A king's mother, and a woman who fears the LORD.

Proverbs closes with a change of voice and not a change of subject. The words of King Lemuel are an oracle his mother taught him. She warns a son who will hold power: do not give your strength to women in the sense of lust that destroys kings, and do not drink until you forget the law and pervert the rights of the afflicted. Strong drink may be left to the one who is perishing. Open your mouth for the mute, she says, and judge righteously. Wisdom on a throne is advocacy for those who cannot pay. The fear of the LORD, named in the first chapter, is about to be embodied in the last poem.

The acrostic of the excellent wife is not an appendix of domestic tips. It walks the Hebrew alphabet praising a woman who seeks wool, brings food, considers a field, plants a vineyard, opens her hand to the poor, and speaks with wisdom. Her husband is known in the gates. Her children rise up and bless her. Charm is deceit and beauty is vapor, the same vapor Ecclesiastes will name, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Give her the fruit of her hands. The poem refuses to treat her work as invisible. The book ends where it began: not with charm, not with royal excess, but with the fear of the LORD in a real household.

The main point is that wisdom finishes as the fear of the LORD in public justice and in a praiseworthy life, sung in the key of a capable woman. Lemuel's mother will not let a king separate piety from the rights of the poor. The acrostic will not let a household separate diligence from mercy, or charm from the fear of God. This is the same wisdom that cried in the street and set two tables in chapter 9. She now has a name in a marriage, a market, and a city gate.

The poem is praise, not a weapon. It does not say every godly woman will have servants, vineyards, and a husband known among the elders. It says the fear of the LORD produces strength, kindness, and speech that teaches, and that such a life deserves honor. Readers do violence when they turn the acrostic into a scorecard for exhausted women, or when they ignore it as if wisdom were only for sons. The mother who taught the king is already proof that this book knows a woman's voice.

Christians see the excellent wife without dissolving her into a mere symbol of the church, and without refusing the symbol Scripture itself will use. The poem's first sense is a real woman, body and work and fear of the LORD, praised in Israel. Ephesians will later say the marriage of a husband and wife speaks of Christ and the church. That mystery illuminates this praise from beyond it. It does not erase the field, the flax, or the poor at her door. Read the woman as a woman. Then let every Christian household learn from her fear of the Lord what the Bride is called to be.

Charm as deceit and beauty as vapor prepare the ear for Ecclesiastes, and they also guard the gospel's values. The Son of God did not wear the charm of a court. The church is not saved by appearance. What remains is the fear of the LORD, which in Christ is the beginning that has come to its fullness. Give her of the fruit of her hands is a last line of justice. Honor work. Do not steal credit. The Wisdom who cried in the street is not ashamed of this ending. Holiness lives in a house.