Proverbs 12:4 - Exposition

A virtuous woman; one whose portrait is beautifully traced in Proverbs 31:1-31 . The term is applied to Ruth ( Ruth 3:11 ). The Vulgate renders, diligens ; Septuagint, ἀνδρεία . The expression means one of power either in mind or body, or both. The same idea is contained in ἀρετὴ and virtus. Such a 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. So St. Paul ( 1 Thessalonians 2:19 ) calls his converts "a crown of glorying." The allusion is to the crown worn by the bridegroom at his marriage, or to the garlands worn at feasts (comp. So Ruth 3:11 ; Isaiah 61:10 ; Wis. 2:8). The Son of Sirach has much praise for the virtuous woman: "Blessed is the man that hath a good ( ἀγαθῆς ) wife, for the number of his days shall be double. A virtuous ( ἀνδρεία ) woman rejoiceth her husband, and he shall fulfil the years of his life in peace" (Ec 26:1, 2). She that maketh ashamed; "that doeth shamefully" ( Proverbs 10:5 ; Proverbs 19:26 ); one who is a terrible contrast to the woman of strong character—weak, indolent, immodest, wasteful. Is as rottenness in his bones ( Proverbs 14:30 ; Habakkuk 3:16 ). Such a wife poisons her husband's life, deprives him of strength and vigour; though she is made "bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh" ( Genesis 2:23 ), far from being a helpmate for him, she saps his very existence. Septuagint, "As a worm in a tree, so an evil woman destroyeth a man." Here again Siracides has much to say, "A wicked woman abateth the courage, maketh an heavy countenance and a wounded heart: a woman that will not comfort her husband in distress maketh weak hands and feeble knees" (Ec 25:23). Thus runs a Spanish maxim (Kelly, 'Proverbs of All Nations')—

"Him that has a good wife no evil in life

that may not be borne can befall;

Him that has a bad wife no good thing in life

that chance to, that good you may call."