Today we conclude our series on Proverbs having looked at anger, words, work, righteousness and money. There were several other things we could have also addressed, that we touched on some, like justice, prudence, obedience, happiness, marriage and relationships and what all these things tell us about God and faith. But we conclude with the one issue that really needs to be dealt with these days, and it was in fact the only theme that someone asked me to talk about and that is what has become known as the Proverbs 31 woman. The passage we heard this morning, at least for a portion of the church, has become one of the most used, and I would argue one of the most abused passages in scripture. Rachel Held Evans, a prophet that we lost way too soon several years ago, wrote in her wonderful book A Year of Biblical Womanhood, “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.
The Proverbs 31 woman has been held up as the ideal woman. She has become the standard by which women, if they want to be biblical will be judged and the passage is sort of a checklist against women. And that’s all fine and good, if damaging, except for the fact that the portrayal here, or of seeing her as the ideal woman, has nothing to actually do with what’s being portrayed in the passage. And that’s on top of the fact that this being the model of the traditional and ideal woman doesn’t match the reality that what’s upheld as 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 birds of a feather flock together but opposites attract. Both are seemingly true, even though they say the opposite thing. Similarly, proverbs can’t always be taken literally. We have to seek the truth of the message while not forcing them beyond what they are telling us, and when we try and read them as being literally true they tend to fall apart. 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, and to treat it as such as destructive to everyone involved, men and women.
The other piece that has to be taken into consideration when
looking at, interpreting and understanding this passage is to know that it is a
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. And if you do try and take a poem
literally, 99 times out of 100, or perhaps even more, you destroy what the poem
is actually doing. But, this is also a specific type of poem, it’s what’s known
as an acrostic poem. Does anyone know what an acrostic poem is? 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 31 that 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, as we heard
last week, “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 so there is a clear indication here about what a leader,
and in particular a king, are supposed to care about and do, looking out for
those who cannot look out for themselves. And then begins the passage we heard
giving instruction about a good wife. And so again, a quick reminder, Proverbs
as a whole is being written for young men of a high social class who are about
to assume their roles as adults in leadership positions and in marriage, and
that plays a key part in the context of this selection, because we then have to
keep in mind that this passage is not being written for women, as it is so
often interpreted now, but it’s being written specifically for men. We know
that women were also taught wisdom, as we are told this wife speaks with
wisdom, but we don’t know what that looked like. Now it could be that this
passage is still 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, or at least not
prominently? 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.
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. So here is a clip of that song:
While there are clearly things in this poem which elucidate
the woman’s role within the household, such as working diligently, raising
children, providing food, making clothing, which are seen as the standard
domestic chores, 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 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 even plants the
vineyard. There are several instances in scripture in which we are told someone
plants a vineyard, including God, but this is the only time we are told a woman
does it. In addition, 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 renew the old Enjoli perfume commercial, she’s can
both bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan, if she were to eat bacon,
which she doesn’t because she followers Kosher. And why is she able to do all
these things? Because she has fear of the Lord, and therefore has wisdom, and
so we return to how Proverbs began. The woman, in fact, is 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 claims the land.
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, that they are not worthy, or that 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. 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.” I heard that this week in our staff meeting which begins with reading and discussing the passage for each Sunday, and after we read this people talked about their mothers and grandmothers and wives and saw this as a celebration of them and their wisdom. They saw the woman of valor being portrayed and wanted to celebrate the women who supported or support them in their lives. 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 in the worship guide you will find a card that “I am a woman of valor.” There are also copies at the back you may take to give to others, and for those worshipping online, if you want to receive one please contact the church. 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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