Genesis 12:11

12:11 As he approached ¹  Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “Look, ²  I know that you are a beautiful woman. ³ 

Genesis 24:16

24:16 Now the young woman was very beautiful. She was a virgin; no man had ever had sexual relations with her. ⁴  She went down to the spring, filled her jug, and came back up.

Genesis 39:6

39:6 So Potiphar ⁵  left ⁶  everything he had in Joseph’s care; ⁷  he gave no thought ⁸  to anything except the food he ate. ⁹ 

Now Joseph was well built and good-looking. ¹⁰ 

Proverbs 31:30

31:30 Charm is deceitful ¹¹  and beauty is fleeting, ¹² 

but a woman who fears the Lord ¹³  will be praised.

¹ tn Heb “drew near to enter.”

² tn The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “look”) is deictic here; it draws attention to the following fact.

³ tn Heb “a woman beautiful of appearance are you.”

⁴ tn Heb “And the young woman was very good of appearance, a virgin, and a man she had not known.” Some argue that the Hebrew noun translated “virgin” (בְּתוּלָה, bÿtulah) is better understood in a general sense, “young woman” (see Joel 1:8, where the word appears to refer to one who is married). In this case the circumstantial clause (“and a man she had not known”) would be restrictive, rather than descriptive. If the term actually means “virgin,” one wonders why the circumstantial clause is necessary (see Judg 21:12 as well). Perhaps the repetition emphasizes her sexual purity as a prerequisite for her role as the mother of the covenant community.

⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Potiphar) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁶ sn The Hebrew verb translated left indicates he relinquished the care of it to Joseph. This is stronger than what was said earlier. Apparently Potiphar had come to trust Joseph so much that he knew it was in better care with Joseph than with anyone else.

⁷ tn Heb “hand.” This is a metonymy for being under the control or care of Joseph.

⁸ tn Heb “did not know.”

⁹ sn The expression except the food he ate probably refers to Potiphar’s private affairs and should not be limited literally to what he ate.

¹⁰ tn Heb “handsome of form and handsome of appearance.” The same Hebrew expressions were used in Gen 29:17 for Rachel.

¹¹ tn The first word of the twenty-first line begins with שׁ (shin), the twenty-first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The graphic distinction between שׁ (shin) and שׂ (sin) had not been made at the time the book of Proverbs was written; that graphic distinction was introduced by the Masoretes, ca. a.d. 1000.

¹² sn The verse shows that “charm” and “beauty” do not endure as do those qualities that the fear of the Lord produces. Charm is deceitful: One may be disappointed in the character of the one with beauty. Beauty is vain (fleeting as a vapor): Physical appearance will not last. The writer is not saying these are worthless; he is saying there is something infinitely more valuable.

¹³ sn This chapter describes the wise woman as fearing the Lord. It is the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom – that was the motto of the book (1:7). Psalm 111:10 also repeats that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.