Family and Relationships: A Capable Woman, a Caring Society

The final 22 verses of chapter 31 in the book of Proverbs present an acrostic poem in which each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This poem contains the sage advice of a mother to her son, a king named Lemuel. She outlines for him what he should be looking for in a prospective wife. Lemuel's mother describes a capable woman, one any mother would be delighted to see her son marry. It is a woman she describes that would inevitably help create the family and relationships her son would have one day. This woman is a jewel. She can be trusted (verse 11) to do the right thing, whether in evaluating and purchasing real estate (verse 16), buying and selling merchandise (verses 14 and View the rest of this article