Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Proverbs 31:30 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 30. 30Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse uses contrastive parallelism to place “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain” against “a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised”.
Read It With
- Proverbs 31:28–31
The line at Proverbs 31:30 uses contrastive parallelism to place “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain” against “a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised”. Its place in Proverbs 31:28–31 matters because the edited collection joins it to gendered imagery, sexual fidelity, consent, and household agency, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, reverent accountability before the LORD.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Proverbs 31:30 appears here because it uses contrastive parallelism to place “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain” against “a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised”. Its contrast, image, or consequence tests the concerns gathered in Proverbs 31:28–31.
Follow the Context
- Opening (31:28): the unit uses two-part parallelism to place “Her children arise up, and call her blessed” beside “her husband also, and he praiseth her”.
- Development (31:28–31): adjacent lines test gendered imagery, sexual fidelity, consent, and household agency, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, reverent accountability before the LORD through parallelism, contrast, motive, image, or consequence.
- Close (31:31): the unit uses two-part parallelism to place “Give her of the fruit of her hands” beside “and let her own works praise her in the gates”, creating the next supported pause.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that...”
In plain language: reverent accountability before the LORD
This verse uses contrastive parallelism to place “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain” against “a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised”.
Why it matters: This wording carries interpretive, pastoral, or misuse risk requiring the full unit and explicit limits.
How certain? probableWhat This Verse Is Not Saying
The verse does not shame aging, appearance, cosmetics, sexuality, or women whose lives do not match the poem's elite household setting.
What Remains True
Wisdom begins with reverent accountability to the LORD and refuses to make human insight self-sufficient. In Proverbs 31:30, that bounded truth is expressed through “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that...,” not through a promise detached from its literary form.
How It Can Shape Life
- Bring the decision under truthful worship, moral accountability, and correction rather than using religious language to shield preference or power. For Proverbs 31:30, preserve the sequence: verse role (uses contrastive parallelism to place “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain” against “a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised”) -> contextual meaning in Proverbs 31:28–31 -> proportionate truth -> this accountable response.
Teach It Back
Explain Proverbs 31:30's exact role in Proverbs 31:28–31. Distinguish pattern from guarantee, include “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain:...,” 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 31:28–31 — Public praise grounded in fear of the LORDSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
The contrast relativizes socially performed charm and temporary beauty while locating praise in fear of the LORD; it does not condemn attractiveness or bodies.
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 31:28–31, 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 31:28-31:31
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 31:28–31
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 31:28–31 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 31:28–31
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 31:28–31
Open source ↗