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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 31:21 - 31:21
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But the poet goes on to describe her fruitful activity in the nearest sphere of her calling:
21 ל She is not afraid of the snow for her house;
For her whole house is clothed in scarlet.
A fall of snow in the rainy season of winter is not rare in Palestine, the Hauran, and neighbouring countries, and is sometimes accompanied with freezing cold.
(Note: Vid., regarding a fall of snow in Jerusalem, the journal Saat auf Hoffnung Jahrg. 3, Heft 3; and in the Hauran Comm. to Job 38:22.)
She sees approaching the cold time of the year without any fear for her house, even though the season bring intense cold; for her whole house, i.e., the whole of the members of her family, are לָבֻשׁ שָׁנִים. The connection is accusatival (Venet. ἐνδεδυμένος ἐρυθρά), as at 2Sa 15:32; Eze 9:2-3. שָׁנִי, from שָׁנָה, to shine, glance clear, or high red, and is with or without תולעת the name of the colour of the Kermes worm, crimson or scarlet, perhaps to be distinguished from אַרְגָּמָן, the red-purple shell colour, and תְּכֵלֶת, the blue. שָׁנִים are clothing or material coloured with such שׁני (bright red) (vid., at Isa 1:18). The explanation of the word by dibapha is inadmissible, because the doubled colouring, wherever it is mentioned, always refers to the purple, particularly that of Tyre (dibapha Tyria), not to the scarlet.
(Note: Vid., Blümner's Die gewerbliche Thâtigkeit der Völder des klassischen Alterthums (1869), p. 21f.)
But why does the poet name scarlet-coloured clothing? On account of the contrast to the white snow, says Hitzig, he clothes the family in crimson. But this contrast would be a meaningless freak. Rather it is to be supposed that there is ascribed to the red material a power of retaining the heat, as there is to the white that of keeping off the heat; but evidence for this are wanting. Therefore Rosenmüller, Vaihinger, and Böttcher approve of the translation duplicibus (Jerome, Luther) [= with double clothing], because they read, with the lxx, שְׁנַיִם.
(Note: The lxx reads together שנים מרבדים, δισσὰς χλαίνας, and brings into Pro 31:21 (her husband remains without care for the members of the family if it does not snow χιονίζη, as it is to be read for χρονίζη) and 22 the husband, who appears to the translator too much kept in the background.)
But, with right, the Syr., Targ. abide by זְהוֹרִיתָא, scarlet. The scarlet clothing is of wool, which as such preserves warmth, and, as high-coloured, appears at the same time dignified (2Sa 1:24).