Harmony

DEVOTION

PROVERBS

HARMONY

Prov 21:9

9 Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.

NIV

It is pretty clear the meaning here, but still there is something which is missing. What we have investigated is the roofs of the eastern people were generally flat. They were used to retire to in the day, and sleep on in the hot nights. Many would have some form of furniture on their roofs. Some would have a canopy for shade, with tables and chairs under them. The point of living on a corner of the roof meant a person would then be exposed to all the elements, the storms, the wind, the heat and the cold of winter. This is considered a better situation then to live inside the house protected from all the storms, but having to deal with a contentious wife. This by no means relieved the man from providing the home for his family. However he was not going to engage this quarrelsome wife, thus insulating himself from her, removing himself from her attitude emotionally or mentally. This is the whole of the idea when within the New Testament instructions for family life are given. Men are instructed to love their wives, but wives are instructed to respect their husbands. Some translations use the word submit, however, in the Greek and the Interlinear, that verse does not have any word for submit, it was added.

Eph 5:22-24

22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

NIV

Yet the idea is the husband is the head of his family as Christ is the head of the church. The idea is that the wife should be toward her husband as the church is to Christ. This would also translate that a wife should be toward her husband as she is toward the Lord.  That would then be submission, obedient, respectful. A quarrelsome wife is none of these. Of course the message about how wives are to be toward their husbands is not a very popular message in the post-modern church. It was true that in that time of Solomon men might well have consider women with less respect, having no rights, no identity of their own, almost as property. If the wife disappointed the husband in any manner he could simply write her a decree of divorce and send her on her way. That is not the way in the New Testament after all the teaching of Jesus. He freed women from the oppression of mean men. He restored his original intent when he created both man and woman, making them equal but with different roles. Still he made man, then made a suitable helpmate for him. There is no place in a Godly home for a quarrelsome wife. It is not God’s intent for her to quarrel, but to be a suitable helpmate. Again this may not be a popular message in the post- modern church where women have been subjected to the influences of the world and the, “We are women, hear us roar” attitude. Men also have not lived up to the conditions laid out for them. They have relinquished their duties as being the head of the family as well as loving, in the New Testament sense, their wives. Yet the point here is aimed primarily at wives to be women who are not quarrelsome, to be women who respect their husband, living in harmony with him. Before pointing any fingers, or looking for any specks, they should make every effort to live in peace with their husband. Yes, men have much to do, but this proverb speaks directly to the role of the woman.  It has been said that if the woman isn’t happy the whole house isn’t happy. So then here the wife needs to forgo quarreling and live in harmony.