Proverbs 18:22

The Verse

Proverbs 18:22 — "Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good [thing], and obtaineth favour of the LORD."

The verse is one of the most frequently quoted Proverbs in weddings and counseling. The KJV's bracketed [thing] signals that the word does not appear in the Hebrew — the translators supplied it to make the English flow. The Hebrew literally reads: "Has found a wife, has found good."

The Hebrew

The verse is eight Hebrew words: matsa ishshah matsa tov, vayafek ratson meYHWH (מָצָא אִשָּׁה מָצָא טוֹב וַיָּפֶק רָצוֹן מֵיְהוָה).

• Matsa (מָצָא, Strong's H4672) — "to find, to discover, to come upon." Repeated twice for emphasis: he who finds a wife finds good.
• Ishshah (אִשָּׁה, H802) — "woman, wife." The context of the verse is marital, not generic.
• Tov (טוֹב, H2896) — "good, pleasant, agreeable, of value." The same word God uses repeatedly in Genesis 1 ("and God saw that it was good").
• Ratson (רָצוֹן, H7522) — "favor, acceptance, goodwill, delight." The Hebrew concept is active: not merely a positive disposition but a choosing to bestow benefit.
• MeYHWH (מֵיְהוָה) — "from YHWH" — directly sourced from God.

The verb for "obtaineth" (KJV) is puq (פוּק, H6329) — "to draw out, to bring out, to obtain." The picture is of drawing out a benefit from a source.

The Two Parallel Clauses

Hebrew poetry works by parallelism — pairs of lines that amplify or specify each other. Proverbs 18:22 is a synthetic parallelism: the second line extends the first rather than repeating it.

• Line 1 — "Has found a wife, has found good." (the general statement)
• Line 2 — "And draws forth favor from YHWH." (the theological grounding)

The second clause identifies the source of the good. The wife herself is not the favor; she is evidence that favor has been bestowed.

The Septuagint's Expansion

The Greek Septuagint (LXX) expands Proverbs 18:22 into a longer, fuller reading: "He that findeth a good wife findeth favors, and receiveth gladness from the Lord. He that putteth away a good wife, putteth away a good thing; and he that keepeth an adulteress is foolish and ungodly." This longer form does not appear in the standard Hebrew (Masoretic) text and was probably a rabbinic expansion preserved in Greek-speaking Jewish tradition. Modern English translations follow the shorter Masoretic reading. The expanded form is a useful reminder that verse-level transmission of Proverbs was not always uniform in antiquity.

Within the Book of Proverbs

Proverbs treats the finding of a good wife as one of the marks of a well-ordered life. Compare:

• Proverbs 19:14 — "House and riches [are] the inheritance of fathers: and a prudent wife [is] from the LORD." The same theological source (meYHWH).
• Proverbs 31:10 — "Who can find (matsa) a virtuous woman? for her price [is] far above rubies." The same verb matsa, posed as a rhetorical question.
• Proverbs 12:4 — "A virtuous woman [is] a crown to her husband."
• Proverbs 21:9, 21:19, 25:24, 27:15 — the counter-theme: verses warning about contentious spouses. Proverbs does not present marriage as uniformly blessed — it presents the finding of a good wife as the blessing.

The Reciprocal Proverb

Proverbs 18:22 speaks of a man finding a wife. The book also speaks to the woman's side, most fully in Proverbs 31:10–31, the acrostic poem of the eshet-chayil ("woman of valor"). Read alongside each other, the two passages frame marriage as a mutual discovery and a mutual contribution — not merely an acquisition:

• Proverbs 18:22 — "Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing."
• Proverbs 31:11 — "The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her."

Connection to Genesis 2

The theological root of Proverbs 18:22 is planted in Genesis 2:18–24, where God says, "It [is] not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him." The Hebrew phrase ezer kenegdo ("a help meet for him") designates not a subordinate but a counterpart — literally, "a help corresponding to him." When Proverbs 18:22 calls a wife tov ("good"), it echoes the Genesis creation judgment: what God said was not good (the man alone) has become good (the man with his corresponding partner).