Proverbs 11:22
As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.
Farmers used to put rings on their pig’s noses in order to prevent them from digging the earth. Because pigs love mud and in everything filthy, farmers used cheap iron rings. This proverb alludes to how a unfitting it would be for a farmer to ring his mud-wallowing pig’s snout with a gold ring.
These words certainly warn our women about their chastity and their behavior. How unfitting it is for the beautiful creation that is a woman to be immodest and give the virtue to be reserved for one to all that pass by. Why should the gold ring of her beauty and virtue be muddied in such a manner?
We also, God’s people, are the beautiful Sulamite of the Songs of Songs; we are the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31, and we have been betrothed unto Yahweh at Mt Sinai. We will soon enjoy the wedding party and consummation of our marriage at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. We are rightfully called the ‘Bride of Christ’. These words from our kingly author warn us also about the impropriety of our dabbling in the filthiness of the world. The culture in which we live is saturated with spiritual filth, dirt and mud, and as the Bride of Christ, if we go wallow into it we are comparable to a pig’s snout set with a gold ring. Very soon this golden snout will be taken through dregs and filth; what an unbefitting picture. The fact that pigs are also the antithesis of biblically clean animals brings to mind the notion of how God views us when we indulge in the elements and attitudes of the world.
The God of Mt Sinai, the Almighty El-Shaddai admonished us saying, be ye holy, for I am holy. A better choice for the word used in the original text translated by ‘holy’ is: ‘set-apart’. Retranslated, we now have the following injunction: be ye set-apart (from the filth of the world) for I am set-apart (from the filth of the world).
As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.
Farmers used to put rings on their pig’s noses in order to prevent them from digging the earth. Because pigs love mud and in everything filthy, farmers used cheap iron rings. This proverb alludes to how a unfitting it would be for a farmer to ring his mud-wallowing pig’s snout with a gold ring.
These words certainly warn our women about their chastity and their behavior. How unfitting it is for the beautiful creation that is a woman to be immodest and give the virtue to be reserved for one to all that pass by. Why should the gold ring of her beauty and virtue be muddied in such a manner?
We also, God’s people, are the beautiful Sulamite of the Songs of Songs; we are the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31, and we have been betrothed unto Yahweh at Mt Sinai. We will soon enjoy the wedding party and consummation of our marriage at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. We are rightfully called the ‘Bride of Christ’. These words from our kingly author warn us also about the impropriety of our dabbling in the filthiness of the world. The culture in which we live is saturated with spiritual filth, dirt and mud, and as the Bride of Christ, if we go wallow into it we are comparable to a pig’s snout set with a gold ring. Very soon this golden snout will be taken through dregs and filth; what an unbefitting picture. The fact that pigs are also the antithesis of biblically clean animals brings to mind the notion of how God views us when we indulge in the elements and attitudes of the world.
The God of Mt Sinai, the Almighty El-Shaddai admonished us saying, be ye holy, for I am holy. A better choice for the word used in the original text translated by ‘holy’ is: ‘set-apart’. Retranslated, we now have the following injunction: be ye set-apart (from the filth of the world) for I am set-apart (from the filth of the world).
May we be pleasing to our husband.
1 comment:
Thank you! That spoke to me and answered some questions that came up today. Shalom.
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