What Does Proverbs 31:19 Mean?
She stretches out her hands to the distaff, and her palms grasp the spindle.
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
She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.THE KEY
The verse binds sending and holding together: the hand that reaches into work is also the hand that steadies it.
THE MEANING
Your hands reach toward the work and continue by holding the tool steady. Skill appears here as both movement into a task and the sustaining contact that lets it take shape.
THE ROOT
שִׁלְּחָה
shilleḥāh
GROWS FROM
שלח
sh-l-ḥ
To send forth, extend, or release.
“stretches out” in this verse is shilleḥāh. The Hebrew verb carries the sense of sending her hands outward toward the work. English makes this sound like simple placement; the root reveals a motion of extension, the same kind of sending forth that can also mean release.
ALSO GROWS
shilluaḥ: A sending away or release.
שִׁלּוּחַ
This branch keeps the root’s movement outward in view: the hand is sent into the work.
Shiloach: Sent forth; the name of the watercourse called Siloam.
שִׁילֹחַ
The same root’s image of sending forth appears in something that flows outward, illuminating the verse’s reaching motion.
תָּמְכוּ
tamkhu
GROWS FROM
תמך
t-m-kh
To support, hold up, or sustain.
“grasp” in this verse is tamkhu. The palms do more than touch the tool: the root carries the sense of supporting it. Beside the hands sent outward, this word reveals the second half of skilled work, steadying what the reaching hand takes up.
ALSO GROWS
tomekh: One who supports or sustains.
תּוֹמֵךְ
It shows the root’s active sense of keeping something upheld, as the palms keep the tool steady.
temikhah: Support or assistance.
תְּמִיכָה
This branch makes the sustaining quality plain: the work continues through what holds it up.
THE PATTERN
Hands extend into work, and what they make can become provision for others.
And all the women who were wise-hearted spun with their hands, and brought what they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen.Let the one who steals steal no longer, but rather let him toil, working the good thing with his own hands, that he may have something to share with the one who has need.She spreads her palm to the bowed, and stretches out her hands to the craving.THE THREAD
She spreads her palm to the bowed, and stretches out her hands to the craving.The Hebrew repeats שִׁלְּחָה (shilleḥāh, “sends forth”): here her hands are sent toward the work, and there they are sent toward the poor. The same verb joins skilled labor with generosity as one outward movement.
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