Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

With this diligence in her duties she is not a long sleeper, who is not awakened till the sun is up; but 15 ו She riseth up while it is yet night, And giveth food to her house, And the fixed portion to her maidens. The fut. consec. express, if not a logical sequence of connection, yet a close inner binding together of the separate features of the character here described. Early, ere the morning dawns, such a housewife rises up, because she places care for her house above her own comfort; or rather, because this care is to her a satisfaction and a joy. Since now the poet means without doubt to say that she is up before the other inmates of the house, especially before the children, though not before the maids: we have not, in ותּתּן, to think that the inmates of the house, all in the morning night-watch, stand round about her, and that each receives from her a portion for the approaching day; but that she herself, early, whilst yet the most are asleep, gives out or prepares the necessary portions of food for the day (cf. ויּתּן, Isa 53:9). Regarding טרף, food, from טרף (to tear in pieces, viz., with the teeth), and regarding חק, a portion decreed, vid., at Pro 30:8. It is true that חק also means the appointed labour (pensum), and thus the day's work (דּבר יום); but the parallelism brings it nearer to explain after Pro 30:8, as is done by Gesenius and Hitzig after Exo 5:14.