GOD’S WISDOM FOR YOU
PROVERBS 31:12
12 She brings him good, not harm,
all the days of her life.
This is the opposite of the many wicked women depicted throughout the book. In absolute contrast, the heroic wife brings her husband nothing but good. “Not harm” means that she does all of the things we still say in the marriage vows. The wife says in her vow: “I will be guided by the counsel and direction God has given in his Word and submit to my husband as the Church submits to Christ. I will be faithful to him, cherish him, support him, and help him in sickness and in health as long as we both shall live. I take you to be my husband. I promise to be faithful to you as long as we both shall live.” (Christian Worship p. 142).
She looks after him, even when he doesn’t look after himself. At the same time, she looks after herself, her health, and the health and well-being of their children. More than once I have seen my wife sitting between two of our sons at the kitchen table, helping them both, at the same time, with two completely different kinds of math homework while prodding a third to practice his musical instrument, and the fourth to climb into the bathtub.
When I first brought my wife (then fiancé) to my hometown to begin meeting my immediate family and extended family, they could all tell right away that she was the best choice in a wife I could ever have made. In fact (this is no exaggeration), she improved my reputation within my family. My own family! This was because she is not just a blessing for me, she is a blessing for them, too. She is a woman with a strong Christian faith, an endless supply of compassion, a deep store of wisdom and advice, and a gentle but firm hand in all circumstances. I have said many times, and never in jest, that when I married her, I married “up.” She has always brought me good and never harm, even when I have stepped on her toes dancing or just walking past.
“Brings” in my translation is a bit too smooth. The word, which is our gimel or third letter of the alphabet word, is gamalathu. The verb gamal at its most basic means “to do” (as a noun it means “camel,” the beast who “gets it done”), and could well be translated “she does him good,” except that in the past (Hebrew perfect) tense I would love to reach into a more folksy vernacular and confess about my heroic wife: “She done me good.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: www.wlchapel.org/connect-grow/ministries/adults/daily-devotions/gwfy-archive/2019
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota