Acrostics In Proverbs 31

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Look at Proverbs 31:10-31. The chapter is about the virtuous woman (eshet hayil - a woman of substance) whose price is far above rubies. There are 22 verses in this poem. Each verse starts with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet in the correct order. The first verse starts with the first Hebrew letter Alef, the second verse starts with Bet, and so on, and the last verse starts with the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet which is Tav.

The picture opposite shows this passage in Hebrew. As you can see, the passage is a delightfully exquisite acrostic. Each letter of the Hebrew alphabet in turn is spelled out as we progress through the chapter. The Hebrew letters at the start of each verse are shown in red in the picture. The chapter was probably intended for Lemuel to memorize so that he (unlike his father Solomon) would not be led astray by foreign women (1 Kings 11:1-13).


Without knowing Hebrew, an English translation of this passage is only a beautiful description of the virtuous woman. When you can read Hebrew, however, the passage is even more beautiful and powerful. The Tanakh in Hebrew is full of beauty like this. There are pearls everywhere, awaiting you once you can read Hebrew. All this is lost when you translate from Hebrew into another language.

We can learn another interesting thing from this chapter - that, at the time of Solomon (around 1000 B.C.E.) the Hebrew alphabet was already fixed and the letters were in exactly the same order as they are now. For linguists and those interested in the history of Hebrew, this is important evidence about just how early Hebrew had become a fixed language.
 
 

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