Proverbs 31:17

She girdeth her loins with strength ,.... Showing her readiness to every good work; and with what cheerfulness, spirit, and resolution, she set about it, and with what dispatch and expedition she performed it: the allusion is to the girding and tucking up of long garments, wore in the eastern countries, when any work was set about in earnest, which required dispatch; see Luke 17:8 ; the strength of creatures being in their loins, Job 40:16 ; the loins are sometimes put for strength, as in Plautus F18 "Lumbos defractos velim", Stichus, Act. 2. Sc. 1. v. 37. ; and the sense is much the same with what follows;

and strengtheneth her arms ; does all she finds to do with all her might and main, as the church does; not in her own strength, but in the strength of Christ; to whom she seeks for it, and in whose strength she goes forth about her business; by whom the arms of her hands are made strong, even by the mighty God of Jacob; and because she thus applies to him for it, she is said to do it herself, Genesis 49:24 ; here she plays the man, and acts the manly part, 1 Corinthians 16:13 .