What Does Proverbs 31:2 Mean in the King James?
What, my son? and what, the son of my womb? and what, the son of my vows?
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Womb and vow sit side by side: this child’s origin includes a promise, not only a birth.
THE MEANING
Your life is named here through relationship, the body that carries it, and vows spoken over it. The repeated “what?” gives these bonds urgency; the son’s life is not framed as separate from the ties that name him.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that biology is the only bond between parent and child falls away: the verse places vows beside the womb as part of the same bond.
THE ROOT
נְדָרָי
nedaray
GROWS FROM
נדר
to vow; a solemn pledge
The word for “vows” shares its root with the act of making a vow. The verse places the son inside a commitment spoken aloud, alongside the bond of birth.
ALSO GROWS
nadar: to vow
נָדַר
The verb names the act that gives the mother’s “vows” their force.
neder: a vow, a pledged commitment
נֶדֶר
The noun is the same seed as the “vows” attached to the son here.
בִּטְנִי
bitni
GROWS FROM
בטן
belly; womb, the body’s inward space
The Hebrew word translated “womb” is beten, also the word for “belly.” The phrase holds gestation and bodily interior together in its naming of the son’s origin.
ALSO GROWS
womb: the inner place where a child is carried
Here, it names the mother’s body as the son’s origin.
belly: the abdomen or belly
The same Hebrew word can name the body’s interior beyond pregnancy, keeping the phrase physically concrete.
THE PATTERN
A life can be held in language of both bodily origin and pledged belonging.
And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother’s belly.For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb.THE THREAD
When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.The same נדר (n-d-r), meaning “to vow,” appears in “vows” here and in “vowest” and “vowed” there. Ecclesiastes makes clear that a vow carries the weight of a spoken commitment, giving “son of my vows” its force.
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