Walking with the Wise #392: The Fight at the Foundation

“It is better to live in a desert land


than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman.”
—Proverbs 21:19

The foundation of society is rooted in the husband and wife relationship. But, like every other relationship, it was fractured by the tectonic reverberations of the fall. Not one aspect of creation escaped its devastating effects. No sooner had the dizzying words of the serpent found fertile ground in the woman’s psyche, and while the taste of the fruit was still on her tongue, God pronounced judgment upon both Adam and Eve. To Adam, God declared a futility and adversity in his work relationship. But to Eve He declared the perverse desire to circumvent the created order by usurping her husband’s position and role as leader of the family.

With the desire in her heart, Eve, as well as her many daughters, used as weapons of her warfare barrages of verbal artillery. Some of her daughters have warred with an open face, while others have adopted a more subtle form of warfare, but the effect is nevertheless the same—either the emasculated and shell-shocked men who have abdicated their role as leader, or the converse, those who have become hardened and cruel dictators, neither of which God has purposed for man.

Today’s proverb is an observation and judgment upon the verbal volleys that have left millions disenfranchised and casualties of a war that has been going on since the Garden. But this same proverb serves as a warning of sorts for both men and women. It is a warning for men as they select a wife, and a warning for women to not be as the woman in the proverb. If a man were to marry a woman who was quarrelsome and fretful, then he would soon find himself cut and scarred by the verbal tirades and cutting rants that would soon prove to be unbearable.

God had decreed that the one thing not good was for man to be alone, but here, God appears to be advocating the polar opposite. A man would rather be alone or live on a desert island than with a woman who proved to be a minefield of malice, a harbinger of harangue. And for the woman, the warning is no less acute, for she carries within herself the ability to help build up or tear down her husband, with the sheer power of her tongue. She must learn her role within the created order, as must the husband—each in the power of the Spirit working in and through love—without which the endeavor would prove not only futile, but utterly impossible.

Are you a quarrelsome woman? Then ask God for the strength to stay your nagging and incessant barbs. Are you seeking a mate? If so, then submit and apply the truths of God’s Word to the role He has set forth for you, not as a means of humiliation, but as a means of sanctification as God works to grow His Son in you. Amen.