Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Proverbs 31:13 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 13. 13She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse contributes the claim, image, or instruction “She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands”.
Read It With
- Proverbs 31:13–15
Read Proverbs 31:13 inside Proverbs 31:13–15: it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands”. The unit then locates that line within gendered imagery, sexual fidelity, consent, and household agency, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, generosity, neighbor-care, and material responsibility rather than treating it as a free-standing formula.
Why This Verse Appears Here
The unit needs this line's exact work: it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands”. That placement develops gendered imagery, sexual fidelity, consent, and household agency, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, generosity, neighbor-care, and material responsibility while leaving exceptional cases visible.
Follow the Context
- Opening (31:13): the unit contributes the claim, image, or instruction “She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands”.
- Development (31:13–15): adjacent lines test gendered imagery, sexual fidelity, consent, and household agency, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, generosity, neighbor-care, and material responsibility through parallelism, contrast, motive, image, or consequence.
- Close (31:15): the unit contributes the claim, image, or instruction “She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens”, creating the next supported pause.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands”
In plain language: gendered imagery, sexual fidelity, consent, and household agency
This verse contributes the claim, image, or instruction “She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands”.
Why it matters: This wording carries interpretive, pastoral, or misuse risk requiring the full unit and explicit limits.
How certain? strongWhat This Verse Is Not Saying
The saying does not demean women, blame targets of exploitation, excuse sexual coercion, impose a universal domestic role, or make male desire the measure of a woman's worth.
What Remains True
The gendered sayings address fidelity, desire, agency, speech, and household life within an androcentric ancient setting; they must not be generalized into contempt for women. In Proverbs 31:13, that bounded truth is expressed through “She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands,” not through a promise detached from its literary form.
How It Can Shape Life
- Practice consent, mutual fidelity, truthful boundaries, economic respect, and accountability for the person who holds greater social power. For Proverbs 31:13, preserve the sequence: verse role (contributes the claim, image, or instruction “She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands”) -> contextual meaning in Proverbs 31:13–15 -> proportionate truth -> this accountable response.
Teach It Back
Explain Proverbs 31:13's exact role in Proverbs 31:13–15. Distinguish pattern from guarantee, include “She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh...,” name one uncertainty, and explicitly reject one harmful use.
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Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Proverbs 31:13–15 — Skilled work and willing handsSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
The verse belongs to a larger speech, instruction, prayer, number saying, or poem; its voice and complete literary movement control how strongly an isolated line may be stated.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV words, canonical order, paragraph flags, supplied-word markup, and complete unit coverage.
Exact location: Proverbs 31:13–15, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Proverbs
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology used only for the exact unit's lexical, grammatical, parallel, superscription, number-saying, and acrostic questions.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Prov.xml, OSIS 31:13-31:15
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Proverbs with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-attached textual, lexical, grammatical, syntactic, parallelism, and older-English controls for the exact range.
Exact location: NET Bible Proverbs PDF, printed pp. 1181-1182, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 31:13–15
Open source ↗modern critical commentary
Proverbs
K. T. Aitken
Oxford University Press, in The Oxford Bible Commentary, 2001
Supports: Whole-book and collection orientation, local commentary, social-setting proposals, and named interpretation limits.
Exact location: Aitken, ‘Proverbs,’ Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 405-422, subsection covering 31:13–15 and the Alphabetic praise of a woman of strength outline
Open source ↗open access doctoral thesis
Wisdom, strange or somewhere in between: in search of a real woman in the Book of Proverbs
Jeanette May Hartwell
University of Birmingham, 2017
Supports: Feminist and literary review of Wisdom, Folly, Strange Woman, mothers, wives, women in sentence sayings, and the closing woman of strength.
Exact location: Hartwell, Wisdom, strange or somewhere in between (Birmingham PhD, 2017), pp. 13-25, 132-171, 172-204, 205-244, and 245-260 as relevant to the gendered figures and sayings in Proverbs 31:13–15
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access journal article
The situational context of statements concerning poverty and wealth in the Book of Proverbs
G. H. Wittenberg
Scriptura 21, 1987; open archive 2020
Supports: One historical-social account of poverty, wealth, interest, oppression, labor, and differing evaluations within the collection.
Exact location: Wittenberg, ‘Situational context of statements concerning poverty and wealth,’ Scriptura 21, pp. 1-23, especially the sayings and redactional comparison relevant to Proverbs 31:13–15
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access journal article
Proverbs 31:10-31: A passage containing wisdom principles for a successful marriage
Robin Gallaher Branch
Koers 77.2, article a49, 2012
Supports: One relationship-oriented reading of the complete poem, bounded against universal checklist or household-mandate use.
Exact location: Branch, ‘Proverbs 31:10-31,’ Koers 77.2 (2012), pp. 1-9, sections on acrostic structure, Woman Wisdom comparison, work, commerce, generosity, speech, fear, and praise relevant to Proverbs 31:13–15
Open source ↗