Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband [also], and he praiseth her.
Ver. 28. Her children arise up, and call her blessed.] As they grow to any height, and consider their beholdingness, so they bless her, and bless God for her: they bless the time that ever they were born of her, and so virtuously bred by her; being ready to say of her, as once Deborah said of Jael, "Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber be; blessed shall she be above women in the tent." Jdg 5:24 Blessed be the womb that bare us, and the paps that gave us suck.
Her husband also.] Whom she commanded by obeying, as Livia did her husband Augustus.
And he shall praise her.] Praise is due to virtue. And albeit, landis non indiga virtus, ilia sed est proprio plane contenta theatro; virtue is her own reward, and she is the best woman, and best to be liked, saith Thucydides, de cuius laude vel vituperio minimus sit sermo, of whose praise or dispraise there is least said abroad; yet forasmuch as praise is a spur. and virtue grows by it, why should it be denied to those who deserve it? a Is not a garland here made up by the hand of the Holy Ghost, and set upon the head of this excellent housewife? Neither is it any disparagement that her own husband and children commend her; for her business lying most within doors, who so fit to praise her as those that were ever present with her? and yet neither do they more praise her by their words than by their lives, formed by her to a right posture.
a Honos alit artes. Virtus laudata crescit. Omnes laudis studio incenduntur.