverbs, we hear “Those who spare the rod hate their children, but those who love them are diligent to discipline them.” (13:24) This is often said today as “spare the rod, spoil the child” although that is not what the passage actually says. Now, if we don’t use a rod on a child, but instead only spank them, does that mean we hate our child? What about smacking them on the head with the rod, rather than, say, their behind. Does that equal the same amount of love, or is it more love? If we also praise our children, not just disciplining them, does that mean we hate them? These are really more rhetorical questions to prove a point that we can’t really take it literally, instead we need to get to the heart of what is being said here, which is that discipline, or rules and consequences, which is what proverbs is really about, is a good thing in everyone’s life, even for parents. So, we have to keep that in mind when we think about the image of this woman portrayed in Proverbs 31, that this is not a task list, a job description for the ideal woman.
We also know that because this passage is actual poem, and poems are, for lack of a better word, poetic, they are not to be taken literally because they are using, again for lack of a better term, poetic license to use language to paint a picture. But, this is also a specific type of poem, it’s what’s known as an acrostic poem. An acrostic poem has each line begin with the next consecutive letter in the alphabet, and thus the words of the poem have to meet the style, and so in Hebrew this passage consists of 22 lines starting with each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. We lose much of the beauty and majesty, and poetry, of this passage when it’s translated into English. But simply understanding that it’s a poem should give us a different understanding of how to read and approach this passage. The final piece to know, before we dive in is that we are told at the beginning of chapter 31that this passage is “The words of King Lemuel. An oracle that his mother taught him.” We know nothing about King Lemuel, as this is the only place in scripture he is mentioned. Most presume that he was an Israelite king, although some speculate that perhaps he was an Assyrian, and one Jewish tradition holds that this is just another name for Solomon, and that these are the teachings of his mother Bathsheba. All that is pure speculation however.
The first nine verses of chapter 31 are instructions to Lemuel about how to be a good king, with verses 8-9 concluding “Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.” And then begins the passage we heard giving instruction of what a good wife looks like. Now, on the first Sunday, and even last week, who did I say that proverbs was written to and for? It was written for young men, so the first thing to keep in mind is that this passage is not directed specifically at women at all, but instead at men. Now it could be that this is therefore what men should be looking for in a woman and thus perhaps a description, but I still think that’s a misunderstanding of the passage, but let’s say for the sake of argument that’s in fact what it’s about. But, why do we only talk about Proverbs 31 women and not Proverbs 1-31 men? That is all the other instructions are to men and about what men should and should not be doing, so why is it that we would only emphasize one of the genders for these 21 verses rather than everything else that comes before it? I think I have an idea.
There is an African proverb that says, “Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.” Who is it that has interpreted scripture, let’s just say within Christianity, for roughly the last 2000 years? It’s men. It’s not that women didn’t have their own thoughts or see scripture in their own way, but they certainly weren’t allowed, with some notable exceptions that prove the rule, to write or preach or teach about it. And so, scripture was used and abused to portray a particular point of view, one that built upon the patriarchy of the system. And so of course Proverbs 31 was used to say, “this is who women are supposed to be” but not simultaneously saying to men this is who you are supposed to be. Except where it wasn’t used that way
Last week when we talked about righteousness I referenced the difference between a Jewish and Christian understanding of that word, and said that for the purposes of Proverbs we needed to focus on the Jewish understanding of righteousness. Well the same might be true for this as well, that we need to understand it’s traditional understanding from a Jewish perspective and who it is that pays attention to Proverbs 31. In Jewish households is it the husband or the wife that memorizes and recites Proverbs 31? It’s the man. In orthodox households, or at least in those that celebrate Shabbat every week, the husband recites this poem to his wife every week. He doesn’t do it as a checklist and say, “well this is where you failed or succeeded this week,” he does it in celebration of his wife’s presence in his life. But it’s even bigger than that. If there is no woman present at the Shabbat meal, it is sung by the men in honor of all Jewish women, and if there are no men present, the women sing it is praise of Jewish womanhood. This is a celebration of women and the role they play in making the household and the society functional.
And while there are clearly things in this poem which elucidate their role within the household, such as working diligently, raising children, providing food, making clothing, which are seen as the standard domestic chores, and if that’s all the poem was about then we might see it in the way that it has been seen within fundamentalist circles as a way to argue that there is only one role for women, a domestic role, and that they can only be in the house, and men are the ones who go out and do the real work and make money to support their families. But, in fact, this poem doesn’t limit her role to just standard domestic tasks. We are told that not only does she go out and buy a field, a role that might be assumed to be the responsibility of her husband, but she is the one who tills the field to produce the fruits of the harvest. Think back to the story of Adam and Eve being exiled from Eden, who does God say will have to till the soil? The man. But here, it is the woman doing that work. She manufacturers clothing not just for herself, but she also sells the clothing to others, including other merchants. She’s running a small business. And, she is helping the poor and the needy.
Meanwhile, her husband is “known at the city gates, taking his seat among the elders of the land.” This was a role available only to men who could afford to do such a thing, because if you were just making it by, you didn’t have the time to go sit at the city gates discussing things. So, it appears, that this woman’s financial strength and acuity is making this possible for her husband. To reverse the old Enjoli commercial, she can not only fry up the bacon, but she is the one bringing the bacon home. And why is she able to do all these things? Because she has fear of the Lord, and therefore wisdom. She is, in fact the personification of all of the things that Proverbs has been teaching up to this point of what wisdom looks and acts like. So while some would like to use Proverbs 31 to limit and control and contain what women do, in reality it is a testament, a song, to the “strength, giftedness and competency of women.”
But to make this point even clearer that women are being liberated by this passage is something else that is missed in translation, and that is that there is an overtly militaristic tone to much of this, using the same language that is used to describe men. So, the gain that she brings is actually the word for plunder or booty, as in the plunder gained in military victories. When she acquires the field, the verb used there normally is used in reference to a general who conquers and subdues a territory. And when we are told that she “girds herself with strength and makes her arms strong, this is the language used to describing those who are going off to heroic action. It actually says she girds her loins, a common refrain about men preparing for war. When she puts her hands on the distaff, which is a spindle used in spinning wool or flax, it is the same phrase used to describe military mastery, and finally we are told that she clothes herself in “strength and dignity,” the same thing that is said about kings and even Yahweh. In scripture, this is distinctly masculine imagery.
Rather than constraining the woman to the household and saying this is the only role and place for women, Proverbs 31 is shattering stereotypes for women and is “designed to alter errant male perceptions of women.” It uses heroic terms usually reserved for men, so that men will be able to see and appreciate the splendor and wisdom of women. Rather than being seen as the ideal woman that women should compare themselves to, or seen as a job description that cannot be truly completed, and thus making women feel less than, or that they are not worthy, they don’t measure up to what God has called for them, instead they should be freed and see this is a blessing to the role of women, regardless of what role it is that they take, and we can see this in the first line of the poem.
In the NRSV it says, “A capable wife, who can find?” The NIV says “a wife of noble character who can find?” Others say a good wife, a virtuous woman, or competent wife. Most translations give different answers here, but the Hebrew they are trying to translate is eshet chayil. When this phraseology is used in regards to men, which is gibbor chayil, it’s normally translated as a man of valor, and so many scholars, and the way the Jewish Publication Society translates this phrase is as a woman of valor. She is a woman of valor, which would then also match the heroic nature of the poem with its militaristic overtones of celebration.
This phrase occurs just three times in the Bible. Two of them are here in Proverbs and the third time is in the book of Ruth. Ruth tells the story of Ruth who is a widow, a Moabite woman, who stays with her mother-in-law Naomi, who is Jewish. Ruth cares for Naomi working out in the fields to try and support them both. Eventually she marries Boaz and she gives birth to a son who becomes the grandfather of King David. When she first meets Boaz, he calls her an eshet chayil, a woman of valor. She is a woman of valor before she has married him, before she has become domestic and taken on the roles of the household, and before she has had children. That is her valor has nothing to do with what are given as the traditional roles of women, instead it comes because of how she lives her life.
In correspondence with the wife of a rabbi by the name of Ahava, Rachel Held Evans was told that within Judaism women will use this phrase in celebration and blessing of others, sort of as a “you go girl.” It has nothing to with being a wife or a mother, and everything to do with living rightly with God. But even then, it’s not something earned, but something given, unconditionally, in support and encouragement, in congratulations and blessing. As Judy Garland said, “Be a first-rate version of yourself, not a second-rate version of someone else.”
Proverbs 31 is not meant to be a job description that no one can live up to, it’s not an assignment, but an anthem, a celebration of women. Don’t buy into the biased and manipulative interpretation of the Proverbs 31 woman. Instead see her as “an inspiring example of someone who used all her abilities to serve God.” So, whether you are a mother or not, do that with valor and wisdom, whether you work in the home or out of the home, do that with valor and wisdom. Whether you are married or single, do it with valor and wisdom. No matter who or what you are, do it with valor. As Evans says, “That's what makes you a Proverbs 31 Woman, not creating a life worthy of a Pinterest board.” Ladies, you are all women of valor, and to help you remember that I have a gift for you this morning that says in Hebrew “I am a woman of valor.” Remember that and live that, and men, let’s learn this passage so that we can sing a song of praise to the women of valor in our lives. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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