She layeth her hands to the spindle -
10. She gives an example of skill and industry to her household. She takes the distaff, that on which the wool or flax was rolled; and the spindle, that by twisting of which she twisted the thread with the right hand, while she held the distaff in the guard of the left arm, and drew down the thread with the fingers of the left hand. Allowing that spindle and distaff are proper translations of כישור kishor, and פלך pelech, this was their use, and the way in which they were used. The spindle and distaff are the most ancient of all the instruments used for spinning, or making thread. The spinning-wheel superseded them in these countries; but still they were in considerable use till spinning machinery superseded both them and the spinning-wheels in general.

She layeth her hands to the spindle,.... As Penelope and her maidens did (t). Or spinning wheel, more properly, the wheel itself, which is laid hold on by the right hand, and turned round;
and her hands hold the distaff; the rock, stick, or staff, about which the wool is wrapped, which is spun, and is held in the left hand; for though hands are mentioned in both clauses, yet it is only with one hand the wheel is turned, and the distaff held with the other. Not only wool and flax were sought by her, Proverbs 31:13; but she spins them, and works them up into garments her web is not like the spider's, spun out of its own bowels, on which it hangs; to which the hope and trust of a hypocrite are compared, and whose webs do not become garments to cover them, Job 8:14; but the church's web is both for ornament, to the adorning of her profession, and for defence and protection from the calumnies of the world; for by these are meant good works, as Ambrose interprets them.
(t) Homer, Odyss. 1. v. 357. & 21. v. 351.

No work, however mean, if honest, is disdained.

19 י She putteth her hand to the rock Spinnrocken;
And her fingers lay hold on the spindle.
She applies herself to the work of spinning, and performs it with skill. The phrase שׁלּח יד בּ (שׁלח, Job 28:9) signifies to take up an object of work, and תּמך, with obj. accus. (cf. Amos 1:5), the handling of the instrument of work necessary thereto. כּפּים denotes the hands when the subject is skilful, successful work; we accordingly say יגיע כפים, not יגיע ידים; cf. Proverbs 31:13 and Proverbs 31:16, Psalm 78:72. What פּלך means is shown by the Arab. falakat, which, as distinguished from mighzal, i.e., fuseau (Lat. fusus), is explained by bout arrondi et conique au bas du fuseau, thus: the whorl, i.e., the ring or knob fastened on the spindle below, which gives it its necessary weight and regulates its movement, Lat. verticellus, post-bibl. פּיקה (which Bartenora glosses by the Ital. fusajuolo) or צנּורה, e.g., Kelim ix. 6, כושׁ שׁבלע את הצנורה, a spindle which holds the whorl hidden (vid., Aruch under כש, iii.). But the word then also signifies per synecdochen partis pro toto, the spindle, i.e., the cylindrical wood on which the thread winds itself when spinning (cf. 2-Samuel 3:29, where it means the staff on which the infirm leans); Homer gives to Helen and the goddesses golden spindles (χρυσηλάκατοι). Accordingly it is not probable that כּישׁור also denotes the whorl, as Kimchi explains the word: "כישור is that which one calls by the name verteil, viz., that which one fixes on the spindle (פלך) above to regulate the spinning (מטוה)," according to which the Venet. renders כישׁור by σφόνδυλος, whorl, and פלך by ἄτρακτος, spindle. The old interpreters have not recognised that כישׁור denotes a thing belonging to the spinning apparatus; the lxx, Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, Syr., and Jerome see therein an ethical idea (from כּשׁר, to be capable, able); but Luther, not misled thereby, translates with unusual excellence:
She stretches her hand to the rock,
And her fingers grasp the spindle.
He has in this no predecessors, except only the Targumists, whose כוּנשׁרא (vid., Levy) appears also to denote the spinning-rock. The Syriac and Talmudic כּוּשׁ, which is compared by Gesenius-Dietrich, is another word, and denotes, not the rock, but the spindle. Immanuel also, who explains פלך as the מעזל, i.e., the spindle, understands (as perhaps also Parchon) by כישׁור the rock. And why should not the rock (wocken = distaff), i.e., the stock to which the tuft of flax, hemp, or wool is fixed for the purpose of being spun, Lat. colus, not be named כּישׁור, from כשׁר, to be upright as a stick, upright in height, or perhaps more correctly as מכשׁיר, i.e., as that which prepares or makes fit the flax for spinning? Also in צינק, Jeremiah 29:26, there are united the meanings of the close and the confining dungeon, and שׁלה = שׁילון signifies
(Note: Otherwise, but improbably, Schultens: colus a כשׁר = katr kathr, necti in orbem, circumnecti in globum. In פּלך, whence פּלך, he rightly finds the primary meaning of circumvolutio sive gyratio.)
the place which yields rest. The spinning-wheel is a German invention of the 16th century, but the rock standing on the ground, or held also in the hands, the spindle and the whorl, are more ancient.
(Note: A view of the ancient art of spinning is afforded by the figures of the 12th Dynasty (according to Lepsius, 2380-2167 b.c.) in the burial chamber of Beni Hassan (270 kilometres above Bulak, on the right bank of the Nile). M. J. Henry, in his work L'Egypte Pharaonique (Paris 1846), Bd. 2, p. 431, mentions that there are figures there which represent "toutes les oprations de la fabrication des tissus depuis le filage jusqu au tissage." Then he continues: Lex fuseaux dont se servent les fileuses sont excatement semblables aux ntres, et on voit mme ces fileuses imprimer le mouvement de rotation ces fuseaux, en en froissant le bout inferieur entre leur main et leur cuisse.)
With the spindle תמך stands in fit relation, for it is twirled between the fingers, as Catullus says of Fate:
Libratum tereti versabat pollice fusum.
(Note: In the "marriage of Peleus and Thetis," Catullus describes the work of the Fates: "Their hands are ceaselessly active at their never-ending work; while the left holds the rock, surrounded with a soft fleece, the right assiduously draws the thread and forms it with raised fingers; then it swiftly turns the spindle, with the thumb stretched down, and swings it away in whirling circles." Then follows the refrain of the song of the Fates: Currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. - (After Hertzberg's Translation.))

She layeth - By her own example she provokes her servants to labour. And although in these latter and more delicate times, such mean employments are grown out of fashion among great persons, yet they were not so in former ages, neither in other countries, nor in this land; whence all women unmarried unto this day are called in the language of our law, Spinsters.