What Does Proverbs 31:2 Mean?
What, my son? And what, son of my womb? And what, son of my vows?
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
What, my son? and what, the son of my womb? and what, the son of my vows?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 you will indeed look upon the bending low of your handmaid, and remember me, and not forget your handmaid, but give your handmaid a son, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head.Upon you I am thrown from the womb; from my mother's belly you are my God.For he will be great before the face of the LORD, and he will drink neither wine nor strong drink, and he will be filled with the Set-Apart Breath, even from his mother's womb.THE THREAD
When you vow a vow to God, do not linger to make it whole. For there is no delight in the thick-headed. Make whole what you have 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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