HTR 113:1 (2020) 45–62 Beauty, Wisdom, and Handiwork in Proverbs 31:10–31 * Jacqueline Vayntrub Yale Divinity School; jacqueline.vayntrub@yale.edu ■ Abstract The book of Proverbs concludes with an alphabetic acrostic that describes and praises its feminine subject (Prov 31:10–31). The poem’s praise closes with a generalized critique of beauty, its deceptiveness and short-lived nature (v. 30). What function does this critique of beauty serve in light of the praise of the woman and her deeds? How do the poem and, specifically, this critique of beauty function in the broader organization of the book of Proverbs? This study argues that the poem rejects innate beauty in favor of acquired wisdom, a message that can be found elsewhere in Proverbs. The poem rejects beauty through an appeal to a rhetorical device—the “totalizing description”—which is used elsewhere to argue for a subject’s beauty or perfection. Through the structure of the alphabetic acrostic, the poem carefully embeds its message of willed action and acquired wisdom; using a description of the woman’s successive deeds, the poem shows how each deed leads to the enduring success of the woman’s family, her community, and the subsequent generation. ■ Keywords alphabetic acrostic, description, beauty, Proverbs, wisdom * I dedicate this study to Ethan Schwartz and Leah Sarna on the occasion of their marriage. of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017816019000348 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 65.96.75.174, on 29 Dec 2019 at 00:06:54, subject to the Cambridge Core terms