Calvin Theological
Journal 19 (1984): 153-166.
Copyright © 1984 by Calvin
Theological Seminary. Cited with permission.
NATURE AND
GRACE IN THE INTERPRETATION OF PROVERBS
31:10-31
by AL WOLTERS
A point which has often arrested the attention
of interpreters of the
Song of the Valiant
Woman, which concludes the book of Proverbs, is
the relationship of the
body of the poem, with its catalogue of the
down-to-earth exploits of the lady
portrayed, to verse 30b, which
describes her as "the woman
who fears Yahweh." The poem as a whole
describes such mundane and
this-worldly activities, and the theme of
yir’at YHWH is so emphatically
religious, that their juxtaposition
within the same tightly-knit
poetic structure has often evoked com-
ment in the history of
interpretation.
The poles of the relationship in question
are readily identified,
within the tradition of
Christian theology, with the themes "nature"
“grace."
On the one hand we have the "natural" realm, the arena of
ordinary and everyday earthly
activities and concerns; on the other
hand we have the
"spiritual" realm, the domain of religion and wor-
ship is no secret that the
relationship between nature and grace has
historically been conceived in
fundamentally different ways, and that
the differing paradigms for
construing that relationship correlate with
profoundly divergent Christian
attitudes to the perennial questions of
Christ and culture,
church and world, faith and reason.1 It is
perhaps
legitimate to speak in this connection
of different Christian worldviews.
It will be the purpose of this essay to
show how different world-
views, understood in the
sense of traditional paradigms relating
nature
grace, have influenced the history of the
interpretation of Proverbs
31:10-31 from patristic
times to the present. In this way I propose to
illustrate the more general point,
too often neglected in biblical studies,
that one's basic stance on
this fundamental religious issue is of decisive
significance in the exegesis and
interpretation of the scriptures. On that
score there is no essential
difference between early patristic and con-
temporary critical students of
the Bible.
For present purposes I will distinguish
four such worldviews, recog-
1See H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper and Row,
1951) for
typology of such attitudes.
153
154
CALVIN THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
nizing, of course, that other
classifications are possible and legitimate
as well.2 Roughly speaking, and at the
risk of falling prey to all the
dangers of schematization, I propose to
distinguish conceptions which
look upon grace as opposing, as completing,
as flanking, and as restoring
nature.
In
the first view, salvation is essentially incompatible with the ordi-
nary world of created human life and provides a
radical alternative to it.
In
the context of modem Western Christendom, we find this world
view strongly represented in the Anabaptist
tradition. The second one
is that of classical Roman Catholicism, which
speaks of a natural and a
super-natural ordo, related in such a way that
the latter "perfects" the
former, and the former is oriented to the latter. The
third view, often
associated with Lutheranism, sees nature and grace
(at least in the
present dispensation) as two realms alongside
each other with little
intrinsic connection between them. The fourth
world view, finally,
resists every distinction of realms between
nature and grace and insists
that grace throughout means re-creation, an internal
healing and re-
newal of perverted nature. In the modem West this view. has
been
strong in the Calvinistic tradition.3
To
make a play on Latin prepositions, :we could say that
these four
paradigms construe gratia as contra, as supra, as iuxta, or as intra
naturam. Each has been
influential in the way in which the Song of
Proverbs
31 has been interpreted.
It
should be noted that in describing the four worldviews a variety of
expressions is used to refer to their basic
categories. On the one hand
we speak of "nature," "the
secular," "the natural," "the created world,”
and so on, and on the other of "grace,"
"the religious," "the spiritual,”
"supra-nature," etc. These cannot be said to
be strictly synonymous,
nor, indeed, equally legitimate,- but they are
comparable as various
designations of the basic terms of
the classical "nature-grace" problem
That
problem, dealing with the reality of both the sin-perverted created
order and the salvation provided in Jesus Christ, is
basic to all Christian
thought, though its terms are construed in
fundamentally different
ways. It is this single trans-paradigmatic reality
which makes the
2For
example, Niebuhr, op.
cit., distinguishes five paradigms. See also the fivefold
typology of my colleague James H. Olthuis, "Must the Church Become Secular?" in Out
Concern for the Church (Toronto: Wedge, 1970),
p. 120.
3My analysis owes a great
deal to the work of the Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck
(1854-1921).
See J. Veenhof "Nature and Grace in Bavinck," (tr. A. Wolters),
academic
paper dis"tnbuted by
the Institute for Christian Studies,
(Amsterdam: Buijten en
Schipperheijn, 1968).
NATURE AND GRACE IN
PROVERBS 31:10--31 155
divergent categories of the various worldview
paradigms comparable
in principle.
I.
GRATIA CONTRA NATURAM
The
first perspective looks upon "the fear of the Lord" mentioned in
spinning and weaving, planting and trading, as
are listed in the body
of the poem. The religious and the secular simply
cannot be mixed in
this way. Consequently, to retain the integrity of
the Song, either the
one pole of the relationship must be spiritualized,
or the other one
must be secularized.
The
first alternative is that followed, with very few exceptions, in
patristic and medieval exegesis. The domestic
activities of the Valiant
Woman
are spiritualized by making her an allegory of some other,
more clearly spiritual, reality. For roughly a
thousand years there was a
widespread consensus on this point. Whereas the
Jews generally took
the poem to refer to the Torah,4
Christians generally read it as a
description of the church. To be sure, a few
Christian exegetes pro-
"posed alternative allegories (the woman as wisdoms or
scripture6 or
the Virgin Mary7), but from Origen to the Reformation (and longer in
Catholic
circles) the allegorical interpretation held virtually undisputed
sway. This' was very largely due to the authority of
Augustine, who
devoted his Sermo 37 to the Song,8
and of his followers Gregory the
Great9
and the Venerable Bede,l0 reinforced in the
thirteenth century
4Alexander
Altman, “Allegorical Interpretation," s.v.
“Bible," Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol.
4: “Rabbinic aggadah and Midrash employed the
allegorical method in an uninhibited
homiletic
rather than in a systematic manner. ...The only exceptions are the allegorical
interpretations
of Proverbs 31:1a-31 (the 'woman of valor' being understood as the Torah)
and
of the Song of Songs" (cols. 895-96).
5E.g.,
Adam of Perseigne (twelfth century), Mariale, in Migne, Patrologia Latina
211, col.
734
6So Nicholas of Lyra
under the influence of Rashi (see note 13).
7E.g.,
Julien de Vezelay (twelfth
century); see his Sermons, Sources Chretiennes
192-193 (Paris:
Editions du Ced, 1972),
vol. I, p. 90.
8Augustinus, Sermones
de Vetere Testamento,
Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, vol.
41 (Tumhout: Brepols, 1961), pp. 446-73.
9Gregory has no
commentary on Proverbs, but the allegorical interpretation of the
song
of Proverbs 31 is found scattered throughout his writings; see for example his
Registrum Epistolarum
5. 12 and Homiliae in Hiezechihelem Prophetam 2.
18.
10Beda Venerabilis, Super
parabolas Salomonis allegorica expositio in Migne, Patrologia
Latina 91,
cols. 937-1040; cf., 1039-52. Beda's
commentary on the Song is also printed
under
the name of Hrabanus Maurus
in Migne, PL 111, cols. 780-93.
156
CALVIN THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
by a separate book-length commentary on the Song
from the hand of
Albertus Magnus.11
Two
points should be noted about this allegorical consensus. First a
new spiritual meaning is given only to the
"natural" activities of the
Valiant
Woman (for example the treatment of flax in verse 13 refers to
the mortification of the flesh, the planting of a
Vineyard in verse 16
symbolizes church-planting on the mission field,
and so on12), but no
new sense is required for verse 30 since this
already has a spiritual
significance.
Second,
we must not suppose that this allegorical interpretation was
taken to be merely one of the traditional four senses
of this scriptural
passage, existing alongside an equally
legitimate literal interpretation
The
remarkable thing is that even those medieval exegetes who
stressed the literal sense (such as Rashi, Albertus Magnus, and Nich-
olas of Lyra)
nevertheless interpreted the Valiant Woman as Scripture
or the church. As Nicholas of Lyra
explains and approves, they held
that the figurative meaning here constitutes the
literal sense:
In the last part of this
book is placed the praise of the valiant woman
It is commonly
interpreted by our teachers to refer to the church
which is metaphorically
called the valiant woman, and her husband
Christ, whereas her sons
and daughters are called the Christian
people of both sexes, the way
it says in Judges 9: The trees went to
the bramble bush, etc. The
literal sense does not refer to the physical
trees, but to Abimelech and the Shechemites who
anointed him
king over them.13
Like
the parable of the trees told by Jotham, the literal
meaning of the
11Liber de Muliere Forti, in Alberti Magni Opera Omnia, ed. A.
Borgnet, vol. 18 (
Vives,
1893), pp. 1-242.
12See J. Obersteiner, "Die Erklarung
von Proverbia 31, 10-31, durch
Beda den Ehrwür-
digen
und Bruno von Asti," Theologisch-Praktische
Quartalschrift 102 (1954):1-12.
13Biblia latina cum postillis Nicolai de Lyra (1481), on Provo 31:10:" In ultima parte huius
libri
ponitur
commendatio fortis mulieris. Et exponitur
communiter a doctoribus nostris de
ecclesia,
quae metaphorice dicitur fortis mulier, et sponsus eius Christus; filii autem et
filiae
populus Christianus in utroque sexu. Et
dicunt quod iste est sensus
litteralis, sicut
Iudicum
IX dicitur: Ierunt ligna ad rhamnum, etc. Sensus litteralis non est de lingis
materialibus,
sed de Abimelech, et Sichimitis eum super se regem inungentibus." See
also
the influential Postilla super totam Bibliam of the
thirteenth-century Hugo of St. Cher
(printed in
could
be expounded literally [ad litteram] in some
way, according to the text in Ecclesiastes
7 [vs. 28]: 'one man among a thousand have I
found; but a woman among all those have I
not
found;' yet, since the commentators make no mention of a literal exposition
(and we
have
no wish to assume the office of prophet [vaticinari]
at this point), we shall proceed
with
a mystical [i.e., allegorical] interpretation."
NATURE AND GRACE IN
PROVERBS 31:10-31 157
Song
of Proverbs 31, in this view, is clearly allegorical.
If an
exegete shrinks back from spiritualizing the secular activities of
the Valiant Woman, and yet sees them as essentially
incongruous as
works of "the woman who fears the Lord," he
has the other option of
reversing the process, that is, of
"secularizing" the sacred, in order to
bring it into line with the "worldly" tenor
of the poem as a whole.
Generally
speaking, this is the approach taken by modem critical
scholars. Adducing the Septuagint translation of
verse 30 in support of
their view, they argue that the original redaction of
the Song spoke not
of a "woman who fears the Lord," but
simply of an "intelligent
woman." Originally, in other words, the poem was
"a secular song,"14
but the emendation of a "pious scribe"
made it acceptable as part of the
sacred writings.
To my
knowledge, this hypothesis of a scribal pia
fraus was first put
forward by C. H. Toy in 1902,15 and it has been
widely accepted since.16
It
is reflected also in a number of recent versions of the Bible, notably
the first edition of the Jerusalem Bible;7 which
translates not the
Masoretic
Hebrew text, but the postulated Vorlage.
Again,
there are two observations that are in order here. First, it will
not do to claim that the scholars who advocate this
text-critical recon-
struction are themselves
committed to a gratia contra naturam perspec-
tive. They may very well be
agnostic on the issue. Instead they impute
such a perspective to ancient
text. Such an imputation, in turn, may well be
influenced by experience
of the traditional worldview here under
consideration.
Second,
it should be noted that the use to which the Septuagint is put
in this case is quite dubious. A number of
scholars have pointed out
that the Septuagint can plausibly be taken to
reflect the Masoretic text at
14Curt Kuhl, Die Entstehung des Alten Testaments, 2d ed. (BemIMunich:
Franke, 1960), p.
270, on Proverbs: "A secular song
(31,10-31) forms the conclusion of the whole. .."
(Kuhl's
emphasis).
15Crawford H.
Toy, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on
the Book of Proverbs, Interna-
tional
Critical Commentary (New York: Scribner, 1902 [c. 1899]), pp. 548-50.
16Cf. W. O.
Gemser,
Spruche Salomos, Handbuch zum Alten
Testament (
1937), p. 84; M. B. Crook, "The
Marriageable Maiden of
Eastern Studies 13 (1954):137; R. B. Y. Scott, Proverbs-Ecclesiastes,
The Anchor Bible (New
5 (1969):96-99; R. N. Whybray,
The Book of Proverbs (
Press, 1972), p. 186.
17The Masoretic reading is restored in the second (French)
edition: La Bible de Jerusalem
(Paris: Editions du CerE, 1980).
The English version follows the first edition.
158
CALVIN THEOLOGICAL
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this point.18 Moreover, quite apart from
this, it is questionable whether
a different Hebrew Vorlage
for the Septuagint should necessarily be
taken as evidence of a more authentic text.19
Decisions on such ques-
tions are notoriously
subjective and not immune from the influence of
(imputed) worldview. ,
We
see, then, how strong has been the influence of the paradigm
which sees grace and nature as essentially in
conflict with one another.
With
respect to the interpretation of the Song of Proverbs 31, both the
consensus of the patristic and medieval church,
and that of a good deal
of modem critical scholarship, seem to have been
decisively affected by
this dualistic worldview.
II.
GRATIA SUPRA NATURAM
In
the second world view, "nature" is no longer an exclusively nega-
tive category. Though still
depreciated with respect to Hsupra-nature,"
it is now given a legitimate, if subordinate,
place. Its legitimacy derives
from its being a preliminary to the spiritual, which
therefore con-
stitutes its fulfillment or
culmination. This is the paradigm of the duplex
ordo of official Roman
Catholic teaching.
Antoine
Augustin Calmet, a
Benedictine exegete of the eighteenth
century, gives clear expression to this
perspective when he writes in his
commentary on verse 30:
To this point Solomon
had hardly praised anything in his mother
but virtues which, though
rare, did not transcend the natural order. He
established, as virtually exclusive
evidence of her praiseworthy
qualities, the diligence,
alertness, discipline, and efficient admin-
istration of the famous lady;
here, however, he teaches that all these
qualities, indeed even her very
beauty and her charms, are worth-
less and of no avail unless
the fear of God, piety and true Wisdom are
added to them (my emphases).20
18E.g.,
J. Becker, Gottesfurcht im
Alten Testament (
1965), p. 212; J. Haspecker,
Gottesfurcht bei
Jesus Sirach (
1967), p. 93, n. 15.
19See Ernst Wiirthwein, The Text of
the Old Testament (
Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1979), p. 64.
20Augustinus Calmet, Commentarius Literalis in Omnes Libras Veteris Testamenti, Latinis
literis
traditus a Joanne Dominico Mansi (WlfCeburgi: Rienner, 1792), vol. 6, p. 759:
“Hactenus Salomon vix aliud in matre
sua laudaverat quam virtutes, raras illas quidem,
sed
quae naturalem ordinem non superarent.
Argumentum laudum suarum ferme
unicum
constituit industriam, vigilantiam, disciplinam, oeconomiam illustris foeminae:
roc
autem docet hasce omnes laudes,
quin et pulchritudinem ipsam et lepores, nisi Dei
timor, pietas, et
vera Sapientia accedant, inanes esse et nihil. ...”
NATURE AND GRACE IN
PROVERBS 31:10-31 159
Particularly
telling here is the idea that the fear of the Lord must "be
added" (accedere)
in order to give value to the naturalis ordo. The spir-
itual is a kind of adjunct
which elevates the status of the natural.
In
the twentieth century this perspective comes through clearly in a
popular book written by Michael von Faulhaber, a German cardinal
trained in Old Testament studies. Commenting on
Proverbs 31:30, he
writes: article
The pearl of womenhas
not forgotten the one thing needful amid all
the Martha-cares of her
busy life, but by her fear of God she has set
the crown on all her life's
work.21
Here
the "fear of God" and "her life's work," correlated with
"the one
thing needful" and "Martha-cares" (an
allusion to the story in Luke
crown in relation to the latter, a fitting image of
the hierarchical subor-
dination of the natural order.
Because
this world view makes such a clear distinction between the
natural and the spiritual, it also lends itself
to a combination with the
critical view of the text mentioned under Section
I above. We find such
a combination, for example, in the article on
Proverbs in the New
Catholic
Encyclopedia
by W. G. Heidt:
Apart from 31:30b, which could possibly be a
later scribal modifica-
tion, the virtues attributed
to the ideal wife are wholly in the natural
order: she seemingly has no
other purpose than laboring for hus-
band and household. However,
these passages may be a final exam-
ple of how secular
compositions were taken over by the wisdom
editors and spiritualized by
being immersed in the wisdom context,
which oriented all human
endeavor toward God. Verse 30b, then,
would be an authentic
expression of the sacred author's mind and
purpose. 22
It
is especially expressions like "the natural order," "secular composi-
tions,"
"spiritualized," and "sacred author," which reveal the
structure
of a nature/supra-nature framework, here
ingeniously interwoven
with a conjecture of redaction criticism. The
"scribal modification," in
this view, does not bring about the
spiritualization (as in Paradigm 1) but
expresses a spiritualization
which has already taken place by being
"immersed in the wisdom context." The insertion of the
poem into the
spiritual order, therefore, is here more gradual
and does not involve
outright falsification. Grace is the culmination
of nature.
21Michael von Faulhaber, The Women of the Bible (Westminster, MD:
Newman, 1938), p.
23.
22New
Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: McGraw-HilI,
1967), vol. 11, p. 916.
160 CALVIN
THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
III.
GRATIA IUXTA NATURAM
Whereas
the first paradigm has been most influential in the history
of interpreting the Song of the Valiant Woman, and
the second has had
the greatest institutional authority, the third has
perhaps had the
smallest impact, at least is published
commentaries. Moreover, it is
closely akin to the second worldview in that it
gives a separate and
legitimate province to both the natural and the
spiritual and could
therefore (for some purposes) be classed with it.
I
devote a distinct section to it here for two reasons: because as
worldview it does have a distinctive structure
which marks it off from
the classical Roman Catholic view (notably the
absence of hierarchical
subordination), and because Luther
has supplied us with a particularly
striking quote which gives apt expression to this
kind of two-realm
conception.
It
must be remembered that it was probably Luther, or else (under his
influence) Melanchthon,23 who first
broke the spell of the allegorical
interpretation of the Song of the
Valiant Woman. This must undoubt-
edly be understood in the
context of the overall revalidation of natural
life in the Reformation and particularly of Luther's
doctrine of Beruf or
vocation. This is clearly evident in Melanchthon's commentaries on the
Song. 24
Luther
did, however, maintain a clear duality between a natural
realm and a spiritual realm. This comes out plainly
in a note which he
jotted down in the margin of his translation of
Proverbs 31:30:
That is to say, a woman can live with a man honourably and piously
and can with a good
conscience be a housewife, but she must also
in addition and next. to this, fear God, have faith and pray.25
23See
his Nova Scholia in Proverbia
Salomonis (1529), reprinted in Melanchthons Werke in
Auswahl,
vol. 4 (Giitersloh: Mohn,
1963), ed. P. F. Barton, p.;463, as well as his Explicatio
Proverbiorum
Salomonis (1555), found in
ed.
C. G. Bretschneider, vol. 14 (Halle:
Schwetschke, 1847), col. 86 (“But this whole
passage
must be understood simply, without allegory, as the mirror of an honorable
lady.")
24The Nova Scholia (1529) twice speak of woman's vocatio in commenting on the Song
and
the later Explicatio (1555) similarly states
that in it Uthe chief virtues and duties of her
calling
are listed" (col. 86).
25Martin
Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe,
Die Deutsche Bibel, Band 10
(Weimer:
Böhlau,
1957), p. 103: “Das ist, Eine
fraw
wonen,
und mit gutem gewissen Hausfraw sein, Sol aber dariiber und dameben Gott
fürchten,
glauben und beten."
This handwritten note was first printed in the second 1543
edition
of Luther's Bible translation. For its earlier history, see op. cit.,
Band 4, pp. xxxiii
and
29.
NATURE AND GRACE IN
PROVERBS 31:10-31 161
The
Song's reference to the fear of the Lord, in other words, reminds us
that while it is perfectly legitimate to be engaged
in the worldly realm,
there is another realm as well, distinct from the
former and next to it
(darneben) where the fear of
the Lord, faith, and prayer have their place.
Nature
is not subordinate to grace, but neither does it have any intrinsic
connection with it.
The
same perspective is reflected in Melanchthon's Explicatio Prover-
biorum Salomonis of 1555 in which the
Song is analyzed in terms of two
kinds of virtues: those' summarized in verse 30
(related to the first table
of the Decalogue) and those listed in the body of
the poem (related to
the second table). The two kinds, once
distinguished, are simply listed
in juxtaposition to each other.
The third part [of the chapter] is a song about the virtues of an
honorable mother of a household.
Now as for all people the Deca-
logue must be the rule of
life, so let the virtues in this panegyric be
referred severally to the
Decalogue. And the saying in this passage:
(The woman who fears God shall be praised,' belongs
to the first
table.
By fear, however, we must understand all true worship,
the true
acknowledgement of God, fear, faith,
prayer, love of God, and other
associated virtues. ...
Next are listed the remaining virtues: chastity in marriage,
love for
her husband without
crankiness, diligence in all the tasks about the
house, thriftiness,
frugality. ...26
In
Melanchthon's view the virtues enjoined by the first
table of the
Decalogue
seem to be relatively detachable from those commanded in
The second table.
IV
GRATIA INTRA NATURAM
The
fourth wordview is distinct from the first three in
that it rejects
any division of nature and grace into separate
realms. In this view the
spiritual penetrates into the natural,
transforming it from within. Be-
cause of this, it has a more positive view of nature
(the good creation)
than any of the others since grace is here seen to
serve its restoration.
26Opera,
ed. Bretschneider, vol. 14, cols. 85--86: NTertia pars carmen
est de virtutibus
honestaeMatrisfamilias.
Ut autem singulis hominibus vitae regula esse debet Decalogus,
ita
in hac laudatione distribuantur virtutes in Decalogum, et ad primam tabulam pertinet
dictum
hoc loco, Mulier timens
Deum, laudabitur.
autem
intelligatur torus verus cultus, vera
Dei agnitio,
dilectio
Dei, et aliae coniunctae virtutes. ...
Deinde recitantur caeterae
virtutes. Castitas coniugalis, amor erga maritum sine
morositate sedulitas
in omnibus laboribus oeconomicis, Parsimonia, Frugalitas. ...”
162 CALVIN THEOLOGICAL
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Applied to the Song of Proverbs 31, this
paradigm fosters an interpre-
tation which looks upon the fear of the Lord as integral to
the poem
as a
whole. Religion is not restricted to verse 30, but pervades the whole.
Historically, this interpretation has
often been associated with inter-
preters of the Calvinist
tradition. A good example is the
note on the Song
which is
given by J. F. Ostervald, a Swiss Reformed theologian
of the
eighteenth
century:
It
must not be supposed that what is said in this chapter relates only
to the
maxims and duties of running a household. It is religion
which
enjoins on women these very duties, and the qualities which
Solomon
praises in the persons of this sex are those which recom-
mend
them in God’s eyes.27
In other words, the good
management of a household is itself a
religious duty by which women please God.
The same point is made by Abraham Kuyper, the leader of Dutch
Neocalvinism, in his discussion of the Song:
In
the beautiful song in which Lemuel drew for his son
the picture of
the
virtuous woman, there is almost no mention of the quiet, inner
virtues
of this woman. To be sure, it does say that she “feareth
the
Lord,”
but this too is understood of the outside, not the inside. A
woman who
demonstrates in her home management that she does not
pursue
vanity but fears the Lord, she shall be praised.28
Here the woman’s household
activities are seen, not as something
opposed to, or even distinct from, her fear of the Lord, but
rather as its
external manifestation.
The exegetes of this tradition are quite
conscious of bringing a
distinct perspective to bear on the interpretation of the
Song, especially
as regards the value and status of “natural” life. The
English Puritan
Thomas Cartwright, for example,
in his influential seventeenth-cen-
tury commentary on
the book of Proverbs, after pointing out that the
27See La Sainte Bible . . . avec Les I’.Thuveaux Argumens et les Nouvelles R~flexions . par J.
F. Ostervald (
qui est dit dans
ce Chapitre, ne sojent que
des maximes et des devoirs d’Oeconomie.
La
Religion impose aux femmes ces m~mes devoirs; et les
qualitez que Salomon loue dans
les personnes de ce Sexe, sont celles qui les rendent
recommandables devant Dieu.”
28A. Kuyper, Als gi] in
uw huis zit (Amsterdam: Hoeveker en Wormser, 1899), p. 66: “In
den schoonen zang toch,
waarin Lemuel voor zijn zoon het beeld der
deugdelijke
huisvrouw uitteekende, staat over de stille zielsdeugden van deze vrouw bijna niets.
Er
staat wel ‘dat
ze den Heere vreest,’ maar ook
dit wordt niet van den binnenkant, maar
van den buitenkant genomen. Fen vrouw die in haar huishouding toont, niet de ijdelheid
na te jagen,
maar den Heere te vreezen, zal
geprezen worden”
NATURE AND GRACE IN
PROVERBS 31:10-31 163
Valiant
Woman is pictured at 31:19 as personally engaged in the lowly
task of spinning, adds the comment:
This passage must be given careful attention in
order to establish us
more firmly in the common
duties of this life as duties pleasing to
God, against the Anabaptists, who judge them to
be too lowly to be
engaged in by Christians, and
against the Papists, who, although
they do not condemn this
kind of work, nevertheless, in that they
exalt so highly the works of
their own devising belonging to their
innovations, which have never been
approved by the Holy Spirit,
slacken the hands of godly
women.29
The
polemic against the Anabaptists and the Roman Catholics is here
directed at their depreciation of the communia huius vitae officia, that is,
the everyday tasks of natural life, such as the
humble work of spinning
thread. Cartwright clearly distinguishes the radical
perspective of the
Anabaptists
(Paradigm 1) from the more moderate one of the Roman
Catholics
(Paradigm 2). He does not mention the third worldview,
probably because in the Reformation Lutherans and
Calvinists made
common cause against what they perceived as the
downgrading of the
intrinsic creational goodness of natural life on
the part of Anabaptist
and Catholic writers.
It
would be a great mistake, however, to suppose that the type of
worldview reflected in the interpretation of the
Song of the Valiant
Woman
is simply a reflex of an exegete's ecclesiastical affiliation. To be
sure, this does largely seem to be the case in the
time of the Reforma-
tion and the three centuries
which followed it, but there is no such neat
correlation between worldview and confessional
tradition in the last
hundred years or so. Increasingly, traditional
paradigms relating
nature and grace are transdenominational,
no doubt under the influ-
ence of the rise of critical
scholarship and the ecumenical movement.
This
is not to say, however, that the basic worldview paradigms no
longer playa decisive role; instead they show up in
less predictable
contexts.
Linked
to this weakening in the correlation of worldview and eccle-
communion is another trend that can be observed in
the last
century of interpretation of Proverbs 31:10-31.
Although, as we have
29Thomas
Cartwright, Commentarii succincti
et dilucidi in Proverbia Salomon is (Amster-
dam:
Laurentius, 1638), col. 1318: "Hic locus observandus est ad nos in communibus
hujus vitae
officiis, tanquam Deo gratis confirmandum, contra Anabaptistas, qui abjec-
esse
statuunt, quam ut christiani se in lis exerceant, et Pontificios, qui, tametsi
opera
non damnent, dum tamen commentitia suarum novarum opera nus-
a
Spiritu Sancto probata tantopere efferunt, manus piarum foeminarum re-
faciunt."
164
CALVIN THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
seen, Paradigms 1 and 2 are still very much alive in
scholarly interpreta-
tion, and though Paradigm 3
is probably still operative in many devo-
tional commentaries, there
does seem to be a movement away from
these on the part of the majority of biblical
scholars.
This
is evidenced by a kind of ecumenical convergence toward
Paradigm
4 in modern interpretations of Proverbs 31:10-31. This grow-
ing consensus finds
expression in two interrelated themes which have
been repatedly emphasized
by exegetes of the Song since the late
nineteenth century. The first theme is that all the
Valiant Woman's
actions are rooted in (or even constitute) her
fear of the Lord; the
second is that she represents the concrete embodiment
of that wisdom
whose beginning is the fear of the Lord.
As an
example of the first theme we can quote Franz Delitzsch,
the
great Lutheran exegete of the nineteenth century. In
his commentary
on the Song he writes:
the poet. ..refers back all these virtues and accomplishments of
hers to the fear of God as
to their root.30
This
is an emphasis which we find repeated in such Old Testament
scholars as Hermann Schultz,31 A. B.
Ehrlich,32 B. Gemser,33 W. H.
Gispen,
34 and M. A. Klopfenstein,35 as
well as in devotional commen-
taries.36
30Franz
Oelitzsch, Das Salomonische
Spruchbuch (Leipzig: Oorffling
und Franke, 1873),
p. 527: "der Dichter fiihrt aIle diese ihre
Tugenden und Leistungen auf
die Gottesfurcht
als
ihre Wurzel zuruck."
31Hermann
Schultz, Alttestamentliche Theologie, Die Offenbarungsreligion
auf ihrer
vorchristlichen
Entwickelungsstufe, 4th ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1889),
p. 196: "Prov.
31:10-31 shows us the exemplary housewife, and looks upon such a faithful,
fulfillment
of duty as fear of the Lord (30)." This statement is made under the
general
heading
"The root of all morality is fear of the Lord." ; ..
32Arnold B.
Ehrlich, Randglossen zur
Hebräischen Bibel, fünfter Band (
1912), p. 179: "Our heroine's fear of the
Lord consists chiefly in the fact that she frees her
husband
from all the cares of life."
33B.
Gemser, De Spreuken van Saloma, tekst en uitleg, 2 vols. (Groningen/Den
Haag:
Wolters,
1929-31), vol. 2, p. 50: ". ..he looks upon the
fear of the Lord as the foundation
and
summary of all virtues" (on 31:30). --'
34W.
H. Gispen, De Spreuken van Saloma, Korte Verklaring, 2 vols. (Kampen: Kok,
1952-54), vol. 2, p. 350: "Also the
pluckiness [flinkheid] celebrated in this poem
is rooted in
the
fear of the Lord" (on 31:30).
35M. A. Klopfenstein,
Die Lüge nach dem Alten Testament (Zurich: Gorthel£ 1964), p.174:
". ..not her charm
and beauty, but her fear of the Lord, from which all the acclaimed
virtues
must spring as from their root, if they are to be true virtues" (on
36See the Stuttgarter Jubiläumsbibel
(Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt,
1953)
onProv.
31:30: "Such a woman, whose domestic excellence and virtue is rooted in
the fear of
the
Lord. ..."
NATURE AND GRACE IN
PROVERBS 31:10-31 165
The
second theme is that of the Valiant Woman as the personification
of Wisdom-not in an allegorical sense, but in the
sense of an earthly
embodiment of what it means 10 be wise. We find
this interpretation
expressed, for example, in the commentary of G.
Currie Martin, who
writes that the Song was probably added to Proverbs
because “it
embodied some of the ideals of practical wisdom
that had been already
inculcated. 1137 This theme is echoed in a number
of subsequent com-
mentators of various confessional
allegiances. These include A. Mac-
Laren,38 A. Barucq,39 B. Lang,40
P. E. Bonnard,41 and H. Schüngel-
Straumann.42
The
two themes we have discussed come together in a summary
statement by Helmer Ringgren in his commentary on the Song. Hav-
ing pointed out how highly
the poet prizes the value of a good house-
wife, he writes:
This comports well with the general theme of
Proverbs, for wisdom
.in the broad sense of the word is precisely all
that enables a person to
succeed in life. The excellent
housewife, too, stands as an example of
such wisdom. And just as
wisdom and fear of the Lord were one in
the eyes of the collectors
of Proverbs, so also the virtues of the good
housewife have their roots in her
fear of the Lord.43
In
this view, the “fear of the Lord” of verse 30 is both the root of the
Valiant
Woman's actions and the "beginning" of the wisdom which
37G.
Currie Martin, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, The New Century Bible
(New York/Edinburgh: H. Frowde,
1908), p. 12.
38Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, vol. 3: II
Kings-Ecclesiastes (Grand
Rapids: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1942), p. 294.
39Andre Barucq, "Proverbes, Livre des," in Dictionnaire
de fa Bible, Supplement, Tome
huitieme
(Paris: Letouzey et Ane,
1972), cols. 1466 and 1468.
40Bemard Lang, Anweisungen gegen die Torheit, Sprichwörter-Jesus Sirach (
Verlag, 1973), pp.
52-53.
41P. E. Bonnard, "De la Sagesse personnifiée dans r
Ancien Testament ala Sagesse en
personne
dans Ie Nouveau," in M.
Gilbert, ed., La Sagesse de l' Ancien
Testament (
Duculot,
1979), pp. 127-128.
42Helen Schüngel-Straumann, "Die wahle
Frau," in Christ in der Gegenwart
33
(1981):385.
43Helmer
Ringgren, Sprüche,
Das Alte Testament Deutsch, 16/1
(Göttingen: Van- "
denhoeck
und Ruprecht, 1962), p. U1: "Das passt gut zum allgemeinen
Thema der
Spriiche,
denn Weisheit im weiteren Sinne
des wortes ist
eben alles was den Menschen
Zum Erfolg im
Leben befähigt.
Als ein
Beispiel solcher Weisheit steht auch die tiichtige
Hausfrau da. Und ebenso wie Weisheit und
Gottesfurcht den Sammlem der Spriiche
eins
sind, so haben auch die Tugenden del guten Hausfrau ihre Wurzeln in ihrer
Gottesfurcht."
166
CALVIN THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
they exemplify. In other words, her praiseworthy
deeds in home and
community flow from her religious
confession and allow no opposition
or dichotomy between the secular and the sacred,
between nature and
grace. 44
I
conclude by observing that the main thesis, the influence of world-
view on (the history of) exegesis, can be
effectively illustrated in the
case of Proverbs 31:10-31. I do not claim that
worldview is
decisive in questions of interpretation, nor that
other factors do not
a crucial role. But at least in the selected test
case-and
elsewhere--the dimension of worldview, understood
in sense
defined in this essay, is shown to be a
significant determinative factor in
biblical interpretation. This is of interest not
only to the historian of.
exegesis, but also to the practicing exegete who
accepts the Bible's
claims to authority. For my thesis leads to the
conclusion that biblical
interpretation can only be properly
done if it is informed by a world-
view which is itself biblical, and so provides a
legitimate two-way link
between biblical studies and systematic
theology.
44Cf.
also Barucq, or. cit., col. 1467: "The vignette
which h.e en~aves.at the b~ttom of
the
page is intended as an idealized projection of the blossoming [épanouissement] into the
everyday
of a life grounded in a Yahwist wisdom.". If we delete the words “a life
grounded
in," this formulation is freed from all suspicion of a lingering
nature-grace
duality.
This
material is cited with gracious permission from:
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Grand Rapids
www.calvinseminary.edu
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