Rae Simons - Secrets of the Proverbs 31 Woman: A Devotional for Women

2015 by Barbour Publishing

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The book of Proverbs is full of word pictures that help us understand deep truths. One that recurs again and again is the comparison of wisdom to a woman. This woman is strong and outspoken; she shouts in the streets (1:20). In the long passage found in the thirty-first chapter, we learn still more about her.

Verse after verse, this passage of scripture affirms our identity as women. The woman we see in Proverbs 31 is committed to her relationships; her husband and children depend on her and are blessed by her. She works hard and efficiently, with initiative and creativity. She knows how to use her skills to make money, but she also reaches out to those in need. She takes care of herself as well.

Each detail is not meant to describe a specific, single woman. In other words, we dont need to add them to our to-do lists! Instead, Proverbs 31 shows us a larger picture of what we are all capable of being as women. Its like a mirror God holds up for us to look intoand then He says, See? This is who I created you to be.

As women, God calls us to embody love and wisdom. Each of us will do that differently, with our unique skills and individual strengthsbut we all have amazing things to offer the world. We dont need to be afraid to be strong, to be wise, to try new things. God believes in us!

This is the sort of book thats intended to be read slowly, one meditation at a time. Doing so will give you time to ponder each section of this scripture and apply it to your own life. Hear what God has to say to you through the Proverbs 31 woman!

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

VERSE 10 KJV

When you hear the phrase virtuous woman, what does it call to mind? Most of us probably think of a good woman, someone who obeys the Bible and avoids sin. Personally, I picture a matronly woman dressed in a modest, nondescript dress, with a calm look on her face. Sadly, I dont identify with this woman because I know I fall far short of her serenity and purity. And if Im honestwell, frankly, I find her a little boring.

As twenty-first-century women, we find it hard to reconcile our own lives with the ancient standard of excellence offered to us in Proverbs. Our culture today is so different from that which existed in the Near East, hundreds of years before Christ. Adding to our difficulty, Christian men through the centuries have held up these verses to their wives and daughters as the perfect example of what a Christian woman should be. Sometimes, as women, we may feel a little resentful at having so much goodness demanded of us!

Our discomfort with these verses may be caused in part, though, simply because of differences in our twenty-first-century language from that used when the King James Bible was written. If you look up the word virtuous in a modern dictionary, youll find that it means righteous, morally upright, saintly, principled, ethical. Theres nothing wrong with being all those things, of course! But this definition isnt quite what the ancient author had in mind, and it wasnt what the seventeenth-century translators were shooting for either when they used the word virtuous. Back in the 1600s, someone who was virtuous was strong and courageous, filled with power to bring about good in the world. It was a word used to describe knights, not meek little women!

If we turn to other versions of the Bible, we find that where the King James Version uses virtuous, more modern translations of Proverbs offer words like excellent, capable, diligent, noble, and worthy. These words get us a little closer to what the ancient author had in mind millennia ago when he composed these verses.

The Hebrew word used here points us even more directly back to the seventeenth-century understanding of what it meant to be virtuous. The word is