Proverbs 31:30

Here it is. This is the verse the whole poem was building toward. Everything from verse 10 onward has been a portrait, and now at verse 30 the artist steps back and tells us what the portrait means.

Favour — outward charm, grace, the winning of a room — is deceitful. It covers sins as easily as it wins admirers. One fit of sickness sweeps beauty away. Time finishes the work disease begins. And then what is left?

What is left in this woman is everything the poem described — industry, charity, kind speech, courage, honesty, faithfulness — because all of those things grew from a root that does not rot. The root is the fear of the LORD. It was always the fear of the LORD. Her graces are fruit — good fruit that proves the tree is good — but such fruit as the natural corrupt stock of man could never produce on his own. It is a tree God planted.

One old writer named this verse the author's crown over the whole poem. This is not one of the husband's praises. This is the poet himself stepping in to say: here is what explains everything you have just read. The fear of God had given her a right understanding of her duties. In regard to each child, she heard the voice of God saying, Take this child and nurse it for me. In regard to the poor, she heard the same. In regard to her husband, to her household, to her work, to her words — in all things she saw God, and that seeing gave shape to everything.

And now hear the bookend.

This book of Proverbs opened with these words: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom (1:7). Thirty chapters of counsel, warning, promise, and portrait — and the book ends here: a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised. The same word. The same fear. The same LORD.

Wisdom begins in the fear of the LORD, and the final image of wisdom is a life that fears the LORD. The whole book is framed by it — the first word and the last. Everything between is the journey from that beginning to this end.

True piety is the beauty of the soul. It excels the beauty of face and form as much as heaven is higher than the earth, or as eternity is longer than time. Its praise is not from men but from God.