Today’s Scripture Reading (September 14, 2016): Proverbs 31
“Today is a good day to die.” The phrase has been attributed to the native warrior Crazy Horse before the “Battle of Little Big Horn” (maybe more popularly remembered as “Custer’s Last Stand.”) It is a wildly inaccurate translation of Crazy Horse’s words, yet the translation that has stuck in our minds. The translation might have been strengthened by General Frederick Benteen’s later testimony about the battle. Benteen was being questioned about why he had refused to give aid to Custer in the critical moments of the fight, and instead decided to help Major Marcus Reno form a defensive position. His response was that if he had ridden in support of Custer’s quickly deteriorating position in the fight, Custer, and his men would have still died, Benteen and his men would likely have been cut down long before they got to Custer, and Reno defensive position would also have been lost. "We were at their hearths and homes," he said, referring to the Sioux, "their medicine was working well, and they were fighting for all the good God gives anyone to fight for." Possibly as a result of Benteen’s decision to bolster Reno’s defensive position, both Frederick Benteen and Marcus Reno survived the battle, while General Custer died in the fight.
But the image that is left for us is of a Sioux army fighting with courage and valor to defend their homes. They were not going to go quietly; they would fight with every ounce of energy and courage that they possessed. They would be a people marked by valor. Today is indeed a good day to die.
So it is little surprise that the phrase might be more popularly known as the battle cry of the fictional Klingon’s in the Star Trek universe - a race of people marked by their valor in war. It makes the fictional Klingons a frightful race. These are Star Trek’s Sioux warriors, led by their own versions of Crazy Horse.
This verse has been translated many ways. Here it is “a noble woman” but often this poem is known as the poem of the virtuous woman. But the better translation of this opening line of the song might be “A woman of valor is hard to find.” And the imagery of battle and war is not accidental. Sometimes this passage has been used to enforce the idea of the stay at home mom who takes care of the shopping and the cleaning. But a closer look reveals something very different.
This poem, which by the way was never intended as a Mother’s Day salute, but rather as a hard-hitting message directed at the husbands of the day, honors the woman who goes into battle every day in every area of her life. Yes, sometimes the fight is on the home front, but often it is in the office, or as CEO of a company. Whatever it is that a woman of valor chooses to do, it will be done with purpose and given the best that the woman has to give. This kind of woman (or let’s admit it, man) is hard to find. She (or he) is worth far more than rubies.
It also isn’t a bad description of the Sioux women at “Little Big Horn.” Benteen was right; they were fighting courageously for their homes and giving it everything that they had. Some rumors even insist that Custer was not killed by a Sioux warrior, but rather that the final blow came from a Sioux woman. And a second set of rumors insists that it was a couple of Sioux women who protected the dead body of the fallen leader, not allowing it to be desecrated by the warriors in battle. Whatever the task, they had courageously given it all that they had to protect their homes – and probably earned the epitaph “Women of Valor.”
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Song of Songs 1
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