“Mulier gratiosa inveniet gloriam, et robusti habebunt divitias.”
“A gracious woman retaineth honour: and strong men retain riches.”
“A gracious woman attains honor, but ruthless men gain only wealth.”
“A gracious woman obtains honor, but violent men obtain riches.”
“A gracious woman obtaineth honor; And violent men obtain riches.”
Gracious. Virtuous and beautiful, as God hath granted beauty also for good purposes. This and virtue tend to the advancement of women, while men can use their strength to acquire riches. (Calmet) — Glory. Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic add, “of her husband. But she that hateth righteousness is a throne of disgrace. The slothful, though rich, shall come to poverty; but the laborious shall retain their riches.” Two hemistics seem to be lost in Hebrew. (Kennicott) — Most of the additions in the Septuagint are only glosses, or useless repetitions, (Calmet) though they seem not to be so in this place. (Haydock)
As always in death, so sometimes in life, the righteous are remarkably favoured and the wicked crossed. 1. Good people are helped out of the distresses which they thought themselves lost in, and their feet are set in a large room, Ps 66 12; 34 19. God has found out a way to deliver his people even when they have despaired and their enemies have triumphed, as if the wilderness had shut them in. 2. The wicked have fallen into the distresses which they thought themselves far from, nay, which they had been instrumental to bring the righteous into, so that they seem to come in their stead, as a ransom for the just. Mordecai is saved from the gallows, Daniel from the lion's den, and Peter from the prison; and their persecutors come in their stead. The Israelites are delivered out of the Red Sea and the Egyptians drowned in it. So precious are the saints in God's eye that he gives men for them, Isa 43 3, 4.