What Does Proverbs 31:10 Mean?
Who can find a woman of strength? Her price is far above rubies.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.THE KEY
The Hebrew חַיִל (chayil, force and capacity) names her as living strength whose value outruns the pearl measure.
THE MEANING
You encounter a woman called אֵשֶׁת־חַיִל (eshet chayil, a woman of force and capability). Her worth stands beyond the scale of pearls; even the language of price cannot contain what she is.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A woman’s worth is determined by the cost of her adornment or by the price others assign her.
THE ROOT
חַיִל
chayil
GROWS FROM
חיל
chayil
Strength, force, and capacity; by extension, resources, wealth, or military force.
“woman of strength” in this verse is chayil. The word translated “virtuous” carries the force of ability, substance, and strength. The verse names the woman with a word that can also describe an army or wealth, then places her value beyond pearls.
ALSO GROWS
cheil: Army or military force.
חֵיל
This form can name an army’s force, revealing the strength carried inside “virtuous.”
chayil: Wealth, resources, or substance.
חַיִל
The same word can name wealth and resources, joining her capacity with material substance before the verse measures her against pearls.
מִכְרָהּ
mikrah
GROWS FROM
מכר
makhar
To sell or exchange.
The word for her price comes from the language of selling and exchange. The verse uses a measure associated with transaction, then says her value lies far beyond the finest treasure.
ALSO GROWS
makhar: To sell.
מָכַר
The verb names the act of exchange behind the word for her price.
mimkar: A sale or something sold.
מִמְכָּר
This related noun names what is transferred in a sale, sharpening the verse’s image of a value that exceeds ordinary exchange.
THE PATTERN
Scripture places wisdom and lasting character beyond the measure of precious things.
She is more precious than rubies, and nothing you long for can be made equal to her.Who, having found one pearl of great worth, went and sold all that he had and bought it.But let it be the hidden person of the heart, in what cannot decay, the arrangement of a gentle and quiet breath, which is very costly in the sight of God.THE THREAD
A woman of strength is a crown to her husband, but she who shames him is like rot in his bones.It repeats the Hebrew phrase אֵשֶׁת־חַיִל (eshet chayil, woman of force and capability). The crown image connects that strength with honor, extending the portrait of her worth.
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