King Lemuel and His Mother

I must admit that I often skip the first nine verses of Proverbs 31 when I read it. I guess I’m in a hurry to read about the woman who is worth more than rubies.

But, I’ve recently been giving the beginning of this book a good hard look. Much to my surprise, I have found incredible words of wisdom between a mother and son that still need to be used today!I also found something of a mystery.

I also found something of a mystery in the very first verse of this revered chapter. We will take a look at that mystery today. The first verse reads,

“The sayings of King Lemuel–an inspired utterance his mother taught him”

Proverbs 31:1 NIV

You can search the annals of Israel’s history all you want but you’re never going to find a King Lemuel of Israel or Judah! He just isn’t there.

I can’t resist investigating a mysterious Bible character so I started looking at who Lemuel could be. There seem to be four possibilities!

• King Lemuel and his mother could be fictional characters! There is merit to this possibility! After all, the writers of the Proverbs were just that, writers. They were masters at spinning a narrative to share information. So, it’s entirely possible that the unknown writer of Proverbs 31 made these characters up, purely as a means of sharing the wise council in a story setting.
• King Lemuel could be an actual, non-Hebrew, king from an area of Arabia called Massa. I am by no means an expert in this arena! So, hang in there with me as I try to explain where this theory came from. The word inspired used in New International Version rendition of Proverbs 31:1 is translated prophecy in the King James Version. A look in the Bible dictionary translates the word prophecy to “massa“. According to Strong’s Concordance, massa means all of the following: a burden, tribute, porterage, utterance, and prophecy amongst other meanings. Given this list of definitions it is easy to see why the word “massa” is applied to the mother’s words to her son. However, some believe that a grammatical error was made in the original translation and the word “massa” applies to the King as a form of identification. In other words, they believe this means, King Lemuel of Massa. Bored with all this grammar yet??? While this could be the case, the vast majority of Bible scholars do not adhere to this idea and I am inclined to agree with them!
• King Lemuel could be Hezekiah and the mother Abijah. However, I had a hard time uncovering the reasoning for this theory. Evidence that was present was weak at best and, again, it is not supported by most bible scholars.
• Finally, King Lemuel could be Solomon himself. This theory is supported by Jewish legend and widely accepted by Bible scholars. Why would Solomon use the name Lemuel? Perhaps it was simply a pseudonym that Solomon used for unknown reasons. My favorite theory behind the use of Lemuel is that it was, quite simply, a nickname used by his mother, Bathsheba.

In conclusion, there are many theories on who Lemuel and his mother were and we will adhere to the most commonly recognized theory, that they were none other than Solomon and Bathsheba. Next week we will take a look at the words of wisdom given from mother to son.

Bible Hub. “Proverbs 31.” Cambridgle Bible for Schools and Colleges. Accessed June 2020.

Bible Hub. “Proverbs 31.” Pulpit Commentary. Accessed June 2020

Guzik, David. Proverbs 31-The Wisdom of King Solomon. 2017

Strong, David. Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Abingdon Press, 1890.