Worketh willingly with her hands - Or, worketh with willing hands. The stress laid upon the industrial habits of Israelite matrons may perhaps belong to a time when, as under the monarchy of Judah, those habits were passing away.

She seeketh wood and flax, and worketh willingly, etc. -
II. This is the second part of her character, giving the particulars of which it is composed.
1. She did not buy ready woven cloth: she procured the raw material, if wool, most probably from her own flocks; if flax, most probably from her own fields.
2. Here she manufactured; for she worketh willingly with her hands. And all her labor is a cheerful service; her will, her heart, is in it.
It needs no arguments to prove that women, even of the highest ranks, among the Greeks, Romans, and Israelites, worked with their hands at every kind of occupation necessary for the support of the family. This kind of employment was not peculiar to the virtuous woman in the text.

She seeketh wool and flax,.... To get them, in order to spin them, and work them up into garments; she stays not till they are brought to her, and she is pressed to take them; but she seeks after them, which shows her willingness to work, as is after more fully expressed. It was usual in ancient times for great personages to do such works as these, both among the Grecians (z) and Romans: Lucretia with her maids were found spinning, when her husband Collatinus paid a visit to her from the camp (a): Tanaquills, or Caia Caecilia, the wife of King Tarquin, was an excellent spinster of wool (b); her wool, with a distaff and spindle, long remained in the temple of Sangus, or Sancus, as Varro (c) relates: and a garment made by her, wore by Servius Tullius, was reserved in the temple of Fortune; hence it became a custom for maidens to accompany newly married women with a distaff and spindle, with wool upon them (d), signifying what they were principally to attend unto; and maidens are advised to follow the example of Minerva, said to be the first that made a web (e); and, if they would have her favour, to learn to use the distaff, and to card and spin (f): so did the daughters of Minyas, in Ovid (g); and the nymphs, in Virgil (h). When Alexander the great advised the mother of Darius to use her nieces to such employments, the Persian ladies were in great concern, it being reckoned reproachful with them for such to move their hands to wool; on hearing which, Alexander himself went to her, and told her the clothes he wore were wrought by his sisters (i): and the daughters and granddaughters of Augustus Caesar employed themselves in the woollen manufacture by his order (k); and he himself usually wore no other garment than what was made at home, by his wife, sister, daughter, and granddaughter (l). The Jews have a saying (m), that there is no wisdom in a woman but in the distaff; suggesting, that it is her wisdom to mind her spinning, and the affairs of her household: at the Roman marriages, the word "thalassio" was often repeated (n), which signified a vessel in which spinning work was put; and this was done to put the bride in mind what her work was to be. Now as to the mystical sense of these words; as of wool outward garments, and of flax linen and inward garments, are made; by the one may be meant external, and by the other internal, acts of religion; both are to be done, and not the one without the other: outward acts of religion are, such as hearing the word, attendance on ordinances, and all good works, which make up a conversation garment that should be kept; and they should be done so as to be seen of men, but not for that reason: and internal acts of religion are, the fear of God, humility, faith, hope, love, and other graces, and the exercises of them, which make up the new man, to be put on as a garment; and these should go together; bodily exercise, without powerful godliness, profiteth little; and pretensions to spirituality and internal religion, without regard to the outward duties of religion, are all vain. Hence Ambrose, on the text, observes that one may say,
"It is enough to worship and serve God in my mind; what need have I to go to church, and visibly mingle with Christians? Such a man would have a linen, without a woollen garment, this woman knew not; she does not commend such works.''
She sought all opportunities of doing good works externally, as believers do; and sought after the kingdom of God, inward godliness, which lies in peace, righteousness, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Not that such garments are to be joined with Christs robe of righteousness, to make up a justifying one; a garment mingled with linen and woollen, in this sense, is not to come upon the saints, Leviticus 19:19;
and worketh willingly with her hands; or, "with the pleasure of her hands" (o); as if her hands took delight in working, as the church and all true believers do; who are made willing in the day of the Lord's power upon them, to serve him, as well as to be saved by him; in whose hearts he works, both to will and to do; and these do what they do cheerfully: these do the work of the Lord, not by the force of the law, nor through fear of punishment, but in love; not by constraint, but willingly, having no other constraint but the love of God and Christ; and not with mercenary selfish views, but with a view to his glory; and they find a pleasure and delight in all they do; Christ's ways are ways of pleasantness; his commandments are not grievous, his yoke is easy.
(z) Vid. Homer. Iliad 3. v. 125. & 6. v. 490, 491. & 22. v. 440. Odyss. l. v. 357. & 5. v. 62. (a) "Cujus, ante torumn calathi, lanaque mollis erat", Ovid. Fasti, l. 2. prope finem. (b) Valerius Maximus, l. 10. p. 348. (c) Apud Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 48. (d) Plin. ibid. (e) Pomponius Subinus in Virgil. Cyrin, p. 1939. (f) "Pallade placata, lanam mollire puellae discant, et plenas exonerare colos", Ovid. Fast. l. 3. prope finem. (g) Metamorph. l. 4. Fab. 1. v. 34, 35. (h) Georgic. l. 4. (i) Curt. Hist. l. 5. c. 2. (k) Sueton. in Vit. August. c. 64. (l) lbid. c. 73. (m) Vid. Buxtorf. Lex. Rabbin. col. 1742. (n) Varro apud Chartar. de Imag. Deorum, p. 88. (o) "cum voluptate altro neis manibus", so some in Vatablus, Tigurine version; so Cocceius, Michaelis, Piscator, Gejerus, Schultens.

Ancient women of rank thus wrought with their hands; and such, indeed, were the customs of Western women a few centuries since. In the East also, the fabrics were articles of merchandise.

The poet now describes how she disposes of things:
13 ד She careth for wool and flax,
And worketh these with her hands' pleasure.
The verb דּרשׁ proceeds, as the Arab. shows,
(Note: The inquirer is there called (Arab.) daras, as libros terens.)
from the primary meaning terere; but to translate with reference thereto: tractat lanam et linum (lxx, Schultens, Dathe, Rosemller, Fleischer), is inadmissible. The Hebrews. דרשׁ does not mean the external working at or manufacturing of a thing; but it means, even when it refers to this, the intention of the mind purposely directed thereto. Thus wool and flax come into view as the material of work which she cares to bring in; and ותּעשׂ signifies the work itself, following the creation of the need of work. Hitzig translates the second line: she works at the business of her hands. Certainly ב after עשׂה may denote the sphere of activity, Exodus 31:4; 1 Kings 5:30, etc.; but if חפץ had here the weakened signification business, πρᾶγμα, - which it gains in the same way as we say business, affair, of any object of care - the scarcely established meaning presents itself, that she shows herself active in that which she has made the business of her hands. How much more beautiful, on the contrary, is the thought: she is active with her hands' pleasure! חפץ is, as Schultens rightly explains, inclinatio flexa et propensa in aliquid, and pulchre manibus diligentissimis attribuitur lubentia cum oblectatione et per oblectationem sese animans. עשׂה, without obj. accus., signifies often: to accomplish, e.g., Ps. 22:32; here it stands, in a sense, complete in itself, and without object. accus., as when it means "handeln" [agere], Proverbs 13:16, and particularly to act in the service of God = to offer sacrifice, Exodus 10:25; it means here, and at Ruth 2:19; Habakkuk 2:4, to be active, as at Isaiah 19:15, to be effective; ותּעשׂ is equivalent to ותעשׂ בּמּלאכה or ותעשׂ מלאכתּהּ (cf. under Proverbs 10:4). And pleasure and love for the work, חפץ, can be attributed to the hands with the same right as at Psalm 78:72, discretion. The disposition which animates a man, especially his inner relation to the work devolving upon him, communicates itself to his hands, which, according as he has joy or aversion in regard to his work, will be nimble or clumsy. The Syr. translates: "and her hands are active after the pleasure of her heart;" but בחפץ is not equivalent to כּחפצהּ; also בּחפץ, in the sense of con amore (Bttcher), is not used.

Flax - That she may find employment for her servants. Worketh - She encourages them to work by her example; which was a common practice among princesses in those first ages. Not that it is the duty of kings and queens to use manual operations, but it is the duty of all persons, the greatest not excepted, to improve all their talents, and particularly their time, which is one of the noblest of them, to the service of that God to whom they must give an account, and to the good of that community to which they are related.