Proverbs 31:2

The last chapter of Proverbs opens with a new voice. Most of the book is credited to Solomon or to the wise, but these words belong to “king Lemuel”, and the verse adds at once that they came from his mother. Verses 2 to 9 give her counsel to him as king, about his strength, his drinking and his duty to the poor. Then the chapter turns to the virtuous woman (Proverbs 31:10–31), so the one chapter holds wisdom for a throne and wisdom for a household, both framed by a mother’s teaching.

The Hebrew for “words”, dâbâr, means word or speech, and it can also mean a matter or affair. Here it is the body of teaching that follows. The KJV calls that teaching “the prophecy”, and the word is massâʼ, which literally means a burden or load. The prophets use it for a weighty message from God, as in “The burden of Babylon” (Isaiah 13:1). Calling a mother’s counsel by this name gives it the weight of a solemn charge, a burden of truth she was bound to hand on. These words stand in Scripture, so we receive them as God’s word to us as well as a mother’s word to her son.

She “taught” him, and the verb is yâçar, to chastise, discipline or instruct. It is a word for correction as well as for teaching, so her instruction was firm and meant to shape his character for the work ahead of him. Proverbs tells every son, “forsake not the law of thy mother” (Proverbs 1:8–9). Israel’s parents were to teach God’s words to their children diligently (Deuteronomy 6:6–9), and Timothy knew the holy Scriptures from a child (2 Timothy 3:14–15). A throne is established by righteousness (Proverbs 16:12), and a king learns righteousness long before he sits on one.

Before she gives a single command, Lemuel’s mother calls out to him: “What, my son? and what, the son of my womb? and what, the son of my vows?” These are cries of love and urgency, and they ask for his whole attention, much as a mother might say, “My son, what shall I say to you?” Each name draws closer than the one before. He is her son, he is the son she carried, and he is the son of her vows.

The word for son here is bar, which simply means son. “Womb” is beṭen, the belly and especially the womb, so the second name reaches back to her carrying him and giving birth to him. “Vows” is neder, a vow, a solemn promise made to God. “Son of my vows” points to promises she made to God concerning him, perhaps in praying for his birth, perhaps in giving him to God’s service. Hannah did this for Samuel, vowing that if the LORD gave her a son she would give him to the LORD (1 Samuel 1:11). A son born of such prayers grows up knowing that his life was meant for God, and that is the ground on which his mother speaks to him.

Her appeal is what Israel was always to do, showing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD (Psalm 78:4). Everything she says next comes from a heart that has prayed for him since before he was born.

Her first warning is about his strength: “Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings.” The word for strength, chayil, means strength, ability, wealth or an army. For a king it is all he has to rule with: his vigour, his means, his attention and the respect of his people. “Ways” is derek, a road or path, and so the course of a person’s life and conduct. To give one’s ways to something is to hand it the direction of one’s life.

“Destroyeth” is mâchâh, to wipe, erase or blot out. The things she warns him against wipe out a reign. The second line widens the first, so the women of the first line stand as the leading example of everything that has brought rulers down, and the second line takes in drunkenness, idolatry, greed and the abuse of power along with them.

Scripture gives the examples. David’s sin with Bathsheba led him on to plot the death of her husband Uriah (2 Samuel 11:1–17). Solomon’s many wives turned his heart after other gods when he was old (1 Kings 11:1–8), so that sexual sin and idolatry came together in one fall. Proverbs warns again and again against the strange woman whose house inclines to death (Proverbs 2:16–19, Proverbs 5, Proverbs 7:5–27), and it sets the two paths of wisdom and wickedness before every son (Proverbs 4:10–19). Paul tells believers to flee fornication (1 Corinthians 6:18–20).

A king’s private sins always had public consequences. They drained his treasury, clouded his judgment, drew him from his duties and could bring his whole house down. God, who sets kings in their place and holds them to account, looks for purity and self-control in those he trusts with authority, which is why a mother who loves her son begins here.

Her second warning is about drink: “It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink.” The phrase “not for kings” stands twice in this verse, and she calls her son by name between the two, so the warning lands on him personally. Melek is the ordinary word for a king, and the princes beside him are the rulers under him, so the warning reaches everyone who governs. Yayin is wine, fermented grape juice. Shêkâr is strong drink, an intoxicant other than grape wine and usually stronger, so between them the two words cover every drink that makes a man drunk.

Verse 5 gives the reason: “Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted.” Shâthâh is the ordinary verb to drink, and here it means drinking that dulls the mind. Shâkach means to forget. The law he would forget is a word formed from the verb châqaq, meaning the established statutes and decrees a king is set to uphold. “Pervert” is shânâh, which means to fold or double, and so to change or alter. The judgment he alters is the dîyn, the ruling in a case at law.

The ones who suffer for it are “the afflicted”, in Hebrew the sons of affliction. Bên is the word for son, used here, as Hebrew often uses it, for the people who belong to a condition. ʻŏnîy is affliction or misery, from a verb meaning to be depressed or brought low. They are the poor, the widows, the fatherless and all who lack power or standing, and they depend on the king’s judgment more than anyone. Whatever a drunken king intends, his clouded mind turns their case to their ruin.

Scripture says the same elsewhere. “Wine is a mocker,” says Proverbs (Proverbs 20:1), and Isaiah describes priests and prophets who err through strong drink and stumble in judgment (Isaiah 28:7). The law told Israel’s judges never to wrest judgment (Deuteronomy 16:19), for the LORD loveth judgment (Psalm 37:28). The psalm for the king asks God to give the king his judgments, so that he will judge God’s poor rightly and break the oppressor in pieces (Psalm 72:1–4). In the church the same rule holds for those who lead, for an overseer must be sober and must be no lover of wine (1 Timothy 3:2–3, Titus 1:7).

Then the mother turns the matter around. The drink a king must refuse has a merciful use: “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts.” The shêkâr of verse 4 goes now to the one who is perishing. The verb behind “perish”, ʼâbad, properly means to wander away or lose oneself, and so to perish, and “ready to perish” describes someone at the point of death or lost beyond hope. “Heavy hearts” is literally bitter of soul. Mar means bitter, and nephesh is the soul, the life and inner self of a breathing creature. The bitter in soul are those crushed by grief or despair.

In those days strong drink was used to dull pain and distress. A custom of this kind stands behind Mark’s account of the cross, where Jesus was offered wine mingled with myrrh (Mark 15:23), a drink given to the condemned to deaden their pain.

Verse 7 gives the purpose: “Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.” Shâkach in this verse is the same verb as “forget” in verse 5. A king who forgets does terrible harm, because what he forgets is the law. A dying man who forgets loses only his poverty and his pain for a while. Rêysh is poverty, the grinding want of the destitute, and ʻâmâl is toil and wearing effort, and so the worry and trouble of body or mind that come with it. The forgetting lasts as long as the drink, and the verse rests no hope on it beyond that. It is a mercy for the last hours or the darkest ones.

The same mother who will tell her son to plead the cause of the poor tells him here to pity the dying. The law made provision for the poor and needy in Israel (Deuteronomy 15), the Samaritan poured oil and wine into a stranger’s wounds (Luke 10:33–34), and Paul tells believers to weep with them that weep (Romans 12:15). The fast God chooses is to loose the bands of wickedness and deal bread to the hungry (Isaiah 58:6–7), and Jesus counts what is done for the least of his brethren as done to him (Matthew 25:35–40). Whoever oppresses the poor reproaches his Maker (Proverbs 14:31), and the king of Psalm 72 delivers the needy when he cries and counts their blood precious (Psalm 72:12–14).

The mother’s last words turn from what the king must refuse to what he must do: “Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction.” Pâthach means to open wide, and so to loosen or begin. The king is to break his silence and speak. ʼIllêm means speechless, a dumb man. In a case at law the dumb are those who cannot speak for themselves, whether they are literally speechless or silenced by poverty, fear or having nobody to stand with them. “Cause” is dîyn, the same word as “judgment” in verse 5, a suit at law or a sentence. The king who refuses wine keeps his mind clear for this very work.

Those “appointed to destruction” are in Hebrew bên chălôwph. Chălôwph is given the sense of surviving and, by implication, orphans, and here with bên it is read as sons of passing away or of perishing. These are people on the edge of ruin, facing death, punishment or the loss of everything, often through injustice. Proverbs gives the same charge elsewhere, warning that God, who ponders the heart, knows when we hold back from delivering those drawn unto death (Proverbs 24:11–12).

Verse 9 repeats the first command and fills it out: “Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.” Shâphaṭ is to judge, to pronounce sentence for or against someone, and so also to govern. Tsedeq is rightness and justice, in conduct, in judgment and in honest weights, so to judge righteously is to judge by God’s standard, with no partiality and no corruption. “Plead” is dîyn as a verb, to contend or go to court for someone, to take up his case and argue it. The poor are the ʻânîy, the afflicted and brought low, and the needy are the ʼebyôwn, the destitute who depend on others for what they lack. The king is to judge fairly between all parties, and when the poor are wronged he is to take their side as their advocate.

This is how God himself acts. He executes the judgment of the fatherless and widow and loves the stranger (Deuteronomy 10:18), and his law forbade perverting the judgment of the stranger and the fatherless (Deuteronomy 24:17). The psalm charges those who judge to defend the poor and fatherless and to deliver the poor and needy (Psalm 82:3–4). Isaiah calls God’s people to seek judgment and relieve the oppressed (Isaiah 1:17), Micah sums up what the LORD requires as doing justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with God (Micah 6:8), and Amos cries, “let judgment run down as waters” (Amos 5:24). “Evil men understand not judgment,” says Proverbs, “but they that seek the LORD understand all things” (Proverbs 28:5).

The charge reaches beyond the throne. Anyone with a voice or a say over others has someone who cannot speak for himself, a decision that ought to be made fairly, and poor neighbours whose cause is worth taking up.

Lemuel’s mother describes a king who guards his strength, keeps his mind clear and opens his mouth for the poor. Jesus is that King, the King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16), whose government is ordered with judgment and with justice for ever (Isaiah 9:6–7). He is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), and yet as a boy in a godly home he increased in wisdom and stature (Luke 2:52). He was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15), and he gave his strength to obedience, even unto the death of the cross (Philippians 2:8). His judgment is just because he seeks the will of the Father who sent him (John 5:30).

He opened his mouth for the poor. He read in the synagogue that the Spirit had anointed him to preach the gospel to the poor and to set at liberty them that are bruised (Luke 4:18–19). He loosed the tongue of a deaf man who could hardly speak (Mark 7:32–35), and he spoke out against the scribes and Pharisees who devoured widows’ houses (Matthew 23). We ourselves were the speechless and the ones appointed to destruction, and he bore our griefs, carried our sorrows and was wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:4–5), the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Now he pleads our cause as our advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1), and he ever liveth to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25).

To the heavy-hearted he gives a rest that lasts: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28–30). The God of all comfort comforts us in our trouble so that we can comfort others in theirs (2 Corinthians 1:3–4).

This mother’s counsel gives us a picture of power as God means it to be used. Authority is a trust held for others, and the first people it is meant to serve are the ones who can do least for themselves. The strength a king could spend on himself belongs to his people, and the clear mind he could dull with wine belongs to the poor who wait on his judgment.

It also shows us who God is. He put these words in a mother’s mouth and kept them in his word for every generation. He cares for the dying man and the bitter soul as well as for the throne, and he hears the cause of the voiceless poor. In Christ we have a King who has kept every word of this charge and who opens his mouth for us.

And it honours the faithful work of a mother teaching her son. Her words were meant for one king, and through Scripture they have reached the whole church, so the patient teaching of parents is a work God uses far beyond the home.