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Monday, May 5th, 2025
the Third Week after Easter
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Read the Bible

Easy-to-Read Version

Proverbs 31:14

She is like a ship from a faraway place. She brings home food from everywhere.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Economics;   Industry;   Poetry;   Wife;   Women;   Thompson Chain Reference - Woman;   The Topic Concordance - Charity;   Praise;   Speech/communication;   Virtue;   Women;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Commerce;   Industry;   Ships;   Wives;   Woman;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Garments;   Lemuel;   Letters;   Proverb, the Book of;   Woman;   Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Wife;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Beauty;   Woman;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Poetry;   Wife;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Education;   Lemuel;   Marriage;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Acrostic;   Cloth, Clothing;   Proverbs, Book of;   Wisdom and Wise Men;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Acrostic;   Ethics;   Marriage;   Massa;   Song of Songs;   Trade and Commerce;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Home (2);   Living (2);   Parents (2);   Sirach;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Poetry;   Smith Bible Dictionary - Handicraft;   Marriage;   Writing;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Ships and Boats;   Woman;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Acrostics;   Monogamy;   Poetry;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
She is like the merchant ships,bringing her food from far away.
Hebrew Names Version
She is like the merchant ships. She brings her bread from afar.
King James Version
She is like the merchants' ships; she bringeth her food from afar.
English Standard Version
She is like the ships of the merchant; she brings her food from afar.
New American Standard Bible
She is like merchant ships; She brings her food from afar.
New Century Version
She is like a trader's ship, bringing food from far away.
Amplified Bible
She is like the merchant ships [abounding with treasure]; She brings her [household's] food from far away.
World English Bible
She is like the merchant ships. She brings her bread from afar.
Geneva Bible (1587)
She is like the shippes of marchants: shee bringeth her foode from afarre.
Legacy Standard Bible
She is like merchant ships;She brings her food from afar.
Berean Standard Bible
She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar.
Contemporary English Version
She is like a sailing ship that brings food from across the sea.
Complete Jewish Bible
ה She is like those merchant vessels, bringing her food from far away.
Darby Translation
She is like the merchants' ships: she bringeth her food from afar;
George Lamsa Translation
She is like the merchants ship, she brings her merchandise from afar.
Good News Translation
She brings home food from out-of-the-way places, as merchant ships do.
Lexham English Bible
She is like the ships of a merchant; from far off she brings her food;
Literal Translation
She is like the merchant ships, she brings in her food from afar.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
She is like a marchauntes shippe, that bryngeth hir vytayles from farre.
American Standard Version
She is like the merchant-ships; She bringeth her bread from afar.
Bible in Basic English
She is like the trading-ships, getting food from far away.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
She is like the merchant-ships; she bringeth her food from afar.
King James Version (1611)
She is like the merchants ships, she bringeth her food from afarre.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
She is like a marchauntes ship, that bryngeth her vittayles from a farre.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
She is like a ship trading from a distance: so she procures her livelihood.
English Revised Version
She is like the merchant-ships; she bringeth her food from afar.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Sche is maad as the schip of a marchaunt, that berith his breed fro fer.
Update Bible Version
She is like the merchant-ships; She brings her bread from far.
Webster's Bible Translation
She is like the merchant's ships; she bringeth her food from afar.
New English Translation
She is like the merchant ships; she brings her food from afar.
New King James Version
She is like the merchant ships, She brings her food from afar.
New Living Translation
She is like a merchant's ship, bringing her food from afar.
New Life Bible
She is like ships that trade. She brings her food from far away.
New Revised Standard
She is like the ships of the merchant, she brings her food from far away.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
She is like the ships of the merchant, from afar, she bringeth in her food;
Douay-Rheims Bible
She is like the merchant’s ship, she bringeth her bread from afar.
Revised Standard Version
She is like the ships of the merchant, she brings her food from afar.
Young's Literal Translation
She hath been as ships of the merchant, From afar she bringeth in her bread.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
She is like merchant ships; She brings her food from afar.

Contextual Overview

10 How hard it is to find the perfect wife. She is worth far more than jewels. 11 Her husband depends on her. He will never be poor. 12 She does good for her husband all her life. She never causes him trouble. 13 She is always gathering wool and flax and enjoys making things with her hands. 14 She is like a ship from a faraway place. She brings home food from everywhere. 15 She wakes up early in the morning, cooks food for her family, and gives the servants their share. 16 She looks at land and buys it. She uses the money she has earned and plants a vineyard. 17 She works very hard. She is strong and able to do all her work. 18 She works late into the night to make sure her business earns a profit. 19 She makes her own thread and weaves her own cloth.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Proverbs 31:24, 1 Kings 9:26-28, 2 Chronicles 9:10, Ezekiel 27:3-36

Cross-References

Genesis 2:24
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife. In this way two people become one.
Genesis 29:24
(Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter to be her maid.)
Genesis 29:29
(Laban gave his maid Bilhah to his daughter Rachel to be her maid.)
Ruth 4:11
So all the elders and the people who were near the city gates said, "We are witnesses to all of this. And may the Lord bless this woman who is coming into your home to be like Rachel and Leah. They are the ones who had many children to make the people of Israel strong. And may you become powerful in the tribe of Ephrathah and famous in Bethlehem!

Gill's Notes on the Bible

She is like the merchant ships,.... Not like a single one, but like a navy of them, that cross the seas, go to foreign parts, and come back laden with rich goods: so the church of Christ, and her true members, like ships of burden, trade to heaven, by prayer and other religious exercises, and return with the riches of grace and mercy, to help them in time of need; and though they have often difficult and dangerous passages, are tossed with tempests, and covered with billows; yet, Christ being their pilot, faith their sail, and hope their anchor, they weather the seas, ride out all storms, and come safe home with their merchandise;

she bringeth her food from afar: from a far country, from Egypt particularly, from whence corn for bread, as the word here used signifies, was fetched and carried in ships to divers parts of the world p; to which the allusion may be: in a spiritual sense, it may mean that the church brings her food or bread from heaven, the good land afar off; where God her father, Christ her husband, and her friends the angels are; with whom she carries on a correspondence, and from hence she has her food for her family; not from below, on earth; not dust, the serpent's food; nor ashes, on which a deceitful heart feeds; nor husks, which swine eat; but the corn of heaven, angels' food, the hidden and heavenly manna; the bread of life, which comes down from heaven; the Gospel of the grace of God, the good news from a far country.

p Bacchylides spud Athenaei Deipnosoph. l. 2. c. 3. p. 39.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The comparison points to the enlarged commerce of the Israelites consequent on their contact with the Phoenicians under David and Solomon; compare Proverbs 31:24.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Proverbs 31:14. She is like the merchants' ships

3. She acts like merchants. If she buy any thing for her household, she sells sufficient of her own manufactures to pay for it; if she imports, she exports: and she sends articles of her own manufacturing or produce to distant countries; she traffics with the neighbouring tribes.


 
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