Do not hand over your strength to women, and your sovereign power to those who destroy kings.
Now this one's a bit sticky and I'm feeling that my lack of Hebrew and for that matter Aramaic is a stumbling block. The English in front of me however makes me feel uncomfortable. My commentary tells me that this verse is warning Lemuel against unrestrained sexual gratification in relation to women who sell sex or are members of a harem. This verse leaves a bitter taste because I feel it seems to blame women and places too much responsibility on their shoulders since I am firmly in the camp of those who regard exploitation in prostitution as being inherently abusive in that very polarised, ideological battle of words.
I would like this verse to say: do not use your strength against women or use your power in destroying people. But as far as I know it doesn't.
And there's a contradiction here because I was perfectly happy in the first two verses to assign large amounts of autonomy and agency to women and here I am now wanting to rob them of it and am prepared only to paint them as victims.
There was an interesting blog at "the f-word" asking how we can argue that culture and society affect women without painting them as unthinking victims (http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2012/02/ask_a_feminist_7). How much agency people have is important in a blame culture. We often want to know 'whose fault is it?' But there are better questions to ask.
As Christians it shouldn't be difficult for us to deal with the reality that the world is not split into goodies and baddies and that we have all made choices that we will be held responsible for. But my good God knows all the nuances of situations and understands constrained choices and does not hold us responsible for choices others have made that they pretend are ours. He does not judge 11 year old children as 'willing' (sorry for the link but that's were the story is: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4142563/Rapists-of-willing-girl-aged-11-jailed.html - makes me want to be physically sick). God is also full of grace, lovingkindness, healing and forgiveness.
So perhaps it is unfair of me to want to rob these women of all their power but I would like someone with an understanding of the dynamics of sexual exploitation and of Hebrew to have a look at this verse for me.
What I am sure about is that this kind of behaviour would ruin Lemuel. When we partake in the dehumanising abuse of others we compromose our own humanity.
A Proverbs 31 community does not use people as sexual commodities - we have a long way to go on this one surrounded as we are by ubiquitous pornographic images.
Now this one's a bit sticky and I'm feeling that my lack of Hebrew and for that matter Aramaic is a stumbling block. The English in front of me however makes me feel uncomfortable. My commentary tells me that this verse is warning Lemuel against unrestrained sexual gratification in relation to women who sell sex or are members of a harem. This verse leaves a bitter taste because I feel it seems to blame women and places too much responsibility on their shoulders since I am firmly in the camp of those who regard exploitation in prostitution as being inherently abusive in that very polarised, ideological battle of words.
I would like this verse to say: do not use your strength against women or use your power in destroying people. But as far as I know it doesn't.
And there's a contradiction here because I was perfectly happy in the first two verses to assign large amounts of autonomy and agency to women and here I am now wanting to rob them of it and am prepared only to paint them as victims.
There was an interesting blog at "the f-word" asking how we can argue that culture and society affect women without painting them as unthinking victims (http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2012/02/ask_a_feminist_7). How much agency people have is important in a blame culture. We often want to know 'whose fault is it?' But there are better questions to ask.
As Christians it shouldn't be difficult for us to deal with the reality that the world is not split into goodies and baddies and that we have all made choices that we will be held responsible for. But my good God knows all the nuances of situations and understands constrained choices and does not hold us responsible for choices others have made that they pretend are ours. He does not judge 11 year old children as 'willing' (sorry for the link but that's were the story is: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4142563/Rapists-of-willing-girl-aged-11-jailed.html - makes me want to be physically sick). God is also full of grace, lovingkindness, healing and forgiveness.
So perhaps it is unfair of me to want to rob these women of all their power but I would like someone with an understanding of the dynamics of sexual exploitation and of Hebrew to have a look at this verse for me.
What I am sure about is that this kind of behaviour would ruin Lemuel. When we partake in the dehumanising abuse of others we compromose our own humanity.
A Proverbs 31 community does not use people as sexual commodities - we have a long way to go on this one surrounded as we are by ubiquitous pornographic images.
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