“Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.” It’s one thing to HAVE a wife as described in v. 10, but it’s another thing to KNOW what you have—to know that you have gold, and to treat her like the treasure that she is. This man entrusts his heart—his core personality—to her. He is confident enough to make himself totally vulnerable to her. He trusts her and relies on her.
It almost sounds like role reversal, doesn’t it? It makes me think of Eph. 5.21: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Oddly enough, the word “submit” in this Ephesians verse has a military air in it, just like the passage in Proverbs 31. Christ’s view of the kingdom is that of a community of members serving one another—mutual servanthood. Paul uses the exact thought to introduce his profound teachings about marriage (and the church). In here is contained the teaching that a husband or a wife must be ready to renounce his or her own will for the sake of the other, and give precedence to the other.
Here the husband treasures the wife, as I said, and entrusts himself to her (the idea of submission, putting himself under her). And she does not fail the husband. She is a warrior in the battle of life. “[He] lacks nothing of value.” The word “value” is “salal”, another military term: “Plunder; the spoils of warfare.” She sallies forth on behalf of the family and comes back with the victor’s spoils, allowing the family (husband and children) to thrive.
He serves her; she serves him. Sounds like a winning recipe to me.