It should be translated, but even in death the righteous seek a refuge in God. Now I came to that conclusion from my own word study of this word, Khazah, it always means seek refuge in God. And I was delighted with the most standard theological dictionary as a large multi-volume work, and that dictionary came to the same conclusion I did. I also noted other scales have come to the same conclusion I did, this word occurs 37 times. And when you go all the way through it, it always means to seek a refuge in death. The righteous seek a refuge in God, even in clinical death, that's a hope. Now without that kind of faith, we cannot please God, Romans chapter 4. There are other Proverbs, Proverbs chapter 23, verses 17 and 18, Proverbs 23, verses 17 and 18. Do not let your heart envy sinners, but always be zealous for the fear of the Lord. There is surely an aherit, and I think rightly, a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off. Again, Proverbs chapter 24, verses 19 and 20, do not fret because of evil men, or the envious of the wicked, for the evil men has no future hope by contrast, and the lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out. We have a future hope. So it's the truth. Now when you look at it, it's often true, say the way of saying about probabilities, there's a large element of truth, it's usually true, but not always true, but it's in our experience, but it will be true in the end. In the final statement, it is the truth, but you must live by faith. If you end with Jesus on the cross, the book of Proverbs is not true. If you end with Easter Sunday and the resurrection of Christ, who for the joys that was set before it, this book is true, but you have to have faith. That's why it says, trust in the Lord with all your heart, so he says, do it entirely. You can count on it, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Now, I talked about faith and different degrees of faith, and what's important is not the amount of faith so much as it is the thickness of the ice that talked about that last night, and I use another illustration for this because it's a cross from one of my colleagues when I taught at Dallas, his grandfather came from the Swansea River area, and he had never gone to the far north, and he was up in the northern Pennsylvania along the Susquehanna, but the river really feels freezes over into thick ice, but he had never experienced that. So he got there, and he went across the river. He had heard you can walk on water when it's at that state, but he wasn't sure about it. So he got down in all four, and he put out his left hand, and he put out his right hand, finally he screwed up his courage, pulled out his left knee, and his right knee had all fours out there on the ice, started crawling across it, and he heard a rumbling sound behind him. And here came, down the bank, came four horses, dragging a wagon, and the farmer on the wagon just charged on the ice, and up the other side, and there was his grandfather, down in all four, and I thought, isn't that a parable off the way Christians go through life, because some of us were just about out there, were there all right, were living by faith, but you know, and others, they just barnstorming the whole thing, they're doing great things. That's what it means, do it with all your heart, and do it exclusively, do not lean on your own understanding, and when you make judgments in life as I comment the left knife out of fear, let your own understanding, whatever is not a faith, is sin. And finally he says, do it exhaustively, in all your ways, in all your ways, know him, experience him, as you venture the life of faith. So it's so consistent with all of scripture, it demands the life of faith. All right, we'll have time for questions afterward, we've been going here an hour, and I think we should take a break maybe, or do you want, yeah, I think it's the break time, isn't it? Dan, you should we take a break, or should we have some questions now, what is your sense of things? Well, Ken, what do you say, Ken? Ken. Okay, if I say question, Ken. Yeah, it's very clear, for example, chapter 24 tells us not to gloat over the sufferings of another person. In fact, that proverb says that if you gloat and rejoice in another person's suffering, God will not bring, God will delay the judgment on the person because gloating is worse than the wickedness in that proverb. These passages where you have God laughing at sinners, as you have it in chapter 10, I will laugh at the time of the judgment and so forth. They are the laughter of victory when righteousness prevails. That is to say, almost very well, you get God laughing, enjoy, and victory. It's because righteousness finally triumphs, and the battle is so lopsided, it's ludicrous, and it's sort of like in go of his travels with the real reputians, when he was shipwrecked off the island of Liverpool, and he ends up on the grassy knoll and he wakes up about ten in the morning and he feels like something on his slide. He looks down, he sees the ladder there, and he sees these little people coming up, and then he feels something on his left leg and he looks down, and here comes this little real reputian, and he is one thing and they are bigger than all the others, and he stands in the middle and he discovers his lots of hair, pegged down with little pegs in his hands of stretched out and strings across each finger, and he realizes he can pull the whole thing up and just go, and be done with it. It's ludicrous, and that's kind of the idea of these passages, it's ludicrous, that the tutu tutu tamper and toy with God is just folly, and the victory will be so lopsided it's almost comical. It is the triumph of victory for righteousness, but at the same time you hold that intention. I think we had joy when Sodom Hussein was destroyed, for example, or wish he had been destroyed. There was a joy of victory there, but my son fought in the Persian Gulf War and he had great compassion for the Iraqi soldiers, he says that, that he just felt badly for those soldiers. The mixed emotions of victory and your compassion, don't know if that helps or not. He takes pleasure in righteousness prevailing, when finally righteousness is done. You read Revelation 6, O Lord, how long until justice prevails, when you have your tongue ripped out and you see all the injustice, how long does this go on, and this joy when finally God is honored, and righteousness prevails, and the kingdom is good, and God is good. You see, if in the administration the people run riot, it calls the administration into question. It calls into a question the administration's ability to govern. This was one of the big problems in the 60s during the Johnson administration when the people were running riot, burning down cities, and all kinds of disobedience and disorder. It called the whole administration into question, and it calls God's administration into question today for many people, they don't fear because it doesn't seem to be justice. And we celebrate for evangelistic reasons and for the glory of God reasons. We celebrate when finally God's righteous kingdom expresses itself, but at the same time we have compassion, this is the day of salvation. We do not gloat, and we pray for the salvation that sin is, this attention, isn't it? All right, we'll take a break here, and then we'll take it up from there. It's a bit more demanding of us, and I want to try to introduce you to some of the latest techniques in reading scripture, and that helped us to understand, and came up a couple of times about women in the book of Proverbs, so I thought, well, I'll try to guide you into a Bible study on the valiant wife in Proverbs chapter 31, verses 1 through 10. And we should have in hand the lecture for the valiant wife, and I make exegetical comment first, and then I look at how it is structured. And then in that light, we will see the message. I'll also talk briefly about the form of the valiant wife. What I've given you is my own translation, and I put into brackets the NIV, so you could make a comparison between a more literal translation and the NIV. Let me just explain briefly about translations to you, it troubles many people, all these translations we have. All translations are good, and they're all faithful. What I mean by that is all but, for example, the Jehovah-Witten's Bible, the New World Bible that is not good, and it is not accurate, it has its own theological axe to grind. But all others that I know of, in English versions, they're all good, and they're all adequate. By which I mean, they all achieve the message God wants to get across. All translations will bring you to Christ, all translations will edify the church without exception, they will all do that. No translation is precise, exactly the same, it's impossible. When I'm teaching, I'm hoping you understand what I'm saying, but I'm well aware you don't understand me perfectly, it's impossible. But the question is, I've one time had a student and he said to me, Bruce, did anybody understand the prophets? And I said, well enough to kill them, they got the message, that was adequate. They differ, translations differ, because they are aimed at different groups and different intentions. If you want a very literal translation, use an interlinear, it's not one I want to read. There's a very fine translation, 1938, called the Basic English Translation. It was done for students at Cambridge and Oxford for whom English was a second language. They reduced the entire vocabulary to 800 words, it was brilliant to achieve and to do it, because the students had a limited English vocabulary, faithful, adequate, not a translation I want to use. If I were engaged in a Bible class, Bible study, I think I would choose the New American Standard Bible, but myself I don't care for the English. I think the best translation for good English translation now, because it's English, for seventh grade, and the NIV was designed for 12-year-old seventh grade, tested on the streets. The New American Standard tested in the classroom is not passed until the 11th grade. The King James is not passed, the student does not pass a comprehension test now until 12th grade when they had some Shakespeare. They saw for a person who's 50 years of age and older, I would say, used the King James. That's what I grew up with, I still called it, I still think it, that's what I grew up with. But it's not good for children, it's not the language. So all translations are good and adequate, they're reaching different target groups, they have different objectives, but they're trying to achieve. Well, the NASB was to be for an expositor and exegesis, and it's very good for that, and I worked on it. For good English, I don't think you can beat the New International version, so maybe that's helpful for you to understand how translations work. Now this translation that I'm giving you, I'm trying to help you to get a little bit deeper into the text, so I begin with a valiant wife. And the reason that I take it valiant is that I will argue that she's presented as a warrior, and I'll give you the reasons for that. In the second part, I talk about as heroic poem, and the vocabulary used for the valiant wife is heroic. And actually, I found out later, this translation, valiant wife, is very close to the Old King James, because the Old King James, virtuous woman, which the older folk I used to, a virtuous wife, a virtuous woman, the Old English, in King James English, virtuous means basically strong, manly, it comes from the Latin word there, which means man, and that's what virtuous meant, it meant strong, it didn't have the bottom English connotation, and so really, I do not, we'll really differ from the King James, if we understand the King James, the problem is, we've known to understand the King James sometimes. So anyway, I'll translate the hyalur, I should, I should hyalur, you can see this is an acrostic poem, and it follows through the Hebrew alphabet, you have 22 verses, and it's following the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, so the first word is alith in the second word is batach for trust and so forth, bet. A valiant wife, and Ivey has a wife of noble character, who can find, and of course, it entails her scarcity, and in the law of supply and demand, if something is scarce, it's extremely precious, and so he makes it clear, her price is far beyond, and probably the opinion in Hebrew means corals, but that no longer is valuable, in Solomon's age, King William and his mother, corals was a very precious substance, rubies would not, as yet known, rubies don't appear on the scene until the sixth century for the first time, and nevertheless, a dynamic equivalent is rubies for something that's pink, reddish, and very valuable, that's why the translations go with rubies, but in the Hebrew, it doesn't communicate right if you say corals, doesn't sound very valuable to us anymore, a price is far beyond corals, the heart of a husband, then the heart of a husband, and the word husband means lord, that's the word, bow, the heart of her husband trusts in her, and I give you a note there, that is most exceptional when you first read it, it seems faint to us, so we trust in her, until you realize the scriptures tell you never to trust in human beings, only trust in God, this is one of the very few occasions where you trust another human being, this only one other occasion when that occurs, and I give you that in the note, and that's in Judges chapter 20, where one portion of the army trusted another, and I quote from the, perhaps the finest lexicon of the Old Testament, word studies, is the theological lexicon of the Old Testament, and this scholar writes, the object that is trust in her is remarkable, because elsewhere in scripture, except Judges 20, 36, trust in anyone or anything a part of the Lord carries an upper brim to it, it's to be rejected, one can successfully place confidence only in the Lord, no other entity can be an ultimate object of trust, he's exactly right, but here is the highest accolade you could have of this woman, that her husband trusts in her, or has full confidence, the heart of a husband trusts in her, the NIV, her husband has full confidence in her, and what you cannot capture in a translation, footnote 2, notice what the Hebrew is, here's the Hebrew, which you can translate, but talk, blah, lab, blah, blah, for the bait line, that makes it memorable, but no translation captured, that's kind of subtlety, but you ought to be aware that that's there in the original text, the heart of a husband trusts her, and now note, he does not lack spoil, plunder, it's a military term, the Hebrew word shagallikers, 85 times, always means the spoils of war, now the NIV doesn't translate that because people wouldn't understand that, they don't expect it, because he does not lack plunder, you wonder about it, now I might argue for plunder, I haven't come to this yet, we're going to make my proposals for the revision of the NIV, I'm not sure what I'll do here, what I'll propose this or not, but that's what it says, she is likened to a warrior who was bringing plunder in her victories, you know what I mean? She does him good, not evil, or all the days apart of my life, now we begin her activity, she selects diligently and she selects it, I give you a note from a German commenter, the best commenter on problems is by the skull of minehold, 1991, the wool he says has to be weighed, combed, and washed, the flax had to soak in water and afterwards dried, pieces of bark and wood were removed, the fibers obtained were pulled with crooked blunt hooks, called heckling, the split and arranged the fibers, short fibers were removed as toe, so there you have her selecting the raw materials for her textile industry, this is hard diligent work, and this is a very wealthy woman. What you discover is that there was not a leisure class, there was not a class of just wealthy, the matriarchs were wealthy, but they tended cheap, and it's very instructive, this woman is engaged in hard, vigorous work, she becomes like trading vessels, this is a car, I think the enemy does well here, like a merchant ship, she brings her food, from afar, I give you a note on that, that is the multitude and capacity and atmosphere far away countries points to quantity, exquisite taste and singularity, she's unique, and now I had to put something in, she arises while it is still night, now it's not very smart to go to bed at night and stay up late at night and get up while it's still dark, I mean that is not wisdom, the Lord gives us if he loves it when sleep, and the key to this is the next line she provides and the Hebrew word here always means pray, it's an animal term, I gather there for when it says she arises while it's still dark, she is being likened to a lioness who seeks the prey early in the morning, first thing, so you can't take it at face value because a woman, a conscience is woman would be up while it's before dark and while it's still dark and going to bed late until the night, which doesn't make any sense, it's this figurative language, she arises like a lioness, I will argue for that, while it is still night, la la, and provides pray for a household, I say it's heroic, military language, and the quota of food she supplies for her slave girls, she considers a field and purchases it out of the fruit of her palms, and I have to be careful here because to understand how it's put together, I have the word hand, we have no, the Hebrew word the hand has no equivalent in Hebrew in English, the Hebrew word the hand is from your elbow to your fingertip, you have bracelets on your hand in Hebrew, this is the calf, this is the palm, and in all translations you call both hand, but I have to make this distinction, so when she, from the fruit of her palms, I'm talking about this now, that part of what we call the hand, she plants a vineyard, the N.I.B. really glossed it out of her own earnings, but no, from the fruit of her palms, and remember it was her palms that was selecting the woolen, making the woolen the flex, and from that cottage industry she's now expanding, and she's now entrepreneurially investing in the most valuable land, as I said last night, which is vineyard, she guards her loins again, a military term probably, with strength, now the N.I.B. will never translate that because that's not an English idiom, who guards their loins today, nobody guards their loins, it's just not English, so we don't translate it, but that's what it says, she pulls up her toga and her gown and wraps it in her belt, but she guards her loins, with strength, and I translate here to bind this loins with strength, that means to get ready for some kind of heroic and or physical, strenuous undeclated, such as hard running, it's used for the escape from Egypt, for any kind of hard physical flavor.
Going back to verse 17, she strengthens her arms for the task arms now from the elbow on. She proceeds or tastes the N.I.B. has seized, but she tastes it, that her trading is good, that is she gets energy, you can tell what you are by what gives you energy, what you enjoy, I never get tired from teaching, my wife doesn't understand that, but I come away from teaching totally refreshed, my wife is utterly worn out, now we go to a flower show, my wife, she just gets chatty, talkative, I love to go to flower shows with my wife, but my problem is I'm trying to learn all the Latin names, and I can wait out of it for teeny drone, no, not another plant, you see you can tell and she gets energy from her entrepreneurial work, she just loves it, she sees that a trading is good, and now when it says, her lamp does not go out at night, it means her lamp of prosperity, it doesn't mean she stays up late at night, it means it never goes out, and I give you a footnote, I'll explain that in, and the ancient at least, this is footnote 9, in a well-ordered house, the lamp burned all night as a sign of life, its extension marked calamity, when one's lamp goes out at night, this is one star, the idiom signifies poverty, here's an Arabic proverb, he sleeps in the dark, that it means, he has no money, so when it says, her lamp does not go out at night, it means her prosperity is never extinguished, she's very successful, her hands she holds out with a doubling spindle, I'm being very technical for the best kind of thread, her palms grasp the spindle, her palm she spreads out to the poor, a hand she holds out to the needy, for notice how one thing in my, notice here, you notice the yod in Hebrew, diteed, yod means hand, hence her hand, cough means palm, yod, cough, y, k, cough means cough, so her palm, 21, for her household she is not afraid on a kind of snow, I took it word for word, for all the household is clothed with scarlet, cover that she makes for itself, a clothing is fine linen, and purple, that means purple is never used with linen, it's usually white, purple means the wool, dyed purple, she selects wool and clacks, so I put in there wool dyed with purple, a husband is respected at the city gate, when he sits with the elders of the land, garments, this is our Hebrew word satin, satin and Hebrew, she makes and sells them, sashes she supplies to the merchants, her clothing is straight and majesty, and so she laughs triumphantly, military turb, at the days to come, the pale line, her mouth, she opens with wisdom and loving instruction is on the tongue, as she's one who watches over, and the Hebrew word here is the Greek word for wisdom, Sophia, which suggests the poem is quite late, one watches over, or she watches over the affairs of the household, the food of idleness she does not eat, verse 28, her sons arise and pronounce her blessed on 28, you'll notice I have a footnote on arise, look at Job 29, this is the highest honor you can give her, but she steps into the room, the children stand up, Job says when I stepped into the gate, the people stood up in honor, and that's what this means, they stand up in her honor in her presence to give her respect, her sons arise and pronounce her blessed, her husband also arises, stands up for her, and this is the word hallelujah, you hear hallelujah, it sounds like almost as the highest praise you can give, he is really looting his wife for her accomplishments, and he says many daughters do valiantly matching up the hyile at the beginning, but you, this is the military term, you surpass all of them, charm is deceitful, I explain that, beauty is deceit, because well I don't explain it here, but it's deceitful, because it promises you a lifetime of happiness, but the truth is beauty less a very short period of time, so it's deceitful, it promises far more than it delivers and explains it, and beauty is fleeting, now you have to read all this song or all the Proverbs, Proverbs chapter 5, the Father praise that the Son will have a, what's the word I want, a mate that is totally satisfied sexually, and that's what he prays for his Son, chapter 5 is that he'll have a wife that satisfies him sexually, so you have to hold that together with this particular verse, as for a wife who reps his hyile in his shop who fears the Lord, and that's the key to everything I say in a footnote, fear the Lord is the key of his success, because she succeeds at the altar, she succeeds in the field, get that right, you got everything right, but a wife who fears the Lord she should be praised,
extol her, a most unusual word only used in heroic hymns of praise of victory, extol her for the fruit of her hands, and let her words praise her in the gates, well I think you can see a very careful exegesis gets you a bit deeper into the text and a little better understanding of this very famous poem in the Bible, and I hope you find the translation helpful. I now try to show that this is heroic poetry and what's the significance of it, that she's likened to a warrior. The word translated a shithile, virtuous woman, means valiant, note the vocabulary we've seen, plunder, pray, stretches out a hand, rats and victories, surpasses, these are all military terrors. Many many references are to her strength, in heroic poetry you characterize action, nothing is said about inner feelings, or physical beauty, or physical appearance, she celebrates a member of the aristocratic clans, extol is found only in heroic poetry, says this Jewish scholar, the heroism of the battlefield is transposed in this case to a woman's vita activa in home and community, scholars like to throw Latin in, it means her activity, but anyway, and here's from one of my students, a very outstanding student ahead at Westminster who worked on this poem, she's now president of a college, and here's the comments as she went through this and saw that this is heroic poetry. The author transfers the military imagery to this domestic sphere in order to present the godly wife as a spiritual heir of Israel's ancient heroes. In her own sphere, the woman has become a champion for those around her by her diligent application of wisdom. This is the point of the military imagery. The valorous white is a heroic figure used by god for the good of the people, just as ancient judges and kings did good for god's people by their martial exploits, she does good for her home and the community by her martial exploits in the home and the cottage industry. Well, that's the heroic poem. I hope you're getting a new insight and a new self-image in what it means from this famous famous poem in the Bible. I think you could see this, you know, it's like Augustine said, the Bible was shallow enough for a child to wait in the deep enough for an elephant to wait in it, and what you see in here is another level of Bible study and translation. Now we have, how is it put together? There's an introduction, there's a body, and there's a conclusion. The introduction pertains to her worth. A worth in general can be inferred from her scarcity, and you may want to keep, before you now, the translation where you can see her worth and verse well, her price is far above rubies, her worth in general is inferred, but in verses 11 and 12, it is her worth to a husband, both relational and financial, relational in that he trusts her. This is a solid relationship, that's relational, and financial. She doesn't good, no harm. She takes plunder everywhere to enrich the home, but now we have her itemized activities, and here we have what is known as alternating structure. First of all, her income from her cottage industry. She trades her surplus textile products. Notice the alternating parallelism, ABC, A prime, B prime, C prime. This is very, very normal. We saw it last night when we had five, six, seven, number, where we put together the, then you will understand, then we have the substance, the substance, because the Lord gives wisdom, and then we had protection, and we had, then you will understand, wisdom went to your heart, and then you have protection, ABC, A prime, B prime, C prime. That's exactly what you're getting here. Same thing again. Upon work, the raw textile products we saw, and then she trades to enrich the table. Now somewhere I gave you a note as to what the work of textile product was, but a whirling garment was equal to six months' wages. It's very, very valuable, and she is a real income provider. There's not the idea here that the man makes all the income in the home. The woman is part of the financial resource of the godly home. She trades to enrich the table, and she arises at nightly law to seek praise. Now note, A prime. She worked the raw textile products. Now she invests in a vineyard from the fruit of her palms, her palms worked it, and now she entrepreneurily invests it. She trades and she gains spiritual strength from her trading, and now the night again, she rises at night, that is to say, like a Ryanus and her lamp of prosperity never goes out at night. There are the sources of her income. Now we come to how it is expended. That takes me to the second part, Roman numeral 2. Her expenditures, her tangible contributions to family and community, and this is called a chaiastic structure. She spreads her palms to the poor, and that's parallel to A prime. She opens her mouth with wisdom looking after her household. B and B prime, she has no fear of snow. B prime, she rests at the future. In fact, that is exact opposite. If you look at the standard, if you do ex-Alexicon, laughter is the opposite of fear. C, her household is clothed and scarlet. C prime, the white is clothed with strength and dignity. D, the wife makes and is clothed in linen and scarlet. D, prime, she makes same expression and sells garment and sashes to make merchants. The point is the pivot. She frees a husband up so he can sit in the gate and take care of the public affairs. That's what this poem is teaching, that she provides some of the income so the husband can participate in the public life of the community as well. She is not only empowering herself, she is empowering a husband to do what he normally could not do. I talk about the chaiastic structure. There's other indications of this there that the structures have changed. I notice that you move from taking care of the poor, to taking care of children, taking care of self, but that the pivot is the husband and she's also providing goods for the merchants. But the pivot is that rest note to bene. She empowers a husband. The structure illuminates the value of life as a breadwinner through her cottage industry, empowering a husband to engage in public matters. Moreover, she finds for fulfillment and her competent production of income and wise expenditures. Now, one skull says, well, this leads the husband nothing to do. But the problem with the book is, but the problem with the book is, where is the wife in this whole book? You see, you've got to read the whole book. Notice, that's why I put this on here. We put down here, he established home on a solid economic foundation. It was to the husband establish out of doors your work and prepare in the fields for yourself. After doing that, then build your household. In other words, the husband has prepared the fields. He's established the whole economic framework for this thing. That's what the book has all been about, the husbands and sons. At the end, what does the wife do? Now, we get such a distortion. It seems as though the husband does nothing. Now, he's got to read the whole book. You see, then you get the full or the view of what the teaching is. He cares for the vineyard chapter 24. Remember, one by the field of the slugged, who didn't take care of his vineyard. He takes care of the vineyard. He takes care of the flocks chapter 27. So all the way through, we've had the man doing all these things, but at the end we discover he's not the sole breadwinner. The woman participates even the aristocratic woman because there's no end to the need of the poor. She's opening her arms to the poor and people are in need and the woman participates in it. The conclusion is the praise by her sons and by her husband and then finally by the community in general. Well, I'm sure that gives you a different viewpoint of this poem and raises all kind of questions. I hope the ways of thinking may be growing. All right, it's nine o'clock and we have a few moments for question times here. Yes, Betty. Yeah, I think that all of the book is giving us ideas. I mean, we don't hit, we don't hit a target until we know what we're heading for. You know, sort of like the fellow I read about and he was going through a hunting ground and he saw these bulls-eye bullet right through each one, right through the bulls-eye and all these different targets. He got back to the hunting lodge and said, who's the sharp shooter who puts everyone through the bulls-eye? And the guy says, it's I'm the guy. He said, I drew the bulls-eye after I shot.
You got to know what you aimed me for and what we're trying to achieve. Oh, yes, she's a real person. It's an ideal person. You see what the next book in the Hebrew, the next book in the Hebrew are Hebrew Bibles is Ruth. And what is she called? What is Boa says? All the people in the gate know that you are an ancient hyal, this word.