Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

Proverbs

Proverbs 31: A Biblical Interpretation Case Study

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A money lender and his wife, by Quentin Metsys

In an article at Relevant magazine, a competent and articulate writer named Lauren Oquist challenges readers of her article to stop obsessing over the Proverbs 31 woman. The point of this post is not to be critical of the author of the post quoted (though I will be critical of her post), the point is to demonstrate how a fuller reading of a Biblical book might help it yield its treasures.

Over all, the title of the article is good advice. I think that people, in general, should avoid obsessions. On top of that, I find the theme of her article very helpful. She essentially says that no particular Biblical type should become the primary focus of our lives, except for the imitation of Jesus Christ. Such types were never meant to be the primary metaphors we use to govern our lives. I quote her article because it brought up a conversation my wife and I had several months ago that came up again this morning, so even where I disagree with this or that point she makes, her article inspired my blog post and ultimately concludes the same way.

Exercise in Thoughtful Reading:

Go read Proverbs 31:1-31.

Asking the Right Questions
In good rhetorical fashion (like I said, competent writer), Oquist simultaneously relates to her readership as well as establishes the need for the problem she attempts to solve:

Maybe you, like me, read this passage [Proverbs 31:10-31 ] and think to yourself well sheesh. Is every woman supposed to try and fit this mold? And how would that be possible if every woman is different? What if she can’t sew or cook or hires a nanny for her kids during the week? What if she never even gets married? Does that mean she’s not living up to her God-given potential as a female? Does that mean she’s living in sin?

And what if you don’t want to be a Proverbs 31 woman?

When she admits that the passage is difficult to put into practice she also grasps the interpretive crux of the issue when she asks, “is every woman supposed to try to fit this mold?” In general, Christians should ask questions like this of many of our favorite Bible passages. If we thought of the immediate context of a Biblical book, its genre, and where that book fits in the timeline of Scripture before we tried to emulate a character or obey a saying, then Christians would make more sense. Examples:

  1. Should I try to be like King David?
  2. Should I take up my cross and follow Jesus?
  3. Should I put the Sermon on the Mount into practice?

These questions have answers that can be found by examining the books of the Bible containing these people and precepts as well as by examining the whole canon of Scripture.

Oquist asks the right question for spiritual growth and personal assessment and the wrong question for Biblical interpretation: “what if you don’t want to be a [fill in the blank]?” Asking this question to help me understand the Bible opens up circumstances like this:

I read the Sermon on the Mount and ask, “Do I even want to love my enemies?”

That is a good question for assessing the state of my soul, but it is a poor question for assessing whether the gospel authors are prescribing Jesus’ teachings to their readers. For instance, if I don’t want to obey Jesus, I cannot then infer that Matthew wrote his gospel without meaning for people to obey Jesus.

The same goes for Proverbs 31:10-31. It is a tall order, but simply because it is idealistic does not mean that it is not prescriptive. The first question must be answered, “Is this passage for personal application?” Before we move on, it is important to note that the article I am quoting does not claim to answer the question about whether the passage should be obeyed by using the question about “wanting to,” though it may imply as much.

Who is the “Good Wife” of Proverbs 31? A Heuristic for An Ancient Near-Eastern King
The Proverbs 31 woman is clearly not a particular woman because the author sets her up as a type, in fact precisely as an ideal to appreciate specific instances of (and, we’ll see later to emulate):

 Proverbs 31:10 An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.

This is advice to a King from his mother, who apparently played the role of a prophet to the royal court. King Lemuel’s mother gave him the following paradigm for being a good king. The advice ranges from the need to be chaste to the need to heed the rights of the poor. Recall from your earlier reading that Proverbs 31 starts like this:

Proverbs 31:1-9  The words of King Lemuel. An oracle that his mother taught him:  (2)  What are you doing, my son? What are you doing, son of my womb? What are you doing, son of my vows?  (3)  Do not give your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings.  (4)  It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to take strong drink,  (5)  lest they drink and forget what has been decreed and pervert the rights of all the afflicted.  (6)  Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress;  (7)  let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.  (8)  Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute.  (9)  Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.

The Proverbs 31 woman appears to be an expression of the type of woman whose activity King Lemuel is to laud as worthy of public praise for the good of society (see the counter point of Lady Folly in Proverbs 5-9). He is to do this so that that these traits will be sought as virtuous and those who have them will be seen as venerable. The result is a sort of ethic of the city-state that we see in Aristotle. Certain behaviors, if lauded by respected/respectable people, will be valued by those who respect them. The same principle is in play when young people dress like and parrot the values of favorite band members, local politicians, or movie stars.

Essentially then, the king’s mother says that being a good king necessitates recognizing the moral agency of women and praising the upright women in the land. See the end:

Proverbs 31:30-31  Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.  (31)  Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.

Thus, all of the traits are to be praised as explicitly virtuous in any particular woman. The passage is not addressed to men or women per se, but to kings or people of influence. On the other hand, even though the passage is not about particular women, it is explicitly about the virtues of women who are in the attendant circumstances in which those virtues or behaviors make sense.

A Paradigm for Praiseworthy Living
Which brings me to my own final point. The book of Proverbs itself is largely instruction to men about how to grow up wisely, “Proverbs 1:8a Hear my son…” But it would be weird to think that it cannot apply to women or that since it would be hard for one man to have all of those traits the book shouldn’t be seen as applicable to men. In fact, one of the most frequent observations concerning Proverbs is its almost universal applicability in the lives of those who read it daily. If we return to the early chapters of Proverbs we can see a figure commonly referred to as Lady Wisdom. She is put before the readers to represent several realities:

  1. She is a prophet who represents God (Proverbs 1:20)
  2. She is like your mother, whose sound words can save you (Proverbs 1:8)
  3. She is like a woman to court over against lady folly (Proverbs 8:17)
  4. She is representative of God’s mind as he upholds the cosmos (Proverbs 8:22-30)
  5. As such, her ways are to be emulated (Proverbs 8:32)

Therefore, by virtue of the analogy between the type of woman that King Lemuel is supposed to praise in the gates and Lady Wisdom, the male or female reader of Proverbs should find concrete examples of wise and virtuous behavior to put into practice when they read about the good wife of Proverbs 31 just as much as they would find as they read the rest of Proverbs. For example, Jesus would wake up before sun rise to pray as a matter of custom (Mark 1:35, cf. Proverbs 31:15) just as the woman of Proverbs 31 does.

Conclusion
A hermeneutic that dismisses Scripture before it is determined to be applicable is not a best practice. In this case, the wife figure of Proverbs 31 is most likely a paradigmatic expression of virtues in many circumstances, particularly of praiseworthy women, rather than a purely impossible or offensive ideal which is best left ignored or dismissed.

In all toil there is profit

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In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty.

(Proverbs 14:23 ESV)

The proverb above is one I have always associated with one particular type of talk: talking about what you’re going to do instead of doing it.

I think that this aspect is true, but incomplete. I have overly limited the meaning of talk.

Here are forms of talk that are justifiably included under this heading because they replace labor and thus prevent profit:

  1. Being critical of others to the neglect of self-reflection or self-improvement
  2. Being a whiner, complainer, or malcontent
  3. Making excuses and being a wimp (we’re all going to die anyway)
  4. Talking about other people’s accomplishments without accomplishing anything yourself
  5. Talking about how other people messed up your life
  6. Talking about what you would do if only you had this or that
  7. Talking about theology instead of praying, reading Scripture, learning Greek/Hebrew, or putting the words of Jesus into practice.
  8. Talking about what other churches do wrong instead of fixing your own church
  9. Complaining about your neighbors instead of ordering your own household or picking up garbage when you go for a walk
  10. Complaining about the government without knowing local politician’s names or platforms or voting
  11. Preaching sermons but not praying, meditating, or otherwise attending to matters of personal spiritual care
  12. Having endless meetings at work but doing no work
  13. Being a part of dozens of Bible studies but not studying for your calling
  14. Being a part of dozens of Bible studies but not memorizing or reading any of the Bible
  15. Talking about your crush and never asking him/her out

I’m sure that this isn’t comprehensive, but I hope it helps.

Any other aspects of “mere talk” that distract from actual labor and therefore from profit?

Growth and Biblical Wisdom

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Everybody has a self-theory, some hypothesis or doctrine about what/who they are. Some of these theories are simple sentences like, “I’m an athlete.” Others are more fundamental, like, “I’m worthless.” According to Carol Dweck and Daniel Molden, our self-theories lead directly to our self-esteem maintenance/repair strategies after we fail at a task or to reach a goal. (Dweck, 130-131). They have distilled the various self-theories into two helpful categories.

The Self Theories:

  1. Entity theory:
    Entity theory is the theory that all of your personal traits are fixed in place.
  2. Incremental Theory:
    The incremental theory of the self is the theory that no matter who you are, your qualities and abilities can be improved upon.

Two strategies of self-esteem repair:

  1. Fixed/Static View
    It is often found that those who hold to the entity theory, because of the assumption that change is impossible, also have a static view of self-esteem repair. These people repair their self-esteem by avoidance of activities that are difficult. Adherents to this self-theory also utilize comparison of their performance to examples who performed even more poorly than themselves to bolster their sense of worth/skill.
  2. Growth View
    Those who hold to the incremental self-theory, because of the assumption that change is possible, adopt a growth perspective on self-esteem repair. These individuals use strategies like examination of deficits and practicing unattained skills.  They are also more likely to utilize comparison of personal performance to those who performed even better to understand why they succeeded.

Can you guess which self-theory and which strategies tend to be associated with success? If you guessed, “the incremental theory and the growth view,” you guessed correctly.

In the book of Proverbs, the self-theory assumed by the author is the incremental theory. The author assumes that people can change:

Pro 8:1-5 ESV  Does not wisdom call? Does not understanding raise her voice?  (2)  On the heights beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand;  (3)  beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud:  (4)  “To you, O men, I call, and my cry is to the children of man.  (5)  O simple ones, learn prudence; O fools, learn sense.

And as one would expect from somebody who holds the incremental view, the author of Proverbs recommends responding to personal failures and challenges with a growth strategy:

  1. Pro 9:8b-9a Reprove a wise man and he will love you. Instruct a wise man, and he will grow wiser.
  2. Pro 15:5  A fool despises his father’s instruction, but whoever heeds reproof is prudent.
  3. Pro 15:12  A scoffer does not like to be reproved; he will not go to the wise.
  4. Pro 15:32  Whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence.

The whole book basically indicates that one of the main differences between the wise and the unwise is that the wise are willing to face correction and improve. They admit their flaws and errors. They do so whether the flaws pertain to morality, character, knowledge, skill, or anything else.

Conclusion

Learning to change our perspective on failures and internal shame is very difficult. We often feel painfully ashamed of failures, mistakes, and sins. This shame can paralyze us into being unable to admit fault. It can even force us into hiding our flaws and dwelling only on our positive traits and thus can prevent change. It is all the better to admit personal failures of morals, knowledge, and skill. Fessing up to oneself, to God, and to other people is a liberating experience. In so doing, shame can become the sort of sorrow that leads to repentance and personal transformation. One good article on the subject can be found here: Why I Like When Other Men Make Me Feel Bad About Myself.

Works Cited:

Andrew J Elliot and Carol S Dweck, Handbook of Competence and Motivation (New York: Guilford Press, 2005).

Appendix:

Though the author of Proverbs assumes that you and I can change, he is a realist. You and I have all known people that we worry about because they keep making bad decisions. The fear is that eventually it might be too late to change. Proverbs does notice that some people will want to change their habits at the last minute before a calamity. They procrastinate. They hope to perhaps utilizing a montage strategy. “Oh, I messed around all year and have to make a 100 on the final and only have 8 hours to study…wisdom come save me with clips of fun, hard work, and sweet music!” Kind of like in Rocky, Revenge of the Nerds, the Muppets Movie, and Mulan:

Wisdom, in the book of Proverbs, is personified as a cosmically powerful female prophet who represents the highest aspirations of human motherhood, the ultimate wife, and the most wise sister a young man could have. Young men typically love women, this is probably why the literary device is used. The book is written for young men, but it clearly applies to women as well. Anyway, here is what Lady Wisdom says after being ignored until the last minute before a disaster:

Pro 1:24-27  Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,  (25)  because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof,  (26)  I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you,  (27)  when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you.

If you refuse to change your character long enough, you won’t be able to suddenly make the necessary repairs in order to succeed. I tried this in Hebrew as an undergrad. You cannot study at the last minute for Hebrew and succeed.

Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil

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Thou shalt not take up a false report: put not thy hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to turn aside after a multitude to wrest justice: neither shalt thou favor a poor man in his cause. (Exodus 23:1-3 ASV)

In ancient cultures, conformity to the majority was near the top of the hierarchy of values. In fact, the Old Testament takes great pains to enforce conformity to social norms through various and elaborate status rituals and harsh legal penalties. But, the Old Testament vision of social conformity is not conformity to society as such. Instead, the vision is of society conforming to the good, rather than the individual becoming a microcosm of society. The expectation of breaking rank when the rank and file turn to evil is an implicit demand to contemplate social norms and reason whether they be good or evil. This passage also calls for a rejection of social naivete which implies gaining some degree of contemplative virtue. And as a strange conclusion, the passage also proscribes allowing pity to substitute for truth. A conservative error is to equate poverty with vice. The liberal error is to equate poverty with virtue. The Biblical middle-ground is to pursue the good generally and legal justice particularly. The following passages from Proverbs illustrate the same principles in aphoristic format:

A faithful witness does not lie, but a false witness breathes out lies. (Proverbs 14:5)

The wisdom of the prudent is to discern his way, but the folly of fools is deceiving. (Proverbs 14:8)

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. (Proverbs 14:12)

The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps. (Proverbs 14:15)

One who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is reckless and careless. (Proverbs 14:16)

From the outside in?

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The pattern we typically set for people who wish to be more like Christ is this:

Start from the inside out.

It’s not unreasonable. Jesus says roughly that to the Pharisees:

Matthew 23:25-26 ESV “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. (26) You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

And I think the advice in generally sound. But, sometimes people’s desire to be like Jesus is evidence that the Holy Spirit is already working on the inside and they need something to do to actualize the potential God is putting there.

First, a passage from Proverbs:

Proverbs 24:30-31 ESV I passed by the field of a sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense, (31) and behold, it was all overgrown with thorns; the ground was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down.

What the passage is getting at is that the sluggard won’t even care for his own property. And the problem with the sluggard is a spiritual problem. But it would seem that taking care of the outside, the literal outside of his house (his field), might help his inside. And Proverbs does mention something like that:

Proverbs 24:27 ESV Prepare your work outside; get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house.

The meaning is very practical, but it may have a spiritual application as well.

If so, for some Christians, especially young men and women, maybe the first steps in discipleship might really be things like:

  1. Clean your apartment.
  2. Clean out your car.
  3. Change your oil.
  4. Get out of debt.
  5. Get to work/class on time.
  6. Groom yourself.

One somebody turns their life into something resembling order, it might be easier to help them overcome something like despair, arrogance, porn, or anxiety.

On the sissyness of Christian advice.

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Often, advice from successful Christian men and women boils down to platitudes that sound spiritual, but reflect neither wisdom nor what those very people did to become successful.

Here are things I heard in sermons to college students when I was in college or that I heard when I asked for advice:

  1. Ask God for guidance.
  2. Listen and see what God tells you to do.
  3. Your early twenties is a good time to spend yourself on volunteer work (usually the mission cause of the agency represented by the preacher) because you won’t have time when you’re older.
  4. Just wait on God.
  5. Don’t worry about that kind of thing, God will provide.

When somebody reads that list, they are likely to think, “Of course that makes sense, it’s all good advice.”

I call foul.

I think evangelical Christianity is so influenced by this very language that we often cannot even tell that what we’re saying makes no sense.

If a young Christian man asks an older Christian man a question like, “How can I make more friends?” He’s obeying Scripture when it says, “with many counselors there is victory.” He’s probably asking because he feels lonely or gets picked on often and he sees the man he asks as successful and likable. But many people, instead of giving advice based on their own experience say the silly nonsense I mentioned above, even though the man who was asked does things like dresses well, makes interesting conversations, listens to others, and has masculine body language.

Similarly, somebody who is wondering what to major in is often told to pray about it and listen to the Lord to find his calling, even though the Bible never says that God will tell you what to major in, in college. The Bible does say, to “pray for wisdom” (James 1:5) and to gain skill in order to be successful (Proverbs 22:29).

Anyway, Christianese is usually not biblical and is almost never helpful. Don’t give it and don’t believe it when you hear it. Also, try asking better questions like, “what did you do to get ‘x'” or “if you were me, what would you do differently to achieve ‘y’.”