Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Proverbs 31:26 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 26. 26She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse uses two-part parallelism to place “She openeth her mouth with wisdom” beside “and in her tongue is the law of kindness”.
Read It With
- Proverbs 31:25–27
Read Proverbs 31:26 with 31:25–27. Read alone, “She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law…” could turn a compressed observation, warning, comparison, or command into a guarantee or complete policy. The full unit establishes: uses two-part parallelism to place “Strength and honour are her clothing” beside “and she shall rejoice in time to come”; by 31:27, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness”. Together the unit concentrates on humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, speech, listening, truth, and relational consequence, generosity, neighbor-care, and material responsibility within “Alphabetic praise of a woman of strength.”
Why This Verse Appears Here
Proverbs 31:25–27 continues “Dignity, public trust, and commercial skill” by carrying “Strength, wisdom, and attentive household care” within the same sustained discourse, admonition, numbered form, or poem. Within that relationship, this verse uses two-part parallelism to place “She openeth her mouth with wisdom” beside “and in her tongue is the law of kindness”.
Follow the Context
- Opening (31:25): the unit uses two-part parallelism to place “Strength and honour are her clothing” beside “and she shall rejoice in time to come”.
- Development (31:25–27): adjacent lines test humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, speech, listening, truth, and relational consequence, generosity, neighbor-care, and material responsibility through parallelism, contrast, motive, image, or consequence.
- Close (31:27): the unit contributes the claim, image, or instruction “She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness”, creating the next supported pause.
What This Verse Is Not Saying
Proverbs 31:26 does not allow “She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law…” to become a universal promise, complete policy, diagnosis, insult, or authorization detached from Proverbs 31:25–27. The saying does not require silence about abuse, guarantee that gentle words stop danger, or make a harmed person responsible for another's aggression.
What Remains True
Words can reveal character, transmit truth, inflame conflict, protect others, or cause durable harm. In Proverbs 31:26, that bounded truth is expressed through “She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law…,” not through a promise detached from its literary form.
How It Can Shape Life
- Pause, verify, listen, and choose truthful speech fitted to the hearer, timing, risk, and public consequences. Proverbs 31:26 names that responsibility through “She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law…,” so the response must remain accountable to the person, action, comparison, or consequence in this line.
Teach It Back
Explain Proverbs 31:26's exact role in Proverbs 31:25–27. Distinguish pattern from guarantee, include “She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in…,” name one uncertainty, and explicitly reject one harmful use.
Your explanation stays in this browser. It is not sent or saved.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Proverbs 31:25–27 — Strength, wisdom, and attentive household careSources 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 31:25–27, 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 31:25-31:27
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 31:25–27
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 31:25–27 and the Alphabetic praise of a woman of strength outline
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 31:25–27
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 31:25–27
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 31:25–27
Open source ↗