House and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.
The family is the central institution of Scripture. The church institution has a high billing, by sharing its name with the body of the saved; civil government predominates much human thought, being the prime concentration of worldly power. But the family dominates the Christian conception of the world as the smallest and most powerful of the Divinely-instituted governments, born in Genesis 1 and referenced as far as Revelation 22. Marriage, fruitfulness, and community come within the family’s work. This proverb highlights the double nature of family’s continuance: that God ordains much to pass down by human ingenuity, but that He is still the Hand which truly steers its course, giving it vitality and continuance.
Inheritance is a Biblical institution much assailed nowadays. Inheritance taxes are a particularly blunt form of attack here, the state interfering in the continuation of the family, but they are more symptom than cause. Deeper down and nearer to the root lies the cultural contempt for inheritance, the cultural dismissal of a parent’s gift to his children, a contempt for the parent. We see this in story, in action, and in legislation.
Biblical inheritance is both temporal and spiritual. The Christian passes on an inheritance which is first and foremost relational. He passes on wisdom (Prov. 3:12; Eph. 1:17) and the blessing of God on His people’s children (Is. 59:21, 65:20). He passes on, by God’s grace, the kin of that promise that, “Jonadab the son of Rechab shall never lack a man to stand before me” (Jer. 35:19). Assuredly that promise continues to this day. More terrible, of course, is the sort of spiritual inheritance which is found in 1 Sam. 3:14, to wit, “Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.”
Yet a Christian inheritance has by God’s grace a material component as well, as Job assuredly left to His children (Job 42:10-17). So Caleb bequeathed to his children (Judg. 1:15). Thus, God gave to Israel the inheritance of the Promised land, and to His people the inheritance of the world entire, the full flower of the Promised Lands: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5; 1 Cor. 6:10; Eph. 1:14). Familial wealth, used rather than hoarded, is the proper center of a society’s economical stability, and God blesses His people with it by His will (1 Kings 3:13).
All this, and we might start to think that the family’s power, to prepare and send forth children for the conquest of God’s earth, is inherent to it, so that the family forges ahead under its own strength. God disabuses us of this notion right quickly: “A prudent wife is from the Lord” (Prov. 19:14).
Family without marriage ceases within a generation (as a rule). Family comes to ruin even faster if the marriage binds its scion to a fool, whether a foolish husband or a foolish wife. Fools are a curse to their children (Ecc. 4:13), to their spouses (Prov. 21:9), to all with whom the family has community. A fool welcomed to the heart of the family, to the marriage which by God’s grace is the nucleus of family’s essential fruitfulness (Gen. 1:28), that fool is given a prime position to plunge the knife in deep and twist, regardless of whether he does so from malice or from neglect. In all probability, it will be both, neglect become petulance or hatred, guilt and rancor turned to negligence.
So a prudent spouse, a prudent wife (the family name being typically patrilineal), is above all gifts most necessary for the continuance of the family. Riches may be lost, but, “An excellent wife… is far more precious than jewels” (Prov. 31:30). God thus makes it clear to us that even our most powerful institution, the perpetuation of His covenant (Deut. 6:4-8), stands strong entirely by His good gift.
On the one hand, let us turn this understanding to repentance, to proper fear, to assiduity in loving Him, His law. On the other hand, let us rejoice, for we would be poor stewards indeed, if God were not the Hand upholding us. And, in the current cultural antipathy to family and to righteous marriage, we ought never to despair, remembering that the Lord is the one who brings marital blessing.
God bless.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
Colson Potter writes copious fiction and nonfiction, including a weekly Proverbs post and his blog at Creational Story.
