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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 31:30 - 31:30
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What now follows is not a continuation of the husband's words of praise (Ewald, Elster, Löwenstein), but an epiphonema auctoris (Schultens); the poet confirms the praise of the husband by referring it to the general ground of its reason:
30 ש Grace is deceit; and beauty, vanity -
A wife that feareth Jahve, she shall be praised.
Grace is deceit, because he who estimates the works of a wife merely by the loveliness of her external appearance, is deceived by it; and beauty is vanity, vanitas, because it is nothing that remains, nothing that is real, but is subject to the law of all material things - transitoriness. The true value of a wife is measured only by that which is enduring, according to the moral background of its external appearance; according to the piety which makes itself manifest when the beauty of bodily form has faded away, in a beauty which is attractive.
(Note: Vid., the application of Pro 31:30 in Taanith 26b: “Young man,” say the maidens, “lift up thine eyes and behold that which thou choosest for thyself! Direct thine eyes not to beauty (נוי), direct thine eyes to the family (משׁפחה); pleasantness is a deception, etc.”)
יִרְאַת (with Makkeph following),
(Note: The writing יִרְאַת־ is that of Ben Asher, יִרְאַת that of Ben Naphtali; Norzi, from a misunderstanding, claims יִֽרְאַת־ (with Gaja) as Ben Asher's manner of writing.)
is here the connective form of יְרֵאָה (fem. of יָרֵא). The Hithpa. תִתְהַלָּֽל is here manifestly (Pro 27:2) not reflexive, but representative of the passive (cf. Pro 12:8, and the frequently occurring מְהֻלָּל, laudatus = laudandus), nowhere occurring except in the passage before us. In itself the fut. may also mean: she will be praised = is worthy of praise, but the jussive rendering (Luther: Let her be praised) is recommended by the verse which follows: