A Hard-Working Woman

“She considers a field and buys it; from her profits she plants a vineyard…She stretches out her hands to the distaff, and her hand holds the spindle…She makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies sashes for the merchants.” (Proverbs 31:16, 19, 24)

The Proverbs 31 woman is praised for many things: her virtue, her commitment to serve and love her husband, her care for her home, her physical well-being, her reputation, and her hospitality. And now, in the 3 verses referenced above, we see her work ethic – her productivity and financial wisdom.

She is careful with what she buys; she is not an impulse buyer who fails to carefully consider his acquisition. She is purposeful in her productivity and always seems to calculate her earnings.  

The tools mentioned in vs. 19 – “distaff, and … spindle” – are for making clothes. This is not such a need today as it was in the Ancient Near East when clothing was often what you made, but the principle is a need: being productive and diligent in her work.

An example of this kind of productivity is Ruth in Ruth 2, when she gave herself to gleaning the fields to care for her mother-in-law Naomi. What a statement this makes to our society today. Ruth was unmarried (a widow), with no job and very little provisions in her day. If she was alive in 2015, she could have welfare and food stamps available to her and she could just sit back in her little shack with Naomi and collect government money.

And yet, what was Ruth’s reaction? She didn’t take handouts, was given every opportunity to work and did. In fact, Ruth worked with such excellence that the entire community knew of her work ethic.

In his book Don’t Waste Your Life, John Piper wrote, “God sends us forth to work as his image-bearers, our ditches are to be dug straight, our pipe-fitting are not to leak, our cabinet corners should be flush, our surgical incisions should be clean, our word processing accurate and appealing, and our meals nutritious and attractive, because God is a God of order and beauty and competence.” (pgs. 140-141)

The Proverbs 31 woman is hard-working.