by Keith Bassham
Reprinted with some revisions from Baptist Bible Tribune, January 15, 2003, and a chapter from the editor’s publication, Proverbs: Choosing Wisely.
Clearly, God created man with not only the capacity but also the need for relationships. He declares in Genesis 2:18, “It is not good that man should be alone.” In Psalm 102, a deeply afflicted man laments that he is like “a sparrow alone on a housetop.”
But what a mess we can make of our relationships when left to ourselves! In the 1960s and 1970s, social researchers were nearly unanimous in their conclusions that the traditional two-parent family was largely unnecessary for society to flourish. They argued that cultural changes — increases in the number of divorces, out-of-wedlock births, blended families, both parents working outside the home, etc. — did not mean “the family” was in danger of disappearing. Instead, they believed we only needed to redefine “family,” and that once we entered into a new era of “freedom from the oppressive weight of traditional families” we would come to appreciate “a social situation in which the institution of marriage was one of many options ranging from celibacy, trial marriage, open marriage, group marriage, nonsexual marriage, cohabitation, and singleness with an active sexual life” (Browning).
A few decades later we can see the result of such thinking, and many social researchers have also begun to admit that (from a secular point of view) an intact two-parent family where members of the household are biologically related will statistically provide the best possible outcome for all involved (see the notes from Browning at the end of the article for citations).
Mind you, their reasons for saying this are based more on pragmatics and economy — intact families often do better financially (for instance see http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/11/upshot/the-north-south-divide-on-two-parent-families.html where the complexities of the issue are fully explored). Perhaps someday scholarship will come to the conclusion that the reason this type of family works best is that the Father knows best after all, and He has given us a practical guide for managing our relationships in His Word. Certainly, in that book of wisdom known as the Proverbs, we should expect some guidance, and we are not disappointed when we take a look at what God says about relationships there.
THE FAMILY IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
All that the Proverbs teach us about family relationships is against the wider background of the Old Testament. Family is emphasized in the earliest texts of the Bible:
And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh (Genesis 2:21-24).
This is the text Jesus had in mind when he spoke to his generation about marriage: “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” (Matthew 19:4-6)
Children follow, and families form as distinct units.
It is not popular today to point to the fundamental connection of marriage and offspring (technology and culture have successfully cut that hard wire, or so they claim), but among the biblical purposes for marriage, birthing and raising children is one of the chief purposes.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it … (Genesis 1:27-28).
After we are introduced to Abraham near the end of Genesis 11, the stories that follow emphasize families, with faith and traditions being passed from one generation to the next — Abraham to Isaac, to Jacob, and to the 12 sons of Israel. In Exodus, a pointer for the importance of the family in God’s thinking is found in the commandments given on Mt. Sinai where the fifth, seventh, and tenth commandments (honoring parents, adultery is prohibited, as well as coveting another’s spouse) all relate directly to family relationships.
As Israel takes shape through the Old Testament, God acts on behalf of his people. When He does so, He commands that those acts be rehearsed before the children for the generations to come:
And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever. And it shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land which the LORD will give you, according as he hath promised, that ye shall keep this service. And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the LORD’S Passover (Exodus 12:24-27; also see Deuteronomy 4:9-10).
Families, then, become a major part of God’s program in the spreading of faith and His Word. In the words of Wayne House and Kenneth Durham, “It was not a matter of family for the sake of the family, or family for the sake of success, but family for the sake of giving glory to God, not only in the present generation, but also in the next, and one after it, and so on” (House and Durham, 53).
But where do families begin? I once heard the late marriage counselor David Mace describe how he and his wife Vera came up with their concept of marriage enrichment. According to Mace, he learned of a Spanish priest who was trying to tackle problems among teens in his church. As he began to work with those young people, he came to understand that the difficulties among the teens went deeper — if he was going to help the teens, he had to work with their families. So he set to work with the problems in the family relationships. He hadn’t been doing that long before he realized problems in the families were rooted in problems in the marriages. He eventually spent most of his time working with couples with the belief that as the marriage goes, so goes the rest of the family relationships.
MARRIAGE IN ISRAEL
As the prior section indicated, Proverbs only gives us part of the picture for relationships, especially in marriages and families. In the Old Testament you have the Law, of course, and a not-so-careful reading of all the regulations for relationships leaves one with the feeling that dad has ultimate power and authority in just about everything.
While this is true in a general sense (Israel is patriarchal in every sense), the actual working out of the rules, and the rules themselves at times, give a slightly different picture. For instance, with power comes responsibility — Exodus 21:10 gives a husband the obligation to provide food, clothing, and even sexual rights to his wife. During the first year of marriage, a man was to give all his attention to his new bride (Deuteronomy 24:5). These are not the actions of a self-consumed woman abuser, as religious men are often wrongly portrayed.
And getting the right woman wasn’t all business either. There is a commercial aspect, and in reality, many marriages were arranged not on the basis of romance but on finance. A family blessed with many daughters and no sons could easily find itself in ruin. But not all relationships were matters of business contract. Jacob labored for seven years to earn his Rachel, yet “they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her” (Genesis 29:20). Even a prophet can be touched by love, as we see in the example of Hosea, who pursued his faithless wife and purchased her back to himself with the words: “thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee” (Hosea 3:3), after she had “sold” herself into a shameful life.
As for the patriarchs of Israel, though they are “in charge” statutorily, they are also very often “managed” by their wives — Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel — as the stories in Genesis illustrate. Speaking of the patriarchs, our understanding of the one man/one woman ideal is challenged by their multiplicity of wives and concubines (whom the Jewish scholar Robert Gordis classifies as “sub-wives”). Most scholars agree that while polygamy was permissible, it was more rare than we sometimes assume. Those of us who argue for biblical or traditional marriage are often mocked by those who say the Bible has no single model for marriage. Indeed the Old Testament narratives confront us frequently, but we are turned back to the norm God originated (in the Creation account of Adam and Eve) and are urged to observe the one man/one woman as God’s intent, much as we see in Psalm 128:
Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in his ways. For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD. The LORD shall bless thee out of Zion: and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. Yea, thou shalt see thy children’s children, and peace upon Israel.
MARRIAGE IN PROVERBS
This ideal of one man marrying one woman is the picture of marriage presented in the Proverbs. There is no provision, for example, for ironing out the problems one might imagine would accompany having several wives (although there are several passages that address the ordinary problems of marriage). Likewise, the commonly held idea that a wife is a mere item of chattel in the Israelite domestic structure is clearly not in view in this book.
Rather, a wife can be key to a man’s success or his lack of the same — “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD” (18:22) and “a prudent wife is from the LORD” (19:14). She can be a man’s making or undoing — “A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones” (12:4).
While the husband and father is seen as the primary authority in the home, the wife can be instrumental in providing stability (14:1), and in the famous “virtuous woman” passage of Proverbs 31 we see just how important she can be, especially if she brings many qualities to the marriage. “The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her” and “her husband is known in the gates,” so says Proverbs 31:11 and 23.
But what of the personal relationship between husband and wife? First, they are the closest of friends. Proverbs 2:17 speaks of an unfaithful woman as having forsaken “the guide of her youth.” The word translated “guide” is also translated (in the plural) “chief friends” (16:28) and “very friends” (17:9). This friendship/partnership is illustrated by the way they share in the family discipline and training (for instance, see 1:8: “My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother,” and 6:20: “My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother,” and several other similar passages).
This companionship is one of two primary purposes for marriage, the other being procreation. Robert Gordis writes,
The procreation of children is a basic goal of marriage, but it is not the only one. It is noteworthy that, in the Bible, Eve is created for Adam before procreation is contemplated, while they are still in the Garden of Eden. The second function of marriage is that of companionship. Actually, it is the only motive assigned in the creation of a helpmeet for Adam (Gordis, 100).
He goes on to point out that this companionship includes sexual relations as “a legitimate end in itself in marriage.” In Jewish literature and biblical commentary, Gordis says,
Basically, sexual relations between husband and wife, while naturally private and intimate, are held to be a perfectly legitimate form of pleasure which justifies itself as such, even without the goal of procreation (Ibid. and see endnote).
In the Old Testament then, and in the Proverbs, sex within marriage is not frowned upon, let alone prohibited. In a very graphic passage (5:15-20), a husband is told (referring to his wife), “be thou ravished always with her love” (5:19).
This relationship, however, is limited strictly to the husband and wife. I will say that again. Sex activity is to be limited strictly to the husband and wife. Within that relationship sex is a blessing (one of my friends says sex is God’s wedding gift to the newly married couple). Outside those boundaries, though, the Proverbs say you are walking along the edge of an abyss. Violate the rules, and one embraces fire (6:27), walks upon hot coals (6:28), loses honor (6:33), possessions (29:3), freedom (23:27-28), and even life itself (2:18-19), for the man who seeks a sexual partner outside of marriage is warned, “For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead. None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.”
There are no references to homosexual activity in the Bible in which the activity is blessed or deemed to be positive in the way husband-wife sex is portrayed. In fact, the most dire consequences are associated with homosexual acts, and this is true in both the Old and New Testaments.
PARENTS AND CHILDREN
Earlier in this study I showed that one of the great purposes of family life is the propagation of the knowledge of God. This is brought about by passing knowledge and wisdom from one generation to the next.
In the ideal situation, children grow up to become the pride of their parents (17:6). Several times we read how wise children make their parents proud, but how foolish children make them ashamed (see for instance 10:1; 13:1; 15:20).
One of the more famous Proverbs is, “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes” (13:24). The thinking behind the strict discipline of children is that although the rod could be harsh, the alternative was worse — “Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell” (23:14). Training is essential (22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it”), and a life without discipline is sure to produce shame (29:15).
However, even parental authority cannot control all outcomes. Our personal experience teaches us that good homes can sometimes yield something less than desirable. Despite our best efforts, children can grow up only to reject our wisdom (13:1), curse us (30:11), or even rob us (28:24). Ultimately, we are all responsible for our own decisions (and actions, 20:11), and wisdom cries out to us as individuals.
BROTHERS (AND SISTERS)
The Hebrew word for brother can also refer to other types of relatives, and there are only a few passages dealing with the subject. A brother is especially good to have in bad times (17:17), but if the brother is far off the bond of friendship can be just as close in adversity (27:10, 18:24).
Then, as now, siblings will offend one another, but such contentions should be avoided — “A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city” (18:19), and remember that God hates those who drive wedges between them (6:19).
THE FATHER KNOWS BEST
We began this study citing what academics had been saying about family over the past few decades. Though some scholars are admitting that the biblical ideal (father and mother and children in an intact home) is the best arrangement, they do so on pragmatic grounds — that is, it seems to work out better. I countered that there is a superior moral and spiritual imperative for the biblical ideal, but I do stress that the academics are right. Proverbs does work.
Several years ago, I came across an item purporting to be a comparison between a professedly godless man and the New England preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards (I included it in my book on Proverbs. I regret not being more careful with my research for the reasons you will see below.) Sometimes, you will see the account of the godless man in a statement such as this:
Max Jukes, the atheist, lived a godless life. He married an ungodly girl, and from the union there were 310 who died as paupers, 150 were criminals, seven were murderers, 100 were drunkards, and more than half of the women were prostitutes. His 540 descendants cost the state one and a quarter-million dollars.
I have usually been cautious about using such stories myself, and it turns out in this case you can take some of the information with a grain of salt. We know that the man called Max Jukes was actually called Juke by the originator of the story, Richard Dugdale, in a book published in 1877, and the name may have been fabricated to hide the true identity of the family he studied. And there were some other exaggerations and assumptions added to the story to make it more dramatic (such as a claim that the information came from a Yale University study). Max (also probably not a real name) was, however, a “jolly and companionable” sort of a person given to hard living and hard drinking. In all, Dugdale found about 1,200 descendants among the Jukes, and though the numbers quoted above are inaccurate and exaggerated some, many, many of them came to bad ends, and no doubt their upkeep was a strain on society.
Usually the Max Jukes story is paired with the story of Jonathan Edwards. Apparently living the same time as Max Jukes, an investigation of 1,394 known descendants of Jonathan Edwards reveals 13 became college presidents, 65 college professors, three United States senators, 30 judges, 100 lawyers, 60 physicians, 75 army and navy officers, 100 preachers and missionaries, 60 authors of prominence, one a vice-president of the United States, 80 became public officials in other capacities, 295 college graduates, among whom were governors of states and ministers to foreign countries.
This is a stunning comparison, even when you extract all the exaggeration and hyperbole from the Jukes story. It dramatically reveals the power of godliness within a family, the importance of a godly heritage passed from generation to generation. And when that godliness is paired with other positive character traits from the Proverbs — hard work, morality, thriftiness, self-control — family success seems inevitable.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
Gordis, Robert (1978). Love and Sex. A Modern Jewish Perspective. Farrar, Straus, Giroux.
Browning, Don (1997). “Practical Theology and the American Family Debate: An Overview.” International Journal of Practical Theology, Volume 1, 1997, pp. 136-60. On the web at http://divinity.uchicago.edu/family/browning_article.html.
Sanders, Al (1961), Crisis in Morality
NOTE: Gordis cannot be read uncritically. He maintains that the traditional Christian view of sex and sexuality is ascetic, referring to “the Christian attitude that sex is essentially evil,” something more or less accepted as a nod to man’s lower nature. However, although I feel he misrepresents the Christian view with a generalization (just as many moderns assume all Christians believe all forms of sex are sinful), his other views closely reflect a true Old Testament perspective. For instance, he argues that in the Old Testament, sex and love are linked. He also points out that whereas Greek uses eros to describe physical love and agape for a more spiritual love, the single Hebrew root ahabh can be used to describe the “ideal relationship of man to God (“You shall love the Lord your God”), the love of one’s fellow man (“You shall love your neighbor as yourself”), and the love of man and woman (“How fair and how pleasant you are, O love, with your delights!”) (Gordis, 103).