1 KJV; NRSV and NJPS.

2 Al Wolters argued that even outside of a form-critical reading, “Students of the Hebrew … identify [the poem] freely as … a song of praise.” See “Proverbs XXXI 10–31 as Heroic Hymn: A Form-critical Analysis,” VT 38 (1988) 446–57, at 446–47. According to Michael Fox, Prov 31:10–31 “is best classified as an encomium” (Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10–31 [AB 18B; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009] 903). On the form in Greek literature, Fox cites the work of Armin Schmitt, who includes the poem in his survey; see “Enkomien in griechischer Literatur,” in Auf den Spuren der schriftgelehrten Weisen (ed. Irmtraud Fischer, et al.; BZAW 331; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003) 359–81. The fit is not perfect, however, since the Greek encomium has its own social and literary associations. See W. H. Race, “Encomium,” in The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (ed. Roland Greene et al.; 4th ed.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012) 409–10.

3 This translation reflects a reading of the verb as a D 2mp imperative of /TNY/ (revocalized as tannû), meaning “recount, celebrate,” as in Judg 5:11. See, e.g., Wolters, “Proverbs XXXI 10–31 as Heroic Hymn,” 449, 456; Roland E. Murphy, Proverbs (WBC 22; Nashville: Nelson, 1998) 245; but in favor of the MT, see Christine Roy Yoder, Wisdom as a Woman of Substance: A Socioeconomic Reading of Proverbs 1–9 and 31:10–31 (BZAW 304; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001) 83 n. 53. Taken as “laud,” the verb would be semantically parallel to the verb in the second half of the poetic unit, “let them (her deeds) praise her.” If the verb is understood as a G 2mp imperative of /NTN/, as it is vocalized in MT (cf. LXX, Vulg., Tg.), the sense would require anticipatory conceptual gapping from “praise her” in the second half of the poetic unit. The sense would then be “Give her (praise) for the fruit of her hands.” Otherwise the phrase could be understood as a sentiment of compensation: “Give her (payment) from the fruit of her hands,” (i.e., of her produced goods).

4 In LXX, the object of praise is the husband (cf. v. 23), “and let her husband be praised in the gates.”

5 While the order of sections of Proverbs differs in MT and LXX, in both extant traditions Prov 31:10–31 closes the book. See Johann Cook, “The Septuagint of Proverbs,” in Law, Prophets, and Wisdom: On the Provenance of Translators and Their Books in the Septuagint Version (ed. Johann Cook and Arie van der Kooij; CBET 68; Leuven: Peeters, 2012) 84–174, at 94. Whybray concludes that “the book of Proverbs was compiled as a compendium of traditional educational or instructional material in order to gather on a single scroll all the writings of this kind,” and its primary organizational principle was that of preservation. Whybray has a particular form-critical argument animating his view of the development of Proverbs into its final form, which cannot be treated given the scope of the present article. Briefly stated, even with the view that a systematic redaction of the book took place, the evidence of the multiple titles within the book compounded with the distinct order and titles of the Septuagint advance the appearance, at the very least, of the book as an anthology of multiple collections and not a single composition (see R. N. Whybray, The Composition of the Book of Proverbs [JSOTSup 168; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994] 157).

6 Victor Hurowitz, “The Woman of Valor and a Woman Large of Head: Matchmaking in the Ancient Near East,” in Seeking Out the Wisdom of the Ancients: Essays Offered to Honor Michael V. Fox on the Occasion of His Sixty-fifth Birthday (ed. Ronald L. Troxel, Kelvin G. Friebel, and Dennis Robert Magary; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005) 221–34.

7 Translation by Hurowitz, ibid., 223: a selection from lines 100–103 of the Akkadian text. Edition, translation, and commentary of the text can be found in Barbara Böck, Die babylonisch-assyrische Morphoskopie (AfOB 27; Vienna: Institut für Orientalistik der Universität Wien, 2000) 148–73.

8 See also the physiognomic texts from Qumran, 4Q186 (4QHoroscope) and 4Q561 (4Qhor ar). 4Q186 II 5–9, for example, describes one with long and slender thighs and toes as six parts in the house of light, three parts in the house of darkness, born during the celestial season of Taurus, and destined to be poor.

9 For a similar strategy in which a total description is implied but only the extremes are given, consider the narrator’s description of Absalom’s beauty in 2 Sam 14:25, discussed below.

10 The use of this term in biblical scholarship for the literary form found in Song 4:1–7 and elsewhere is widespread. Nevertheless, its importation from a nonnative literary tradition should be acknowledged. In the Arabic literary tradition, the term designates the “minute, thorough description of certain objects,” and this device is used across poetic genres but particularly in the qasidah genre. See Akiko Motoyoshi Sumi, Description in Classical Arabic Poetry: Waṣf, Ekphrasis, and Interarts Theory (Journal of Arabic Literature Supplements 25; Leiden: Brill, 2004) at 4–5 and 8. Where in medieval Arabic poetics the waṣf seems to be understood as a rhetorical device for simulating sensory transformation, from verbal to image, the biblical literary device may have other aims that do not correspond to those of the waṣf, such as persuasion. See, however, the application of Arabic poetic genre categories, including and beyond that of the waṣf in Scott B. Noegel and Gary A. Rendsburg, Solomon’s Vineyard: Literary and Linguistic Studies in the Song of Songs (AIL 1; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2009) 129–69. For a recent discussion of the resonance of sensual imagery and physical description between Song of Songs and Proverbs 1–9, see Anne W. Stewart, Poetic Ethics in Proverbs: Wisdom Literature and the Shaping of the Moral Self (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016) 61–69, esp. 61–62.

11 Song 4:1, 7; 5:10, 16; 6:4, 10.

12 Song 7:7–9.

13 For the operation of this concept in the Priestly source, see Jeremy Schipper and Jeffrey Stackert, “Blemishes, Camouflage, and Sanctuary Service: The Priestly Deity and His Attendants,” HBAI 2 (2013) 458–78.

14 See H. Ringgren, “Yāpâ,” TDOT 6:218–20 at 218. For beauty with tōʾar, “form,” see Gen 29:17; 39:6; 41:18; Deut 21:11; 1 Sam 25:3; Esth 2:7. For beauty with marʾeh, “appearance,” see Gen 12:11; 29:17; 39:6; 41:2, 4; 1 Sam 17:42; 2 Sam 14:27.

15 The translation, quoted in Hurowitz, “Woman of Valor,” 231, was produced by Mark Geller, “West Meets East: Early Greek and Babylonian Diagnosis,” AfO 48/49 (2001/2002) 72–73.

16 See Beate Pongratz-Leisten, “Imperial Allegories: Divine Agency and Monstrous Bodies in Mesopotamia’s Body Description Texts,” in The Materiality of Divine Agency (ed. Beate Pongratz-Leisten and Karen Sonik; Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Records 8; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015) 119–41 esp. 125–27. According to Pongratz-Leisten, this term was coined by Carl Bezold, “Über keilschriftliche Beschreibungen babylonisch-assyrischer Göttertypen,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Voderasiatische Archäologie 9 (1894) 114–25, at 114, and adopted by Franz Köcher, “Der babylonische Göttertypentext,” MIOF 1 (1953) 57–95. Another related category of Mesopotamian texts discussed by Pongratz-Leisten is the Body Description Texts, which, unlike the Göttertypentext, do not follow a systematic order (from head to toe).

17 For the use of this rhetorical strategy in ritual texts, see David P. Wright, The Disposal of Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature (SBLDS 101; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987) 154.

18 Seth L. Sanders understands the Priestly descriptions of the cosmos, temple, and human body to demonstrate a native “science”: “a system of exact knowledge of the physical world.” See “ ‘I Was Shown Another Calculation’ (חשׁבון אחרן אחזית): The Language of Knowledge in Aramaic Enoch and Priestly Hebrew,” in Ancient Jewish Sciences and the History of Knowledge in Second Temple Literature (ed. Jonathan Ben-Dov and Seth L. Sanders; New York: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World; New York: New York University Press, 2014). See also Baruch Halpern, “The Assyrian Astronomy of Genesis 1 and the Birth of Milesian Philosophy,” ErIsr 27 (2003) 74–83.

19 Sanders, “ ‘I Was Shown Another Calculation.’ ”

20 Relatedly, Fox states that, in determining the poem’s classification within the literary culture, “we should look for a category that is not so broad as to be useless (‘poetry’) or so narrow as to have only a couple of known members (‘poems in praise of capable women’). The purpose of the poem will be an expression of its genre” (Fox, Proverbs 10–31, 902).

21 Thomas P. McCreesh, “Wisdom as a Wife: Proverbs 31:10–31,” RB 92 (1985) 25–46, at 30; Christine Roy Yoder, “The Woman of Substance (אשת חיל): A Socioeconomic Reading of Proverbs 31:10–31,” JBL 122 (2003) 427–47, at 427–28.

22 Yoder, among numerous other commentators, observes that “the fear of Yahweh” is the “resounding refrain” of the book (see Wisdom as a Woman of Substance, 107). See also Crawford Howell Toy, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Proverbs (ICC 16; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1899) 10–11; Julius H. Greenstone, Proverbs: With Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1950) xiii; R. B. Y. Scott, Proverbs. Ecclesiastes: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (AB 18; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965) 23. Yoder understands the phrase to be “an idiom for religious piety” (Wisdom as a Woman of Substance, 106), where I see the phrase to represent the basic attitude of a wisdom-seeker towards behavior: one “fears” or “is in awe of” the divine system of cause and effect whereby one might learn from one’s missteps through punishment—as discipline—and thereby refine and optimize one’s actions to reap the greatest rewards. See discussion below.

23 Wolfram Herrmann identified 1QapGen XX, 2–8 as a “description poem” (Beschreibungslied) (“Gedanken zur Geschichte des altorientalischen Beschreibungsliedes,” ZAW 75 [1963] 176–97, at 195–96). The editio princeps was published by Nahman Avigad and Yigael Yadin, A Genesis Apocryphon: A Scroll from the Wilderness of Judaea (Jerusalem: Magnes and Hekal ha-Sefer, 1956).

24 Lines 4–5.

25 Lines 6–7. See Muraoka’s comment on clarifying the feminine subject of the adjective עליא as Sarai and thus to be translated “With respect to her beauty, she is higher than them all”), “A Recent Re-edition of the ‘Genesis Apocryphon,’ ” RevQ 25 [2011] 307–26, at 325).

26 Lines 7–8.

27 Muraoka argues that the author of Genesis Apocryphon “identif[ied] ‘the virtuous woman’ of Proverbs 31 with Sarai, as did the midrash Tanḥuma in the section of ‘the Life of Sarah.’ ” Muraoka understands the explicit link between beauty and “handiwork,” domestic skills, at the end of the poem praising Sarai’s beauty as a deliberate engagement with the conclusion of Prov 31:10–31. Muraoka’s translation, and thereby his understanding of the engagement with Prov 31:10–31, is distinct from the approach of the present study. He translates lines 7–8 as “With all this beauty she has plenty of skill and all her handiwork is pretty,” a translation that distances the obvious connections made between “handiwork,” agency, and wisdom in the Prov 31:10–31 poem (see Takamitsu Muraoka, “Further Notes on the Aramaic of the ‘Genesis Apocryphon,’ ” RevQ 16 [1993] 39–48, at 45–46). It seems, however, that if the author is indeed engaging with Prov 31:10–31, one cannot neglect the clear wisdom context of that praise of אשׁת חיל and, consequently, the praise of Sarai’s wisdom here, too.

28 Fox observes the fact that both the yod and kaf lines coincide with the two words for “hand” and “palm” operative in the poem but concludes that they are an “accidental semantic link,” without attention to the fact that these words recur throughout the poem (vv. 13, 16, 19 [x2], 20 [x2]), and at the very end (v. 31), not including a near synonym for “hand” in v. 17, “her arms” (see Fox, Proverbs 10–31, 895). Aside from “mouth,” its parallel, “tongue,” in v. 26, and “loins,” in v. 17—arguably all “productive” organs of the body—no other parts of the woman’s body are mentioned.

29 F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp concludes that acrostics are primarily visual, that “they are predicated on an explicitly graphic conceit … composed for the eye” (see On Biblical Poetry [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015] 43). One might nuance this conclusion with this particular use of the acrostic in Prov 31:10–31. Here, the alphabetic scheme of the acrostic figures into the content and even broader meaning of the poem.

30 Following the Hebrew, “by the will of her hands.”

31 Some examples of usage of the term in various phrases: See Deut 11:4 (Egyptian “army”); גבור חיל as “warrior” in Josh 6:2; 8:3; 10:7; Judg 6:12; 11:1; 1 Sam 9:1; 16:18; also the direct lexical equivalent to אשׁת חיל, “woman of valor,” “valiant woman,” as אישׁ חיל, “man of valor,” “valiant man,” plural in Gen 47:6; also “capable” in Exod 18:21, 25; Ruth 2:1 (“capable,” “of means”); “warriors” in Judg 20:44, 46; 2 Sam 11:16; Jer 48:14; Nah 2:4; Ps 76:6; singular in Judg 3:29; 1 Sam 31:12; 2 Sam 24:9; 1 Kgs 1:42 (“capable, worthy”).

32 Note the militaristic imagery in the depiction of the woman’s beauty in the two poetic units in Song 4:4. One might posit a connection between beauty and victory along the same lines as a conventional view of wisdom, all three as indications of divine favor.

33 The concentration of terms for “hand” in Prov 31:10–31 appears all the more significant when compared to the relatively sparse number of occurrences of the terms throughout the book of Proverbs: the terms יד and כף occur a total of 7 times in the 22 verses of Prov 31:10–31 and a total of 33 in the entirety of the remaining 893 verses of Proverbs.

34 Some translations have distinguished between יד and כף in v. 19, e.g., “hand … fingers” (NIV, NJPS), “πήχεις … χεῖρας (arms … hands)” (LXX), “manum … digiti (hand … fingers)” (Vulg.); others have not, e.g., “hands … hands” (NRSV, NASB). Yet, even those translations that distinguish between yād and kap̱ in v. 19 fail to preserve the mirrored arrangement when they render v. 20: “hand … fingers … arms … hands” (NIV), “manum … digiti … manum … palmas” (Vulg.). The chiastic arrangement of יד and כף is made even more obscure in LXX and NJPS in v. 20: καρπὸν δὲ ἐξέτεινεν πτωχῷ, “she extends fruit to the poor” (v. 20b LXX); “She gives generously to the poor” (v. 20a NJPS). In Tg. the chiastic arrangement of of יד and כף is obscured: “her hands … her palms … her hands … her arms.”

35 Murray H. Lichtenstein, “Chiasm and Symmetry in Proverbs 31,” CBQ 44 (1982) 202–11, at 206–7.

36 Similar to the inclusio formed in the subsection of the descriptive poem in Song 4:1–7 in vv. 1b–3b with the repeated phrase “from behind your veil.”

37 Yoder describes two ways to understand the conceptual link between the woman’s handcrafting industry in v. 19 and her hands-on charity in v. 20. First, the woman’s productive industry finances her charitable endeavors. Second, when considered in light of a Persian-period socioeconomic context, the woman’s business savvy enables her to function as a creditor to the poor: “the work of the Woman’s hands with the poor is a ‘business’—yet another opportunity to increase her earnings” (Wisdom as a Woman of Substance, 88–89). Fox raises the objection that such enterprising is exploitive (cf. Exod 22:24; Lev 25:36–37; Deut 23:19–20; Ezek 18:8, 13, 17; 22:12; Neh 5:9–12), and even still, a more profitable venture would seek to lend to the rich (Proverbs 10–31, 895–96). Given the thematic focus on the positive development of the woman’s reputation, and that of her family, that begins in v. 20, such exploitative measures would seem to undermine the woman’s positive evaluation in the eyes of the community. Relatedly, see Ps 15, where the blameless and righteous person despises the scornful one in his eyes but honors those who fear Yahweh (v. 4) and does not lend with interest (v. 5).

38 For example, God gives wisdom to Solomon in 1 Kgs 3, after which the oft-cited consequences of wisdom—length of days and material wealth—are also bestowed upon him as a reward for his selection of wisdom.

39 Dan 1:4.

40 Beauty and skill as divine gifts appear together in 1 Sam 16:18. Here, one of Saul’s servants praises David’s musical skill and physical beauty to the disturbed king, yet this description comes only after David is anointed by the prophet Samuel and endowed by God’s “spirit” (v. 13).

41 While חכמה refers broadly to a mastery of some area of knowledge, the virtue is construed as having a divine origin. For example, Pharaoh recognizes God as Joseph’s divine informant and concludes that “there is no one as discerning and wise as you” (Gen 41:39); God bestows to Solomon “a wise and discerning mind” (1 Kgs 3:12); Isaiah’s messianic figure will receive “the ‘spirit’ of Yahweh,” which is defined as “the ‘spirit’ of wisdom and discernment” (Isa 11:2); and Daniel has a reputation for having “wisdom like that of the gods” (Dan 5:11). See TDOT 4:364–85; TLOT 1:418–24.

42 Exod 36:1–2.

43 1 Kgs 3:9.

44 1 Kgs 3:12.

45 Prov 1:1–22:16 contain two sections, if we are to use titles of sections as they occur in the MT as an indication of section or collection division; following MT, these sections would be Prov 1–9 and 10:1–22:16. In LXX, there is no title in Prov 10:1 as there is in the MT. Following both textual traditions, one could identify the maximal, stable frame of Proverbs as Prov 1:1–22:16 and Prov 31:10–31. I do not maintain that there is any historical priority to any section; rather, I simply observe that Prov 1:1–22:16 and 31:10–31 frame the received forms of both MT and LXX Proverbs. Any piece of the anthology could have been composed in any period in which such texts could reasonably have been composed with the necessary scribal skills for embarking on such a project. The present form does not necessitate any historical order to the book’s arrangement; a frame can be composed before or after any other section.

46 William Brown argues that Proverbs elicits a “progression,” that is, an increase in the complexity of the literary forms (“The Pedagogy of Proverbs 10:1–31:9,” in Character and Scripture: Moral Formation, Community, and Biblical Interpretation [ed. W. P. Brown; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 200]) 150–82). This idea is taken up by Christine Yoder in “Forming ‘Fearers of Yahweh’: Repetition and Contradiction as Pedagogy in Proverbs,” in Seeking Out the Wisdom of the Ancients (ed. Troxel, Friebel, and Magary), 167–83. Anne W. Stewart builds on Brown’s work to claim that the purpose of Proverbs as a work is “the cultivation of wisdom and the formation of wise character in its student,” not only through its content but, notably, through its poetic form (Stewart, Poetic Ethics in Proverbs, 2). These studies, however, do not explicitly admit the form of Proverbs as an anthological work—whether this anthology is a matter of the work’s complex literary history or its deliberate artifactual shaping—in the claim that the “progression” of the work follows the “progression” of character development.

47 For example, wisdom is described as a divine gift in Prov 2:6, and throughout Prov 1–9 wisdom is transmitted from fathers to sons.

48 Prov 8:22–31. Tikva Frymer-Kensky writes, “Prov 31:10 … describe[s] a wife who is the very personification of earthly practical wisdom.” See “The Sage in the Pentateuch: Soundings,” in The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East (ed. J. G. Gammie and L. G. Perdue; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990) 275–88, at 282.

49 The poem’s conclusion shifts from third-person observation of the woman’s behavior (vv. 12–27), to the praise of the woman’s husband and children addressed to the woman in second person (v. 29), to the third person observation of general relationships between attitude, choice, and outcome (vv. 30–31).

50 Fox, Proverbs 10–31, 903–4. Fox identifies Prov 31:10–31 as more or less equivalent to the Greek encomium, distinguishing between the general category of encomium and the more specific subcategory of macarism, which “depict[s] an ideal to be emulated and tell[s] of the blessing such a one enjoys.” Fox lists Ps 1, 112, and 128 as macarisms. However, it is not clear that Prov 31:10–31 is to be interpreted as “an ideal to be emulated,” at least according to its frame within the poem and without. See also Michael V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985) 350.

51 Toy suggested that the text in Prov 31:30 be emended to reflect a supposedly earlier, nonpietistic formulation (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 548–49). Subsequent studies have understood the phrase “Fear of Yahweh” to reflect pious views. See, for example, Whybray, Composition of the Book of Proverbs. The idea that the phrase is pious and therefore out of place in a “nonreligious” portrait of the feminine subject seems anachronistic. In Proverbs, the phrase relates to an aspect of the acquisition of wisdom. The phrase is parallel in 1:7 to “wisdom and discipline” and is described as “the first (part) of knowledge.” In a variation on this, in 9:10, “Fear of Yahweh” is the beginning of “wisdom.” In 1:29 it is parallel to “knowledge” and is something that is selected (like a wife): “because they didn’t select fear of Yahweh.” The phrase describes, in 2:5, something to be understood or discerned, parallel to “knowledge of God,” which is acquired. “Fear of Yahweh” is described in 15:33 as “the discipline of wisdom,” as also articulated in 22:4. The phrase describes an instruction through punishment, bringing about humility on those who accept the instruction. A similar articulation of this sense of the phrase is offered by Yoder, “Forming ‘Fearers of Yahweh,’ ” 183. This is the same ideology Eliphaz rehearses for Job in 5:17. “Fear of Yahweh” is lifesaving (Prov 10:27; 14:27; 19:23) not only for one’s own life but for future generations (14:26). To describe the phrase “Fear of Yahweh” as a “pious statement” understates its role within the wisdom system as described in Proverbs. It is a statement of the fear of divine punishment that prevents one from making a potentially fatal misstep.

52 In the words of F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, “Literature and the arts have always been a culture’s principal means for developing, modifying, and re-imagining what it values” (see “The Delight of Beauty and Song of Songs 4:1–7,” Int 59 [2005] 260–77, at 261).

53 Prov 2:16–19; 6:24–35; 7:1–27; 9:13–18. See the landmark study by Claudia V. Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1985). See also Athalya Brenner, “Some Observations on the Figurations of Woman in Wisdom Literature,” in Of Prophets’ Visions and the Wisdom of Sages: Essays in Honour of R. Norman Whybray on his Seventieth Birthday (ed. Heather A. McKay and David J. A. Clines; JSOTSup 162; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993) 192–208, particularly the first section of this essay, titled “Female Figurations in Proverbs,” where Brenner makes the important point that Proverbs is bookended by figurations of women.

54 See Claudia V. Camp, “Woman Wisdom as Root Metaphor: A Theological Consideration,” in The Listening Heart: Essays in Wisdom and the Psalms in Honor of Roland E. Murphy, O. Carm. (ed. Kenneth G. Hoglund et al.; JSOTSup 58; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987) 45–76, and Carol Newsom, “Woman and the Discourse of Patriarchal Wisdom: A Study of Proverbs 1–9,” in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel (ed. Peggy Day; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989) 142–60. See, more recently, Leo G. Perdue, Wisdom Literature: A Theological History (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007) 48–58.

55 In her socioeconomic analysis, Yoder evaluates Woman Wisdom as an expression of the Capable Woman, who is a composite of virtuous qualities in the Persian-period socioeconomic context (see Wisdom as a Woman of Substance, 93–110).