Proverbs 31:1
These are the words of King Lemuel--the burden that his mother taught him:
Sermons
The Counsels of a Noble Mother to Her SonDavid Thomas D.D.Proverbs 31:1
The Words of King LemuelE. Paxton Hood.Proverbs 31:1
MotherhoodW. Clarkson Proverbs 31:1-3
The Words of LernuelE. Johnson Proverbs 31:1-31














The fear of God is the leading thought in these meditations; and this in a twofold relation - to the king in his rule in the state, and the woman in her rule in the house.

The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him.
I. THE FIRST THING THAT STRIKES US HERE IS THE MOTHER. "The prophecy which his mother taught him."

1. A mother's anxiety. What shall he be? Better not to be, than to turn out a bad man. Seekest thou great things for the little one by thy side? Seek them not; better is it to be good than to be great; to be obscure in holiness rather than to be conspicuous in sin.

2. This is a pious mother. "The son of my vows." It is a great thing to be the child of a good mother. We do not know the name of this mother — her son's nature we know. What eminent sons have ascribed all their distinction to their mother; but she is out of sight. He attains to fame; she is still unknown.

II. THE MOTHER TAUGHT HER SON THINGS PERTAINING TO CHARACTER. Men cannot command circumstances or facts, but they can preserve principles. Principles are like the piles on which you build bridges, or on which you construct railways over morasses and swamps. Principles are the piles of life. Unshaken convictions and principles are only found in profound minds. King Lemuel's mother left, as she might safely do, the technicalities of instruction to others; she looked after character; she laid the foundation strong in goodness. Women teach goodness better than men. There is the right power of woman. When the counsels of good mothers have been disregarded, how often those mothers have been avenged!

III. THE PROPHECIES WHICH HIS MOTHER TAUGHT HIM. The words of Lemuel's mother are living still. In youth we love and are loved so quickly. Then love is pure — more of the heart and less of the senses, which all true love is. In noble natures, the purer the heart, the more it is purified by the love of God. Youth is the time for the choice between God and good, and Satan and evil. "Be sober," said this mother. "Do not excite the body, lest the body should rise against the soul and dethrone her." "My soul," said John Foster, "shall either be mistress in my body, or shall quit it." Never were young men in more danger than now.

1. Young men waste time. The wise man must "separate himself." Ill habits gather by obscure degrees.

2. Young men fail in high principle. You see how everything goes down before things of money value. It is hard to reckon things by another than a money value. All fast living means low thinking, or nothing at all. These are the men who see nothing in religion, because they know nothing about it. Our sanctification must be wrought out where we are, not where we are not. Life is serious and earnest, but let us not despair over its failures, even though they abide with us to the close. "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise." Walk with them in their books, in solitude, in meditation, and join their company at last.

(E. Paxton Hood.)

The identity of this man Lemuel is lost in the mist of ages. A motherly ministry is the tenderest, the strongest, most influential of all the Divine ministers of the world, but when the ministry is the expression of a genuinely religious nature, and specially inspired by heaven, its character is more elevated, and its influence more beneficent and lasting. The counsel of this mother involves two things.

I. AN EARNEST INTERDICT. With what earnestness does she break forth! Her motherly heart seems all aflame! Her vehement intuition is against animal indulgence in its two great forms, debauchery and intemperance; against inordinate gratification of the passions and the appetites. The reign of animalism is a reign that manacles, enfeebles, and damns the soul. Lust blunts the moral sense, pollutes the memory, defiles the imagination, sends a withering influence through all the faculties of the moral man.

II. AN EARNEST INJUNCTION. She enjoins social compassion. Some think in the phrase "ready to perish" there is an allusion to the practice of administering a potion of strong mixed wine to criminals, for the purpose of deadening their sensibility to suffering. But there are ordinary cases of suffering and distress where wine might be administered with salutary effect. What this mother inculcates is compassion to the poor. It is the duty and honour of kings to espouse the cause of the distressed. This mother enjoins not only compassion, but also justice. She is a model mother.

(David Thomas D.D.)

People
Lemuel, Massa
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Burden, Corrected, Declaration, Lemuel, Massa, Oracle, Prophecy, Taught, Teaching, Wherewith
Outline
1. Lemuel's lesson of chastity and temperance
6. The afflicted are to be comforted and defended
10. The praise and properties of a good wife

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Proverbs 31:1-9

     5302   education

Library
The Gospel Cordial
A Sermon (No. 3236) published on Thursday, February 9th, 1911 delivered by C.H. Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. on Lord's Day Evening, September 20th, 1863. "Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more."--Proverbs 31:6, 7. These somewhat singular sentences were spoken by the mother of Lemuel to her son, who was probably Solomon. She had already said to him,
C.H. Spurgeon—Sermons on Proverbs

Letter Li to the virgin Sophia
To the Virgin Sophia He praises her for having despised the glory of the world: and, setting forth the praises, privileges, and rewards of Religious Virgins, exhorts her to persevere. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, to the Virgin Sophia, that she may keep the title of virginity and attain its reward. I. Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised (Prov. xxxi. 31). I rejoice with you, my daughter, in the glory of your virtue, whereby, as I hear, you
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Of the Practice of Piety in Fasting.
There are divers kinds of fasting--First, A constrained fast, as when men either have not food to eat, as in the famine of Samaria (2 Kings vi. 25;) or, having food, cannot eat it for heaviness or sickness, as it befel them who were in the ship with St. Paul (Acts xxvii. 33.) This is rather famine than fasting. Secondly, A natural fast, which we undertake physically, for the health of our body. Thirdly, A civil fast, which the magistrate enjoins for the better maintenance of the commonwealth. Fourthly,
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Proverbs
Many specimens of the so-called Wisdom Literature are preserved for us in the book of Proverbs, for its contents are by no means confined to what we call proverbs. The first nine chapters constitute a continuous discourse, almost in the manner of a sermon; and of the last two chapters, ch. xxx. is largely made up of enigmas, and xxxi. is in part a description of the good housewife. All, however, are rightly subsumed under the idea of wisdom, which to the Hebrew had always moral relations. The Hebrew
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

Links
Proverbs 31:1 NIV
Proverbs 31:1 NLT
Proverbs 31:1 ESV
Proverbs 31:1 NASB
Proverbs 31:1 KJV

Proverbs 31:1 Bible Apps
Proverbs 31:1 Parallel
Proverbs 31:1 Biblia Paralela
Proverbs 31:1 Chinese Bible
Proverbs 31:1 French Bible
Proverbs 31:1 German Bible

Proverbs 31:1 Commentaries

Bible Hub
Proverbs 30:33
Top of Page
Top of Page