NOTES for Pro 31:1-31

The final chapter of the Book of Proverbs is a very intimate conversation between a mother and her son. What can be added to these words if they are viewed from an everyday perspective? Parents usually have little more than this to advise: do not be carried away by wine and women, be a decent person, work well, and find yourself a good wife. Yet such an ending to the whole book suggests that it is not speaking about people, but about Wisdom itself, whose virtues are praised in a way that allows us to see the entire hymn to the virtuous woman differently. If the subject is Wisdom, then the qualities manifested in a person through her influence are the basic set that each of us would like to see in ourselves. First of all, they are the absence of spiritual laziness and despair, and the constant presence of a spirit of peace and love.