the virtuous woman, and Ruth follows to give a stellar example (compare the eset-hayil of Prov 31:10 with Boaz’s commendation in Ruth 3:11).… Reading the poem [of Prov. 31] and reading Ruth in the light of it makes for a marvelous surprise like the surprise of the book itself.”53 Thus, linking Proverbs 31 and the book of Ruth, in which Ruth implicitly exemplifies wisdom, is suggested both by specific wording and by literary-canonical context. In summary, our discussion of wisdom in Proverbs 1–9 has