Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Proverbs 5:18

Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

Verse 18. Let thy fountain be blessed] yehi mekorecha baruch. Sit vena tua benedicta. Thy vein; that which carries off streams from the fountain of animal life, in order to disperse them abroad, and through the streets. How delicate and correct is the allusion here! But anatomical allusions must not be pressed into detail in a commentary on Scripture.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Thy fountain; thy wife, as the next clause explains it.

Be blessed; she shall be blessed with children; for barrenness was esteemed a curse and reproach, especially among the Israelites. Or rather, she shall be a blessing and a comfort to thee, as it follows, and not a curse and a snare, as a harlot will be.

Rejoice with the wife; seek not to harlots for that delight which God alloweth thee to take with thy wife. So here he explains the foregoing metaphor, and applies it to his present design.

Of thy youth; which thou didst marry in her and thine own youthful days, with whom therefore in all reason and justice thou art still to satisfy thyself, even when she is old. Or he mentions youth, because that is the season in which men are most prone to unclean practices, against which men are commonly fortified by the infirmities of old age.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

18. wife . . . youthmarriedin youth.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Let thy fountain be blessed,…. Thy wife; make her happy by keeping to her and from others; by behaving in a loving, affable, and respectful manner to her; by living comfortably with her, and providing well for her and her children: or reckon her a happiness, a blessing that God has bestowed; or

“thy fountain shall be blessed,”

as the Targum; that is, with a numerous offspring, which was always reckoned a blessedness, and was generally the happiness of virtuous women, when harlots were barren;

and rejoice with the wife of thy youth; taken to be a wife in youth, and lived with ever since; do not despise her, nor divorce her, even in old age, but delight in her company now as ever; carry it not morosely and churlishly to her, but express a joy and pleasure in her; see Ec 9:9. Jarchi interprets this of the law learned in youth; but it might be much better interpreted of the pure apostolic church of Christ, “the beulah”, to whom her sons are married,

Isa 62:4; to whom they should cleave with delight and pleasure, and not follow the antichristian harlot.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

With Pro 5:18 is introduced anew the praise of conjugal love. These three verses, Pro 5:18-21, have the same course of thought as Pro 5:15-17.

18 Let thy fountain be blessed,

And rejoice in the wife of thy youth.

19 The lovely hind and the graceful gazelle –

May her bosom always charm thee;

In her love mayest thou delight thyself evermore.

20 But why wilt thou be fascinated with a stranger,

And embrace the bosom of a foreign woman?

Like and , is also a figure of the wife; the root-word is , from , , the meanings of which, to dig and make round, come together in the primary conception of the round digging out or boring out, not = , the Hiph. of which means (Jer 6:7) to well out cold (water). It is the fountain of the birth that is meant (cf. of the female , e.g., Lev 20:18), not the procreation (lxx, , viz., ); the blessing wished for by him is the blessing of children, which so much the more distinctly denotes if , Arab. barak , means to spread out, and thus to cause a spreading out. The , 18b, explains itself from the idea of drawing (water), given with the figure of a fountain; the word found in certain codices is, on the contrary, prosaic (Fl.). Whilst is found elsewhere (Ecc 2:20; 2Ch 20:27) as meaning almost the same as ; the former means rejoicing from some place, the latter in something. In the genitive connection, “wife of thy youth” (cf. Pro 2:17), both of these significations lie: thy youthful wife, and she who was chosen by thee in thy youth, according as we refer the suffix to the whole idea or only to the second member of the chain of words.

Pro 5:19

The subject, 19a, set forth as a theme courts love for her who is to be loved, for she presents herself as lovely. is the female of the stag, which may derive its name from the weapon-power of its horns, and (from , Arab. w’al , to climb), that of the wild-goat ( ); and thus properly, not the gazelle, which is called on account of its elegance, but the chamois. These animals are commonly used in Semitic poetry as figures of female beauty on account of the delicate beauty of their limbs and their sprightly black eyes. signifies always sensual love, and is interchanged in this erotic meaning (Pro 7:18) with . In 19b the predicate follows the subject. The Graec. Venet. translates as if the word were , and the Syr. as if it were , but Aquila rightly translates . As is derived ( vid., Curtius, Griech. Etymologie, Nr. 307) from dha , to suck (causative, with anu , to put to sucking), so , , , Arab. thady (commonly in dual thadjein ), from , Arab. thdy , rigare , after which also the verb is chosen: she may plentifully give thee to drink; figuratively equivalent to, refresh or (what the Aram. precisely means) fascinate

(Note: Many editions have here ; but this Dagesh, which is contrary to rule, is to be effaced.)

thee, satisfy thee with love. also is an erotic word, which besides in this place is found only in Ezekiel (Eze 23:3, Eze 23:8, Eze 23:21). The lxx obliterates the strong sensual colouring of this line. In 19c it changes into , , perhaps also because the former appeared to be too sensual. Moses ha-Darshan (in Rashi) proposes to explain it after the Arab. sjy , to cover, to cast over, to come over anything (III = , to employ oneself with something): engage thyself with her love, i.e., be always devoted to her in love. And Immanuel himself, the author of a Hebrew Divan expatiating with unparalleled freedom in erotic representations, remarks, while he rightly understands of the fascination of love: , he calls the husband’s continual caressing of the wife an error. But this moral side-glance lies here at a distance from the poet. He speaks here of a morally permissible love-ecstasy, or rather, since excludes that which is extraordinary, of an intensity of love connected with the feeling of superabundant happiness. properly signifies to err from the way, therefore figuratively, with of a matter, like delirare ea , to be wholly captivated by her, so that one is no longer in his own power, can no longer restrain himself – the usual word for the intoxication of love and of wine, Pro 20:1 (Fl.).

Pro 5:20

The answer to the Why? in this verse is: no reasonable cause – only beastly sensuality, only flagitious blindness can mislead thee. The of is, as 19b and Isa 28:7, that of the object through which one is betrayed into intoxication. (thus, according to the Masora, four times in the O.T. for ) properly means an incision or deepening, as Arab. hujr (from hjr , cohibere ), the front of the body, the part between the arms or the female breasts, thus the bosom, Isa 40:11 (with the swelling part of the clothing, sinus vestis , which the Arabs call jayb ), and the lap; (as Pro 4:8), to embrace, corresponds here more closely with the former of these meanings; also elsewhere the wife of any one is called or , as she who rests on his breast. The ancients, also J. H. Michaelis, interpret Pro 5:15-20 allegorically, but without thereby removing sensual traces from the elevated N.T. consciousness of pollution, striving against all that is fleshly; for the castum cum Sapientia conjugium would still be always represented under the figure of husband and wife dwelling together. Besides, though might be, as the contrast of , the personified lust of the world and of the flesh, yet 19a is certainly not the , but a woman composed of flesh and blood. Thus the poet means the married life, not in a figurative sense, but in its reality – he designedly describes it thus attractively and purely, because it bears in itself the preservative against promiscuous fleshly lust.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

(18) Let thy fountain . . .As a reward for purity of life, the blessing of a numerous offspring is invoked. (Comp. Psa. 128:3, where the wife is a fruitful vine, and the children numerous and flourishing like olive-branches.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

18. Let thy fountain be blessed That is, with offspring, so much desired in the East, as they ought to be everywhere.

Wife of thy youth This seems to imply and sanction early marriages, though the words may be no more than a Hebraism for thy young wife. (Comp. Pro 2:16.) Let thy young wife, to whom thou art fitly mated, bring thee joy by a vigorous and numerous progeny. This would not be the case if he spent his strength in unlawful gratifications with harlots. For “wife of thy youth,” compare Deu 24:5; Ecc 9:1.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Pro 5:18. Let thy fountain be blessed That your wife may be fruitful, and God may bless you with a numerous posterity. The next clause very clearly points out the meaning of the metaphor.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Pro 5:18 Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

Ver. 18. Let thy fountain be blessed. ] Or, Thy fountain shall be blessed, thy wife shall be fruitful, as Psa 128:3 , that psalm for Solomon, whose many wives brought him but few children. We read but of one son that he had, who was none of the wisest neither, and two daughters, both of them subjects. Our Henry VIII, though blameworthy for women too, was more happy in King Edward his son, that orbis deliciae, and his two daughters, both sovereigns of an imperial crown.

Rejoice with the wife of thy youth. ] As Isaac did, who was the most loving husband that we read of in Holy Writ. Ezekiel’s wife was “the delight of his eyes”; he took singular complacency in her company. This conjugal joy is the fruit of love, which therefore he commendeth to all married men, in the next words.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

thy fountain: i.e. thine own wife. Compare Pro 5:16.

rejoice with = get thy joy with. Some codices, with Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate, read “in” instead of “with”.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

rejoice: Ecc 9:9, Mal 2:14, Mal 2:15

Reciprocal: Gen 26:8 – sporting Deu 24:5 – cheer up 2Sa 12:3 – one little 1Ch 14:3 – took Pro 2:17 – the guide Pro 5:15 – General Isa 54:6 – a wife 1Co 7:2 – to avoid Eph 5:25 – love Col 3:19 – love

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Pro 5:18. Let thy fountain be blessed Thy wife, as the next clause explains it, shall be blessed with children; or rather, she shall be a blessing and a comfort to thee, as it follows, and not a curse and snare, as a harlot would be. And rejoice, &c. Seek not to harlots for that comfort and delight which God allows thee to take in thy wife. So here he explains the foregoing metaphor, and applies it to its present design; with the wife of thy youth Whom thou didst marry in thy youthful days, with whom, therefore, in all reason and justice, thou oughtest still to satisfy thyself, even when she is old.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

5:18 Let thy {k} fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy {l} youth.

(k) Your children who will come from you in great abundance showing that God blesses marriage and curses whoredom.

(l) Who you married in your youth.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes