Proverbs 31:19 - Exposition

YODH . She layeth her hands to the spindle. כִּישׁוֹר . ( kishor, a word not occurring elsewhere) is probably not the spindle, but the distaff, i.e. the staff to which is tied the bunch of flax from which the spinning wheel draws the thread. To this she applies her hand; she deftly performs the work of spinning her flax into thread. Her hands hold the distsaff. פֶלֶךְ ( pelek ) is the spindle, the cylindrical wood (afterwards the wheel) on which the thread winds itself as it is spun. The hands could not be spared to hold the distaff as well as the spindle, so the first clause should run, "She stretches her hand towards the distaff." In the former clause kishor occasioned some difficulty to the early translators, who did not view the word as connected with the process of spinning. The Septuagint translates, "She stretches out her arms to useful works ( ἐπὶ τὰ συμφέροντα ); " Vulgate, Manum suam misit ad fortia. So Aquila and Symmachus, ἀνδρεῖα . This rather impedes the parallelism of the two clauses. There was nothing derogatory in women of high rank spinning among their maidens, just as in the Middle Ages noble ladies worked at tapestry with their attendants. We remember how Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus, was found sitting in the midst of her handmaids, carding wool and spinning (Livy, 1.57). Catullus, in his 'Epithal. Pel. et Thet.,' 312, describes the process of spinning ―

" Laeva colum molli lana retinebat amictum;

Dextera tum leviter deducens fila supinis

Formabat digitis; tum prono in pollice torquens

Libratum tereti versabat turbine fusum ."

('Carm.,' 64.)