“She is like the ships of the merchant”: This line is a simile in which the wife is compared with “ships”. The expression “ships of the merchant” refers to trading ships; this may be expressed in English as “merchant ships” (Good News Translation, New International Version) or “a ship laden with merchandise” (Revised English Bible). For “ships” see 30.19.

“She brings her food from afar”: This is the point of comparison between the woman and a ship. Just as a ship brings cargo from far away, so the housewife “brings food” for her household. “Food”, as in 6.8, is literally “bread,” but bread here stands for all kinds of food; Scott renders it as “her provisions.”

Good News Translation reverses the order of the lines and is a good model for this verse. A translation in a Pacific language that also restructures the verse is as follows: “She is always going away to find food to bring home, like the ships of traders which bring cargo from far away.”

Where “ships” are completely unknown, translators may render the second line of this model as “like traders who bring useful things from far away.”

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 .