Verses 28-29 speak of the way the members of the housewife’s family express their appreciation of her.

“Her children rise up and call her blessed”: Some versions take the term translated “rise up” as a literal action; New Jerusalem Bible, for example, has “Her children stand up and proclaim. . ..” But it seems better to understand it as a device for emphasis or focus on the verb that follows. So Revised English Bible translates “Her sons with one accord extol her virtues.” The verb rendered “call her blessed” is not the verb frequently used for pronouncing a blessing but a verb form that has the sense of “declaring someone happy”; a related form is found in 3.18, where Revised Standard Version translates “are called happy.”

Since the main verb in this line is a verb of speaking, it may be necessary or desirable in some languages to express it in direct speech. In one language, for instance, the translation says, “ ‘Hooray, hooray for our mother.’ That’s how the children of this woman talk.”

“Her husband also, and he praises her”: There is no word corresponding to “also” in the Hebrew, but something like this is required by the structure of the verse in English. For “praises” see 27.2. Translators should be careful in choosing the verb to render “he praises her”, because the words in the next verse are the praise words addressed to the woman herself in the second person. A rendering like “sings her praises” (New Jerusalem Bible, Scott) does not seem very appropriate in this context.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Proverbs. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .