What Does Proverbs 31:31 Mean?
Give her from the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.
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
Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.THE KEY
Her labor does not vanish into service: its fruit returns to her, and the work itself becomes her public praise.
THE MEANING
What her hands bring forth returns to her as fruit. Her work can speak for her in public, carrying its own testimony into the places where people gather.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that recognition must come from self-promotion is undone here: her own works praise her.
THE ROOT
יְהַלְלוּהָ
yehaleluha
GROWS FROM
הלל
H-L-L
Praise, celebrate, or boast.
The verse says her works praise her: her deeds themselves become the voice of recognition. The praise is not detached from what she has made; it rises from it.
ALSO GROWS
hillel: Praise or celebrate.
הִלֵּל
It makes clear that the praise in the verse is active recognition, carried by her works.
tehillah: Praise or a song of praise.
תְּהִלָּה
This branch shows praise as something voiced and shared, fitting the public setting of the gates.
מַעֲשֶׂיהָ
ma'aseha
GROWS FROM
עשה
A-S-H
Do or make.
Her works are her doings and makings: what she has made becomes what speaks for her. English can make “works” sound like an abstract record, while the Hebrew keeps the deeds tied to the act of making.
ALSO GROWS
asah: To do or make.
עָשָׂה
The verb keeps her public praise grounded in what she actually does.
ma'aseh: A deed, work, or thing made.
מַעֲשֶׂה
This noun shows her work as the result of her making, now visible to others.
פְּרִי
peri
GROWS FROM
פרה
P-R-H
Bear fruit or be fruitful.
Fruit is the yield of what has been done: the verse pictures the result of her labor being given back to her. The line holds both the making and its return together.
ALSO GROWS
peri: Fruit or product.
פְּרִי
It names what comes forth from her hands and is returned to her.
parah: To bear fruit or be fruitful.
פָּרָה
This verb connects the tangible fruit to the life and labor that bring it forth.
THE PATTERN
What a person brings forth through work can return to them as good or reward.
A man is filled with good from the fruit of his mouth, and the recompense of a man's hands returns to him.And also, every human eats and drinks, and sees good in all his toil. This is the giving of God.The one who plants and the one who gives to drink are one, and each one will take his own wage according to his own toil.THE THREAD
A man is filled with good from the fruit of his mouth, and the recompense of a man's hands returns to him.This verse uses the same Hebrew word פְּרִי (peri, fruit) and יָד (yad, hand) that appear in Proverbs 31:31. The shared words connect what comes from a person’s hands with what returns to that person.
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