HarperCollins Study Bible, page 236
4.10–27 The motif of wisdom’s path or way connects the sixth (vv. 10–19) and seventh (vv. 20–27) instructions.
4.13 Keep hold, do not let go. To gain Wisdom’s guardianship (see 2.7–8), the student must guard her.
4.16 On the psychology of the way of evil, see 1.26–27.
4.17 See note on 1.31.
4.18–19 Two aphorisms on light and darkness (see 2.13) conclude the unit.
4.20–27 Note the theme of body parts: ear, eyes, heart, flesh, mouth (here, speech), lips (here, talk), feet (see also 2.2; 3.8).
4.23 Springs. On water imagery for life and wisdom, see also 1.23; 5.15–18.
PROVERBS 5
Warning against Impurity and Infidelity
1My child, be attentive to my wisdom;
incline your ear to my understanding,
2so that you may hold on to prudence,
and your lips may guard knowledge.
3For the lips of a loosea woman drip honey,
and her speech is smoother than oil;
4but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a two-edged sword.
5Her feet go down to death;
her steps follow the path to Sheol.
6She does not keep straight to the path of life;
her ways wander, and she does not know it.
7And now, my child,b listen to me,
and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
8Keep your way far from her,
and do not go near the door of her house;
9or you will give your honor to others,
and your years to the merciless,
10and strangers will take their fill of your wealth,
and your labors will go to the house of an alien;
11and at the end of your life you will groan,
when your flesh and body are consumed,
12and you say, “Oh, how I hated discipline,
and my heart despised reproof!
13I did not listen to the voice of my teachers
or incline my ear to my instructors.
14Now I am at the point of utter ruin
in the public assembly.”
15Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
16Should your springs be scattered abroad,
streams of water in the streets?
17Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for sharing with strangers.
18Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
19a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
May her breasts satisfy you at all times;
may you be intoxicated always by her love.
20Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by another woman
and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
21For human ways are under the eyes of the LORD,
and he examines all their paths.
22The iniquities of the wicked ensnare them,
and they are caught in the toils of their sin.
23They die for lack of discipline,
and because of their great folly they are lost.
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a Heb strange
b Gk Vg: Heb children
5.1–23 The eighth instruction, polarizing two female figures, the Strange (loose) Woman (see 2.16–19) and the wife.
5.3 Lips, speech. See note on 1.6; also 2.16. Honey, a favorite image for a good that can go bad (see 25.16, 27; 27.7) as well as for a woman’s sexual delights.
5.4 Two-edged sword, lit., “sword of mouths,” an appropriate image for the combined verbal/sexual danger of the Strange Woman.
5.8 Way, house. See note on 2.18–19. Door, perhaps an allusion to the maw of Sheol (see note on 1.12; also 8.34; 9.14), but lit. “opening,” hence also a sexual connotation.
5.9–14 The fool will eventually rue his loss of social status, wealth, and health.
5.10 Strangers, alien, the same word pair describing the Strange Woman (see note on 2.16–19), but here in masculine form. As with the female figure, the terminology denotes outsiders to a man’s household, but they are of a faceless and ruthless sort; the image thus also hints at the danger of anyone who is “not us.” House of an alien recalls both the violent men (see 1.13) and the Strange Woman (see notes on 1.13; 2.16–19).
5.14 Public dishonor had more meaning in ancient times than today, implying a permanent judgment on one’s personhood and social status (see note on 3.4; also 6.33–35).
5.15–19 A poem in which water is a metaphor for the male student’s sexual enjoyment of his wife. Typically in Prov 1–9, the more abstract female personification of Wisdom (see 1.20–33) is the Strange Woman’s counterpart; here the imagery of female sexuality governs the discourse, and the wife replaces Woman Wisdom (see 2.17; 7.4). As elsewhere in these poems, the language of proper and improper sexuality blends with that describing wisdom vs. folly and life vs. death.
5.15–16 The water imagery referring to the woman in v. 15 balances that referring to the man in v. 16.
5.17 A difficult verse perhaps referring to v. 10: a man’s sexual pleasure with a strange woman, probably here an adulteress, will mean sharing his wife with strange men.
5.18 Fountain. Properly contained and enjoyed waters will yield offspring (see also note on 1.23).
5.19–20 Deer, doe. Celebrating the beloved’s beauty by comparison with animals is typical of ancient love poetry, as is delight in anatomical description, here breasts, though this word in Hebrew may be revocalized to yield the alternate translation “lovemaking” (see Song 1.9–10, 15; 2.9; 4.1–5; 5.10–16; 6.5–7; 7.1–9; cf. Prov 7.18). Be intoxicated. Repeated vocabulary links the wife and the Strange Woman, even in their opposition.
5.21–23 The conclusion of the poem moves abruptly to the larger significance of sexual misbehavior. Folly is equated with the iniquities of the wicked; both lead to death (see note on 1.4; also 2.16–19; 3.33–35; 9.13–18).
PROVERBS 6
Practical Admonitions
1My child, if you have given your pledge to your neighbor,
if you have bound yourself to another,a
2you are snared by the utterance of your lips,b
caught by the words of your mouth.
3So do this, my child, and save yourself,
for you have come into your neighbor’s power:
go, hurry,c and plead with your neighbor.
4Give your eyes no sleep
and your eyelids no slumber;
5save yourself like a gazelle from the hunter,d
like a bird from the hand of the fowler.
6Go to the ant, you lazybones;
consider its ways, and be wise.
7Without having any chief
or officer or ruler,
8it prepares its food in summer,
and gathers its sustenance in harvest.
9How long will you lie there, O lazybones?
When will you rise from your sleep?
10A little sleep,
a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest,
11and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want, like an armed warrior.
12A scoundrel and a villain
goes around with crooked speech,
13winking the eyes, shuffling the feet,
pointing the fingers,
14with perverted mind devising evil,
continually sowing discord;
15on such a one calamity will descend suddenly;
in a moment, damage beyond repair.
16There are six things that the LORD hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
17haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
18a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that hurry to run to evil,
19a lying witness who testifies falsely,
and one who sows discord in a family.
20My child, keep your father’s commandment,
and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
21Bind them upon your heart always;
tie them around your neck.
22When you walk, theyb will lead you;
when you lie down, theyb will watch over you;
and when you awake, theyb will talk with you.
23For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light,
and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life,
24to preserve you from the wife of another,c
from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.
25Do not desire her beauty in your heart,
and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;
26for a prostitute’s fee is only a loaf of bread,i
but the wife of another stalks a man’s very life.
27Can fire be carried in the bosom
without burning one’s clothes?
28Or can one walk on hot coals
without scorching the feet?
29So is he who sleeps with his neighbor’s wife;
no one who touches her will go unpunished.
30Thieves are not despised who steal only
to satisfy their appetite when they are hungry.
31Yet if they are caught, they will pay sevenfold;
they will forfeit all the goods of their house.
32But he who commits adultery has no sense;
he who does it destroys himself.
33He will get wounds and dishonor,
and his disgrace will not be wiped away.
34For jealousy arouses a husband’s fury,
and he shows no restraint when he takes revenge.
35He will accept no compensation,
and refuses a bribe no matter how great.
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a Or a stranger
b Cn Compare Gk Syr: Heb the words of your mouth
c Or humble yourself
d Cn: Heb from the hand
e Heb it
f Heb it
g Heb it
h Gk: MT the evil woman
i Cn Compare Gk Syr Vg Tg: Heb for because of a harlot to a piece of bread
6.1–19 Four epigrams (brief poems with a single point) on folly and evil.
6.1–5 Control of one’s financial resources is urged (cf. 3.27–28). The motif of ensnarement (6.1, 2, 5), repeated from 5.22, stitches this unit to the preceding one (see also 1.17). Though material self-interest is strong, one’s inheritance was also a sign of the Lord’s blessing.
6.1 Given your pledge, bound yourself, offered oneself or one’s resources as collateral for another’s loan. Neighbor, another could be translated “associate,” “stranger” the latter may have been willing to pay someone to vouch for him (see 5.10; 11.15; 20.16).
6.2 Verbal agreements were apparently binding.
6.6–11 Wisdom may be taught through comparison of human life with the natural world (see also 27.8; 28.1, 15; 30.15–19, 24–31). Diligent labor is a virtue (see, e.g., 10.4–5; 22.13; 24.30–34; 26.13–16; 27.23–27; 31.13–27).
6.10 Sleep stitches this epigram to the preceding one.
6.11 Robber, armed warrior. Cf. 1.10–19.
6.12–15 These verses are connected to preceding unit by the theme of the evil man.
6.13 Winking, shuffling, pointing, body language as a clear sign of character.
6.15b Suddenly. Fate is sure, if not immediate (also in 7.22; 29.1b).
6.16–19 A numerical saying, with the typical x, x + 1 introductory formula, that develops the motif of the body parts from the preceding epigram.
6.16 More typically the student is advised on what to hate or love, but see 8.13 for Woman Wisdom’s hating.
6.20–35 The lecture in the ninth instruction returns to the theme of proper sexual behavior with an explicit focus on adultery.
6.20–21 See 1.9; 3.3.
6.22 They, or it (text note b), but “she” (Woman Wisdom?) is also possible, especially as the subject of talk with you.
6.23 Lamp. See note on 2.13.
6.24 Wife of another, adulteress. Although the poem’s topic is adultery, this verse uses the more evocative “evil woman,” “strange woman.”
6.26 Adultery violates a man’s exclusive right to his wife’s sexuality and his ability to be sure his sons (inheritors) are his own; hence, it threatens the stability of the social system. As outsiders to the system, prostitutes were tolerated for their services, but they are not worth the instructor’s consideration (see also 7.10; cf. 6.30).
6.27–28 Two proverbs, whose heat imagery makes them particularly appropriate as rhetoric against sexual promiscuity.
6.30–31 Like the prostitute whose fee is a mere loaf of bread (v. 26), the hungry thief is not a major moral problem; but thieves are still punished severely.
6.32 Senselessness in sexual behavior is especially deadly (see note on 1.4).
6.33–35 The exact nature of the adulterer’s punishment is unclear. The law (Lev 20.10) takes it as an offense against God, thus warranting automatic execution. Here, the offended husband seems to have a choice in exacting punishment. Wounds. Symbolic or literal (see 3.8)? Dishonor, disgrace. See 3.4; 5.14. Jealousy, not moral necessity, produces the punishment.
PROVERBS 7
The False Attractions of Adultery
1My child, keep my words
and store up my commandments with you;
2keep my commandments and live,
keep my teachings as the apple of your eye;
3bind them on your fingers,
write them on the tablet of your heart.
4Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”
and call insight your intimate friend,
5that they may keep you from the loosea woman,
from the adulteress with her smooth words.
6For at the window of my house
I looked out through my lattice,
7and I saw among the simple ones,
I observed among the youths,
a young man without sense,
8passing along the street near her corner,
taking the road to her house
9in the twilight, in the evening,
at the time of night and darkness.
10Then a woman comes toward him,
decked out like a prostitute, wily of heart.b
11She is loud and wayward;
her feet do not stay at home;
12now in the street, now in the squares,
and at every corner she lies in wait.
13She seizes him and kisses him,
and with impudent face she says to him:
14“I had to offer sacrifices,
and today I have paid my vows;
15so now I have come out to meet you,
to seek you eagerly, and I have found you!
16I have decked my couch with coverings,
colored spreads of Egyptian linen;
17I have perfumed my bed with myrrh,
aloes, and cinnamon.
18Come, let us take our fill of love until morning;
let us delight ourselves with love.
19For my husband is not at home;
he has gone on a long journey.
20He took a bag of money with him;
he will not come home until full moon.”
21With much seductive speech she persuades him;
with her smooth talk she compels him.
22Right away he follows her,
and goes like an ox to the slaughter,
or bounds like a stag toward the trapc
23until an arrow pierces its entrails.
He is like a bird rushing into a snare,
not knowing that it will cost him his life.
24And now, my children, listen to me,
and be attentive to the words of my mouth.
25Do not let your hearts turn aside to her ways;
do not stray into her paths.
26For many are those she has laid low,
and numerous are her victims.
27Her house is the way to Sheol,
going down to the chambers of death.
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a Heb strange
b Meaning of Heb uncertain
c Cn Compare Gk: Meaning of Heb uncertain
7.1–27 The tenth instruction returns to the more complex portrayal of the Strange Woman with her smooth words as both a social reality and embodiment of death (see note on 2.16–19). The poem’s inclusio (a symmetrical structure in which the end repeats the beginning) is created by scene changes: it opens (vv. 1–5) and closes (vv. 24–27) with an instructor in a classroom; vv. 6–12 and vv. 21–23 describe an (imaginary?) scene observed at a distance; in the center, vv. 13–20, a conversation is supposedly overheard at close range.
7.2 Apple, lit. “pupil.”
7.3 See 3.3; Song 8.6.
7.4 Sister, a term of endearment for a lover, not biological kin (see Song 4.9), though “intimate friend” does not necessarily have erotic overtones.
7.6 The scene unfolds as a narrative account of the teacher’s experience. Could this place of concealment inside a house hint at a mother’s instruction? The woman looking from a window was a popular motif on Phoenician ivories (see 2 Kings 9.30; also the place of the waiting lover in Song 2.9).
7.7 See notes on 1.4; 6.32.
7.8 Street, house. See notes on 1.13; 1.15–16; 2.18–19.
7.9 See note on 2.13. The scene twists the female lover’s nighttime search for her beloved in Song 3.1–4; 5.2–7.
7.10–20 The description of the woman teases with details of her appearance and speech. She is dressed like a prostitute and approaches the young man in this fashion; we do not discover until v. 19 that she is the deadly adulteress. Though he has foolishly wandered near her house, she comes out to meet him.
