Bearers of Wisdom (Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost)

Harry Attridge and Joel Baden discuss wisdom literature, motherhood, and patriarchy in Proverbs 31:10-31. The text is appointed for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, in Year B of the Revised Common Lectionary.

More Yale Bible Study resources, including a transcript of this episode, at: https://YaleBibleStudy.org/podcast

Harold Attridge is Sterling Professor of Divinity at Yale Divinity School. Joel Baden is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Director of the Center for Continuing Education at Yale Divinity School. 

Connect with Yale Bible Study:

• Facebook: @YDSCCE
• Twitter: @BibleYale
• YouTube: youtube.com/c/YaleBibleStudy
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/yds-center-for-continuing-education

Thank you for listening!

Transcript

Voiceover Voice:

If we didn’t have this text, you wuold have no idea that women in ancient Israel had this much economic purpose.

Helena Martin:

This is Chapter, Verse, and Season: a lectionary podcast from Yale Bible Study. Join us each week as two Yale Divinity School professors look at an upcoming text from the Revised Common Lectionary.

This is a quick reminder that we’re nearing the end of our three-year cycle and therefore nearing the end of Chapter, Verse, and Season. We have ten more episodes for you to round out lectionary year B. After that, we hope you’ll relisten to the past episodes whenever you need some inspiration—and that you’ll continue to use other Yale Bible Study resources. But stick around; we’re not at Advent yet!

This episode, we have Joel Baden, Professor of Hebrew Bible and Director of the Center for Continuing Education, and Harry Attridge, Sterling Professor of Divinity. They’re discussing Proverbs 31:10-31, which is appointed for Track 1 of the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 20, in Year B. Here’s the text.

[Proverbs 31:10-31]

A woman of strength who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.
 The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.
 She does him good and not harm all the days of her life.
 She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands.
 She is like the ships of the merchant; she brings her food from far away.
 She rises while it is still night and provides food for her household and tasks for her female servants.
 She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
 She girds herself with strength and makes her arms strong.
 She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night.
 She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle.
 She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy.
 She is not afraid for her household when it snows, for all her household are clothed in crimson. 
She makes herself coverings; her clothing is fine linen and purple.
 Her husband is known in the city gates, taking his seat among the elders of the land.
 She makes linen garments and sells them; she supplies the merchant with sashes.
 Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.
 She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
 She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.
 Her children rise up and call her happy; her husband, too, and he praises her:
 “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.”
 Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
 Give her a share in the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the city gates.

Harry Attridge:

 Joel, this is a really interesting text at the end of Proverbs, The Celebration of a Good Wife. What do you make of it, and how does it fit into the rest of this?

Joel Baden:

It does sort of come out of nowhere if only because it’s a lengthy poem. It’s a 22-line poem. And I didn’t even need to look that up because it’s an acrostic, right? Every line starts with the next letter of the alphabet. A, B, C as it were. But in the context of the Book of Proverbs, which is a bunch of pithy two-line sayings for the very most part, suddenly to have this much sort of longer piece, well, it stands out. And it has stood out for a long time. This text has become a standard part of sort of Jewish liturgy, wedding traditions, read by husbands to their wives every Shabbat, so this is recognized for a long time as sort of having its own unique shape and form. It's kind of a weird thing to find in Proverbs, although it does have a sort of a structural balance to it, right? Proverbs, as I'm sure you remember begins with, the first nine chapters are sort of this lady wisdom. So, this feminine figure who personifies wisdom and actually then there are other feminine figures in there, lady folly or the dark lady, who sort of represent counter wisdom. So, there's a balance of the book beginning with a female figure and ending with a female figure. But if wisdom has existed, as she says, since before creation, this is a far more sort of mundane kind of kind of female figure. And probably, I mean, more than probably, certainly the lengthiest sort of discourse about like just a normal if unnamed woman in the entire Bible, I think.

Harry Attridge:

This text I think has become important for contemporary Biblical interpreters who are very much concerned about feminist issues and how the Biblical text has impacted women. Do you see this as a positive counterweight to some of the patriarchal elements in the Biblical tradition?

Joel Baden:

Yes, and of course, no. The yes, I think it's an incredibly positive depiction of a woman. That in itself is rare enough, but it's a complete picture, right? This is the acrostic, the A,B,C of it, it is trying to give a full description of all of the best qualities of a woman, of a wife. And I think that part's important, actually, for the patriarchy part. This is not an independent woman, it's a wife. It's somebody who is good for her husband and she does him good and not harm. There are lines in this poem about the husband. This is how, what makes a great wife? Well, her husband is a good guy. That's one of the things. But the way that it's described, honestly, if we didn't have this text, you would have no idea, really, that women in ancient Israel had this much economic really, purpose

Harry Attridge:

The gal here is a businesswoman

Joel Baden: 

For sure. And not just as we think of sort of like the work at home. I think that we can certainly imagine the wife in ancient Israel who was in charge of the domestic. And that's here also. She rises while it's night and provides food for her household and tasks for her servant girls. Sure. But beyond that, this is somebody who is, she considers a field and buys it. She's doing, making purchases. She is…

Harry Attridge:

Engages with merchandise.

Joel Baden:

Exactly. She is making herself clothing. And selling them. It gives us this much, I think, more expansive picture. Now, I would say, I don't know how idealized it is, that is to say, how many wives in ancient Israel were actually engaging in sort of commerce this way? But the fact that somebody would idealistically picture a woman engaging in economics, I think is pretty important in itself.

Harry Attridge: 

I mean, it certainly corrects the impression you sometimes get that women were holed up in their houses and not engaged in any kind of public activity whatsoever. This is a very different picture.

Joel Baden:

For sure. And you know, it's a reminder that the economy of the ancient world and certainly of ancient Israel, wasn't sort of quite as simple as like, I don't know, I think it's often pictured as sort of like almost hunter-gatherer still. You know, the man goes out and does some stuff and the woman stays at home and does it. But, the intense labor of the agriculture, which does seem to be like the male part of it, actually leaves an enormous amount of space for economics and commerce to be taken up by women. Trade and selling of goods and the making of goods. It's not just men who are responsible for making the household work. And I think that's really important. I think it's also notable that the poem ends with, charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. And that, I think also, that calls back nicely to the beginning of Proverbs, right? You know, the beginning of wisdom is, uh, fear of, is fear of the Lord, right? This is an embodiment of sort of what Proverbs is all about. Which is to say, how do you get along in the world? Right? How do you know how things work? How do we make the world a good place? And this is this woman who has figured it out. She opens her mouth with wisdom. The teaching of kindness is on her tongue. 

Harry Attridge:

Right. No, I like the way you see this as a balanced piece of literary structures that's going on here with the image of lady wisdom at the beginning and all of that, and then balanced with this very positive portrait at the end.

There's one of the little features of the text that struck me when I was reading this recently, and that's the passage that comes just before it. The sayings of King Lemuel of Massa which his mother taught him. The mother teaching the king. But one of the things that the mother teaches the king is, do not give the vigor of your manhood to women and this seems to stand in some tension with the celebration of this very vibrant and active and engaged wife that you get at the end. And I'm wondering what's going on there. Is there some sort of tension that's deliberately embedded in the text?

Joel Baden:

I mean, deliberately? I don't know. I do think that, you know, Proverbs really is one of these texts that like it holds up women both metaphorically and, in this case, this text at the end, I think quite mundanely, as really positive figures. And parents and mothers in particular as very positive figures. You find elsewhere, sort of the male speaker or the paternal speaker of much of Proverbs saying, like, listen to the words of your mother to the assumed child who is hearing all this. So, there's this very positive, at the same time, if you get into a lot of the content, you'll find lots of stuff in Proverbs that's like, you know, avoid women. So, there's a balance. Maybe, maybe we could understand this as sort of like a space between the traditional proverbial, sort of, which is more patriarchal or more reluctant to engage with women. And actually, the sort of the framing of the text itself, sort of the proverbial, like narratorial voice, which I think really does elevate women, mothers, wives, this metaphorical lady wisdom. Those are all very positive traits that I think serve to counterbalance some of what's like lying in the background there in the content. 

Harry Attridge:

Yeah, I think it's interesting that some of the debates that we have in the contemporary world have antecedents in the creation of the Biblical text.

Joel Baden:

Don’t they all? But this is certainly one of them. I really do think, what you pointed out, is just that the beginning of the chapter is the words specifically of something his mother taught him, is a reminder that all this traditional wisdom is transmitted by not just fathers, but also mothers. That women are not just the embodiments of wisdom, but also the bearers of it.

Helena Martin:

Thanks for listening; we’re so glad you’re here. We’re here very week with new episodes to help shape your preaching, teaching, and reflection.

Chapter, Verse, and Season is a production of the Center for Continuing Education at Yale Divinity School. It’s produced by: Creator and Managing Editor, Joel Baden; Production Manager, Kelly Morrissey; Associate Producer, Aidan Stoddart; and I’m your Host and Executive Producer, Helena Martin. And our theme music is by Calvin Linderman.

We’ll be back with another conversation from Chapter, Verse, and Season.