So who was the woman behind the words in Proverbs 31 woman? The woman who gave such wise instructions to her son in the text? Was it Bathsheba, instructing her son Solomon? Or could it have been someone else?
Many scholars point to Bathsheba, but it puzzles me because I don’t see evidence that Bathsheba was capable of offering such wisdom to a king. A king who had 700 wives and 300 concubines? Wouldn’t Bathsheba have stepped in around wife #125 and said, Solomon,
Do not give your strength to women, nor your ways to that which destroys kings? (Proverbs 31:3)
Or perhaps she had no influence over her son. But the text says “The words of King Lemuel, the utterance which his mother taught him” (Proverbs 31:1). So here we have a king who has stored up the wisdom of his mother in his heart and found enough value in them that he repeats them. But these words that this king utters stand in sharp contrast to Solomon’s lifestyle of 700 wives and 300 concubines.
In her defense, Bathsheba did have a good foundation that could have positioned her to have profound wisdom and spiritual knowledge. She was the daughter of an honorable man. Her father Eliam was one of David’s select group of mighty men, the toughest military warriors that went to war on behalf of David, his kingdom, and the God of Israel. She was also the wife of Uriah, one of the mighty men. And so Bathseba was raised in the midst of honor, respectability, and courage and married into honor, respectability, and courage but…and there is a but. She still doesn’t pass the Proverbs 31 Woman test.
If we look at the beginning of the passage on The Virtuous Wife, we find this question:
Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. (Proverbs 31:10)
Can we talk facts for a moment? Bathsheba committed adultery and conceived a child fathered by a man who was not her husband. So right at the beginning, she’s failed the virtuous test.
Scripture goes on to say:
The heart of her husband safely trusts her. (v11)
Bathsheba sent word to King David that she was pregnant but she didn’t send word to the battlefield to inform her husband. She kept the knowledge that she was carrying another man’s child a secret from her husband, which means Uriah’s heart could not safely trust her. He couldn’t trust that he could go to fight the battles for the Lord and she will not have children with other men. So given her history, could Bathsheba comfortably tell her son to seek a virtuous wife? Would she tell him that the worth of virtue in a woman is far above rubies? Would she tell him to seek a woman that she herself did not measure up to? That doesn’t seem plausible.
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