Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Proverbs 31:30
Favor [is] deceitful, and beauty [is] vain: [but] a woman [that] feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.
30. that feareth the Lord ] Thus does Wisdom, true ever to herself, return in her last utterance to her first (Pro 1:7), and place once again the crown on the head of the godly.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
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.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Pro 31:30
A woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.
A woman worthy of praise
This text recognises the fact that a woman seeks admiration. She loves to be praised. What is so natural and universal cannot be wrong. Generally speaking, a woman who has lost the desire of praise is a lost woman. Her self-respect has gone, and she has parted with her strongest motive to strive after personal excellence. A. woman wins her way and strengthens her influence by the admiration she commands and the affection she inspires. Praise is more necessary to the right growth and happy development of human character than is commonly supposed. We do each other a moral wrong by withholding it when deserved. The desire to be commended may be thought an unworthy and selfish motive. It is unworthy when the heart is satisfied with the praise of foolish people. Very important it is whose praise we seek. All dishonest gains are bad. To claim commendation when we are conscious of not deserving it, or even to accept it without protest, is mean and destructive of personal integrity. To seek the honour that cometh from God, to deserve well of the good, can only spring from sympathy with goodness. The text glances at means of winning admiration which you must not rely on. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain. The praise these will bring you is not worth coveting. Beauty of form and feature is almost always a snare when it is not an index to beauty of soul. A woman should not place her worth in these outward advantages. She is to aim at a higher beauty, to seek to be beautiful in the eyes of Him who seeth not as man seeth. Three things should guide you in dress–truth, order, and harmony. You violate the rule of truth if you ever dress so as to be mistaken for what you are not. You should never purchase what will have an ill look when it is shabby. If you do you violate the law of order. You offend against the law of harmony if what you have on excites remark. A woman is dressed harmoniously when her dress seems part of herself. As the world is, marriage is the goal of a womans existence. Marriage makes or mars a woman. Girls whose chief talk is about young men merit severe reprobation. On this matter good advice may be summed up under three heads: Think little. Talk less. Do nothing. It will be time enough for you to think what your chances are and whom you will marry when the question comes before you in a practical form. This advice is based upon sound reasons and justified by manifold experiences. Piety is the bond of feminine virtues, the crown of womanly graces. A cold theology of intellectual ideas will never satisfy you. The religion that will command your devotion and obedience must offer a living person to your faith and loyal affection. The gospel offers you the Lord Jesus. Translate the description of fidelity, kindness, industry, and prudence given in this chapter into the language of to-day. Picture to yourselves this model of womanly excellence set in the duties and circumstances of your own lives, and then aim to be like her, for such will be the woman that feareth the Lord, and whom He will deem worthy of praise. (E. W. Shalders, B.A.)
Womans praises and virtues
I. Her virtues (Pro 31:11-27). Her conjugal fidelity; her kindness and constancy of affection; her housewifery and diligence; her thrift and management; her industry and assiduity; her charity and liberality; her providence and forecast; her magnificence in furniture and apparel; her reputation in public; her traffic and trade abroad; her discretion and obligingness in discourse; her care of home and good government of her family.
II. Her praise. At home; in public; through the whole country where she lives. Prove virtue to be the only praiseworthy thing. Favour and beauty are frail, and subject to decay in their nature and in the opinions of men. They are things that may be counterfeited and put on. They prove too frequently occasions of evil and incentives to sensuality. The good woman prizes favour and beauty under three conditions. Not so as ambitiously to seek them or fondly to vaunt them. Not so as to rely on them as solid goods. Not so as to misemploy them, but to guide them with virtue and discretion. Praise is sure to come to the woman that feareth the Lord. The woman has equal rights with man. A virtuous woman may mean a stout, valiant woman; or a busy, industrious woman; or a woman of wealth and riches; or a discreet woman. In its principle, this fear is a reverential fear. In its operations, like the warp, it runs through the whole web of all her duties. Such a woman shall be praised. (Adam Littleton, D.D.)
Beauty and goodness
I. The approbation to be desired. The love of approbation is at once a virtuous and a powerful motive. It includes the approbation of God and of good men. Some, however, cherish the love of approbation too much, and will sacrifice principle in order to obtain it. It is a dangerous thing to have the approval of every one; it is apt to make us careless, proud, or indifferent.
II. The false means which are sometimes relied on to secure this end. Favour means a graceful manner, demeanour, and deportment. Beauty refers to the countenance. We may thank God for beauty of person and elegance of manner as for any other of the blessings of this life. Used rightly, beauty may be a virtue, but perverted it becomes a source of great and awful evil.
III. The certain and only road to approbation. The woman who wishes to be praised must cultivate religious principle. Women are apt to attach undue importance to the external and to neglect the spiritual. Beauty without goodness passes away like a vapour, and leaves no trace behind; or if it succeeds in being remembered, it is only that it may be despised and abhorred. (Clement Dukes, M.A.)
Womans virtues
As virtues of the true matron there are named, above all, the fear of God as the sum of all duties to God; then chastity, fidelity, love to her husband without any murmuring; diligence and energy in all domestic avocations; frugality, moderation and gentleness in the treatment of servants; care in the training of children; and beneficence to the poor. (Melancthon.)
Womans influence
I. Favour is deceitful. Mens favour, the worlds favour, how fickle it ever is, how soon it changes, and what a short time it exists! How many souls have been ruined by the worlds favours! Flattery has produced pride, and has blinded the eyes and led the steps along the downward way.
II. Beauty is vain. We need not disparage beauty in itself. Beauty of form and feature is of God. But how short-lived mere beauty of face is! Sicknesses lessen it, increasing age denies it, afflictions spoil it.
III. What shall give us power and influence for good? Fearing the Lord. This makes the highest and grandest type of woman. (Uriah Davies, M.A.)
Lasting love
That love which is cemented by youth and beauty, when these moulder and decay, as soon they do, fades too. But if husbands and wives are each reconciled unto God in Christ, and so heirs of life and one with God, then are they truly one in God each with the other, and that is the surest and sweetest union that can be. (Archbp. Leighton.)
Woman retaining honour
A gracious woman retaineth honour. That is, a woman distinguished for her modesty, meekness, and prudence, and other virtues, will engage affection and respect when other accomplishments fade and decline. (B. E. Nicholls, M.A.)
Woman: her dues and her debts
There is among men no general agreement as to what exactly woman is, or means, and what precisely she is for, and rather less agreement among her own sex. Woman has been a great while in finding her place, and slow in even suspecting that any place of power and dignity is her due. Woman has been cautiously conceded to have powers of thought, or to be susceptible to a degree of discipline, but those susceptibilities have been regarded suspiciously and handled evasively. In higher social classes woman is considered rather in the light of a delicacy; as no true constituent of the bone and sinew of society; more an ornament than a utility, like the pictures we hang on our walls, or the statuary we range in our alcoves–a kind of live art. A womanly woman is feminine by nature, more feminine by grace, and will be consummately feminine by translation. What it lies in the nature of a thing to become is a providential indication of what God wants it to become by improvement and development. An uneducated woman is as much a mistake as an uneducated man is a mistake. By education is meant, first of all, womanliness, built out of alternate layers of intelligence sharpened by discipline and integrity, chastened by the manifold graces of God. A young woman, as much as a young man, belongs to her times. The beauty of a home and the strength of a home is that it is the product of affectionate co-operation and conspiracy between the prime partners to the contract. Society has not yet made any improvement on the marriage idea as it is laid down in the second chapter of Gods book–that the wife is to be her husbands helpmeet. The hope of civilisation is the home, and the hope of the home is the mother. Characterless mothers and enervated homes are to be dreaded more than outward assaults of immorality or insinuations of a gross philosophy; for it is the enervation of the home that gives to gross philosophy and bad morality the opportunity to take hold and do its corroding and poisonous work. Civilisation would be kept as grand as the home is kept, and the keystone of home is the mother. (C. H. Parkhurst, D.D.)
The virtuous woman
Note–
1. Her industry and activity.
2. Her benevolence and kindness.
3. Her prudence or discretion.
4. Her devotion to God.
The importance of true religion as the crowning grace of womanhood cannot be over-estimated. (Frederick Greeves, D.D.)
Our mothers
Writing in her diary soon after the birth of her babe, Margaret Fuller put these words, I am the mother of an immortal being. God be merciful to me a sinner! A true woman cannot feel other than seriously the import of such an experience. Somebody has said, She who rocks the cradle rules the world! The world is what those constituting it make it. Like mother, like child. How great and sacred are a mothers responsibilities! Her teaching and example are the most forceful agents in the formation of her childs life. Virtue is transmitted as well as evil. The good we do lives after us as potentially as the bad. The strong things in a mothers life pass on to the child as well as the weak. Let no mother say that her sphere is obscure or secondary. A noble ambition can fill no wider scope. Certain things are essential if you are wisely to fulfil your responsibilities of motherhood.
1. Endeavour to be what you would have your child become; in character, in morals, in religion.
2. Look well to yourself. Live what you teach.
3. Win the respect of your child.
4. Never let your child get beyond you in intellectual sympathy. Hearts may keep pace where heads cannot. Learn to sympathise with religious perplexities, and learn how best they may be eased and remedied.
5. Let your child be always certain of your love. Be faithful to your womans instinct. Deal patiently and lovingly with your child. Keep the home life bright for him. Learn to respect his rights. Allow him room for the free play of the varied powers God has given him. Are you not assured of grace sufficient for all your mother-needs? (George Bainton.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 30. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain, c.]
III. Here is the summing up of the character.
1. Favour, 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 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, haiyophi, elegance of shape, symmetry of features, dignity of mien, and beauty of countenance, are all 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.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
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.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
30. Favouror, “Grace”of personal manner.
beautyof face, or form(compare Pr 11:22). True pietyalone commands permanent respect and affection (1Pe3:3).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
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 them lies an ill natured, deformed, and depraved mind; nor is the pleasure and satisfaction enjoyed as is promised along with these; and particularly how do they fade e and consume away by a fit of illness, and through old age, and at last by death? And so vain and deceitful are the favour and beauty, the artificial paintings, of Jezebel, that whore of Rome; all her meretricious deckings, dressings, and ornaments; her gaudy pomp and show in her worship, and the places of it; see
Re 17:4. Jarchi interprets this of the grandeur and glory of the kings of the nations;
[but] a woman [that] feareth the Lord, she shall be praised; any single individual, man or woman, that fears the Lord; or a collective body of them, a society consisting of such persons, as the true church of Christ does; who have the grace of fear in their hearts, which is the beginning of wisdom, and includes the whole of religious worship, internal and external, private and public: such are taken notice of and highly valued by the Lord; his eye is upon them; his hand communicates to them much grace; and many benefits are bestowed upon them here, and great honour is conferred upon them, and great goodness is laid up for them.
e “Forma bonum fragile est”, Ovid. de Arte Amandi, l. 2.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
What now follows is not a continuation of the husband’s words of praise (Ewald, Elster, Lwenstein), but an epiphonema auctoris (Schultens); the poet confirms the praise of the husband by referring it to the general ground of its reason:
30 Grace is deceit; and beauty, vanity –
A wife that feareth Jahve, she shall be praised.
Grace is deceit, because he who estimates the works of a wife merely by the loveliness of her external appearance, is deceived by it; and beauty is vanity, vanitas , because it is nothing that remains, nothing that is real, but is subject to the law of all material things – transitoriness. The true value of a wife is measured only by that which is enduring, according to the moral background of its external appearance; according to the piety which makes itself manifest when the beauty of bodily form has faded away, in a beauty which is attractive.
(Note: Vid., the application of Pro 31:30 in Taanith 26b: “Young man,” say the maidens, “lift up thine eyes and behold that which thou choosest for thyself! Direct thine eyes not to beauty ( ), direct thine eyes to the family ( ); pleasantness is a deception, etc.”)
(with Makkeph following),
(Note: The writing is that of Ben Asher, that of Ben Naphtali; Norzi, from a misunderstanding, claims (with Gaja) as Ben Asher’s manner of writing.)
is here the connective form of (fem. of ). The Hithpa. is here manifestly (Pro 27:2) not reflexive, but representative of the passive (cf. Pro 12:8, and the frequently occurring , laudatus = laudandus ), nowhere occurring except in the passage before us. In itself the fut. may also mean: she will be praised = is worthy of praise, but the jussive rendering (Luther: Let her be praised) is recommended by the verse which follows:
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(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.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
30. Favour , ( hhen,) grace; that is, gracefulness of person comeliness.
Is deceitful Illusive.
And beauty is vain “Elegance of shape, symmetry of features, dignity of mien, are all , ( hebhel,) ephemeral, a vanity, a breath. Sickness impairs them, suffering deranges them, and death destroys them.” Clarke.
A woman that feareth the Lord And, therefore, has in her own heart the principle whence all true womanhood springs.
She shall be praised “She is to be praised.” Gesenius. She should be celebrated for her many virtues. , ( tithhallel,) may be rendered, She shall glorify herself; that is, in a good sense, indirectly, by her excellent character and pious behaviour. She shall secure for herself immortal honour. It is to be observed here, that the book concludes, as it begins, with a significant emphasis on the fear of the Lord, which is now not merely the beginning of wisdom, but “the condition of all womanly as well as manly excellence.” Speaker’s Commentary.
Pro 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; a Res est forma fugax, saith another. b 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.
She shall be praised. a Ovid.
b Seneca.
deceitful = Hebrew. sheker. See note on Pro 11:18.
feareth
(See Scofield “Psa 19:9”)
Favour: Pro 6:25, Pro 11:22, 2Sa 14:25, Est 1:11, Est 1:12, Eze 16:15, Jam 1:11, 1Pe 1:24
a woman: Pro 1:7, Pro 8:13, Exo 1:17-21, Psa 147:11, Luk 1:6, Luk 1:46-50, 1Pe 3:4, 1Pe 3:5
she: Ecc 7:18, Ecc 12:13, Rom 2:29, 1Co 4:5, 1Pe 1:7, 1Pe 3:4
Reciprocal: Gen 29:17 – beautiful Deu 21:11 – desire 1Sa 16:7 – Look not 1Sa 25:3 – good 1Sa 25:39 – to take her 2Sa 11:2 – very beautiful 2Sa 13:1 – a fair sister 1Ki 4:32 – he spake Pro 11:16 – gracious Act 9:39 – and showing
THE BEAUTY THAT NEVER FADES
Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.
Pro 31:30-31
I. Interpretation.Grace and beauty will not win lasting praise; therefore they will disappoint. But a God-fearing woman, she shall be praised; her character in Gods eyes and mans shall be her lasting grace, her unfading beauty. She is worthy of the praise she has earned by the work of her own hands. Let her own works celebrate her. (To be praised in the gates, or in the places of public concourse, is equivalent to becoming noted or celebrated.)
II. Illustration.The unsatisfactory character of mere beauty of face or of form is illustrated by the cases, of Rachel, unhappy in spite of it; of Naomi, who lost it through bitter affliction; of Vashti, whom it exposed to insult. But Sarah is praised in Holy Scripture for her faith and obedience (Heb 11:11; 1Pe 3:6); the garments wrought by Dorcas for the poor, and the tears shed over her dead body, were her best encomium; the pious fulfilment of maternal duties was the commendation of Lois and Eunice, which has made their names household words unto this day.
III. Application.The counsels of this book end, as they began, with the fear of the Lord. This is the condition of all womanly as well as manly excellence. The character of the excellent woman or wife has been beautifully described. She has been held up as a pattern of conjugal virtue. Her industry, benevolence, forethought, discretion, kindness, government of her householdthese and other admirable points have been exhibited by way of pattern. Then is disclosed the key to such rare excellence. True religion has led up to it. For religion does not slacken, but rather quickens attention to the common duties of life. Genuine faith gives birth to obedience. The holier the woman, the better the wife, the mother, the mistress of a household. Thus, Christianity would commend itself to the world. Beauty of form and feature is not essential to its praise. For these are but fleeting, and, unless combined with sterling good qualities, ere long disappoint or even create disgust. No, it is only beauty of character, the loveliness of practical piety as seen in the details of every-day life, which compels universal admiration at last. This, too, shall have praise of God, of Him Whose whole teaching throughout this book has been of righteousness as the fruit of faith. Where holy women lead the way, let men follow. Each have their respective work to do. According as that is done shall they enter in (or not) through the gates into the city.
Rev. C. R. Pearson.
Here is the key to her greatness (Pro 31:30). Charm can be misleading because it promises a lifetime of happiness but cannot deliver, and physical beauty is only temporary. But the fear of Yahweh is the indispensable core of a woman like this. Though she does not fear the natural elements (Pro 31:21), she does fear the Lord. Such a woman deserves to share in the fruits of her labors and to receive public recognition for her greatness (Pro 31:31).
A wise woman will enjoy many benefits. Her husband, assuming he is of normal intelligence, will value, bless, and praise her (Pro 31:10; Pro 31:28 b, Pro 31:31). She will be secure (Pro 31:25). Moreover, her husband will also cherish and honor her (Eph 5:28-29; 1Pe 3:7 b), unless he is a fool.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)