Pro 6:32

He that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.

The suicide of the soul

Lovely as maiden purity is, and crowned with benedictions though it is by Christ, we have here to learn its excellence and fear its loss, by the sad, stern picture of impurity and shameless sin. In these sad proverbs of purity the wise man pictures to us in fearful personification wisdoms rival standing in the same great thoroughfares of earth and bidding to her shameful pleasures the simple youth who throng the broad and crowded way. This is no fancy picture allegorising the dangers of youth. It is drawn from reality, from every-day life. There is no mistake in the outline, no exaggeration in the colouring. The power of sin lies in its pleasure. They are mistaken who assert that there are no gratifications in the enjoyments of sense. Were there none, they would not be so diligently sought. Sin, which brings death to the soul, is yet sweet to the taste. The more we sin the more perverted becomes our taste, the more clamorous for further indulgence. But these stolen waters of sinful pleasure are not always sweet. Pleasant though they may be at the first, they will yet become bitter indeed. Much of the sinners peril grows out of his simple ignorance. Sin naturally brings with it temporal and physical suffering. But the pleasures of the sensualist are the preludes to a misery words refuse to paint. The sentence that to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure is fulfilled to the letter. Even the innocent pleasures of conversation become to the sensualist defiling, for he turns them into the foul channel of his own base thought. The mind and conscience of the impure are defiled. The mental faculties of the depraved and sensual lose at once and for ever the power of discerning and appreciating that which is excellent, lovely, and true. The deep things of God are no subjects for the lover of sensual sin to dwell upon. Sensuality not only prevents us from exercising our mental powers with freedom and profit, but it also wastes and enfeebles those powers themselves. Long since has this enfeebling of the intellectual man been noticed as the result of impurity of life. The sensualist must make his choice between intellect and mental imbecility. If any man defile the temple of God, which is our body, him will God destroy. This avenging work of destruction is well-nigh accomplished here on earth. Body, spirit, and soul–all is impure. But to the pure all things are pure. Unheeding the solicitations of the wanton, they go straight on their way. And this purity may be ours. Not indeed gained by our own strength, nor by any strength save that which is found at the foot of the Cross. Why may we not thus purify ourselves? To the life of purity we are called throughout the Book of Proverbs, and the cry of heavenly Wisdom is, Seek early, for the early seekers shall find. (Bp. William Stevens Perry.)

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Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 32. But whoso committeth adultery] The case understood is that of a married man: he has a wife; and therefore is not in the circumstances of the poor thief, who stole to appease his hunger, having nothing to eat. In this alone the opposition between the two cases is found: the thief had no food, and he stole some; the married man had a wife, and yet went in to the wife of his neighbour.

Destroyeth his own soul.] Sins against his life, for, under the law of Moses, adultery was punished with death; Le 20:10; De 22:22.

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

Lacketh understanding; is a brutish and silly man, who madly rusheth upon these filthy courses, without any sense or consideration of the horrid shame and certain destruction which attends upon them.

Destroyeth his own soul, or life; is guilty of self-murder and of soul-murder.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

32. lacketh understandingor,”heart”; destitute of moral principle and prudence.

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

[But] whoso committeth adultery with a woman,…. Which is a greater degree of theft than the former, it being the stealing of another man’s wife;

lacketh understanding; or “an heart” t; the thief lacks bread, and therefore steals, but this man lacks wisdom, and therefore acts so foolish a part; the one does it to satisfy hunger, the other a brutish lust;

he [that] doeth it destroyeth his own soul; is liable to have his life taken away by the husband of the adulteress; so according to Solon’s law u the adulterer taken in the act might be killed by the husband: or by the civil magistrate; for according to the law of. Moses he was to die, either to be strangled or stoned, [See comments on Joh 8:5]; and besides, he not only ruins the natural faculties of his soul, besotting, corrupting, and depraving that, giving his heart to a whore, but brings eternal destruction on it; yet so foolish is he, though it issues in the ruin of his precious soul; “he does this” w, for so the first part of this clause, which stands last in the original text, may be rendered.

t “deficit corde”, Pagninus, Montanus; “caret corde”, Mercerus, Gejerus; so Michaelis. u Plutarch. in Vita Solon. p. 90. w “ipse faeiet illud”, Montanus; “ipse faciet hoc”, so some in Vatablus; “is id faciet, sive facit”, Cocceius; “ille facit id”, Michaelis; “is patrabit illud”, Schultens.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Here there is a contrast stated to Pro 6:30:

32 He who commits adultery ( adulterans mulierem ) is beside himself,

A self-destroyer-who does this.

33 He gains stripes and disgrace,

And his reproach is never quenched.

, which primarily seems to mean excedere , to indulge in excess, is, as also in the Decalogue, cf. Lev 20:10, transitive: . Regarding being mad ( herzlos = heartless) = amens ( excors, vecors ), vid., Psychologie, p. 254. is he who goes to ruin with wilful perversity. A self-murderer – i.e., he intends to ruin his position and his prosperity in life – who does it, viz., this, that he touches the wife of another. It is the worst and most inextinguishable dishonouring of oneself. Singularly Behaji: who annihilates it (his soul), with reference to Deu 21:12. Eccl. 4:17, where would be equivalent to , , which is untrue and impossible.

(Note: Behaji ought rather to have referred to Zep 3:19; Eze 7:27; Eze 22:14; but there means agere cum aliquo , as we say: mit jemandem abrechnen (to settle accounts with any one).)

refers to the corporal punishment inflicted on the adulterer by the husband (Deu 17:8; Deu 21:5); Hitzig, who rejects Pro 6:32, refers it to the stripes which were given to the thief according to the law, but these would be called ( ). The punctuation is to be exchanged for (Lwenstein and other good editors). has a more active signification than our “ finden ” (to find): consequitur , .

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

32. Whose committeth adultery, taking all the circumstances and consequences into the account, acts like a madman or simpleton like one who seeks to destroy his own life. Unlike the thief who steals to satisfy his hunger, he unnecessarily robs a man of his wife, and when discovered will not merely lose his property, but forfeit his life. See Lev 20:10; Deu 22:22. The argument here is a fortiori, from the less to the greater. If a thief is punished for stealing to satisfy his hunger, how much more the adulterer!

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

Pro 6:32 [But] whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he [that] doeth it destroyeth his own soul.

Ver. 32. Lacketh understanding. ] Being wholly carried by sensual appetite, against the dictates both of religion and of reason. Beetles love dunghills better than ointments, and swine love mud better than a garden. Luther tells of a certain noble in his country so besotted with the sin of whoredom, he was not ashamed to say, that if he might ever live here, and be carried from one whore house to another, there to satisfy his lusts, he would never desire any other heaven. This filthy man did afterwards breathe out his wretched soul between two notorious harlots.

Destroyeth his own soul. ] It is not therefore leve peccatum, a small sin, as the pope’s canonists call it. a Divine justice doth not use to kill flies with beetles.

a Loniceri Theat. Histor., p. 568.

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

But whoso = How much more he who.

understanding. Hebrew = heart: put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Subject), App-6, for understanding.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

lacketh: Pro 7:7, Gen 39:9, Gen 39:10, Gen 41:39, Ecc 7:25, Ecc 7:26, Jer 5:8, Jer 5:21, Rom 1:22-24

understanding: Heb. heart, Hos 4:11, Hos 4:12

destroyeth: Pro 2:18, Pro 2:19, Pro 5:22, Pro 5:23, Pro 7:22, Pro 7:23, Pro 8:36, Pro 9:16-18, Eze 18:31, Hos 13:9, Heb 13:4

Reciprocal: Gen 39:8 – refused Deu 5:18 – General 2Sa 12:10 – hast taken Job 24:15 – eye Job 34:10 – understanding Pro 9:4 – General Pro 10:13 – understanding Pro 12:11 – he that followeth Pro 29:24 – hateth Hos 7:11 – without Mat 5:27 – Thou

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge