Amusing Note

It is amusing that God puts Proverbs 18:21 “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof” and Proverbs 18:22 “Whosoever findeth a wife fineth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord” side by side in the Word of God. The tongue is used when the man proposes to the girl. He asks her to marry him, and that is the proper way for it to be done; and death and life are in the power of the tongue. It is like the story of the old bachelor who had never met a woman whom he wanted to marry because he thought they all talked too much. He found what society, using an unkind word, called an old maid, one who seemed very quiet. He fell in love with her and asked her to marry him. The minute she accepted the proposal, she started talking. She talked about where they would go and how they would fix their house and on and on. Suddenly after an hour or so she realised that she was doing all the talking and that he was quiet. “Why don’t you say something?” she asked. He answered, I’ve said too much already!” – I have proposed! – Proverbs 18:22 “Whosoever findeth a wife fineth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord.”

From the Lord

Proverbs 19:14 “House and riches are the inheritance of fathers: and a prudent wife is from the Lord” (KJV). – Any man, worthy or not, may inherit the property from Progenitors; any man may bargain for a wife, or give a dowry to his son to further his matrimonial prospects. But a prudent wife is a gift of God, a proof of His gracious care for His people (Proverbs 18:22). Septuagint states: “It is by the Lord that a man is matched with a woman.” There is a special Providence that watches over wedlock (Malachi 2:13-17); as we say, “Marriages are made in Heaven.” But marriages of convenience, marriage made in consideration of worldly means, are a mere earthly arrangement, and cannot claim God’s Grace.

A prudent wife is from the LORD is emphatic. It implies that this gift is beyond both comparison and contriving. A good wife is necessary for the establishment of a happy home. She is not acquired, however, as are other possessions which may be worked for or inherited. She is always to be treasured as a Gift from The LORD.

The account of Ruth’s life beautifully illustrates God’s Providence in the Marriage. The Moabites married, contrary to all expectation, of that times, an Israelite. In this way she was brought into Naomi’s family. She had returned with Naomi to her (Naomi’s) land and then came to the attention of Boaz, who became Ruth’s husband. Often the wheels of the LORD’s working in this interesting matter constrain the admiration of men who are not used to observing spiritual matters (Genesis 24:50). And how much more endearing and secure is the Special Gift of God! – A Wife! Thus, a prudent wife is honoured as “a special blessing of God’s immediate choosing, and therefore to be obtained by our prayers at the hand of the Giver” (Bishop Hall).

Husband’s Crown

Proverbs 12:4a “A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.” A virtuous woman one whose portrait is beautifully traced in Proverbs 31:10-31. The term is applied to Ruth (Ruth 3:11). The Vulgate renders “diligent.” Virtuous (hayil), when relating to men, especially soldiers, means “strength.”  Referring to a wife, it designates the womanly virtues, effectualness in the home and nobility of character, viz:

• Graciousness – Proverbs 11:16 “A gracious woman retaineth honour, and strong men retain riches.” The comparison intimates that what strength is to man in maintaining his wealth, grace is to woman for securing her position and influence. This is a “finger-post,” directing woman in her weakness to the place where her great strength lies. The winsome will win her way. The adaptation of the feminine character to be the companion and complement of man is one of the best-defined examples of that designing wisdom which pervades Creation.
• Wisdom – Proverbs 14:1 “Ever wise woman buildeth her house, but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.”
• Virtuous – The root idea of strength and worth. The modern phrase, “she has a lot in her,” expresses something of the meaning.

The expression means one of power either in mind or body, or both. The same idea is contained in the virtue. Such woman is not simply loving and modest and loyal but is a crown to her husband; is an honour to him, adorns and beautifies his life, making, as it were, a joyous festival. Paul (1Thessalonians 2:19) calls his converts “a crown of glorying.” She delights in seeing her husband honoured, respected, and loved; prudent in the management of her family (Proverbs 31:10-31). She is immovable in affection (Titus 2:4); Conscientious in the carrying out of her domestic responsibilities (Proverbs 31:27-28); kind and considerate to all around her (Proverbs 31:20, 26), and as the root of all, Fearing the LORD (Proverbs 31:30). She is not the ring on her husband’s finger, or the chain of gold around his neck. That is far too low. She is his crown; his brightest ornament; drawing the eyes of all upon him, as eminently honoured and blessed – Proverbs 31:23 “Her husband is known in the gates, (place of honour in the city), when he sitteth among the elders of the land.” Her husband is honoured because of her.

The allusion is to the crown worn by the bridegroom at his marriage, or to the garlands worn at feasts. The Sons of the Sirach has much praise for the virtuous woman: “Blessed is the man that hath a good wife, for the number of his days shall be double. A virtuous woman rejoices her husband, and he shall fulfil their years of his life in peace” (Ecclus 26:1-2).

The virtuous wife is an important influence in the happiness in the home. The word is literally “a woman of power (character-positive aspect), and the idea of force lies in the word and idea of virtue (asset). Her moral character and influence make itself felt in all the life of her household. She is her husbands’ glory and pride. The central figure in wisdom’s home is the virtuous woman. She is possessed with a moral power that manifests itself in her godly character and domestic activity. The crown, or garland, is an emblem of renown. She bestows honour upon her husband!!! – Proverbs 18:22 “Whosoever findeth a wife fineth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord.”  & Proverbs 19:14 “House and riches are the inheritance of fathers: and a prudent wife is from the LORD.”  

Variety of Ministration

The wife is not the counterpart of the husband, but the complement. Human nature is completed in the union of the man and his wife. Therefore, it is not the part of the women to imitate men, nor is inferiority to be assigned to women because they differ from men. The rich, full, perfect human life is attained by the blending and not the competing of differences.

Happy Home

No life can be more beautiful than that of the happy home. The serious question is how it shall be realised:

• The LORD First – Marriage must be ratified in heaven (Malachi 2:13-17). Its happiness may be wrecked on so many hidden rocks that it is not safe to venture on to the unknown sea without the assurance that God is in the marriage and is guiding the voyage.
• Adaptation – Every woman is not suitable for every man. Hasty courtships may lead to miserable marriages. So serious a matter as the choice of companion for life is not to be lightly undertaken it there is to be any hope of its issuing in happiness.
• Mutual Confidence – There must be mutual confidence between husband and wife if the marriage is to be one of true and lasting blessedness. Whatever be their position in the social scale, it is possible for conceding the fullest mutual confidence.
• • Self-Sacrifice – Selfishness is fatal to marriage. Love must learn to give, to suffer, to endure. The happiness is most complete when each seeks it chiefly for the other. Ogden Nash gave advise on how to make marriage a success in a little poem that he wrote:

To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right shut up.

Good Thing

Proverbs 18:22 (KJV) “Whosoever findeth a wife fineth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord.” What is good implies godliness. Godliness is found when the man marries in the Lord and one who is the Lord.” Manoah found a good thing in his wife (Judges 13:23). A Writer comments: “that Manoah could speak so loud that all our Israelites could hear him, about the goodness of his wife.” The “good thing” is:

• When the husband honours her, not as the wisest or the holiest of women, but as the person, whom God sees to be the best and fittest for him. She becomes his object of his undivided heart – “One flesh” (Genesis 2:24).
• Mutual faith is plighted in the Lord Jesus. Such a communion acknowledges His (God’s) affections and elevates Him (God) from earth to heaven.
• As an answered to prayer (Genesis 24) – “Choose thou mine inheritance for me” (Psalm 47:4) – is the cry and confidence of the child of God. Then assuredly, he will receive the wife, not as a result of good fortune, or as the proof of his own good discernment; but, as Adam received his wife, “from the LORD,” a token of God’s favour.
• The good thing is displayed in her skill in the management of domestic affairs – Proverbs 31:11-12“The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good, and not evil, all the days of her life.”  – Their financial affairs (Proverbs 31:13-22). She is loved and appreciated by her husband and her children (Proverbs 31:28).
• The good sense that makes her an agreeable Partner and directs her to that kind of attitude which makes her husband happy (blessed) in this connection. To these qualities, if piety be added, it renders her a far greater blessing (favour) than any possessions that husband can obtain. We are to thank God for every outward enjoyment, but chiefly for those in which His favourable providence is most plainly shown in the person of a wife. A wife is a rich present from God her husband is bound to show her all that respect and kindness which God requires. Whatever character a wife deserves, God commands her husband to love her, but when a wife is prudent, the husband would be inexcusable who do not love her with the tender affection.
• Proverbs 18:22 ““Whosoever findeth a wife fineth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord,” the wording, especially in the Hebrews, strikingly resembles that of Proverbs 8:35 “Whosoever findeth Me (God) findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord,” and so suggests that after wisdom itself, the best of God’s blessing is a good wife. Proverbs 31:10 makes a similar comparison, putting her price, like wisdom (Proverbs 8:11), above rubies. Good = literally, “a boon (benefit).”

If a man desires to have a wife, he must acknowledge God by earnest supplications; for He alone know the hearts of men and women and exercises a Sovereign influence over their affections. God declares that a prudent wife is a far richer gift than those things which are so much valued by the generality of men (Proverbs 31:10).

To be continued. Stay Tuned……

The Companionship of Love

The Creation of woman is ascribed to the need of this “And the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). In a marriage a man’s wife is his best friend. Fellowship of soul makes the union more than a mere contract of external relationship. Now, this fellowship is greatly needed for solace amid the cares of life, and strength to face its difficulties. The wife is able to give it to her husband, and the husband to his wife, as no persons in the outer circle of social relationship can hope to offer it.

Mutual Helpfulness

In the narrative of the Creation, God says, concerning Adam, “I will make him a help meet for him” (Genesis 2:18). The wife who understands the Christian calling will aim at ministering to her husband in all ways of helpfulness that are within her power, but chiefly in helping his walks with God and the duty of her husband towards the wife will be similar.

• Help – The word for “help” (exer) is used for both help and helper. It is used nineteen times in the Old Testament and fourteen times it alludes to God as our Help (Helper – Psalm 70:5). The word means: “surrounding, defending, girding, helping, succouring.” Man must have a help meet (wife), one sufficient for him, not an inferior aid, for this word “help,” as we have seen, is used fourteen times of God.
• Meet – The word for “meet” (neged) means the front part, the front, or over against, opposite to each other, those who answer to each other (accountability), who are alike.  Placed before Adam, his wife in whom he could recognise his own likeness, his reflected image, one who would correspond to him in every way, succouring and aiding, entirely identified with him. The Syriac translation is “a help similar to him.”
• Rib (Tsela), translated “rib” in Genesis 2:21, 22, in the plural is translated beams (as in the ribs of building). It is used of a side of a man, or inanimate things such as the tabernacle, altar, side chambers, cells of the temple, of the whole of that part of the temple comprising three stories (Ezekiel 41:5, 9, 11; Ezekiel 41:9), it is word used for space between the two walls of the temple, intended for these chambers. This is the reason, no doubt, why the Septuagint used the Greek word “pleura,” the lining membrane surrounding the ribs, lungs and heart. The rendering “rib” has its origin in the rabbinical writings. How could Adam says, “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” if only a little bone such as a rib had been taken from him?”

What Adam needed was God’s Creation after his own kind. We read that God took one of Adam’s ribs and from this rib made, a woman. When the Hebrews word “tsela” is translated rib it conveys a more limited idea than the Hebrew original. The word is never translated “rib” except in the Genesis account, but always “side,” or “flank.”

This is the true meaning also of the Latin word by which it is rendered in the Vulgate costa as shown in the French côte and our coast…….Woman was not framed out of one of  Adam’s many ribs, of which he would not feel the lost. She is one side of man; and though he may have several sides to his nature and character, yet without woman one integral portion of him is wanting.

Closed up the flesh instead thereof, literally, “closed up the flesh under it,” that is, in its place. This does not mean that man now has flesh where before he had this “side,” but that a cavity was prevented by the drawing of the flesh on the two edges close together, Metaphysically it means that man has no compensation for what was abstracted from him, except in the woman, who is the one side of his nature which he has lost;……She is something  which he once had, but has lost, and while for Adam there is simply the closing of the cavity, the woman is moulded and refashioned and built up into man’s counterpart. She brings back more than the man parted with, and the Creator Himself leads her by the hand to her husband. Note the following comments:

• Porter – “Man when alone is incomplete” (Porter, Dr. Footnote Kitto, J.: Daily Bible Illustration, Morning Series, p.172).
• Matthew Henry – “The woman was not made out of his head to top him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him.” (Matthew Henry: An Exposition of the Old and New Testament {London, Frederick Westley & A. H. Davis} 1836, Vol.1, p.12, note 4).
• Otto Von Gerlach – “In the case of the animals, both sexes could be created side by side; in the case of man, however, where marriage is intended to be a communion of soul in the service of God – where the education and training of the fruits of marriage for God’s service and kingdom, the ordering and governance of the house and of the earth, formed a main part of the task imposed – there must be  the origin of the woman to point to the indissoluble union by which two persons become one until their life’s end. The woman taken out of the man (and out of that part of him which lay nearest to his heart), in order to show that this union of soul in love extended to the unity of the flesh likewise – embraced all…….and was indissoluble.”  (Ott Von Gerlach: Commentary on the Pentateuch (Edinburgh, T & T Clark), 1860, p.56).
• Bishop Wordworth – He describes Eve as: “a helpmate exactly adapted to his moral and spiritual nature; literally ‘a help as over against him, before him,’ so as to ‘meet’ him, fully and ‘correspond’ to him as his counterpart…….” (Wordworth, Chr.: The Holy Bible with Notes and Introductions {Lond, Rivingtons}, 1880, Vol,1. P.17).

It was God who, with what He took from man, made literally built and created, woman (Genesis 2:22). The outcome of God’s creative act was marriage and the fruit of that union, the family. Woman was not made out of the dust of the ground, as Adam was, but by a separate, creative act which has no parallel in history. Matthew Henry commented: “Man being made last of the creatures, as the best and most excellent of all, Eve’s being made after Adam, and out of him, puts an honour upon that sex, as the glory of the man (1Corinthians 11:7). If man is the head, she is the crown; a crown to be husband, the crown of the visible creation. The man was dust refined, but the woman was dust double-refined, one removes further from the earth.”

To be continued……. Stay Tune.

Scripture:

Proverbs 18:22 “Whosoever findeth a wife fineth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord.”  & Proverbs 19:14 “House and riches are the inheritance of fathers: and a prudent wife is from the LORD.”  

Wife-Place

Woman’s place is important; God has made it so and made her fit for filling it. Man is incomplete without her there is a vacuum about him which she alone can fill. It is here that her great strength lies. When she assumes an independent or rival place, she mistakes her mission and her power.

Man, though made for the throne of the world, was found unfit for the final investiture until he got his wife as a help meet. She became the completion of his capacity and title – she becomes his crown – Proverbs 12:4a “A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.” Wife should find her place that God has given her; let her be what He made her necessary to husband, and not attempt to make herself independent of her husband. When the relations of Husband and wife move in fittings of truth and love, the working of the complicated machinery of life is a wonder to an observing husband, and a glory of the Creator God.

Septuagint – A good wife is meant (as the Septuagint has it), a virtuous, prudent helpmate, as in Proverbs 12:4a “A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband” – Fineth grace = viz peace, union, plenty, order. “And obtaineth favour (good will) of the LORD” = as shown by the companion (consort) whom God has given him. Favour is rendered by the Septuagint as “cheerfulness,” “joyousness” (Proverbs 19:12b “King’s favour ……like dew upon the grass”).   

Ecclus xxvi.1 “Blessed is the man that hath a good wife, for the number of his days shall be double.” “A virtuous woman rejoiceth her husband, and he shall fulfil the years of his life in peace. A good wife is a good portion which shall be given in the portion of them that fear the LORD. 

Talmud – “A good wife, says the Talmud, “is a good gift; she shall be given to a man that feareth God.”

(Dukes, p.69) And again, “God did not make woman from a man’s head that she should rule over him; nor from his feet, that she should not be his slave; but from his side, that she should be near his heart”

Latin – “He who casteth away a good wife casteth away a good thing (cheerfulness, joyousness – Septuagint; Proverbs 19:12b “King’s favour……like dew upon the grass”).

Parallel Bible Commentary – “A good wife is a gift from Yahweh (Jehovah). It is not blind chance that brings such a blessed union. She is one of the highest expressions of the LORD’s favour.”

The blessedness of finding a wife – The Bible does not regard marriage as “a failure,” nor does it treat celibacy as a saintly condition. Even Paul, the Apostle, who does not seem to have been a married man, and who is thought by some to undervalue marriage, gives to it a eulogium is describing the union of husband and wife as a copy of the mystical union of Christ and His Church (Ephesians 5:22-32):

To be continued….. Stay Tuned.