Proverbs 31 Woman: Strong At Heart

31: 17 She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong.

Chet (Cate as in mate) is our eighth letter and is represented in pictorals by a fence.  Some Jewish mystics say that Chet is the light that comes through from the doorway of heaven.  It represents life and wisdom and because it is the eighth letter it also said that it represents grace.

The letter Chet is formed from both Vav and Zayin connected by a thin line.  This is believed to be because it is love which makes us as one with God.  The letter is often used to represent life and because of it's shape, it is said that it is the same form in which the blood of the lamb was painted upon the doorposts of the homes of the Israelites in Egypt on that first Passover.  Often this letter is associated with new beginnings.

The word in the verse is chagrah and it translates "to gird oneself, as with a belt or armor".

I happened to hear a commentary on this verse just the other day.  In it, the teacher said that the woman had pulled up her skirts and tucked them into her waistband much as peasant women had done while working in the fields for years upon years.  That is certainly a vision of a woman hard at work isn't it?  And coming on the heels of reading of her purchase of a field and planting a vineyard it is most certainly an apt vision.

For all this I could not forget that the letter's pictograph represented a fence.  Why a fence?  What do fences do?  They protect.  They keep out the unwanted and contain that which is valuable to us.  Fences are usually our first line of defence in battle.  

I cannot help, in reading this verse but   to think of  Eph. 6:10 Finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, so that you can stand against the Devil's schemes.  Reading the Lexicon verses in which the word chagrah nearly all of them refer to armor or weapons.

So I do not feel I am far wrong in thinking that this verse, in a spiritual sense, represents the preparation of this woman for battle.

In drawing closer to God, we must, above all, learn to be spiritually strong.  Otherwise we will not grow in our relationship with him because we will be distracted and overtaken by a world of cares orchestrated by satan to keep us from our purpose.   In the same way, when the blood of the lamb was painted upon the doorposts of the Israelite homes, God told them to spread that blood in order to protect themselves during the spiritual battle that raged about them.   Hence, when this woman dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong  it is surely a simile of her readying herself for spiritual battle.  Sometimes it is enough to put on the armor, to show oneself ready for battle and aware of the raging wars between earth and heaven.  But  we see in this verse that indeed, she makes her arms strong.  She has gone the extra distance to be fully prepared to fight if necessary.  She has disciplined herself as a soldier, going back to verse 10 and  the word chayil which I shared had a meaning of army.  She is an army because she will not fight alone as a solitary soldier but has aligned herself with God and his hosts of angels to do battle.