What Does Proverbs 31:22 Mean?
She makes coverings for herself; her clothing is fine linen and purple.
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 maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.THE KEY
The Hebrew מַרְבָּדִים (marvadim, “coverings”) appears again for the bed covering in Proverbs 7:16, so the text makes a covering’s meaning turn on who makes it and what it serves.
THE MEANING
A woman makes coverings for herself, and her clothing is silk and purple. Skilled work and visible beauty share one life here: what covers and adorns her is something she creates.
THE ROOT
מַרְבָּדִים
marvadim
GROWS FROM
רבד
To spread out or lay over.
English “coverings” can sound like a generic layer, but מַרְבָּדִים (marvadim, “coverings”) is a rare textile word, used again for the bed covering in Proverbs 7:16. Here she makes those coverings for herself, bringing attention to the maker and purpose as well as the fabric.
ALSO GROWS
rābad: The root’s basic action is spreading something across a surface.
רָבַד
It gives the covering the sense of a laid-out textile, something shaped to cover a surface.
marbād: A woven covering laid over a bed or surface.
מַרְבָּד
Its plural, מַרְבָּדִים (marvadim, “coverings”), is the same word used in Proverbs 7:16, linking the two passages through the covering itself.
THE PATTERN
What skilled hands make can become a visible covering for oneself or another.
I have spread my couch with spread cloths, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt.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.Then Peter stood up and went with them. When he had come, they led him up into the upper room, and all the widows stood beside him, weeping, and showing the tunics and cloaks which Dorcas made while she was with them.THE THREAD
I have spread my couch with spread cloths, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt.מַרְבָּדִים (marvadim, “coverings”) appears in both verses, making the connection unusually concrete. Proverbs 7 places them on a bed prepared to entice; Proverbs 31 places them among what the woman makes for herself, so the same covering takes its meaning from its maker and use.
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