Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Proverbs 7:1
My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.
1. The LXX. add at the end of this verse,
“My son, fear the Lord and thou shalt be strong,
And beside him, fear none other.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Pro 7:1-4 ] Compare the similar exhortations Pro 1:8-9, Pro 2:1-5, Pro 3:1; Pro 3:3; Pro 3:21-22, Pro 4:20-21, Pro 6:20-23.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The harlot adulteress of an Eastern city is contrasted with the true feminine ideal of the Wisdom who is to be the sister and kinswoman Pro 7:4 of the young man as he goes on his way through life. See Prov. 8 in the introduction.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Pro 7:1
My son keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.
Parental precepts
Lay up. Hebrew, hide. A metaphor from treasure not left open in the house, but looked up in chests unseen, lest it should be lost, or got away.
I. Children must remember parents words.
1. Their words of instruction.
2. Of charge or command.
3. Of commendation, for that is a great encouragement to do well.
4. Of consolation, which revives the spirit of good children in their troubles.
5. Of promise.
6. Of prohibition.
7. Of reprehension.
8. Of commination.
The spring of parents words is love–yea, when they chide. The end and result of all their speeches is their childrens good.
II. The heart is the receptacle for godly precepts. There they must be laid up.
1. They are very precious in themselves. Common things lie about the house. Choice things are locked up.
2. They are very profitable to us, and such things easily creep into our hearts.
3. The heart is the secretest place to lodge them in.
4. It is the safest place. Good precepts should be as ready in our thoughts as if we had them in our eyes. (Francis Taylor, B. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER VII
A farther exhortation to acquire wisdom, in order to be
preserved from impure connections, 1-5.
The character of a harlot, and her conduct towards a youth who
fell into her snare, 6-23.
Solemn exhortations to avoid this evil, 24-27.
NOTES ON CHAP. VII
Verse 1. My son, keep my words] See Pr 2:1.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
1-4. Similar calls (Pro 3:1-3;Pro 4:10, &c.).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
My son, keep my words,…. Doctrines and instructions; which, as a father to a son, or a master to his scholars, he had delivered; these he would have him observe and attend to;
and lay up my commandments with thee: as a treasure in his heart, to be brought out upon occasion; to be kept as valuable, and made use of as an antidote against and a preservative from sinning; see Ps 119:11. The Septuagint and Arabic versions add, what is not in the Hebrew text,
“son, honour the Lord, and thou shalt be strong;”
the Arabic adds,
“and he shall strengthen thee; and fear none besides him.”
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The introduction first counsels in general to a true appreciation of these well-considered life-rules of wisdom.
1 My son, keep my words,
And treasure up my commandments with thee.
2 Keep my commandments, and thou shalt live;
And my instruction as the apple of thine eye.
3 Wind them about thy fingers,
Write them on the tablet of thy heart.
The lxx has after Pro 7:1 another distich; but it here disturbs the connection. Regarding , vid., at Pro 2:1; refers, as there, to the sphere of one’s own character, and that subjectively. Regarding the imper. , which must here be translated according to its sense as a conclusion, because it comes in between the objects governed by , vid., at Pro 4:4. There is punctuated with Silluk; here, according to Kimchi ( Michlol 125a), with Segol – Athnach, , as in the Cod. Erfurt. 2 and 3, and in the editions of Athias and Clodius, so that the word belongs to the class (with short instead of long vowel by the pausal accent): no reason for this is to be perceived, especially as (Pro 4:4) the Tsere ( e from aj ) which is characteristic of the imper. remains unchanged. Regarding , Arab. insan el – ‘ain , the little man of the eye, i.e., the apple of the eye, named from the miniature portrait of him who looks into it being reflected from it, vid., at Psa 17:8; the ending on is here diminutive, like Syr. achuno , little brother, b e runo , little son, and the like. On Pro 7:3, vid., at Pro 6:21; Pro 3:3. The
(Note: , prayer-fillets, phylacteries.)
were wound seven times round the left arm and seven times round the middle finger. The writing on the table of the heart may be regarded as referring to Deu 6:9 (the Mezuzoth ).
(Note: = the door-posts, afterwards used by the Jews to denote the passages of Scripture written on the door-posts.)
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Word of God Recommended. | |
1 My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. 2 Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye. 3 Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart. 4 Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman: 5 That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words.
These verses are an introduction to his warning against fleshly lusts, much the same with that, ch. vi. 20, c., and ending (<i>v. 5) as that did (v. 24), To keep thee from the strange woman; that is it he aims at; only there he had said, Keep thy father’s commandment, here (which comes all to one), Keep my commandments, for he speaks to us as unto sons. He speaks in God’s name; for it is God’s commandments that we are to keep, his words, his law. The word of God must be to us, 1. As that which we are most careful of. We must keep it as our treasure; we must lay up God’s commandments with us, lay them up safely, that we may not be robbed of them by the wicked one, v. 1. We must keep it as our life: Keep my commandments and live (v. 2), not only, “Keep them, and you shall live;” but, “Keep them as you would your life, as those that cannot live without them.” It would be death to a good man to be deprived of the word of God, for by it he lives, and not by bread alone. 2. As that which we are most tender of: Keep my law as the apple of thy eye. A little thing offends the eye, and therefore nature has so well guarded it. We pray, with David, that God would keep us as the apple of his eye (Ps. xvii. 8), that our lives and comforts may be precious in his sight; and they shall be so (Zech. ii. 8) if we be in like manner tender of his law and afraid of the least violation of it. Those who reproach strict and circumspect walking, as needless preciseness, consider not that the law is to be kept as the apple of the eye, for indeed it is the apple of our eye; the law is light; the law in the heart is the eye of the soul. 3. As that which we are proud of and would be ever mindful of (v. 3): “Bind them upon thy fingers; let them be precious to thee; look upon them as an ornament, as a diamond-ring, as the signet on thy right hand; wear them continually as thy wedding-ring, the badge of thy espousals to God. Look upon the word of God as putting an honour upon thee, as an ensign of thy dignity. Bind them on thy fingers, that they may be constant memorandums to thee of thy duty, that thou mayest have them always in view, as that which is graven upon the palms of thy hands.” 4. As that which we are fond of and are ever thinking of: Write them upon the table of thy heart, as the names of the friends we dearly love, we say, are written in our hearts. let the word of God dwell richly in us, and be written there where it will be always at hand to be read. Where sin was written (Jer. xvii. 1) let the word of God be written. It is the matter of a promise (Heb. viii. 10, I will write my law in their hearts), which makes the precept practicable and easy. 5. As that which we are intimately acquainted and conversant with (v. 4): “Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister, whom I dearly love and take delight in; and call understanding thy kinswoman, to whom thou art nearly allied, and for whom thou hast a pure affection; call her thy friend, whom thou courtest.” We must make the word of God familiar to us, consult it, and consult its honour, and take a pleasure in conversing with it. 6. As that which we make use of for our defence and armour, to keep us from the strange woman, from sin, that flattering but destroying thing, that adulteress; particularly from the sin of uncleanness, v. 5. Let the word of God confirm our dread of that sin and our resolutions against it; let it discover to us its fallacies and suggest to us answers to all its flatteries.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
FURTHER WARNINGS AGAINST
THE EVIL WOMAN
(Pro 7:1-27)
The Source of Protection
(Pro 7:1-5)
Verses 1-3 pause in the continued warning against the evil woman to again admonish the son to remember and obey the words and commandments of the father. Verse 4 also instructs the son to regard wisdom as his sister and understanding as his kinswoman (Vs. 4). Wisdom is again personified in this verse. The purpose is to emphasize that wisdom delivers from the strange woman, Vs. 5 and 2:10, 16.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES.
Pro. 7:2. Apple of the eye, the pupil, literally the little man of the eye, referring to the reflected image of a man seen in that organ.
Pro. 7:3. Bind them refers to rings with large signets, upon which maxims were inscribed (Stuart).
Pro. 7:4. Kinswoman, rather, an acquaintance, a familiar friend.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPHPro. 7:1-4
THE SOURCE OF TRUE LIFE, ETC
I. The true life of man depends upon his relation to the Word of God. Keep my commandments, and live (Pro. 7:2). The life which is given to man upon his entrance into this world is not life in its highest sense, but an existence in which he is to obtain life. It is not all of life to live. Those who do not keep Gods commandments are living existences, but in the moral signification of the word they are dead. It was said by the highest authorityby the Son of God Himselfthat it had been good for Judas Iscariot if he had not been born (Mat. 26:24). Existence is not a blessing, oftentimes a curse, unless a man is born again, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (Joh. 1:13). Christ taught the same truth when He said, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God (Luk. 4:4). Man is not flesh and blood only, he has not a mere animal existence, but moral capabilities and needs, which must be nourished by the thoughts of God. If this is not done, he has no life worth the name.
II. The relation that a man should have to the Word of God is like that which a rich man has to his banked money. Lay up my commandments with thee. The best place for money which the merchant wishes to use constantly is a safe bank, from which he can draw out at any time of need. So the Word of God must be laid up in the mind ready for constant use. The Word of God must dwell in us (Col. 3:16). It must be stored up to furnish us with encouragement and admonition in the unceasing warfare with temptation which we are called upon to wage. It must be at hand at the moment of need.
III. It is to be guarded with the same care as the eye is guarded by the eyelid. As the apple of thine eye. The eye is carefully protected by nature because it is the organ of a most precious senseof a sense of which we stand in the greatest needwithout which we walk through the world in darkness. The revelation of God in the Holy Scriptures is the only light which enlightens us amid the darkness of ignorance and mystery by which we are surrounded. Without it all our future would be darkness indeed. Hence its preciousness, and hence the value we ought to set upon it.
IV. It is to hold to us a relation like that of a pure, and tender, and beloved sister. Say unto Wisdom, Thou art my sister. The Word of God is the highest wisdom. The relationship of brother and sister, where it is what God intended it to be, is a very tender and pure relationship, involving willingness to undergo self-denial for the sake of her who is loved, to listen to her advice, to seek her welfare. In this light we must regard the wisdom of God as revealed in the word of God if existence is to become life to us. We must exercise self-denial for her sake. I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried: I hoped in Thy word (Psa. 119:147).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Pro. 7:2. As God would have us keep His law as the apple of our eye, so He keeps His people (Deu. 32:10), in answer to their prayer, as the apple of His eye (Zec. 2:8). We guard the eye as our most precious and tender member from hurt, and prize it most dearly. As we guard the pupil of the eye from the least mote, which is sufficient to hurt it, so Gods law is so tender and holy a thing that the least violation of it in thought, word, or deed, is sin; and we are so to keep the law as to avoid any violation of it. The law resembles the pupil of the eye also in its being spiritually the organ of light, without which we should be in utter darkness.Fausset.
The instruction of the Word is the same to the soul which the eye is to the body. For as the body without the sight of the eyes runneth upon many things that hurt it, and falleth at every little stumbling-block, so the soul most fearfully runneth into sins if it want the light and direction of the Word.Muffet.
Men are off and on in their promises: they are also slow and slack in their performances. But it is otherwise here: the very entrance of Thy Word giveth light (Psa. 119:130), and the very onset of obedience giveth life. It is but Hear, and your soul shall live (Isa. 55:3). Sin is homogeneous, all of a kind, though not all of the same degree. As the least pebble is a stone as well as the hugest rock, and as the drop of a bucket is water as well as the main ocean, hence the least sins are in Scripture reproached by the names of the greatest. Malice is called manslaughter, lust, adultery, etc. Concupiscence is condemned by the law; even the first motions of sin, though they never come to consent (Rom. 7:7). Inward bleeding may kill a man. The law of God is spiritual, though we be carnal. And as the sunshine shows us atoms and motes that till then we discerned not, so doth the law discover and censure smallest failings. It must therefore be kept curiously, even as the apple of the eye, that cannot be touched, but will be distempered. Careful we must be, even in the punctilios of duty. Men will not lightly lose the least ends of gold.Trapp.
In some bodies, as trees, etc., there is life without sense, which are things animated, but not so much with a soul as with a kind of animation; even as the wicked have some kind of knowledge from grace, but are not animated by it. Or rather the wicked do not live, indeed, for life consisteth in action, and how can he be said truly to live whose words are dead? But keep Gods commandments, and live indeed, live cheerfully with the comfort of this life, which makes life to be life; live happily in the life of glory hereafter, which is the end for which this life is lent us.Jermin.
Pro. 7:4. Since, O youth, thou delightest in the intimacy of fair maidens, lo! here is by far the loveliest one, Wisdom.Cartwright.
Wisdom has been represented as a wife, and here she is called a sister. As Didymus says (in Caten, p. 104), Wisdom is called a mother, a sister, and a wife. She is a mother, because, through her, we are children of Christ; she is a wife, because, by union with her, we ourselves become parents of that which is good; she is our sister, because our love to her is chaste and holy, and because she, as well as ourselves, is the offspring of God. Such is the love of Christ, who is the true Wisdom, and who is all in all to the soul. Compare His own words, applied to every faithful and obedient soul: The same is my brother, and my sister, and mother (Mar. 3:35). Do thou love the true faith with sisterly love, it shall keep thee from the impure love of the strange women of false doctrine (Bede).Wordsworth.
Holiness is positive. Sin is negative. The one is to love God, and also our neighbour. The other is not to love God or our neighbour. The one shows itself in a positive delight in the abstract holiness; the other not in a positive delight in the opposite, viz., in an abstract sin, but a delight in women, a delight in money, a delight in praise, a delight in everything except moral purity, and therefore a delight in things which are innocent when in limits, and that are only guilty when the soul is let in upon them without curb of superior affection. If a man calls Wisdom his kinswoman, then he may love wine or love without moral danger.Miller.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER 7
TEXT Pro. 7:1-12
1.
My son, keep my words,
And lay up my commandments with thee.
2.
Keep my commandments and live;
And my law as the apple of thine eye.
3.
Bind them upon thy fingers;
Write them upon the tablet of thy heart.
4.
Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister;
And call understanding thy kinswoman;
5.
That they may keep thee from the strange woman,
From the foreigner that flattereth with her words.
6.
For at the window of my house
I looked forth through my lattice;
7.
And I beheld among the simple ones,
I discerned among the youths,
A young man void of understanding,
8.
Passing through the street near her corner;
And he went the way to her house,
9.
In the twilight, in the evening of the day,
In the middle of the night and in the darkness.
10.
And, behold, there met him a woman
With the attire of a harlot, and wily of heart.
11.
(She is clamorous and wilful;
Her feet abide not in her house:
12.
Now she is in the streets, now in the broad places,
And lieth in wait at every corner.)
STUDY QUESTIONS OVER 7:1-12
1.
Contrast the child who regards his parents teachings with one who does not (Pro. 7:1).
2.
What is the apple of the eye (Pro. 7:2)?
3.
Why is heart used for mind so many times in the Bible (Pro. 7:3)?
4.
Why are graces and virtues often misrepresented in sculpturing, art, and literature as women (Pro. 7:4)?
5.
Yet Pro. 7:5 shows that women may be ……………… as well as virtuous.
6.
Describe such a window of their times as is suggested in Pro. 7:6.
7.
Are we all simple when young (Pro. 7:7)?
8.
What verse in Proverbs says to stay completely away from her (Pro. 7:8)?
9.
What does the Bible say about sinning and darkness (Pro. 7:9)?
10.
Why is her heart described as wily (Pro. 7:10)?
11.
Why is she also described as clamorous (Pro. 7:11)?
12.
What were their broad places (Pro. 7:12)?
PARAPHRASE OF 7:1-12
Pro. 7:1-5.
Follow my advice, my son; always keep it in mind and stick to it. Obey me and live! Guard my words as your most precious possession. Write them down, and also keep them deep within your heart. Love wisdom like a sweetheart; make her a beloved member of your family. Let her hold you back from visiting a prostitute, from listening to her flattery.
Pro. 7:6-12.
I was looking out the window of my house one day, and saw a simple-minded lad, a young man lacking common sense, walking at twilight down the street to the house of this wayward girl, a prostitute. She approached him, saucy and pert, and dressed seductively. She was the brash, coarse type, seen often in the streets and markets, soliciting at every corner for men to be her lovers.
COMMENTS ON 7:1-12
Pro. 7:1. Before the father begins this lengthy warning against his sons getting involved with a wicked woman, he urges him to be obedient to what he is teaching him. Why does the father go over and over this warning in Proverbs? Because he is training up his son in the way that he should go the promise for which is, He will not depart from it (Pro. 22:6).
Pro. 7:2. The apple of the eye is the pupil of the eye (Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary). To keep something as the apple of thine eye was a proverbial expression for anything particularly precious and liable to be injured unless guarded with scrupulous care (Pulpit Commentary). The expression is used also in Deu. 32:10; Psa. 17:8; Zec. 2:8. What does one guard or keep any more than his eye? The fathers promise was that if his son would keep his commandments as he would his eye, he would live and not be cut off from the living as a wicked person (Psa. 37:1-2).
Pro. 7:3. Bind means to tie. The thought of his binding his fathers instructions upon his fingers seems similar to our talk of tying a string on our finger when we dont want to forget something, The heart is here spoken of as a tablet, a writing surface. And indeed the heart is a place to lay up things precious and dear: Mary did so concerning many things said about her son Jesus and said by Him (Luk. 2:19; Luk. 2:51); we are told to write Gods Word upon our hearts (Heb. 8:10; Psa. 119:11).
Pro. 7:4. Claim a close relationship with those women Wisdom and Understanding, and such relationship will keep one from any relationship with the wicked, immoral woman about to be discussed (beginning in the next versePro. 7:5). Note that the young man who got involved with her did not make Understanding his close relative, for Pro. 7:7 says he was void of understanding. From antiquity many virtues have been portrayed in sculpturing, art, and literature as women. It does seem that many virtues can reach their highest pinnacle in womanhood or if lacking can be sacrificed the most my womanhood.
Pro. 7:5. Keep my words, says the father in Pro. 7:1, that they may keep thee from the strange woman (this verse). Pulpit Commentary aptly observes: When the heart is filled with the love of what is good, it is armed against the seductions of evil pleasure or whatever may entice the soul from God and duty. Pro. 2:16 and Pro. 6:24 also speak of being kept from the evil womanshe is someone to avoid!
Pro. 7:6. To show the greatness of the danger presented by the seductions of the temptress, the writer introduces…an actual example of what had passed before his own eyes (Pulpit Commentary). Latticework was used over windows and other areas by crossing laths over each other for privacy (so one could look out without being seen), to keep the welcome flow of breeze coming in while keeping the hot rays of the sun out, and for decorative purposes. It was through such that the father had looked out upon the sad spectacle that he mentions.
Pro. 7:7. The simple are the inexperienced, who are easily led astray (Pulpit Commentary). Other passages connecting the simple and those void of understanding with immorality: He that commiteth adultery with a woman is void of understanding (Pro. 6:32); Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: As for him that is void of understanding, she saith to him, Come, eat ye of my bread, And drink of the wine which I have mingled. Leave off, ye simple ones, and live; And walk in the way of understanding (Pro. 9:4-6); Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither; And as for him that is void of understanding, she saith to him, Stolen waters are sweet (Pro. 9:16-17). This verse shows that what one does is known and read by others.
Pro. 7:8. He wasnt aware of how dangerous it was to him to be found in her area. This verse sounds like he purposely went to her house with the idea of immorality, but the pressure she put on him (beginning in Pro. 7:13) does not bear this out.
Pro. 7:9. Wickedness seems to come to life when darkness begins to set in: The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, Saying, No eye shall see me (Job. 24:15); They that are drunken are drunken in the night (1Th. 5:7). The devils dens of iniquity are all open at night.
Pro. 7:10. Her attire catches the eye at once and identifies hercompare Gen. 38:14. In Rev. 17:4 the harlot is arrayed in purple and scarlet and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls; and in the present case the female is dressed in some conspicuous garments, very different from the sober clothing of the pure and modest (Pulpit Commentary). Wily means subtle. She cannot be believed: her lures are in reality all lies!
Pro. 7:11. Pro. 9:13 also mentions her being clamorous, meaning loud and boisteroussomething that a good woman is not (1Pe. 3:4). This is why she is so forward. Being wilful means she is stubborn and disobedient. Ungovernable…In Hos. 4:16…the same word is used of a wild heifer that will not submit its neck to the yoke (Lange). She does not stay in the house, for she is out working her dirty trade.
Pro. 7:12. She knows no shame. She goes out where people are to snare men.
TEST QUESTIONS OVER 7:1-12
1.
Why does the father go over and over this warning in Proverbs (Pro. 7:1)?
2.
On what basis does the father promise life to his son in Pro. 7:2?
3.
What expression do we have that sounds like Pro. 7:3?
4.
Who made a tablet out of her heart (Pro. 7:3)?
5.
What relationship should the son develop (Pro. 7:4)?
6.
What relationship should he avoid (Pro. 7:4)?
7.
Keeping his fathers words should keep the son from …………… (Pro. 7:5).
8.
Why does the father introduce an actual example beginning in Pro. 7:6?
9.
What other passages connect a lack of understanding with committing immoral acts (Pro. 7:7)?
10.
Interpret the simple youths being in her area (Pro. 7:8).
11.
What about wickedness and night (Pro. 7:9)?
12.
How did a harlot dress (Pro. 7:10)?
13.
Comment on her being wilful (Pro. 7:11).
14.
Why is she out in the streets and broad places (Pro. 7:12)?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
A FURTHER EXHORTATION TO FILIAL OBEDIENCE AND THE CULTIVATION OF WISDOM, AND TO WALK IN THE PATHS OF PURITY, Pro 7:1-27.
Such is the importance of the subject discussed in the latter part of the last chapter, as also in the second and fifth chapters, that the teacher continues, with increasing earnestness, to warn his pupils against the seductive wiles of dissolute women. Therefore, after an exhortation, such as we have before met with, to cleave lovingly to wisdom as a preservative against such sins, (Pro 7:1-5,) he paints in vivid colors the character of an impudent adulteress in her too successful efforts to ensnare an unsophisticated youth. (Pro 7:6-21.) The fatal consequences are exhibited in the subsequent verses.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1. Keep lay up my commandments Treasure them up in thy mind, as in a storehouse. For similar forms see Pro 1:18; Pro 2:1; Pro 6:20.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
An Appeal To ‘My Son’ To Observe His Words And His Commandments And To Take Wisdom And Understanding As His Close Female Relatives, So As To Be Protected From The Foreign Woman ( Pro 7:1-5 ).
This appeal follows the pattern of earlier appeals. For the combination of ‘words’ and ‘commandments’ compare Pro 2:1; for the combination of ‘commandments’ and ‘torah (law)’ compare Pro 3:1, and see Pro 6:20; for the combination of wisdom and understanding compare Pro 2:2; Pro 3:13; Pro 3:19; Pro 4:5 a, 7; Pro 5:1; Pro 8:1; Pro 8:5; Pro 8:14; Pro 9:10. In it the young man is called on the embrace wisdom as his sister and understanding as his kinswoman in order to be delivered from the strange woman who speaks smooth words.
The appeal is presented chiastically:
A My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with you (Pro 7:1).
B Keep my commandments and live, and my law as the apple of your eyes (Pro 7:2).
C Bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart (Pro 7:3)
B Say to wisdom, “You are my sister, and call understanding your kinswoman (Pro 7:4).
A That they may keep you from the strange woman, from the foreigner who flatters with her words (Pro 7:5).
Note that in A his ‘son’ has to ‘keep’ his ‘words’, and in the parallel these will ‘keep’ him from the strange woman who flatters with her ‘words’. In B he is to treat his torah as the apple of his eyes, and in the parallel he is treat wisdom and understanding as close relatives. Centrally in C he is to bind on his fingers, and write on his heart, Solomon’s commandments and torah.
Pro 7:1-2
‘My son, keep my words,
And lay up my commandments with you.
Keep my commandments and live,
And my law as the apple of your eyes.’
In the typical phraseology of his previous appeals Solomon calls on ‘his son’ to treasure and observe his words, and to lay up his commandments with him. There would appear in this to be an encouragement for him to learn them by rote. And by treasuring and observing his commandments he will ‘live’ (compare Pro 4:4), that is he will enjoy a wholesome spiritual life before God. Elsewhere such life is promised to those who treasure and observe the Torah of Moses (Lev 18:5; Deu 4:1; Deu 5:33; Deu 8:1; Deu 8:3; Deu 16:20; Deu 30:6; Deu 30:16; Deu 30:19), thus Solomon is here connecting his commandments and torah with the Torah of Moses. It demonstrates his supreme confidence that he is acting as God’s mouthpiece. And this is confirmed by the accompanying use of ‘my torah’ (instruction). His torah, based on God’s Torah, was to be guarded and treasured by the young man, as he guarded and treasured his own eyesight. The ‘apple’ or ‘little man’ of his eyes were the pupils, in which a man’s image might be reflected in miniature. Compare Deu 32:10.
Pro 7:3-5
‘Bind them on your fingers,
Write them on the tablet of your heart.
Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,
And call understanding your kinswoman,
That they may keep you from the strange woman,
From the foreigner who flatters with her words.
‘Bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart.’ Compare for this Deu 11:18 (and see Deu 6:6; Deu 6:8), ‘you shall lay up these words in your heart, and bind them for a sign on your hand’. This was what was to be done with God’s Torah. The importance of their being bound on their fingers lay in the fact that what was bound on the fingers would constantly be observed in daily life. Being written on the tablet of the heart they would affect the will and mind of the person involved. For ‘writing on the heart’, signifying God’s activity in bringing home His word to us, compare Jer 31:33.
Solomon then calls on him to see wisdom as his sister, and understanding as his close kinswoman. By being closely related to them as insiders he will hopefully escape from the woman who is an outsider, the strange woman, the foreign woman, who seeks to introduce to him her own smooth words. Note that Pro 7:5 is a repetition of Pro 2:15. Solomon wants to ensure that ‘his son’ is delivered from a stranger’s flattering words. If he allows ‘his words’ to guard him (Pro 7:1), he will be guarded from the words of a stranger.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Prologue To The Book ( Pro 1:8 to Pro 9:18 ).
It was common throughout the 3rd to the 1st millenniums BC for collections of wisdom saying to have a prologue preparing for the ‘sayings’ that would follow. Those sayings would then be introduced by a subheading. Proverbs thus follows the usual precedent in having such a prologue in Pro 1:8 to Pro 9:18, followed by general sayings in Pro 10:1 ff headed by a subheading (Pro 10:1). It was also common for such a prologue to be addressed to ‘my son’, or similar, with constant references being made to ‘my son’ throughout the prologue. And this is interestingly a feature of Proverbs 1-9, where it occurs fifteen times. One difference, however, lies in the fact that the ‘son’ was usually named in other wisdom literature, something which does not occur in Proverbs. Indeed, in Proverbs ‘my son’ is sometimes replaced by ‘sons’ (Pro 4:1; Pro 5:7; Pro 7:24; Pro 8:32). It is addressed to whoever will hear and respond.
The Prologue consists of ten discourses, and divides into two. It commences with five discourses, each of which follows a similar pattern, an opening appeal followed by two further subsections, and closing with a contrast between the righteous and the unrighteous, the wise and the foolish. We can compare how there are five ‘books’ to the Torah, and five books of Psalms. Five is the covenant number. Each of the subsections is in the form of a chiasmus.
From chapter 6 onwards the pattern changes. Initially we find a description of three types, whom we could describe as the naive, the foolish, the wicked (Pro 6:1-19), and this is followed by Pro 6:20 to Pro 9:18 which are centred on the contrast between the seductive power of the strange woman, and the uplifting power of woman wisdom, all continually urging the young man to turn from the enticements of the world and choose wisdom.
The prologue may be analysed as follows;
The Five Discourses.
1). Discourse 1. Addressed To ‘My Son’. Those Who Seek To Walk In The Fear Of YHWH Will Listen To The Instruction Of Godly Authority, And Will Avoid The Enticements Of Sinners Motivated By Greed. Wisdom Is Then Depicted As Crying Out To Be Heard, Longing For Response, Promising Inculcation Of Her Own Spirit, And Warning Of The Consequences Of Refusal (Pro 1:8-33).
2). Discourse 2. Addressed To ‘My Son’. The Source Of True Wisdom Is YHWH, And Those Who Truly Seek Wisdom Will Find YHWH Himself, And He Will Then Reveal His Wisdom To Them. This Wisdom That God Gives Them Will Then Deliver Them From All Who Are Evil, Both From Men Who Have Abandoned The Right Way, And From The Enticements Of Immoral Women (Pro 2:1-22).
3). Discourse 3. Addressed To ‘My Son’. The Young Man Is To Trust In YHWH, To Fear YHWH And To Honour YHWH, And In View Of Their Great Value Is To Find YHWH’s Wisdom And Obtain Understanding Which Will Be His Protection And Will Through YHWH’s Chastening Activity Restore Him To Man’s First Estate. In View Of Them He Is To Observe A Series Of Practical Requirements Which Will Result In Blessing For The Wise (Pro 3:1-35).
4). Discourse 4. Addressed to ‘Sons’. Wisdom And Understanding Are To Be Sought And Cherished, For They Produce Spiritual Beauty, and Lead Those Who Respond Unto The Perfect Day (Pro 4:1-19).
5). Discourse 5. Addressed To ‘My Son’ (and later ‘Sons’). He Is To Avoid The Enticements Of The Strange Woman Whose Ways Lead To Death, And Rather Be Faithful To His True Wife (Pro 4:20 to Pro 5:23).
A Description Of Three Contrasting Failures.
6). Discourse 6. The Naive, The Fool And The Scorner Illustrated. The First Addressed To ‘My Son’ Is A Call To Avoid Acting As A Surety For Others, The Second Addressed To ‘You Sluggard’, Is A Call To Shake Off Laziness, And The Third, Unaddressed, Concerns A Worthless Person And A Troublemaker (Pro 6:1-19).
A Contrast Between The Strange Seductive Woman And The Pure Woman Wisdom.
Discourse 7. Addressed To ‘My Son’. He Is Urged To Observe The Commandment And The Torah Of Father And Mother, Avoiding The Enticement Of The Adulterous Woman, And Being Aware Of The Wrath Of The Deceived Husband (Pro 6:20-35).
Discourse 8. Addressed To ‘My Son’. After Appealing To Him To Observe His Words Solomon Vividly Describes The Wiles Of A Prostitute And Warns ‘Sons’ Against Her (Pro 7:1-27).
Discourse 9. The Call of Ms Wisdom As The One Who Seeks Response, Gives Men True Instruction, Ensures Good Government, Enriches Men Physically and Spiritually, Was Present With God During Creation, And Blesses Men And Brings Them Into Life So That They Find God’s Favour (Pro 8:1-36).
Discourse 10. The Appeal Of Woman Wisdom Contrasted With The Allure Of Woman Folly (Pro 9:1-18).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Exhortation to Put God’s Word Before our Eyes – As in Pro 6:20-23 we are exhorted again in Pro 7:1-5 to place God’s Word before us in order to give us the wisdom and strength to avoid the temptations of the strange woman. But this time the emphasis is placed upon putting God’s Word before our “eyes” (Pro 7:2) and treat it as our “sister” (Pro 7:4) so that our eyes will not fall upon the adulteress. There is no other remedy that works in this area of our lives to protect us from sexual sins outside of placing God’s Word before us.
Pro 7:1 My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.
Pro 7:1
Pro 7:1 Word Study on “lay up” Strong says the Hebrew word “lay up” ( ) (H6845) means, “to hide, to hoard, to reserve,” and figuratively, “to deny.” The Enhanced Strong says it is used 33 times in the Old Testament, being translated in the KJV as, “ hide 16, lay up 7, esteemed 1, lurk 1, hidden ones 1, privily 1, secret places 1, secret 1, misc 4.”
Pro 7:2 Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye.
Pro 7:2
Comments – Why would this term be used for the pupil of the eye? When you look into someone’s eyes, you can see the image of yourself on a tiny scale in the pupil if the person’s eyes. Thus, the term “the little man” is very descriptive of the image that is seen in the pupil. Therefore, when we look at someone, that person becomes “the little man of our eye.”
This Hebrew word also carries the meaning, “the middle of the night.” Note:
Pro 7:9, “In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night:”
Pro 20:20, “Whoso curseth his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.”
Comments – The phrase “the apple of thine eye” implies something that is very dear and beloved to someone. Note other uses of this phrase in Scripture:
Deu 32:10, “He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye .”
Psa 17:8, “Keep me as the apple of the eye , hide me under the shadow of thy wings,”
Lam 2:18, “Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.”
Zec 2:8, “For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye .”
According to Strong, this phrase means, “the pupil of the eye.” We are taught in courses on self-defense that the most tender part of a person’s body to attack are the eyes. Once the eyes are injured, the victim will be able to flee from the attacker. Therefore, we are to watch over the Words of God as carefully as we watch over our eyes. Thus, the translation:
HNV, “Keep my mitzvot and live; Guard my teaching as the apple of your eye.”
However, this phrase can also mean that we are to allow the Words of God to become for us as the pupil of the eyes are to us. Our eyes give us light in order to guide our physical body. The Word of God should be our spiritual light that guides our souls. Thus, the translation:
BBE, “Keep my rules and you will have life; let my teaching be to you as the light of your eyes ;”
As we focus upon God’s Word, it becomes the “little man” in our pupils. Its image is imprinted and burned upon the table of our hearts.
Pro 7:2 Comments – The nave young man is about to place his eyes upon the adulteress because has not been putting God’s Word before his eyes as the “apple of his eyes.” This is the first sense gate that the adulteress will attempt to enter in order to seduce the man.
Pro 7:3 Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart.
Pro 7:3
Pro 7:3 “write them upon the table of thine heart” – Comments – Note how the New Testament teaches this principle (2Co 3:3, Col 3:16).
2Co 3:3, “Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart .”
Col 3:16, “ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom ; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”
Pro 7:3 Comments – In the Scriptures, the fingers represent the actions of the outer man, while the heart represents thoughts and intents of the inner man.
Under the Mosaic Law, God taught the children of Israel to literally bind passages of Scripture to their bodies in order to illustrate the diligent attention that one must give to His Word (Deu 6:8-9; Deu 11:18-20).
Deu 6:8-9, “And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.”
Deu 11:18-20, “Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates:”
Scripture References – Note a similar verse:
Pro 6:21, “Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck.”
Pro 7:4 Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman:
Pro 7:4
Job 17:14, “I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.”
Mat 12:49-50, “And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
When we learn how to have true relationships with the opposite sex, we will not be easily guided and seduced into a lustful relationship with the adulteress.
In the local church, young men are in an environment in which they can learn to develop healthy relationships with sisters in the Lord. As a man learns to properly treat a woman, he prepares himself as a better husband, in that he knows how to treat his wife with respect and honour, and not out of lust and desire for self-satisfaction.
It is interesting to notice young converts in this struggle to learn how to behave themselves in God’s house and how to treat people with honour and respect. It takes time, because a believer has to grow in this area if he was not taught it in the home.
Pro 7:5 That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words.
God the Father’s Foreknowledge: Calling Us to Our Journey (Preparation for the Journey) Most scholars consider Proverbs 1-9 to be a discourse, or a tribute, to wisdom. This section serves as an introduction to Solomon’s collection of wise, pithy sayings that follows. This introductory material is a preparation for being able to understand the rest of the book. Its underlying emphasis is the divine calling that God gives to every human being. Therefore, we find the statement of wisdom “crying out,” “uttering her voice” and “calling” used repeatedly throughout this section of Proverbs.
In these first nine introductory chapters, wisdom is personified as a person speaking in the feminine gender. Just as an artist sketches an outline of a painting, then splashes colors upon the canvas, until a beautiful painting emerges, so in these chapters of Proverbs does wisdom begin to reveal itself verse by verse (as an artist reveals a picture color by color) until chapter 8, when wisdom is seen as an intimate part of God and His creation. Wisdom is personified as a person speaking because man would be incapable of understanding his experiences in life without divine wisdom being given to him. This impartation is done in the person of the Holy Spirit. Wisdom is personified as a woman because the Hebrew word translated as “wisdom” is in the feminine gender.
These chapters contrast the table of blessings (Pro 9:1-6) with the trap of death (Pro 1:17-19, Pro 9:18). The wise man chooses wisdom’s table of blessings. In contrast, the fool chooses the trap of death, supposing that it is a table of blessing. Studying this introduction is a necessary preparation for finding one’s way through the rest of the book of Proverbs. Thus, a drama immediately unfolds in the introduction, revealing to us how wisdom sets a man free, but the trap of death ensnares its victims in the strongholds of sin. These strongholds do not turn its captives loose until it completes its assignment of death. In contrast, wisdom leads a man into his rightful place of glory and honor above God’s creation (Pro 3:35, Pro 31:30), and into submission to his Creator.
This section of Proverbs is actually a call to follow the path of wisdom, in which wisdom presents his arguments for choosing the path of wisdom over the path of the fool. God calls mankind to righteousness in this present Church age through the convicting power of the Holy Spirit that has been sent upon the earth, who convicts the world of sin righteousness and judgment (Joh 16:7-11); but prior to this age God called mankind to righteousness through wisdom, which testified from Creation (Rom 1:19-23), and from society. We see in these chapters that wisdom is a path that is to be diligently followed. Wisdom is a decision that is made on a daily basis, and these daily decisions will determine our destiny, both in this life and in the life to come. This book of wisdom contrasts the wise man with the fool throughout the book. As we will see in Proverbs, every decision that we make is either a wise decision, or a foolish one. Every decision affects our eternal destiny. This section begins with a call to follow wisdom (Pro 1:7-9), and ends by explaining how every human being decides between destinies, heaven or hell (Pro 9:1-18).
In the path of wisdom, there are many dangers. It is for this reason these nine chapters give us many warnings against the evil man and the adulteress, even before the real journey begins. The path of wisdom is narrow and easily missed. All of us have fallen off this path at one time or another in our lives. This book of Proverbs was written by King Solomon, considered the wisest person that has ever lived. Yet, even he fell off this path of wisdom because he allowed pride to blind his vision and dull his hearing. This gives us an indication of how narrow is this path to follow.
Pride is an attitude of the heart. It is the very reason that Solomon fell into idolatry. It is the root cause of every man’s failure. It comes clothed in many forms, such as false humility and it clothes itself in man-made titles of honour, such as “honorable, his lordship, his excellence, his grace, cardinal, pope, etc.” For example, the Pope in Rome carries the title of “His Holiness”. These nine chapters open and close with Pro 1:7; Pro 9:10, which reveal the secret of avoiding failure, which is caused by pride. We are told that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Pro 1:7 and Pro 9:10). This fear keeps us from falling off the path of wisdom.
This introductory material in Proverbs 1-9 makes up almost one third of the book. Why is this introduction to Proverbs so lengthy relative to the overall length of the book? It is because the preparation for our journey in life is also lengthy. Solomon was taught for many years before he took the throne as king of Israel. Good training takes time and a good education does not come quickly. The degree that a person receives a secular education usually determines the height of his career. In comparison, the degree that a person becomes rooted and grounded in the Word of God will determine the height of that person’s ministry. You must take the time to receive this introductory training in the first nine chapters of Proverbs before you are ready for the journey. The better we are able to understand the introduction of the book of Proverbs, the better we will be able to understand the rest of its teachings.
For hundreds of years in western civilization, a theological education was a part of a well-rounded education. All students learned the classical languages of Hebrew, Greek and Latin in order to study theological literature. The children of Israel were also to give each child a theological education. Solomon received such an education. Therefore, we can see this introduction to Proverbs as the theological training that everyone should go through in preparation for the journey in life.
One further note is worth mentioning about chapters 1-9. Upon reading, we must ask the question as to why this lengthy introduction in Proverbs spends so much time describing and warning the readers about the harlot. Perhaps because this is the one area that trapped and deceived Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived. This is the area that Solomon knows many of the young men he is training for leadership positions in the kingdom will be tempted. In addition, in a figurative sense, such spiritual adultery represents a believer who chooses to love the things of this world above his love for God.
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. The Call of Wisdom to Young & Tender Pro 1:7-33
2. Answering Wisdom’s Call (A Hearing Heart) Pro 2:1-22
3. The Blessings of Wisdom Pro 3:1-35
4. Three Paths of Wisdom Pro 4:1-27
5. Three Paths of Destruction Pro 5:1 to Pro 6:11
6. Characteristics of the Evil People Pro 6:12 to Pro 7:27
7. Characteristics of Wisdom Pro 8:1-36
8. Wisdom’s Final Call (Food for the Journey) Pro 9:1-18
The Characteristics of Evil People: Earthly Wisdom Pro 6:12 to Pro 7:27 is a lengthy passage of Scripture deals with the characteristics of evil people, both the wicked man and the adulteress. This passage of Scripture teaches us about the nature of earthly wisdom, which is described as “earthly, sensual and devilish” (Jas 3:15).
Jas 3:15, “This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.”
As we step back and evaluate the lessons that we have learned thus far, we find a common factor in each of these sections. They all begin with wisdom calling us to take heed to God’s Words. Every one of these sections, the three paths of wisdom as well as the three paths of the fool, all begin with this came charge. This is because when we take time each day to mediate and study God’s Word, we allow our minds and hearts to become established in the truth so that we will not be deceived by all of the noise from the world.
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. The Characteristics of the Wicked Man (Pro 6:12-19)
2. The Characteristics of the Adulteress (Pro 6:20 to Pro 7:27)
The Adulteress Woman – Proverbs 5-7 deals in large part with the issue of an adulteress woman. Why would this lengthy introduction spend so much time describing and warning the readers about the harlot? Perhaps because this is the one area that trapped and deceived Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived. Also, in a figurative sense, such spiritual adultery represents a believer who chooses to love the things of this world above his love for God. This seduction led to his backsliding from God. Therefore, much attention is given to this issue in the writings of Solomon.
1Ki 11:4, “For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father.”
An interesting writing on the seduction of women is given in a writing called The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. [69]
[69] The author writes, “Pay no heed, therefore, to the beauty of women, and muse not upon their doings; but walk in singleness of heart in the fear of the Lord, and be labouring in works, and roaming in study and among your flocks, until the Lord give to you a wife whom He will, that ye suffer not as I did. Until my father’s death I had not boldness to look stedfastly into the face of Jacob, or to speak to any of my brethren, because of my reproach; and even until now my conscience afflicteth me by reason of my sin. And my father comforted me; for he prayed for me unto the Lord, that the anger of the Lord might pass away from me, even as the Lord showed me. From henceforth, then, I was protected, and I sinned not. Therefore, my children, observe all things whatsoever I command you, and ye shall not sin. For fornication is the destruction of the soul, separating it from God, and bringing it near to idols, because it deceiveth the mind and understanding, and bringeth down young men into hell before their time. For many hath fornication destroyed; because, though a man be old or noble, it maketh him a reproach and a laughing-stock with Beliar and the sons of men. For in that Joseph kept himself from every woman, and purged his thoughts from all fornication, he found favour before the Lord and men. For the Egyptian woman did many things unto him, and called for magicians, and offered him love potions, and the purpose of his soul admitted no evil desire. Therefore the God of my fathers delivered him from every visible and hidden death. For if fornication overcome not the mind, neither shall Beliar overcome you. Hurtful are women, my children; because, since they have no power or strength over the man, they act subtilly through outward guise how they may draw him to themselves; and whom they cannot overcome by strength, him they overcome by craft. For moreover the angel of God told me concerning them, and taught me that women are overcome by the spirit of fornication more than men, and they devise in their heart against men; and by means of their adornment they deceive first their minds, and instil the poison by the glance of their eye, and then they take them captive by their doings, for a woman cannot overcome a man by force.” ( The Testaments Of The Twelve Patriarchs 1.5-4)
The Characteristics of the Adulteress – Note that we have just finished a passage on the characteristics of the wicked man (Pro 6:12-19). Now we have a lengthy passage of Scripture that deals with the characteristics of the adulteress (Pro 6:20 to Pro 7:27). We have been given a brief glimpse of her characteristics in Pro 2:16-19; Pro 5:3-6. Now the Preacher is going to give his students a full revelation through this lengthy discourse on a personality that invades every leader’s life.
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. The Effects of the Word of God upon our Spirit Man Pro 6:20-23
2. The Cunning Devises of the Adulteress Pro 6:24 to Pro 7:27
The Graphic Description of the Adulteress – The description of the dark street and the seduction of the simple-minded youth by the adulteress sounds as if the Preacher is recalling something that actually happened. Perhaps King David taught Solomon about the severe consequences of adultery (Pro 6:20-35), which he himself had experienced, by taking his son out into the streets to show him how the adulteress works (Pro 7:1-27). This event would have forever been imprinted into the mind of young Solomon so that he never forgot what he saw. David did not want his son to fall in the same way that he had fallen. He knew how Satan would tempt his son the way he was tempted. Unfortunately, this is the area in which Solomon also fell. Therefore, Solomon dedicates a lengthy passage to this area because he knows and understands how powerful this strange woman can be in the life of a man of God.
The Steps of Adultery Contrasted with the Steps of Marriage – Once King David taught Solomon about the severe consequences of adultery (Pro 6:20-35), which he himself had experienced, he then takes his son out on the streets to show him how the adulteress works (Pro 7:1-27). We can identify her method of seduction by contrasting it to the holy wedding ceremony of the bride and the groom found in Son 3:6 to Son 5:1. The adulteress woos her victims by presenting herself in seductive clothing (Pro 7:9-12), while the bridegroom presents himself in all of his wealth and glory (Son 3:6-11). The groom displays his strength and wealth, while the adulteress displays her appearance. While the bridegroom sings a love song to his bride (Son 4:1-15), the adulteress romances her victim with words of seduction (Pro 7:13-20). Finally, the wedding is consummated in the marriage bed (Son 4:16 to Son 5:1), while the adulteress lures her victim into the bed of adultery (Pro 7:21-23). The outcome of the marriage bed is rest and fulfillment of God’s divine plan for two individuals, while the outcome of adultery is destruction.
The Cunning Devises of the Adulteress The adulteress is cunning and crafty. She seeks the life of her victim. She has a goal and she knows how to reach her goal, which is to gain a man’s wealth even when it costs him his life. She knows that to get a man’s wealth, she has to first win his heart. If she can take his heart, she knows that he will give his strength to fulfill the passions of his heart. He will yield his strength to obtain the wealth that is needed to bring him the desires of his heart. Thus, she gets him to use his strength to yield his wealth to her. He will be brought to a piece of bread and even give his life when he is bound in service to the adulteress. She understands this principle because she has tested it from her youth. From the time that men started noticing her she started testing her boundaries and her power of seduction. She knows how to use her secret strength called seduction. With it she can force the strongest of men to yield their wealth to her.
Let us follow this procedure of seduction. Her goal is to win his heart by means of enticement and seduction. She must first gain control over his mind. With control over his mind she can control his will. With control over his will she will capture his heart, which will lead him to use his strength to gain his wealth. She will not turn loose until she has brought him to a piece of bread and taken away his life.
The battle begins with an attempt to enter the man’s mind. The entrances into the mind are through the five sense-gates of hearing, seeing, touching, tasting and smelling. This is the way God created man. The adulteress first uses her tongue to get the attention of her victim, and by flattery she enter the sense-gate of hearing (Pro 6:24, Pro 7:10). Her words are loud and persistent (Pro 7:11) and she does not give up easily. She can then enter the sense-gate of the eyes by dressing to reveal her fleshly body (Pro 6:25). She knows from experience that few men will turn their eyes away from her fleshly beauty. This is why she must leave her domestic duties and go out into the streets (Pro 7:12). Once she has gained access to his mind through the sense gates of hearing and seeing, she grabs him to arouse the sense-gate of touch (Pro 7:13). With a bold kiss she enters the sense-gate of taste (Pro 7:13). Her perfume arouses the sense-gate of smell with which she has also prepared her bed (Pro 7:17). Thus, she has entered his five sense-gates: hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, smelling.
With all five sense-gates aroused the simple man has no strength to resist. It takes a man of God to walk away from that situation. It takes a man who has already made the decision to say no in this situation. She has now captured his mind and moves into the next phase of seduction, which is reason. She speaks to him and convinces him with lying lips that he has captured her heart (Pro 7:14-15), when the opposite is actually true. With her persistence and her reason she forces him to yield (Pro 7:16-21). He loses his sense of reason and yields himself to her reason, becoming blind to the fact that it will cost him his life (Pro 7:22-23). She has now captured his mind. With time in the bed of adultery she intends on taking her victim into the next phase, which is to capture his heart. Once she has his heart, she will be able to direct his paths and ultimately gain his wealth.
In a similar way, wisdom asks for our hearts also. Because once wisdom has our hearts, she can lead us down the path that brings us blessings in every area of our lives.
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. The Shame of Falling Prey to the Adulteress Pro 6:24-35
2. Exhortation to Put God’s Word Before our Eyes Pro 7:1-5
3. The Setting: Alluring the Five Sense-Gates Pro 7:6-13
4. Capturing the Mind Pro 7:14-21
5. Controlling the Heart Pro 7:22-23
6. Final Warning Pro 7:24-27
Condemnation of Fornication and Adultery.
v. 1. My son, keep my words, v. 2. Keep my commandments and live, v. 3. Bind them upon thy fingers, v. 4. Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister, v. 5. that they may keep thee from the strange woman, v. 6. For at the window of my house I looked through my casement, v. 7. and beheld among the simple ones, v. 8. passing through the street near her corner, v. 9. in the twilight, v. 10. and, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, v. 12. now is she without, v. 13. So she caught him and kissed him, v. 14. I have peace-offerings with me; this day have I paid my vows, v. 15. Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, v. 16. I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, v. 17. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon, v. 18. Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning; let us solace ourselves with loves, v. 19. For the goodman, v. 20. he hath taken a bag of money with him, v. 21. With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, v. 22. He goeth after her straightway, at once, v. 23. till a dart strike through his liver, v. 24. Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth, v. 25. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, v. 26. For she hath cast down many wounded, v. 27. Her house is the way to hell, EXPOSITION
Pro 7:1-27
13. Thirteenth admonitory discourse, containing a warning against adultery, treated under a different aspect from previous exhortations, and strengthened by an example. In this chapter and the following a contrast is drawn between the adulteress and Wisdom.
Pro 7:1
My son, keep my words. The teacher enjoins his pupil, as in Pro 2:1, to observe the rules which he gives. Lay up, as a precious treasure (see on Pro 2:1 and Pro 2:7). The LXX. adds here a distich which is not in the Hebrew or in any other version, and is not germane to the context, however excellent in itself: “My son, honour the Lord, and thou shalt be strong, and beside him feat no other.” With this we may compare Luk 12:5 and Isa 8:12, Isa 8:13.
Pro 7:2
Keep my commandments, and live (see on Pro 4:4). As the apple of thine eye; literally, the little man (ishon, diminutive of ish) of the eye; so called from the miniature reflection of objects seen in the pupil, specially of the person who looks into another’s eye. It is a proverbial expression for anything particularly precious and liable to be injured unless guarded with scrupulous care (comp. Psa 17:8, Zec 2:8). Similarly the Greeks called this organ , “damsel” or “puppet,” and the Latin, pupilla.
Pro 7:3
Bind them upon thy fingers. Wear my precepts like a ring on thy finger, so that they may go with thee, whatever thou takest in hand. Others think that the so called tephillin, or phylacteries, are meant. These were worn both on the hand and the forehead, and consisted of a leather box containing strips of parchment, on which were written four texts, viz. Exo 13:1-10; 11-16; Deu 6:4-9; Deu 11:13-21. The box was attached to a leather strap wound seven times round the arm three times round the middle finger, and the remainder passed round the hand (see (Exo 13:9, Exo 13:16; Jer 22:24). Write them upon the table of thine heart (see on Pro 3:3 and Pro 6:21; and comp. Deu 6:9).
Pro 7:4-5
Pro 7:4 and Pro 7:5 contain earnest admonitions to the pursuit of Wisdom, which is worthy of the purest love.
Pro 7:4
Say unto Wisdom, Thou art my sister. Wisdom is personified, and the connection with her indicated by the relationship which best expresses love, purity, confidence. In the Book of Wisdom 8. she is represented as wife. Christ calls those who do God’s will his brother, and sister, and mother (Mat 12:50). Call Understanding thy kinswoman; moda, “familiar friend.” Let prudence and sound sense be as dear to thee as a close friend.
Pro 7:5
That they may keep thee from the strange woman (see on Pro 2:16 and Pro 6:24). When the heart is filled with the love of what is good, it is armed against the seductions of evil pleasure or whatever may entice the soul from God and duty. Septuagint, “That she (Wisdom) may keep thee from the strange and evil woman, if she should assail thee with gracious words.”
Pro 7:6-23
To show the greatness of the danger presented by the seductions of the temptress, the writer introduces no mere abstraction, no mere personification of a quality, but an actual example of what had passed before his own eyes.
Pro 7:6
For. The particle introduces the example. At the window of my house. He gives a graphic delineation of a scene witnessed outside his house. I looked through my casement; eshnab, “the lattice,” which served the purpose of our Venetian blinds, excluding the sun, but letting the cool air pass into the room (comp. Jdg 5:28). A person within could see all that passed in the street without being himself visible from without (So Pro 2:9). The Septuagint reads the sentence as spoken of the woman: “For from the window glancing out of her house into the streets, at one whom she might see of the senseless children, a young man void of understanding.”
Pro 7:7
And beheld among the simple ones. Though it was night (Pro 7:9), there was light enough from moon or stars or from illuminated houses to show what was passing. “The simple” are the inexperienced, who are easily led astray (see on Pro 1:4). Looking forth into the street on the throng of young and thoughtless persons passing to and fro, among them I discerned a young man void of understanding; a fool, who, without any deliberate intention of sinning, put himself in the way of temptation, played on the borders of transgression. The way of escape was before him, as it is in all temptations (1Co 10:13), but he would not take it. Such a one may well be said to lack understanding, or heart, as the Hebrew expresses it (Pro 6:32, where see note).
Pro 7:8
Near her corner. He kept near the corner of the house of the woman for whom he waited. Another reading gives, “near a corner;” juxta angulum. Vulgate; , Septuagint; i.e. he did not take to the broad, open street, but sneaked about at corners, whence he could watch the woman’s house without being observed by others. He went the way to her house. He sauntered slowly along, as the verb signifes. Septuagint, “Passing by a corner in the passages of her house ( ).”
Pro 7:9
In the twilight, in the evening of the day. So termed to distinguish it from the morning twilight. The moralist sees the youth pacing to and fro in the early evening hours, and still watching and waiting when the darkness was deepest (comp. Job 24:15). In the black and dark night; literally, in the pupil of the eye of night and in darkness. We have the same expression in Pro 20:20 (where see note) to denote midnight. Its appropriateness is derived from the fact that the pupil of the eye is the dark centre in the iris. Septuagint: the youth “speaking in the darkness of evening, when there is the stillness of night and gloom.”
Pro 7:10
And, behold, there met him a woman. His long watch is rewarded; the woman comes forth from her house into the streeta proceeding which would at once show what she was, especially in the East, where females are kept secluded, and never appear at night or unattended. With the attire of an harlot. There is no “with” in the original, “woman” and “attire” being in apposition: “There met him a woman, a harlot’s dress” (shith, Psa 73:6); her attire catches the eye at once, and identifies her (comp. Gen 38:14). In Rev 17:4 the harlot is “arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls;” and in the present case the female is dressed in some conspicuous garments, very different from the sober clothing of the pure and modest. Subtil of heart ( ); literally, of concealed heart; i.e. she hides her real feelings, feigning, perhaps, affection for a husband, or love for her paramour, while she seeks only to satisfy her evil passions. The versions have used a different reading. Thus the Septuagint: “Who makes the hearts of young men flutter ();” Vulgate, praeparata ad capiendas animas, “ready to catch souls.”
Pro 7:11-12
Pro 7:11 and Pro 7:12 describe the character and habits of this woman, not as she appeared on this occasion, but as she is known to the writer.
Pro 7:11
She is loud; boisterous, clamorous, as Pro 9:13. The description applies to a brute beast at certain periods. Stubborn; ungovernable, like an animal that will not bear the yoke (Hos 4:16). Vulgate, garrula et vaga, “talkative and unsettled;” Septuagint, , “flighty and debauched.” Her feet abide not in her house. She is the opposite of the careful, modest housewife, who stays at home and manages her family affairs (Tit 2:5). The Vulgate inserts another trait: quietis impatiens, “always restless.”
Pro 7:12
Now is she without, now in the streets. At one moment outside her own door, at another in the open street. Septuagint: “At one time she roams without ( ).” The woman is represented not as a common prostitute, but as a licentious wife, who, in her unbridled lustfulness, acts the part of a harlot. Lieth in wait at every corner; seeking to entice some victim. Then the narrative proceeds; the writer returns to what he beheld on the occasion to which he refers.
Pro 7:13
So she caught him and kissed him; being utterly lost to shame, like Potiphar’s wife (Gen 39:12). With an impudent face said; literally, strengthened her face and said; put on a bold and brazen look to suit, the licentious words which she spoke. Wordsworth quotes the delineation of the “strange woman” drawn by St. Ambrose (‘De Cain. et Abel.,’ 1.4): “Domi inquieta, in plateis vaga, osculis prodiga, pudore villis, amictu dives, genas picta; meretricio procax motu, infracto per delicias incessu, nutantibus oculis, et ludentibus jaculans palpebris retia, quibus pretiosas animus juveuum capit.”
Pro 7:14
I have peace offerings with me. Shelamim, “peace or thank offerings,” were divided between Jehovah, the priests, and the offerer. Part of the appointed victim was consumed by fire; the breast and right shoulder were allotted to the priests; and the rest of the animal belonged to the person who made the offering, who was to eat it with his household on the same day as a solemn ceremonial feast (Lev 3:1-17; Lev 7:1-38). The adulteress says that certain offerings were due from her, and she had duly made them. This day have I payed my vows. And now (the day being reckoned from one night to the next) the feast was ready, and she invites her paramour to share it. The religious nature of the feast is utterly ignored or forgotten. The shameless woman uses the opportunity simply as a convenience for her sin. If, as is probable, the “strange woman” is a foreigner, she is one who only outwardly conforms to the Mosaic Law, but in her heart cleaves to the impure worship of her heathen hems And doubtless, in lax times, these religious festivals, even in the case of worshippers who were not influenced by idolatrous proclivities, degenerated into self-indulgence and excess. The early Christian agapae were thus misused (1Co 11:20, etc.); and in modern times religious anniversaries have too often become occasions of licence and debauchery, their solemn origin and pious uses being entirely thrust aside.
Pro 7:15
Therefore came I forth to meet thee. As though she would invite the youth to a pious rite, she speaks; she uses religion as a pretext for her proceedings, trying to blind his conscience and to gratify his vanity. Diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee (see on Pro 1:28). She tries to persuade her dupe that he is the very lover for whom she was looking, whereas she was ready to take the first that offered. Spiritual writers see in this adulteress a type of the mystery of iniquity, or false doctrine, or the harlot described in Revelation (Rev 2:20) etc.; Rev 17:1, etc.; Rev 18:9, etc.).
Pro 7:16
She describes the preparation she has made for his entertainment. Coverings of tapestry; marbaddim, “cushions,” “pillows.” The expression occurs again in Pro 31:22. It is derived from “to spread,” and means cushions spread out ready for use. The Septuagint has ; Vulgate, funibus, “cords.” These versions seem to regard the word as denoting a kind of delicate sacking on which the coverlets were laid. Carved works, with fine linen of Egypt; literally, striped, or variegated, coverings, Egyptian linen. The words are in apposition, but the latter point to the material used, which is , etun ( ), “linen yarn or thread,” hence equivalent to “coverlets of Egyptian thread.” This was of extreme fineness, costly, and much prized. By “carved works” (Hebrew, , chatuboth) the Authorized Version must refer to bed poles or bed boards elaborately carved and polished; but the word is better taken of coverlets striped in different colours, which give the idea of richness and luxury. Vulgate, trapetibus pictis ex Aegypto, “embroidered rugs of Egyptian work;” Septuagint, , “shaggy cloth of Egypt.” The mention of these articles denotes the foreign commerce of the Hebrews, and their appreciation of artistic work (comp. Isa 19:9; Eze 27:7). The Prophet Amos (Amo 6:4) denounces those that “lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches.”
Pro 7:17
I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. The substances mentioned were dissolved in or mixed with water, and then sprinkled on the couch. The love of such things is reckoned as a sign of luxury and vice (Isa 3:20, etc.). The three perfumes are mentioned together in So Pro 4:14; “myrrh, aloes, and cassia,” in Psa 45:8. Septuagint, “I have sprinkled my couch with saffron, and my house with cinnamon.” Myrrh is nowadays imported chiefly from Bombay, but it seems to be found in Arabia and on the coasts of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. It is a gummy substance exuding from the bark of the balsamodendron when wounded, and possessing an aromatic odour not particularly agreeable to modern tastes. It was one of the ingredients of the holy oil (Exo 30:28), and was used in the purification of women (Est 2:12), as well as in perfuming persons and things, and, mixed with aloes, in embalming dead bodies (Joh 19:39). Aloes is the inspissated juice of the leaves of the aloe, a leguminous plant growing in India, Cochin China, Abyssinia, and Socotra. The ancients used the dried root for aromatic purposes. It is mentioned by Balaam (Num 24:6). Cinnamon, which is the same word in Hebrew and Greek, is the fragrant bark of a tree growing in Ceylon and India and the east coast of Africa.
Pro 7:18
Let us take our fill of love; let us intoxicate ourselves (inebriemur, Vulgate); as though the reason were overthrown by sensual passion as much as by drunkenness. The bride in So Pro 1:2 says, “Thy love is better than, wine” (see Pro 5:15, Pro 5:19, and note there),
Pro 7:19
The temptress proceeds to encourage the youth by showing that there is no fear of interruption or detection. The goodman is not at home. “Goodman” is an old word meaning “master of the house,” or husband (Mat 20:11, etc.); but the Hebrew is simply “the man,” which is probably a contemptuous way of speaking of the husband whom she was outraging. He is gone a long journey; he has gone to a place at a great distance hence. This fact might assure her lover that he was safe from her husband’s jealousy (Pro 6:34); but she has further encouragement to offer.
Pro 7:20
He hath taken a bag of money with him; not only to defray the expenses of the journey (a fact which need not be dwelt upon), but because he has some pecuniary business to transact which will occupy his time, and prevent his return before the appointed hour. And will come home at the day appointed; better, as the Revised Version, he will come home at the full moor, (in die pleura lunae, Vulgate). here, and Psa 81:4, are rightly translated “the full moon,” this rendering being supported by the Syriac keso, though the etymology is doubtful. As it has before been mentioned that the night was dark (Psa 81:9), it is plain that there were still many days to run before the moon was full, and the husband returned.
Pro 7:21
Thus far we have had the adulteress introduced speaking; now the narrative proceeds. With her much fair speech she caused him to yield. First, she influenced his mind, and bent his will to her purpose by her evil eloquence. The Hebrew word means “doctrine, or learning”devil’s pleading (Pro 1:5; Pro 9:9). St. Jerome has irretivit, “she netted him;” Septuagint, “She caused him to go astray () by much converse.” She talked him over, though indeed he had put himself in the way of temptation, and had now no power to resist her seductions. Then with the flattering of her lips she forced him; drew him away. His body followed the lead of his blinded mind; he acceded to her solicitations. Septuagint, “With the snares of her lips she ran him aground (), drove him headlong to ruin.”
Pro 7:22
He teeth after her straightway; suddenly, as though, casting aside all scruples, he gave himself up to the temptation, and with no further delay accompanied her to the house. Septuagint, “He followed, being cajoled (), ensnared like a silly bird” (see the article on Cepphus Larus, in Erasmus’s ‘Adag ,’ s.v. “Garrulitas”). As an ox goeth to the slaughter. He no more realizes the serious issue of his action than an irrational beast which, without prevision of the future, walks contentedly to the slaughter house, and is stupidly placid in the face of death. Or as a fool to the correction of the stocks. There is some difficulty in the translation of this clause. The Authorized Version, with which Delitzsch virtually agrees, is obtained by transposition of the nouns, the natural rendering of the Hebrew being “as fetters to the correction of a fool.” The sense thus obtained is obvious: the youth follows the woman, as a fool or a criminal is led unresisting to confinement and degradation. Doubtless there is some error in the text, as may be seen by comparison of the versions. Septuagint (with which the Syriac agrees), “As a dog to chains, or as a hart struck to the liver with an arrow;” Vulgate, “As a frisking lamb, and not knowing that as a fool he is being dragged to bondage.” The commentators are much divided. Fleischer, “As if in fetters to the punishment of the fool,” i.e. of himself; Ewald, “As when a steel trap (springs up) for the correction of a fool,” i.e. when a hidden trap suddenly catches an incautious person wandering where he has no business. The direct interpretation, that the youth follows the harlot, as fetters the proper punishment of fools, is unsatisfactory, because the parallelism leads us to expect a living being instead of “fetters.” We are constrained to fall back on the Authorized Version as exhibiting the best mode of reconstructing a corrupt text. The youth, with his insensate passion, is compared to the madman or idiot who is taken away, unconscious of his fate, to a shameful deprivation of liberty.
Pro 7:23
Till a dart strike through his liver. This clause would be better taken with the preceding verse, as in the Septuagint, or else placed in a parenthesis; then the following clause introduces a new come parison. The youth follows the harlot till his liver, the seat of the passions, is thoroughly inflamed, or till fatal consequences ensue. Theocr; ‘Id,’ 11.15
.
“Beneath his breast Delitzsch would relegate the hemistich to the end of the verse, making it denote the final result of mad and illicit love. The sense thus gained is satisfactory, but the alteration is quite arbitrary, and unsupported by ancient authority. As a bird hasteth to the snare. This is another comparison (see Pro 1:17, the first proverb in the book, and note there). And knoweth not that it is for his life; i.e. the infatuated youth does not consider that his life is at stake, that he is bringing upon himself, by his vicious rashness, temporal and spiritual ruin (Pro 5:11).
Pro 7:24
The narrative ends here, and the author makes a practical exhortation deduced from it. Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children. He began by addressing his words to one, “my son” (Pro 7:1); he here turns to the young generally, knowing how necessary is his warning to all strong in passion, weak in will, wanting in experience. The Septuagint has “my son,” as in Pro 7:1.
Pro 7:25
Let not thine heart decline to her ways. The verb satah is used in Pro 4:15 (where see note) of turning aside from evil; but here, as Delitzsch notes, it is especially appropriate to the case of a faithless wife whose transgression, or declension from virtue, is described by this term (Num 5:12). Go not astray in her paths. The LXX. (in most manuscripts) has only one rendering for the two clauses: “Let not thine heart incline unto her ways.”
Pro 7:26
For she hath east down many wounded. Delitzsch, “For many are the slain whom she hath caused to fall.” The harlot marks her course with ruined souls, as a ruthless conqueror leaves a field of battle strewn with corpses. Yea, many strong (atsum) men have been slain by her. One thinks of Samson and David and Solomon, the victims of illicit love, and suffering for it. Vulgate, et fortissimi quique interfecti sunt ab ea. But the Septuagint and many moderns take atsum in the sense of “numerous,” as Psa 35:18; , “innumerable are her slain,” The former interpretation seems preferable, and avoids tautology.
Pro 7:27
Her house is the way to hell (sheol). A warning fontal in Pro 2:18 and Pro 5:5. Viae inferi domus ejus. The plural is well expressed by Hitzig: “Her house forms a multiplicity of ways to hell.” Manifold are the ways of destruction to which adultery leads; but they all look to one awful end. Going down to the chambers of death. Once entangled in the toils of the temptress, the victim may pass through many stages, but he ends finally in the lowest depthdestruction of body and soul Spiritual writers see here an adumbration of the seductions of false doctrine, and the late to which it brings all who by it are led astray.
HOMILETICS
Pro 7:1-3
Keeping the commandments
We are all familiar with the expression, “keeping the commandments.” But do we all fully comprehend what this involves? Let us consider some of the requisites.
I. REMEMBER THE COMMANDMENTS. “Lay up my commandments with thee.” The Law was treasured in the ark. It is important that great principles should be so impressed upon our minds as to perpetually haunt our memories, and recur to our vision in critical moments. The school task of committing the ten commandments to memory will not be enough. The text does not refer to the Law of Moses, but to parental instruction. Great Christian principles are what we need to treasure up.
II. LET NOTHING TAMPER WITH THE COMMANDMENTS. “Keep my law as the apple of thine eye.” We cannot bear the smallest speck of dust in the eye. The slightest wound is most painful. Let us beware of allowing the least injury to the healthy condition of the law within us. Moral scepticism is most dangerous.
III. BRING THE COMMANDMENTS TO BEAR ON DAILY LIFE. “Bind them upon thy fingers.” Thus they will be always before us, and brought into contact with practical affairs. It is useless to keep the Law only in the closet. It must be carried with us to the workshop, the marketplace, the senate house. How many people’s religion never reaches their fingers! Like men with feeble circulation, they have cold extremities.
IV. CHERISH THE COMMANDMENTS AFFECTIONATELY. “Write them upon the table of thine heart.” This means impressing them upon the whole beingunderstanding, memory, affection. The secret of feeble circulation at the extremities is defective action of the heart. If we are to obey the Law we must pray that God will “incline our hearts to keep” it.
Pro 7:6-27
Profilgacy
It would not, perhaps, be wise for any one to discuss this subject in the presence of a general congregation. The sin is so fearfully contaminating that it is scarcely possible to touch it in any way without contracting some defilement; and the few who might benefit by a public exposure of the evils of profligacy would be greatly outnumbered by the multitude of people, especially the young, to whom the direction of attention to it would be unwholesome. But on special occasions, and before special audiences, a strong, clear denunciation of this sin may be called for. We can avoid the subject too much, and so leave the sin unrebuked. Certainly some men do not seem to realize how fearfully wicked and how fatally ruinous it is.]
I. IT IS A DESECRATION OF THE TEMPLE OF GOD. It is a sin against God as well as an offence against society. Utterly abandoned men will set little weight by such a consideration, because they have long lost all serious care for their relations with God, But it is important that they who are in danger of falling should remember the solemn words of St. Paul, and the lofty point of view from which he regards the subject (1Co 6:18, 1Co 6:19). The Christian is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Every man is designed to be such a temple. See that this temple is not converted into a nest of corruption.
II. IT IS RUINOUS TO ANY ONE WHO SUCCUMBS TO IT. It ruins the mind, degrading the whole tone and energy of thought. It is the most gross and disastrous dissipation. It ruins the physical health. It ruins wholesome interest in pure delights. It ruins business prospects. It ruins reputation. It brings other sins in its train. It ruins the soul. He who abandons himself to it is indeed a lost man.
III. IT IS HEARTLESSLY CRUEL. The heaviest guilt lies with the tempter. When a man has deluded and ruined a woman, society regards the woman with loathing and contempt, while the man often escapes with comparative impunity. This is one of the grossest instances of injustice that the future judgment will surely rectify. But in any case of profligacy great selfishness and cruelty are shown. The miserable creatures who live by sin could not continue their wretched traffic if men did not encourage it. The demand creates the supply, and is responsible for the hopeless misery that results.
IV. IT IS FATAL TO SOUND SOCIAL ORDER. It is a gangrene in society, eating out its very heart. Nothing more surely undermines the true welfare of a people. It is fatal to the sanctities of the homesanctities on which the very life of the nation depends.
V. ALL THIS ACCOMPANIES THE INDULGENCE OF WHAT IS PURSUED SOLELY AS SELFISH PLEASURE. The profligate man has not the thief’s excuse, who may rob because he is starving (see Pro 6:30-32); nor can he pretend that he is benefiting any one else by his wickedness.
In conclusion:
1. Let the Legislature be urged to repeal any laws that make the indulgence of this sin more easy by counteracting its natural penalties.
2. Let all men avoid the smallest temptation towards itall amusements and scenes that lead thither.
3. Let employers endeavour to protect young people under their charge from the fearful dangers of city life.
4. Let Christians seek to save the failing and rescue the fallen in the spirit of Christ, who received penitent sinners.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Pro 7:1-27
A tragedy of temptation
This is a fine piece of dramatic moral description, and there is no reason why it should not be made use of, handled with tact and delicacy, with an audience of young men.
I. THE PROLOGUE. (Pro 7:1-5.) On Pro 7:1, see Pro 1:8; Pro 2:1; Pro 6:20. On Pro 6:2, see on Pro 4:4. Here an expression not before used occurs. “Keep my doctrine as thine eye apple;” literally, “the little man in thine eye.” It is an Oriental figure for what is a treasured possession (Deu 32:10; Psa 17:8). On Pro 4:3, see on Pro 3:3; Pro 6:21. “Bind them on thy fingers,” like costly rings. Let Wisdom be addressed and regarded as “sister,” Prudence as “intimate friend” (Pro 6:4). On Pro 6:5, see on Pro 2:16; Pro 6:24. On the prologue as a whole, remark
(1) it is intense in feeling,
(2) concentrated in purpose, and hence
(3) exhaustive in images of that which is precious and desirable before all else. It is an overture which gives the theme of the drama with the deepest impressiveness.
II. THE FIRST ACT. (Pro 6:6-9.) The teacher looked through a grated loophole, or eshnab, and saw among the silly fools, the simple ones, who passed by or stood chatting, one simpleton in particular, who attracted his notice. He watched him turn a corner (hesitating, and looking around a moment, according to Ewald’s explanation), and pass down a street. The Hebrew word finely shows the deliberacy, the measured step, with which he goes; he has made up his mind to rush into sin. It was late in the evening”dark, dark, dark,“ says the writer, with tragic and suggestive iterationdark in every sense. The night is prophetic.
III. THE SECOND ACT. (Pro 6:10-20.) A woman”the attire of a harlot” (as if she were nothing but a piece of dress), with a heart full of wiles, meets him. She was excitable, noisy, uncontrollable, gaddingnow in the streets, now in the markets, now at every corner (Pro 6:11, Pro 6:12). Her characteristics have not changed from ancient times. And so with effrontery she seizes and kisses the fool, and solicits him with brazen impudence. Thank offerings had “weighed upon” her in consequence of a vow; but this day the sacrificial animal has been slain, and the meat which, according to the Law, must be consumed within two days, has been prepared for a feast. And she invites him to the entertainment, fires his fancy with luxurious descriptions of the variegated tapestries and the neat perfumes of her couch, and the promise of illicit pleasures. She alludes with cool shamelessness to her absent husband, who will not return till the day of the full moon (Pro 6:20). “This verse glides smoothly, as if we could hear the sweet fluting of the temptress’s voice.” But it is as the song of birds in a wood before an awful storm.
IV. THE THIRD ACT. (Pro 6:21-23.) Her seductive speech, the “fulness of her doctrine,” as the writer ironically says, and the smoothness of her lips, overcome the yielding imagination of her victim. Pro 6:22 implies that he had hesitated; but “all at once,” passion getting the better of reflection, he follows her like a brute under the dominion of a foreign will driven to the slaughter house. He is passive in the power of the temptress, as the fool who has got into the stocks. “Till a dart cleave his liver“the supposed seat of passion. Hastening like a bird into the net, he knows not that his life is at stake.
V. THE EPILOGUE. (Pro 6:24-27.) On Pro 6:24, see on Pro 5:7. “Let not thy heart turn aside to her ways, and go not astray on her paths.” Properly, “reel not” (shagah), as in Pro 5:20. Beware of that intoxication of the senses and fancy which leads to such an end. For she is a feller of men, a cruel murderess (verse 26). Her house is as the vestibule of hell, the facilis descensus Avernithe passage to the chambers of death (see on Pro 2:18; Pro 5:5).
LESSONS.
1. Folly and vice are characteristically the same in every age. Hence these scenes have lost none of their dramatic power or moral suggestion.
2. Only virtue is capable of infinite diversity and charm. The pleasures of mere passion, violent at first, pass into monotony, thence into disgust.
3. The character of the utter harlot has never been made other than repulsive (even in French fiction, as Zola’s ‘Nana’) in poetry. What exists in practical form is mere dregs and refuse.
4. The society of pure and refined women is the best antidote to vicious tastes. For to form a correct taste in any matter is to form, at the same time, a distaste for coarse and spurious quality. Perhaps reflections of this order may be more useful to young men than much declamation.J.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Pro 7:1-27
The two ways
Here we have
I. THE WAY OF SIN AND DEATH. This is:
1. The way of thoughtlessness. It is the “simple ones,” the “young men void of understanding” (Pro 7:7), those who go heedlessly “near the corner,” “the way to the house” of the tempter or the temptress (Pro 7:8). It is those who “do not consider,” who do not think who they are, what they are here for, whither they go, what the end will be;it is these who go astray and are found in the way of death.
2. The way of darkness. (Pro 7:9.) Sin hates the light; it loves the darkness. It cannot endure the penetrating glance, the reproachful look, of the good and wise man. It prefers to be where it can better imagine that it is unseen of God.
3. The way of shame. (Pro 7:10-20.) The result of habitual sin is to rob woman of her native purity, to make her impudent and immodest. How sad, beyond almost everything, the effect of guilt that will put shameful thoughts into a woman’s mind, shameless words into a woman’s lips! If sin will do this what enormity of evil will it not work?
4. The way of falsehood, of pretence, of imposture. (Pro 7:14, Pro 7:15.)
5. The way of weakness and defeat. (Pro 7:21, Pro 7:22.) A man, under the power of sin, yields himself up; he is vanquished, he surrenders his manliness, he has to own to himself that he is miserably beaten. The strong man is slain by sin, the wounded is cast down (Pro 7:26). He who has gained victories on other fields, and won trophies in other ways, is utterly defeated, is token captive, is humiliated by sin.
6. The way of death and damnation. (Pro 7:27.)
II. THE WAY OF RIGHTEOUSNESS AND LIFE. (Pro 7:1-5.) This is:
1. The way of attention. The will of God must first be heeded and understood.
2. The way of holy love. We must take Divine wisdom to our heart, and love it as that which is near and dear to us (Pro 7:4).
3. The way of wise culture. (Pro 7:1-3.) We are to take the greatest pains to keep God’s thought in our remembrance, before the eyes of our soul. We are to take every needful measure to keep it intact, whole, flawless in our heart. We are to find it a home in the inmost chamber, in the sacred places of our spirit. Then will this path of righteousness prove to us to be:
4. The path of life. Keeping his commandments, we shall “live” (Pro 7:2). We shall live the life of virtue, escaping the snares and wiles of the vicious (Pro 7:5). We shall live the life of piety and integrity, beloved of God, honoured of man, having a good conscience, cherishing a good hope through grace of eternal life.C.
Pro 7:1. My son, keep my words Chastity is a virtue of so much consequence, and impurity such a bane to youth, that the wise man thought he could not too often make mention of the danger of the one, to move men carefully to preserve the other; therefore he repeats with renewed importunities what he had before urged; and, the better to secure those who desire to be free from the snare of lewdness, he represents, together with the simpleness of young men, the cunning and crafty desires of an impudent adulteress; which is most admirably and elegantly set forth from Pro 7:6-21 as the fatal consequences of such an attachment are in the subsequent verses: and, indeed, this picture which the wise man gives us, deserves to be studied with great attention; as, properly noted, it cannot fail to have its due effect, and to give a just abhorrence of those infamous Syrens who only allure to betray and ruin. See Patrick.
13. New admonition to chastity, with a reference to the warning example of a youth led astray by a harlot
Pro 7:1-27
1My son, keep my words,
and treasure up my commandments with thee.
2Keep my commandments and thou shalt live
and my instruction as the apple of thine eye.
3Bind them to thy fingers,
write them on the tablet of thine heart.
4Say to wisdom Thou art my sister!
and call understanding acquaintance,
5that they may keep thee from the strange woman,
from the stranger that flattereth with her words.
6For through the window of my house,
through my lattice I looked out,
7and I saw among the inexperienced ones,
discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding.
8He passed along the street near her corner,
and sauntered along the way to her house,
9in the twilight, in the evening of the day,
in the midst of the night and darkness.
10And lo, a woman cometh to meet him,
in the attire of a harlot, and subtle in heart.
11Boisterous was she, and ungovernable;
her feet would not tarry in her house;
12now in the street, now in the market places,
and at every corner did she watch.
13And she laid hold upon him, and kissed him,
put on a bold face and said to him,
14Thankofferings were (binding) upon me,
to-day have I redeemed my vows;
15therefore came I out to meet thee,
to seek thy face, and I have found thee.
16Tapestries have I spread upon my couch,
variegated coverlets of Egyptian linen;
17I have sprinkled my couch
with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.
18Come, let us sate ourselves with love till morning,
and enjoy ourselves in love!
19For the man is not at home,
he has gone a long journey;
20the purse he has taken with him;
not till the day of the full moon will he return.
21She beguiled him with the multitude of her enticements,
by the allurements of her lips she led him astray.
22He followed her at once,
as an ox goeth to the slaughter, 23till an arrow pierceth his liver:
as a bird hasteneth to the snare, 24And now, ye children, hearken to me,
and observe the words of my mouth!
25Let not thine heart incline to her ways,
and stray not into her paths.
26For many slain hath she caused to fall
and all her slain are many.
27Ways of hell (is) her house
going down to the chambers of death.
GRAMMATICAL AND CRITICAL
Pro 7:7. [, the consec. omitted, as is sometimes the case, the form resembling a simple Intentional. Gesen. Lehrgeb. p. 874., Btt. 969, 6; 973, 5. Stuart (comm. in loc.) seems to be in error in regarding this a real voluntative, and rendering that I might see among the simple, and observe, etc.A.].
Pro 7:8. [For the form instead of the full form (with the ordinary form of fem, nouns with suff.), see Btt. 724, b. Comp. however Exegetical notes in regard to the proper reading.A.].
Pro 7:11. [, used of repeated recurrence in the pastFiens multiplex prteriti according to the terminology of Btt. 949, f.A.]
Pro 7:13. In the verb (lit., she made hard, corroboravit) the doubling of the 2d radical is omitted, as in , Jdg 20:40. [Given by Btt. 500, 5, as an example of the simplifying of that which is usually doubled, to express the idea of the permanent, gradual or gentle. See also 1123, 3. Comp. Green, 141, 1; Stuart, 66, 11.A.].
Pro 7:15. [Stuarts rendering of the last clause as final, that I might find, etc., is unnecessary; it is rather a simple consecutive.A.].
Pro 7:18. [, the cohortative use of the Intentional. Btt., 965, 2.A.].
EXEGETICAL
1. From the preceding warnings against unchastity and adultery (Pro 2:16-19; chap. 5; Pro 6:20-35) the one now before us is distinguished by the fact, that the poet, after a preliminary general introduction (Pro 7:1-5; comp. Pro 6:20-24), for the sake of delineating more clearly the repulsiveness and various consequences of intercourse with wanton women, depicts in narrative form the example of a single adulterous woman, who by her lascivious arts betrays a foolish youth into adultery. This is therefore a didactic narrative, with a purpose of earnest warning, here presented as a conclusion to the second larger group of admonitory discourses. It is not possibly an allegory, for nothing whatsoever in the text points to such a conception of the adulteress, by virtue of which she might be regarded as introduced as a personification of the abstract idea of folly (in contrast with that of wisdom personified). Not till we come to Pro 9:13 sq. do we find such a presentation of folly under the image of a wanton, adulterous woman.In contrast with the expositors of the ancient church, most of whom gave allegorical interpretations, the correct view is found as early as M. Geier, Vatablus, Mercerus, Egard, Hansen, Michaelis, Starke, and also in nearly all the moderns except Von Gerlach. The view of several of those named, especially that of Starke, that the whole narration is to be regarded a true history, an actual experience of the poet, lacks sufficient support in the style and form of the delineation. The history may just as well be imaginary as the contents of many narrations of Christ,e.g., that of the good Samaritan, of the prodigal son, etc.
2. Pro 7:1-5 : Introduction in a general form, in which Pro 7:1 reminds us of Pro 1:8; Pro 2:1; Pro 6:20; so Pro 7:2 of Pro 4:4; Pro 7:3 of Pro 3:3; Pro 6:21; Pro 7:5 of Pro 2:16; Pro 6:24.
Pro 7:2. And my teaching as the apple of thine eye, lit. as the little man in thine eye. The same figurative description is found in Arabic and Persian (see Umbreit on this passage). Comp. also the Greek , (= [the daughter of the eye] Lam 2:18) and the Latin pupa, pupilla. The apple of the eye is also in Deu 32:10; Psa 17:8 : Zec 2:12, the emblem of a precious possession guarded with peculiarly watchful care.
Pro 7:3. Bind them to thy fingers, not precisely as an amulet, as Umbreit thinks, but as an ornament, a costly decoration, like a ring; comp. Song Son 8:6, and the observations on Pro 3:3Without adequate reason Hitzig regards the verse as spurious, on account of its partial correspondence with Deu 6:8; Deu 11:18. As though the figures here employed, especially that in the first clause, did not occur very frequently within the sphere of the Old Testament, and that in every instance with a form somehow slightly modified! Comp. e.g., Exo 13:9; Exo 13:16; Jer 22:24; Hag 2:23.
Pro 7:4. Thou art my sister! Comp. Job 17:14; Job 30:29; Wis 8:2. The parallel acquaintance in the 2d clause corresponds with the Hebrew expression , which denotes knowledge, acquaintance, and then (abstract for the concrete, as occurs, e.g., also in the use of the French connaisance [and the English acquaintance]) one well known, a friend, familiaris. The same expression is found also in Rth 2:1 as the Kri. Comp. P. Cassel on this passage, who however both for that passage and the one before us gives the preference to the Kthibh (comp. Psa 55:14; Psa 88:9) as the more primitive reading.
3. Pro 7:6-9. The foolish young man.Through my lattice I looked out. Comp. the quite similar representation in the song of Deborah, Jdg 5:28. denotes as it does there a latticed aperture, an arrangement for the circulation of fresh air (Hitzig).
Pro 7:7. And I saw among the inexperienced; literally, among the , the simple; comp. remarks on Pro 1:4, where the same expression is used, synonymous with , boy, as here with . It is not necessary, with Arnoldi, Bertheau and Hitzig, to explain the expression in exact accordance with the Arabic by juvenes [young men].
Pro 7:8. Near a corner.The Masoretic punctuation with mappik in the (comp. , Job 11:9) represents the corner as hers, i.e., the corner of the adulteress, the corner of her house,and many recent expositors, e.g., Umbreit and Hitzig, translate and explain accordingly. But inasmuch as according to Pro 7:12 (which Hitzig, without any reason, pronounces spurious), the adulteress is accustomed to watch at every corner, therefore at street corners in general, it is not quite needful to refer the corner here mentioned to her dwelling. All the ancient versions moreover have read only the simple (LXX: ; Vulg.: juxta angulum, etc.).And sauntered along the way to her house.Psychologically it is pertinent to depict the young man predisposed to sin as strolling before the house of the adulteress, and this as the beginning of his imprudence, so far forth as he thus plunges himself into temptation. The verb is fairly chosen, as it always expresses a certain care and intention in his going. We say substantially he measures his steps; he paces before her door (Umbreit).
Pro 7:9. In the twilight, in the evening of the day.The accumulation of the expressions is explained by the fact that it was fitting to characterize the action and conduct of the young man as belonging to the works of darkness, the deeds of night. Comp. Luk 22:53; Rom 13:12; 1Th 5:4-7, etc. There is furthermore no contradiction between the notation of time in the first clause and that in the second; for strictly signifies not the first evening twilight, but the later period of evening darkness, from 9 oclock to 12 (see Job 7:4; Job 24:15), and so the time immediately bordering upon the true black night or midnight.In the blackness of nightliterally, in the pupil of the night, comp. Pro 20:20, Kri. The tertium comparationis is to be found, doubtless in both, the blackness and the middle, and not in the first alone, as Umbreit holds. Comp. besides the phrase heart of the night in the poetic language of the Persians (see Umbreit on this passage).
4. Pro 7:10-20. The adulteress.In the attire of a harlot. , dress of a harlot (comp. with respect to , dress, apparel, Psa 73:16), stands here with no connecting word in apposition to woman; a woman a harlots dress, as though the woman herself were nothing more than such a dress. Thus, and with good reason, Bertheau explains [and Words.], while Hitzig altogether artificially explains by (from ) as equivalent to , likeness, and accordingly translates with the outward appearance of a harlot; in the same way also the LXX: .Subtle in heart. is strictly one who is guarded in heart, i.e., one whose heart is guarded and inaccessible, who locks up her plans and counsels deep in her breast, comp. Isa 65:4. Thus Chr. B. Michaelis (citing the French retenu), Umbreit, Bertheau, Elster, etc., and from earlier times at least the Vers. Veneta: . [With these Wordsw. is in substantial agreement; her heart is like a walled fortress, etc.]. The other ancient versions expressed the idea one carrying away the heart of the young man, as though they had read (so also recently Arnoldi). Ewald explains of hardened heart, bold and confident; Hitzig, in accordance with the Arabic and comparing the saucia in Virgils neid, iv. Proverbs 1 : an arrow in her heart, wounded by loves dart, and therefore ardent and wantonboth of these being plainly altogether artificial and adventurous. [Fuerst, treating the adjective as fem. constr. from , renders watching (for hearts of young men).Boisterous was she and ungovernable.With the first epithet (literally, shouting) comp. Pro 9:13; with the second, Hos 4:16, where the same word is used of a wild heifer that will not submit its neck to the yoke.
Pro 7:12. Now in the street, etc.That we have only here a custom, a habit of the wanton woman described, while in the preceding verse we have delineated her condition in a single instance, is an entirely arbitrary assumption of Hitzigs, which is altogether opposed by the use of the Imperfect in both cases (, Pro 7:11, and , Pro 7:12). Therefore the argument that the verse is spurious, resting as it does mainly on this alleged difference in the substance and scope of the verse, is to be rejected (comp. above, remarks on Pro 7:8).
Pro 7:13. Put on a bold face.Comp. Pro 21:29; Ecc 8:1.
Pro 7:11. Thankofferings were binding upon methat is, in consequence of a vow, as the second clause shows. She has therefore on the day that is hardly gone (to-daythe day is here represented as continuing into the night) slain a victim in sacrifice that had been vowed to the Lord for some reason or other, and has prepared for a meal the flesh of this animal, which in accordance with the law, Lev 7:16, must be eaten on the second day, at the latest. To this meal, which, to judge from the description of the luxurious furnishing of the chamber, in Pro 7:16 sq., is no simple affair, she now invites the young man.
Pro 7:16. Variegated coverlets of Egyptian linen. which the older translators nearly all interpret as variegated coverlets, the larger number derive from the Arabic to be many colored (therefore tapetes versicolores s. picti, as it is found as early as the Vulgate); Bertheau, on the contrary, derives from = to cut, to make stripes or strips (therefore striped material); Hitzig finally derives from the Arab. cotton, appealing to Pliny, H. N., XIX. 1, 2, according to whom cotton fabrics in great quantity were manufactured from native material. The first of these explanations, as the simplest and best attested, deserves the preference. is equivalent to the gypt. Athiouniau, linen, and is found in Greek also in the form or . [The rendering of the E. V. with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt conforms too closely to the primary meaning of the verb to carve. It cannot refer to any carved frame work of the bed, but rather to the embroidered figures which resemble carvingA.].
Pro 7:17. I have sprinkled my couch, etc.Hitzig, who translates the verb by I have perfumed, has in mind a mere perfuming of the bed or of its apparel by means of the swinging of a censer filled with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon. But while does properly signify to raise, to swing, yet the signification sprinkle is easily enough derived from this; and although the spices in question were not sprinkled precisely in the form of water holding them in solution, they still produced a satisfactory result if strewed upon the coverlets of the couch in little bits, fragments of the bark, fibres or scales. In no other way than this is it to be supposed that the same fragrant materials (with cassia) were employed, according to Psa 45:8, in perfuming the kings robes of state; comp. also Song Son 3:6; Son 4:14.
Pro 7:18. Let us sate ourselves with love, etc.Comp. Pro 5:19, and also the phrase , Song Son 5:1.Enjoy ourselves in love.Instead of the meaning enjoy or delight ones self, well attested by Job 20:18; Job 39:13, the old interpreters give to the verb in this instance the stronger meaning to embrace passionately, to cohabit (LXX: ; Aquila and Theodotion: ; so also Hitzig: let us join in loves indulgence!). But it is plainly unnecessary to substitute an obscene import, artificially and with a possible appeal to the Arabic, for the simpler meaning, which is abundantly attested by the usus loquendi of the Old Testament.
Pro 7:19. The man is not at home.Let it be observed with how cold and strange a tone the faithless wife speaks of her husband.He has gone a long journey.Lit., upon a journey from afar; the idea from afar is loosely appended to that of journey in order to represent not so much the way itself as rather the person traversing it as far removed.
Pro 7:20. The purse he hath taken with himand therefore proposes extensive transactions at a distance from home, and will continue journeying a considerable time.On the day of the full moon he will return.In the Hebrew the (for which in Psa 81:4 we have the form ) forms an alliteration with the in the first member, which is probably not undesigned; the verse flows so smoothly along (comp. Pro 2:13) and one imagines that he hears the sweetly musical voice of the betrayer (Hitzig). Furthermore the day of the full moon is not a designation of the full moon of the feast of tabernacles which was celebrated with peculiar festivities (Umbreit, Elster), but the expression plainly relates to the next succeeding full moon. Since now, according to Pro 7:9, the time to which the narrative relates must be about new moon, the cunning woman means to hint that her husband will not return for about a fortnight. See Hitzig on this passage.
5. Pro 7:21-23. The result of her enticing arts. Pro 7:21. With the multitude of her enticements., learning (Pro 1:5; Pro 9:9) is here ironically employed of the skilful and bewildering rhetoric which the adulteress has known how to employ.With the expression smoothness, of lips comp. smoothness of tongue, Pro 6:24.
Pro 7:22. At once, Hebrew , implies that he had at first hesitated, until this fear of his to take the decisive step was overcome by evil appetite, and he now with passionate promptness formed the vile purpose and executed it at once, to cut off all further reflection. Here is evidently a stroke in the picture of the profoundest psychological truth.As an ox goeth to the slaughter.Therefore following another, and with a brutish unconsciousness. Comp. the corresponding figure, which, however, is used with a purpose of commendation, in Isa 53:7. And as fetters (serve) for the correction of the fool.With the fetters ( comp. Isa 3:18) we have here compared, of course, the adulteress who suddenly and by a single effort prevails upon the thoughtless youth,and not, possibly, the young man himself (as Umbreit supposes, who finds the significance of the comparison in this, that the foolish and ensnared youth is represented first as a dumb beast, and then as a simply material physical thing, as a mere dead instrument. As the obstinate fool () who treads a forbidden path, is suddenly caught and held fast by the trap lying in it, so has the deceitful power of the adulteress caught the foolish young man. Thus, and with probable correctness, Elster, and long ago many of the older expositors, like Sol. Glass, Philol. Sacra, p. 738, and M. Geier on this passage (only that they unnecessarily explain by an hypallage: as fetters for the correction of a fool, in other words, as the fool (comes) to the correction of fetters). Somewhat differently Bertheau, and before him Luther, Starke, etc. [and recently Stuart]; He comes as if to fetters, which are decreed for the correction of the fool; but to supply before from the preceding has the order and parallelism against it. [Fuerst regards the noun as an instrumental accus., and translates and as in fetters, i.e., slowly, the fool is led to correction,but regards the evidence as all indicating a defective text. Noyes and Muenscher treat the noun as instrumental, but vary the construction of the other words: as one in fetters to the chastisement of the fool. Wordsw. suggests two or three renderings, of which that of Noyes is one, but indicates no preference. Zcklers rendering is brought, we think, with the least violence, into correspondence with the other two comparisons, where the idea is plainly that of a certain fate, notwithstanding unconsciousness of it. So fetters await the fool, though he may not be aware of itA.] Many older interpreters, either failing to understand the figure, or judging it inconsistent with the context, have sought relief in more violent ways. The LXX, Peschito and Targums explain the or some word substituted for this, as referring to a dog (LXX: ), which is here made a parallel to the ox and then the bird in the following verse; so also more recent commentators, like Michaelis, Khler, etc. The Vulgate probably read instead of , since it translates as a wanton and stupid lamb. Others, as of the older class the LXX, Peschito, Targums, Arabic vers., etc. altered the to stag, and connected it with Pro 7:23; so also more recently Schelling and Rosenmueller., e.g.; and like a deer rushing into fetters. Hitzig finally treats the passage with the greatest violence, since he transfers Pro 7:23, third clause, to the place of the 2d clause in Pro 7:22; in this line, by altering to he changes the meaning to for the fool is angry at correction; he finally transposes the first and third clauses of Pro 7:23, so that the two verses have this general import:
Pro 7:22.
He followeth her at once, as an ox that goeth to, the slaughter, and as a bird hasteneth to the snare.
Pro 7:23.
For the fool is angry at correction, and seeth not that it is for his life, until an arrow pierceth his liver.
This might indeed have been originally the meaning of the passage; but inasmuch as neither manuscripts nor old versions give any evidence of any other arrangement as having ever existed, the whole emendation retains only the value of a bold hypothesis.
Pro 7:23. Till an arrow pierceth his liver.Since this clause plainly refers to the young man, and neither exclusively to the ox nor the fool, the two examples of a self-destroying folly which in the second and third clauses of Pro 7:23 are compared with him, its position is parenthetical (Umbreit, Elster, Bertheau, etc.); for in the following clause still another example is added to the two mentioned before,that of the bird hastening to the snare. The liver stands here as the representative of the vitals in general (comp. Lam 2:11) as in some instances the heart or again the reins (Ps. 16:27; Psa 73:21; Pro 23:16, etc.). According to Delitzsch, Bibl. Psychol., pp. 275 sq., the liver is here made prominent as the seat of sensual desire. Since the ancient Greeks, Arabians and Persians in fact connected this idea with the organ under consideration, and since modern Oriental nations also predicate of the liver what we say of the heart as the seat of the feelings and sensibilities (e.g., the Malays in Java, see Ausland, 1863, p. 278), this view may be received as probably correct. By no means is the designation of the liver in the passage before us to be regarded as a purely arbitrary poetical license or as a mere accident.And knoweth not that his life is at stake, literally, that it is for his soul; the expression signifies at the price of his life, comp. Num 17:3.
6. Pro 7:24-27. Concluding exhortation introduced by and now, like the corresponding final epilogue, Pro 8:32; comp. also Pro 5:7.
Pro 7:25. And stray not, , [a dehortative] from , to go roaming about, comp. Pro 5:20.
Pro 7:26. And all her slain are many. , meaning strong (Bertheau), is nevertheless on account of the parallelism with in the first member to be taken in the sense of numerous, many, comp. Psa 25:18; Joe 1:5. [Hold., Noyes, Muensch., De W., K., agree with our author; Stuart and Words., like the E. V., keep closer to the original idea of strength, many strong men have been her victims.A.] With the expression in the first member comp. Jdg 9:40.
Pro 7:27. Ways of hellher house. Her house is the subject, having here a plural predicate connected with it, as Pro 16:25; Jer 24:2.Chambers of death. Comp. depths of death or of hell, Pro 9:18 : and with reference to the general sentiment of the verse, Pro 2:18; Pro 5:5.
DOCTRINAL, ETHICAL, HOMILETIC AND PRACTICAL
From the earlier and copious warnings against adultery the one now before us is distinguished by the fact, that while chap. 5 contrasted the blessing of conjugal fidelity and chaste marital love with unregulated sexual indulgence, and Pro 6:20-35 particularly urged a contending against the inner roots and germs of the sin of unchastity,our passage dwells with special fullness upon the temptations from without to the transgression of the sixth commandment. It also sets forth the folly and the ruinous consequences of yielding to such temptations, by presenting an instructive living example. What elements in this vivid moral picture stand forth as ethical and psychological truths to be taken especially to heart, has been already indicated by us in the detailed interpretation. Aside from the fact that it is nocturnal rambling, that delivers the thoughtless, heedless and idling youth into the hands of temptation (Pro 7:9), and aside from the other significant feature, that after a first brief and feeble opposition he throws himself suddenly and with the full energy of passion into his self-sought ruin (Pro 7:22; comp. Jam 1:15), we have to notice here chiefly the important part played by the luxurious and savory feast of the adulteress as a coperating factor in the allurement of the self-indulgent youth (see Pro 7:14 sq.). It is surely not a feature purely incidental, without deeper significance or design, that this meal is referred to as preceding the central and chief sin; for, that the tickling of the palate with stimulating meats and drinks prepares the way for lust and serves powerfully to excite sexual desire, is an old and universal observation, comp. Exo 32:6 (1Co 10:17). The people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play: as also similar passages from classical authors, e.g. Euripides, Alcestis, 788; Plautus, Miles gloriosus, III., 1, 83; Arrian, Anab. Alex., II., 5, 4; and the well-known Roman proverb from Terence (Eunuch., IV., 5, 6; comp. Appul., Metam., II., 11), Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus [without Ceres (food) and Bacchus (wine) Venus (love) is cold]: and finally Tertulian, de jejun. adv. Psychicos, c. Proverbs 1 : Lust without gluttony would indeed be deemed a monstrosity, the two being so united and conjoined that, if they could by any means be parted, the sexual parts would first refuse to be attached to the belly. Consider the body; the region is one, and the order of the vices conforms to the arrangement of the members; first the belly, and all other sensuality is built immediately upon gluttony; through indulgence in eating sensual desire ensues, etc.
In the homiletic treatment we are naturally not to dwell too long upon these details, lest the entire impression produced by the picture of the young man ensnared by the adulteress be unduly weakened. An analysis of the chapter into several texts for sermons is inadmissible on account of the closely compacted unity of the action. At the most, the five introductory verses may be separated as a special text (comp. Starke); yet even these would better be connected closely with the whole, and all the more since they conform very nearly in expression and contents to similar introductory paragraphs of a somewhat general nature, of which there have already been several (see exeget. notes, No. 2).
The homily that should comprehend the entire chapter might therefore present some such theme as this: How the dangers from temptation to unchastity are to be escaped. Answer: 1) By avoiding idleness as the beginning of all vice (Pro 7:6, sq.); 2) By shunning all works of darkness (Pro 7:9); 3) By subduing the sensual nature, and eradicating even the minor degrees of evil appetite (Pro 7:14 sq.); 4) By the serious reflection, that yielding to the voice of temptation is the certain beginning of an utter fall from the grace of God, and of eternal ruin (Pro 7:21; Pro 7:27).Comp. Starke: Sin is like a highway robber, that at first joins our company in an altogether friendly way, and seeks to mislead us from the right path, that it may afterwards slay us (Rom 7:11).Imaginary pleasure and freedom in the service of sin are like gilded chains with which Satan binds men. Though the tempter is deeply guilty, he who suffers himself to be tempted is not for that reason excused. Let every one therefore flee from sin as from a serpent (Sir 21:2).Comp. M. Geier: Be not moved by the flattering enticements of the harlot, the world, false teachers (that betray into spiritual adultery and abandonment of God), or of Satan himself. Close thine ears against all this, i.e. refuse in genuine Christian simplicity and faithful love to the Lord to hearken to any solicitation to disobedience. Follow not Eves example, but Josephs, Gen 39:8, etc.[Trapp: (Pro 7:9) Foolish men think to hide themselves from God by hiding God from themselves.(Pro 7:22). Fair words make fools fain].
DISCOURSE: 768 Pro 7:1-4. My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye. Bind them upon thy fingers; write them upon the table of thine heart. Say unto Wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call Understanding thy kinswoman.
THROUGHOUT the book of Proverbs, we are strongly reminded of that expression of Paul to Philemon, Though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient, yet for loves sake I rather beseech thee. There is an exquisite tenderness in the exhortations of Solomon, addressed as they are by a father to a son. Not that we are to suppose that they were intended only for Rehoboam: they were intended for the Church of God, in all ages: and to us, no less than to Rehoboam himself, is the affectionate language of our text addressed. But indeed a greater than Solomon is here. Condescending as the expressions are, they are addressed to us by the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who is Wisdom itself incarnate [Note: See Pro 8:22-32.]; and his are the counsels which we are so earnestly entreated to treasure up in our minds.
In discoursing on the words before us, we will shew,
I.
The respect which we should pay to the counsels of Divine Wisdom
By comparing our text with similar language in the New Testament, we see, that by the terms here used we have to understand, not the Decalogue only, but the whole revealed will of God. Now to whatever the counsels of the Deity relate,
1.
They should be treasured up with diligence
[Whatever is of more than ordinary value in our eyes, we lay it up with care in a place of safety; and the more of it we can amass, the richer we feel ourselves to be. Now there is nothing in the whole universe to be compared with the Scriptures of truth, nothing that will so enrich the mind, nothing that will so benefit the soul. In the great mystery of redemption are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The precepts too, and the promises, and the histories, and the examples, O! who can estimate them as they deserve? To treasure these up in our minds should be our daily and most delightful employment. Not a day should pass without adding to this blessed store. We should always furnish ourselves with some fresh portion, on which to ruminate. Not that it is merely in the mind and memory that we are to store up this wealth, but, as Moses tells us, in our heart and in our soul; Ye shall lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul [Note: Deu 11:18.]: this is the proper seat of Divine knowledge; and here should we endeavour to amass the only true wealth, the unsearchable riches of Christ.]
2.
They should be watched over with care
[Nature has made peculiar provision for the eye, so that, by an involuntary and instantaneous motion of the eye-lid, it is preserved from innumerable injuries which it must otherwise sustain. Now with the same care that we guard the apple of our eye, we should watch over and preserve the treasures of wisdom, which we have accumulated in our hearts. Satan is ever labouring to take out of our hearts the word of life, as our Lord has told us in the parable of the Sower: and it requires the utmost vigilance on our part to defeat his efforts. Indeed the heart itself is but too prone to lose its riches through any apertures by which the world has entered; so that we need to give the most earnest heed lest at any time we should let them slip [Note: Heb 2:1.]. Besides, if we be not constantly on our guard against the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and other foolish and hateful lusts, we shall find to our cost, that these weeds and thorns will choke all the good seed that has been sown in our hearts, and will render it unfruitful. Our care and watchfulness therefore should be incessant, that nothing be permitted to rob us of our good principles, or to weaken their influence on our souls. If, as we are told, God himself keeps his people as the apple of his eye [Note: Deu 32:10 and Zec 2:8.], surely we should exercise all possible vigilance to keep his counsels, and preserve inviolate his holy commandments.]
3.
They should be kept ready for use
[It is not sufficient that we have reduced the counsels of God, as it were, to certain heads, and made memorandums of them in our books, so as to be able to refer to them when occasion requires: we should have them inscribed on the tablet of our hearts, so that they may be always at hand, ready to direct and regulate our ways. Conscience, by looking inward, should be able to see them in an instant, and to suggest the line of conduct conformable to them. Moreover, we should have them bound also upon our fingers, so as both to be reminded of them at all times, and be ever ready to carry them into execution. To this effect Solomon explains his meaning: Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee: for the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light: and reproofs of instruction are the way of life [Note: Pro 6:20-23.].]
4.
They should be guarded with the tenderest affection
[With persons standing in near and dear relation to us, we are accustomed to live in habits of intimacy, consulting them on any occasions of difficulty, paying considerable deference to their judgment, and easily influenced by their opinions. Now in this light we should view the counsels of our God: we should be familiar with them; we should consult them on all occasions, and yield them a willing ascendency over our hearts. Instead of standing aloof from them as strangers, we should claim, and glory in, our relation to them: we should say unto Wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call Understanding our kinswoman. We should, by our conformity to the dictates of Wisdom, prove, and manifest, our relation to her; and constrain all who behold us to acknowledge, that God is our Father, and that Christ, the Wonderful Counsellor, is our Friend.] II.
The benefits which we shall derive from a due attention to them
In our text itself, the great benefit of complying with the exhortation is stated, in short but comprehensive terms; Keep my commandments, and live. But in the verses following our text, a particular advantage is insisted on, namely, the being delivered from the snares and temptations to which we are exposed. That we may comprehend both, we would observe, that by our attention to the Divine counsels,
1.
We shall be delivered from evil
[From the way of the evil woman is particularly noticed, both here and in the preceding chapter: and doubtless an attention to the counsels of Wisdom will eventually secure us against those temptations which lead captive so great a portion of mankind. But we need not confine our views to iniquities of one kind only: the advice here given is equally useful in preserving men from snares of every kind. From the inspired volume we learn the folly and malignity of every sin. The temptations of the world, the lusts of the flesh, and the devices of Satan, are all there exposed; and armour is laid up for us, that we may successfully maintain the combat against them. Our blessed Lord himself, in whom was no sin, drew from this armoury the arrows and the shield with which he vanquished the tempter in the wilderness: and from the same source must we also be furnished. Thus David tells us: Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? Even by taking heed thereto according to thy word: and again, Thy word have I hid within my heart, that I might not sin against thee. Would you then be kept from evil tempers, and evil passions, and evil habits of every kind? Study the sacred records: treasure up in your minds the terrors of Gods wrath as there revealed, and the declarations of his mercy as there promulgated. There see the wonders of redeeming love unfolded to your view, and the blessedness of those who have been monuments of converting and saving grace. Let every part of Gods word have its proper bearing on your hearts and consciences, and it shall be effectual for your salvation. Whatever lusts you have hitherto indulged, you shall, through the influence of the word, and by the power of the Holy Ghost, be sanctified; as our Lord has said; Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth: and again, Now are ye clean through the word that has been spoken unto you.]
2.
We shall be carried forward in safety to everlasting life
[So says our text; Keep my commandments, and live. So also says our blessed Lord: I know that thy commandment is life everlasting [Note: Joh 12:49-50.]. We must remember, that it is not of mere morality that we are now speaking, but an impartial attention to the whole revealed will of God. And where this is, God will surely pour out upon the soul his richest blessings. Hear what our blessed Lord says respecting this: He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me, shall be loved of my Father; and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him: yea, We will come to him, and make our abode with him [Note: Joh 14:21; Joh 14:23.]. What unspeakable benefits are these! Favoured with such communications, what can we want? But it is not in this world only that such persons are blessed: for to them are secured all the blessedness and glory of the world to come; according as it is written, Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have a right to eat of the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city [Note: Rev 22:14.]. This right indeed is not founded on any merit of their own; but solely on the promises of God made to them in Christ Jesus. It is Christ who, by his obedience unto death, has purchased these blessings for us: but it is to his obedient servants only that these blessings shall ever be vouchsafed. They however shall inherit them; nor shall all the powers of darkness be able to rob them of their promised inheritance. Only let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom [Note: Col 3:16.], and you shall never be straitened [Note: Pro 3:21-23; Pro 4:12], nor ever fall; but have an entrance ministered unto you abundantly into the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ [Note: 2Pe 1:10-11.].]
CONTENTS.
In this Chapter under the representation of an harlot, the deception that is practised upon our fallen nature is strikingly set forth, and the departure from God in sin and uncleanness is in strong colours painted.
Pro 7:1-5 My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye. Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart. Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman: That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words.
The Chapter is opened in a general preface, by way of preparing the mind for the subject that is to follow. And there are several endearing titles made use of, by way yet more of enforcing the subject. But what I would particularly request the Reader to attend to in those appellations of sister and kinswoman, is the very interesting matter they contain considered with an eye to Christ. Jesus, in the song of loves calls his church his sister, as well as his spouse. For as he took upon him our common nature, so he hath declared that whosoever doeth the will of his Father which is in heaven, the same is his brother, and sister, and mother. See Son 4:9 ; Mat 12:50 . And as Christ hath condescended to put himself into all relations with his people, so he authorizeth his people to look up to him under all relations. But we must not stop here in contemplating the nature of the relationship, but go on and consider the cause for which the Lord hath put himself’ into these condescending affinities, and is not ashamed to call his people brethren; namely, that they may come to him under these characters, in order to be kept by him from spiritual fornication and every species of apostacy. Blessed Jesus! it is delightful to see how thy people are kept by thee, and that in thee all their security is found.
A Pitiful Picture
Pro 7
The father gathers himself together as for a final effort to rescue his son from the temptations and perils of life. The appeal really begins with the twenty-fourth verse of the preceding chapter. By a description the most vivid and graphic ever drawn by human genius, the young man is warned of a vital danger. The only security of the “son” is to keep the commandment of the father, and to make his law as the apple of the eye. The father exhorts the son to bind the paternal commandments upon his fingers. It appears that the thong of the phylactery for the left arm was wound seven times round it and as many times round the middle finger. This represents the idea of trusting to other than merely human power, and being well prepared against the day of danger. It was not enough in the judgment of the father that the young man should be warned against evil, the wise father proceeds to fill up the very mind and soul of his child with wise words and useful occupations. “Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman.” Thus the negative and the positive are happily combined in the school of Scriptural teaching. The greatest danger of all is a vacant mind, and a heart that has no supreme affection and law is exposed to the seductions of sense. Our only security is in high and useful employment. We ought to be able to say with Nehemiah to every tempter and to every enemy, “I am doing a great work, and cannot come down.” The enemy is always on the alert, and, as represented by the figure of the text, night is as day, and day is as night; every form of blandishment and eloquence is pressed into the unholy service, and the demon-possessed heart is resolute upon the accomplishment of one object. The process which is described vividly represents the reality of life. First, we are accustomed to the sight of evil; secondly, we become enamoured of it; thirdly, we are prepared to listen to its voice; fourthly, we are entitled to look upon its charms, and then suddenly, if after such a process there can be any sudden action, we lose our foothold and destroy our own soul. No man can take fire in his bosom without his clothes being burned, nor can a man walk upon hot coals without his feet being scorched. The pain immediately follows the pleasure. The drop from earth to hell is instantaneous. Awful, indeed, is the position of tempted lives. That which is revolting is hidden, and only that which is beautiful and fascinating is allowed to be seen. The bed decked with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt, may be spoken of with artistic appreciation, and taste itself may delight in the perfume of myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon; but gates of pearl may open upon perdition, and at the end of the flowery way may be found the very gulf of hell. Pitiful is the picture of the man who is allured by mighty temptations. “He goeth as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; till a dart strike through his liver, as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life.” It is a blind irrational ism which attempts to ignore all the machinery of hell which is working on the very surface of the earth. We may draw down the blind, and exclude the light, but the mighty engine is working to the destruction of all that is noble in youth, beautiful in manners, and hopeful in progress. The wiser piety will go out and confront the evil, exposing its subtle policy and its cruel design, and speaking about it with the holy audacity which can utter even corrupt words without being corrupted by their pollution.
“Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death” ( Pro 7:24-27 ).
In the twenty-seventh verse there is an energetic expression full of mournful suggestion, “Her house is the way to hell.” Observe, it is not the place itself but the way to it! In this case what is the difference between the way and the destination? Verily, the one is as the other, so much so, that he that has entered the way may reckon upon it as a fatal certainty that he will accomplish the journey and be plunged into “the chamber of death.” No man means to go the whole length. A man’s will is not destroyed in an instant; it is taken from him, as it were, little by little, and almost imperceptibly; he imagines that he is as strong as ever, and says that he will go out and shake himself as at other times, not knowing that the spirit of might has gone from him. Is there any object on earth more pathetic than that of a man who has lost his power of resistance to evil, and is dragged on an unresisting victim whithersoever the spirit of perdition may desire to take him? Like the young man in the parable, he is taken to the fire and to the water, and the infernal spirit does what he pleases with the victim. It is true that the young man can plead the power of fascination: all that music, and colour, and blandishment, and flattery can do has been done; the cloven foot has been most successfully concealed; the speech has been all garden and paradise and sweetness and joy; the word hell or perdition has not been so much as mentioned. The young man might have been on the way to heaven, so flowery was the path and so many birds sang blithely in the blue air as he passed along as upon wings rather than upon feet. How could such a path lead to aught less than a home beautiful as summer and blessed as heaven! This is what is meant by seduction; leading a man out of himself and from himself, onward and onward by carefully graded processes until fascination has accomplished its work and bound the consenting soul in eternal bondage. Sometimes indeed men have awakened to the reality of their condition, and with heartrending cries have appealed for help. Then it has been found to be too late. Are there any words in the speech of man so solemn and so awful as the words “too late” when addressed to the soul that feels the extremity of pain? Whilst we have no right to dilate upon this possible aspect of human experience merely for the sake of mocking human agony and despair, we are entitled to dwell upon it in the hope that the tempted and imperilled souls of the young may be alarmed and excited to consideration. That there is a hell no man of experience can deny, a hell here; a hell of remorse, self-reproach, appalling memory, hopelessness a despair compared with which all darkness is as midday. How difficult to forewarn men with any success! The exhorter himself has been overwhelmed, the teacher victimised, the saintliest soul is conscious of a ministry not divine. Still on every hand the word of exhortation and persuasion must be spoken, and the prayer of entreaty must be breathed with eagerness and passion if haply one soul may be rescued from the way to hell and the chambers of death.
Note
“I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt” ( Pro 7:16 ). Baron du Tott gives a remarkable account of such a bed as is indicated in this passage. “The time for taking our repose was now come, and we were conducted into another large room, in the middle of which was a kind of bed, without bedstead or curtains. Though the coverlet and pillows exceeded in magnificence the richness of the sofa, which likewise ornamented the apartment, I foresaw that I could expect but little rest on this bed, and had the curiosity to examine its make in a more particular manner. Fifteen mattresses of quilted cotton, about three inches thick, placed one upon another, formed the groundwork, and were covered by a sheet of Indian linen, sewed on the last mattress. A coverlet of green satin, adorned with gold embroidered in embossed work, was in like manner fastened to the sheets, the ends of which, turned in, were sewed down alternately. Two large pillows of crimson satin, covered with the like embroidery, in which there was no want of gold or spangles, rested on two cushions of the sofa, brought near to serve for a back, and intended to support our heads. The taking of the pillows entirely away would have been a good resource if we had had any bolster; and the expedient of turning the other side upwards having only served to show that they were embroidered in the same manner on the bottom, we at last determined to lay our handkerchiefs over them, which, however, did not prevent our being very sensible of the embossed ornaments underneath.”
XX
THE INSTRUCTION OF WISDOM (CONTINUED)
Pro 4:1-7:27 The addresses found in Pro 4:1-9:18 are fatherly admonitions. The main thought, or theme, of Pro 4:1-9 is, “Wisdom the principal thing.” There is an interesting bid of autobiography in this section. Solomon gives here the relation he sustained to his father and mother, and also the parental source of his instruction. It is the picture of parents with the children gathered about them for instruction. On this Wordsworth has beautifully said, “Wisdom doth live with children round her knees.”
“Sons” in verse I, means the pupils of the teacher who commends wisdom to them as his children, by the example of his own early education. Verse 3 suggests that Solomon was a true son, i.e., he was true in filial reverence and obedience; that he stood alone in the choice of God for the messianic line, and therefore he was first in the estimation of his father. Compare 1Ch 29:1 and note the bearing of this statement on the authorship of this part of the book. The things here promised to those who possess wisdom are found in Pro 4:6 ; Pro 4:8-9 and are preservation, promotion, and honor. The parallelism in these verses is synonymous, the second line in each repeating in different words the meaning of the first. The theme of Pro 4:10-19 is, “The ways of wisdom and folly,” or the ways of righteousness and wickedness contrasted. Pro 4:12 refers to the widening of the steps, an Oriental figure, for the bold and free movements of one in prosperity, versus the straightening of one in adversity, the straightening of them which represents the strained and timid actions of one in adversity. Compare Pro 4:12 and Psa 18:36 . Pro 4:17 , taken literally, means that evil men procure their bread and wine by wickedness and violence or, taken figuratively, means that wickedness and violence are to them as meat and drink. Compare Job 15:16 ; Job 34:7 ; Joh 4:34 .
There is a special contrast in Pro 4:18-19 between the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked; one is light and the other is darkness. The parallelism here is integral, or progressive.
The theme of 4:20-27 is, “Keeping the heart and the life and looking straight ahead.” The key verse of this passage is Pro 4:23 : Keep thy heart with all diligence; For out of it are the issues of life; which reminds us of Mat 15:19 : “For out of the heart cometh evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, railings.”
“Thou shalt not commit adultery” or the seventh commandment, would be a good title for Pro 5 , and there are two parts of this chapter, viz: The unholy passion to be shunned (Pro 5:1-14 ) in contrast with the holy love to be cherished (Pro 5:15-23 ). There are some most striking figures of speech in Pro 5:3-4 , and Pro 5:15-21 of this chapter. In Pro 5:3-4 , we have pictured the seductions of the harlot and the bitter end of those who are caught by her wiles; in Pro 5:15-21 we have pictured the folly of free love over against the love for the one woman, with a fatherly exhortation to faithfulness in the marriage relation.
The picture of the latter end of an unfaithful life is seen in Pro 5:9-14 ; Pro 5:22-23 . Then come regrets, heartaches, slavery to sin, and final destruction.
The various evils against which there is found warning in Pro 6 are as follows: (1) surety (Pro 6:1-5 ); (2) the sluggard (Pro 6:6-11 ); (3) the worthless man (Pro 6:12-19 ); (4) the evil woman (Pro 6:20-35 ).
On Pro 6:1-5 Perowne says,
The frequent mention of suretyship in this book, and the strong terms of warning and reprobation in which it is invariably spoken of, accord well with what we should suppose to be the condition of society in the reign of Solomon. In earlier and simpler times it was enough for the Law to forbid usury of interest for a loan of money to be exacted by one Israelite from another; and raiment given as a pledge or security for a debt was to be returned before night-fall to be the owner’s covering in his sleep (Exo 22:25-27 ; Lev 25:35-38 ). With the development, however, of commerce and the growth of luxury under Solomon, money-lending transactions, whether for speculation in trade, or for personal gratification, had come to be among the grave dangers that beset the path of youth. Accordingly, though the writer of Ecclessiasticus contents himself with laying down restrictions to the exercise of suretyship, and even goes the length of telling us that “An honest man is surety for his neighbor” (Sirach 8:13; Sirach 29:14-20), our writer here, with a truer insight, has no quarter for it, but condemns it unsparingly on every mention of it (Pro 7:1-5 ; Pro 11:15 ; Pro 17:18 ; Pro 22:26-27 ; Pro 27:13 ). Even the generous impulse of youth to incur risk at the call of friendship must yield to the dictates, cold and calculating though they seem, of bitter experience.
There is a warning here, as elsewhere in this book, against all kinds of suretyship. (Compare Pro 11:15 ; Pro 17:18 ; Pro 20:16 ; Pro 22:26-27 ; Pro 27:13 ). The method of escape here seems to be that the surety is to use all diligence to get a release from his obligation before it comes due, otherwise there would be no mercy for him. He would have to pay it.
There are advice and warning to the sluggard in Pro 6:6-11 . He is advised to go to the ant and learn of her ways so he might take the wise course. He is warned of his coming poverty if he gives over to the sluggard’s habits of sleeping when he should be at his work early and late. This reminds us of another well-known proverb: Early to bed and early to rise, Makes one healthy, wealthy, and wise.
In Pro 6:12-19 we have a description of the worthless man, his end and what God abominates in him. He is here described as having a perverse mouth, winking with his eyes, speaking (or shuffling) with his feet, making signs with his fingers, devising evil, and sowing discord. His end is sudden destruction and that without remedy. There are seven things which God abominates in him, Pro 6:16-19 , as follows: There are six things which Jehovah hateth; Yea, seven which are an abomination unto him: Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood; A heart that deviseth wicked purposes, Feet that are swift in running to mischief, A false witness that uttereth lies, And he that soweth discord among brethren.
The section on the evil woman (Pro 6:20-35 ) is introduced by an appeal to the holy memories and sanctions of the family in order to give weight to an earnest warning against the sin which destroys the purity and saps the foundations of family life. There is a reference here, most likely, to the passage found in Deu 6:4-9 , which was construed literally by the Jews and therefore gave rise to the formal exhibition of the law in their phylacteries (see “phylactery” in Bible dictionary). Of course, the meaning here, just as in the Deuteronomy passage, is that they should use all diligence in teaching and keeping the law.
The tricks of the evil woman are described in this section (Pro 6:24-35 ), the effect of her life upon her dupes is given, the sin of adultery is compared with stealing and the wound upon the husband is also described. Her tricks are flattery, artificial beauty and, like Jezebel trying to captivate Jehu, she paints her eyelids (2Ki 9:30 ). The effect of her life upon her dupes is want in temporal life and loss of manhood, which is here called “precious life.” Like a man with fire in his bosom or coals of fire under his feet, the man who commits adultery shall not be unpunished. Stealing to satisfy hunger is regarded as a light offense, compared to this awful sin which always inflicts an incurable wound upon the husband. This they now call “The Eternal Triangle,” but it seems more correct to call it “The Infemal Triangle.” No greater offense can be committed against God and the home than the sin dealt with in this paragraph.
The subject of Pro 7 is the same as that of the preceding section, “The Evil Woman,” and is introduced by an earnest call to obedient attention which is followed by a graphic description of the tempter and her victims, as a drama enacted before the eyes.
The description of this woman here fits modern instances, and there are the most solemn warnings here against this sin. This description of her wiles and the final results of such a course are so clear that there is hardly any need for comment. A simple, attentive reading of this chapter is sufficient on each point suggested.
QUESTIONS
1. What is the style and tone of the addresses found in Pro 4:1-9:18 ?
2. What is the main thought, or theme, of Pro 4:1-9 ?
3. What is interesting bit of autobiography in this section, and what the words of Wordsworth in point?
4. What is the meaning of “eons” in Pro 4:1 , what is the meaning of Pro 4:3 , and what does wisdom here promise to them that possess her?
5. What is the theme of Pro 4:10-19 ?
6. What is the force of the figure in Pro 4:12 , what is the interpretation of Pro 4:17 , and what is the special contrast of Pro 4:18-19 ?
7. What is the theme of Pro 4:20-27 , and what is the key verse of this passage?
8. What commandment might be the title of Pro 5 , and what are the two sections of this chapter with their respective themes?
9. What are some of the most striking figures of speech in this chapter, and what is the picture here given of old age when such an evil course of life is pursued?
10. What are the various evils against which there is found warning in Pro 6 ?
11. What biblical times does the passage, Pro 6:1-5 , portray, what is the warning here against security debts, and, according to this passage, when once involved, how to escape?
12. What is the advice and warning to the sluggard in Pro 6:6-11 ?
13. What is the description of the worthless man, what is his end and what does God abominate in him?
14. How is the section on the evil woman (Pro 6:20-35 ) introduced and what is the reference in Pro 6:20-22 ?
15. What are the tricks of the evil woman described in this section (Pro 6:24-35 ), what is the effect of her life upon her dupes, how does the sin of adultery compare with stealing and how is the wound upon the husband here described?
16. What is the subject of Pro 7 and how is it introduced?
17. How does the description of this woman here fit modern instances and what are the most solemn warnings of this chapter against this sins? (Pro 8:1-9 -18).
Pro 7:1 My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.
Ver. 1. My son, keep my words. ] Aristotle hath observed, and daily experience makes it good, that man shows his weakness no way more than about moderating the pleasure ef his tasting and touching, forasmuch as they belong to him, not as a man, but as a living creature. Now therefore as where the hedge is lowest, there the beast leaps over soonest, so Satan will be sure to assault us where we are least able to withstand him. And whereas old men a have no cause to be secure – (David was old when he went in to Bathsheba, and Lot not young when he deflowered his two daughters; – of the Brabonts it is said, that quo magis senescunt eo magis stultescunt, The older the more foolish; and the heathen sages say, Metuendam esse senectam, quod non veniat sola, that old age is to be feared, as that which comes not alone, but being itself a disease, it comes accompanied with many diseases both of body and mind); – young men b especially, whom the Greeks call of , to be hot, and A of Z , to boil, and who think they have a licence helluari, scortari, fores effringere, to drink and drab, which they count and call a trick of youth, have but more than need to be constantly and carefully cautioned and called upon, as here they are, to “flee fornication,” 1Co 6:8 to “flee youthful lusts,” 2Ti 2:22 with posthaste to flee them, to “abstain from fleshly lusts” tanquam a mellito veneno, “which war against the soul.” 1Pe 2:11 The body cannot be so wounded with weapons as the soul is with lusts. Holy Timothy – so temperate a young man that St Paul was fain to prescribe him medicine, bidding him no longer to drink water, but “a little wine for his stomach’s sake and his often infirmities,” 1Ti 5:23 contracted happily by his too much abstinence, for the better keeping under his body, and bringing it into subjection – is in the same chapter by the same apostle exhorted to exhort the younger women with all purity; 1Ti 5:2 whereby is intimated, that through the deceit of his heart, and the slipperiness of his age, even while he was pressing those young women to purity, some impure motion might press in upon him; which, though but a stranger to Timothy – as Peter Martyr and others observe out of that passage in Nathan’s parable, 2Sa 12:5 that lust was to David – yet might prove a troublesome inmate if not suddenly ejected. It is no marvel, therefore, that the wise man is so exceedingly earnest with his son about the business of abhorring harlotry, the hatefulness whereof he now paints out in a parable, setting it forth in liveliest colours.
a Turpe est senescere aetatem, non tamen senescere lasciviam. – Nazianz.
b Contra et : et senex quasi seminex.
Proverbs Chapter 7
Chapter 7 opens with a fresh paternal appeal to his “son” individually (vv. 1-5). Then is drawn the graphic picture of a young man void of understanding drawn into the worst corruption by an adulterous woman (vv. 6-23). The close is a call to the “sons” generally – a terse, earnest, and solemn warning (vv. 24-27) of similar character, but deeper still.
“My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. Keep my commandments and live; and my teaching as the apple of thine eye. Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the tables of thy heart. Say to wisdom, thou [art] my sister, and call intelligence kinswoman; that they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger that flattereth with her words.” vv. 1-5.
In this individual appeal, the value of the word is urged as the great preservative means. “My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.” There is not only the need of dependence on God when trial comes, but the positive value of the truth and the divine will infusing one beforehand. Thus is the soul inwardly strengthened within against the snares without, which find the father’s precepts in possession of the field. The words are therefore to be kept, and the commandments laid up.
Therein is the path of life; for it is not by bread alone that man lives, but by every word that proceeds from God’s mouth. Hence here we read, “keep my commandments and live.” Yet the teaching that comes from God, though alone nourishing, is easily injured by self- will, and needs to be vigilantly guarded from a world of evil where defilements abound. Therefore must the teaching be kept as the apple of one’s eye. What more jealously prized as invaluable and irreparable? What more exposed to sudden damage?
Other figures are employed to impress the all-importance of heeding the words which express Jehovah’s will. “Bind them upon thy fingers; write them upon the tables of thy heart.” Old and New Testaments indicate that rings were worn for weighty use and high authority, not mere show or ornaments. Besides, the precepts here were to be written on the heart.
Nor does this suffice the care with which grace forearms those exposed to temptations suited to a fallen nature. In Old Testament times little was known of a new life from God. Still it was there, and implied if not clearly taught. Hence the new call: “Say to wisdom, Thou art my sister, and call intelligence kinswoman.” For the reception of God’s word made this true. In contrast with one born of the flesh, “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” We are begotten by the word of truth, and thus become a sort of first fruits of His creatures. Our new relationship is with wisdom and understanding, as near of kin, suited, beloved, and necessary.
Thus does God work in His goodness to keep one “from the strange woman, from the stranger that flattereth with her words.” That she was a “stranger” who sought familiarity is enough for any soul with the fear of God. So is man constituted that it should ever be a signal of danger. When formed originally, there was no strangership; but out of the man was she built who was meant to be his wife, his counterpart. How much greater the peril when, in a fallen condition, “the strange woman” abandons the propriety of her sex, and appeals with flattering words to the vanity, the pride, or the lusts of man!
In the closeness of the Christian relationship, where all are brought by the grace of Christ into the endearing tie of God’s children the danger is enormously increased. For the “neighbourhood’ of Israelites mutually was a comparatively distant connection, and a man’s “brethren” meant less in every way than “brethren” in a Christian’s life – a term that included sisters as well as brothers. Undoubtedly there are the deepest moral principles in the gospel, and the Church; where the law was partial, obscure, and feeble, truth is brought clearly and graciously to view in Christ Himself for those whose it is to walk in the light as God is in the light. But if we are not in the flesh through the deliverance Christ has wrought and given us, the flesh is still in us, and is ever ready by Satan’s wiles and the world’s influence to ensnare us into self-gratification. Only each walking in faith as having died and as crucified with Him, in continual self-judgment and lively sense of His loving me and Himself given for me, are we kept by God’s power. Where this has been forgotten, what dismal falls have been even to the strong! What sad gaps every now and then, where few know the dark histories which lie at their back!
Next is given a, graphic sketch of the evil against which the son is warned earnestly. It is a picture divinely drawn from life.
“For at the window of my house I looked forth from my lattice; and I beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the sons, a young man void of understanding, passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house, in the twilight, in the evening of the day, in the blackness of night and the darkness. And, behold, there met him a woman [in] the attire of a harlot, and subtle of heart. She [is] clamorous and ungovernable; her feet abide not in her house; now [she is] in the streets, now in the broadways, and lieth in wait at every corner. And she caught him and kissed him; with an impudent face she said to him, I have pence offerings; this day have I paid my vows. Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face; and I have found thee. My bed I have decked with tapestry coverings, with variegated cloths of yarn from Egypt. I have perfumed my couch with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us revel in love until the morning; let us delight ourselves with loves. For the husband [is] not at home and he is gone a long journey; he hath taken the moneybag with him; he will come home at the day of full moon. With her much fair speech she beguiled him; with the flattery of her lips she constrained him. He goeth after suddenly, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, and as in fetters to his correction the fool; till an arrow strike through his liver, as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that [it is] for its life.” vv. 6-23.
On the one side is a young man, idle and thoughtless rather than of evil or profligate habits; on the other is a woman given up to shameless immorality; and when a woman abandons all pretension to modesty, who can be so recklessly corrupt or seductive? But the warning impressed is all the more telling because in the youth there is no purpose of lust, any more than of passion in particular, no thought or room for sapping the moral principles generally, no old undermining of the barriers which warded off improper advances. A weak character, hitherto harmless, as men say, vain and self-pleasing, is seen in the way of temptation, and gradually verging near the point of danger, as the twilight grows and the darkness favours shameful deeds. For his youth and inexperience make him the more attractive prey to the woman who is sunk to the lowest depths, as regardless of human order as of God the Judge of all.
The “strange woman” has even the attire of a harlot, with a heart more subtle still, yet clamorous and ungovernable. Her house is no home; her unsatisfied will drives her feet into the streets and the broadways; and at every corner she lies in wait. The heedless youth fixes her choice; and giving him the fullest credit for a vacant heart, for a void of understanding, she scruples not at once to storm one so unarmed and unestablished. She caught and kissed him, and strengthening her face to the utmost effrontery, she tells him of her peace offerings, her vows paid that day. He was the delight of her eyes and soul. Him she came to meet (whom she probably never saw before); his face was diligently sought ; and now she had found him. Providence smiled on them, and the feast upon a sacrifice was a happy omen. None could deny that she was a religious woman; she must pay her vows duly when she ventured on a delicate affair of the heart. Yet she, the wanton, did not blush to speak of the utmost lengths without disguise. “I have decked my bed with tapestry coverings, with variegated cloths of yarn from Egypt; I have perfumed my couch with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us revel in love until the morning; let us delight ourselves with loves.” How terrible and how true is this picture of ritualism and luxury in league, prostituting the name of love to illicit amours and debauchery more guilty than the most brutal!
Nor does she fail to quiet the fears which might cow even the most thoughtless and audacious. For she declares that the man, the husband, was away from home, gone on a long journey, provided with ample funds, and not to return before full moon. It was not a Joseph that listened, but a match for Potiphar’s wife that enticed. Who can wonder that the foolish youth, spite of conscience, surrendered! But oh, what pathos in the language which describes him giving himself to ruin of soul and body! “He goeth after her suddenly.” He does not dare to think of Jehovah, or of his own relation to Him, nor yet of father and mother, of brothers or sisters; of the irreparable wrong to the absent husband; of his own sin and crime, to say nothing of yielding to so vile a paramour, or of the affront to society, degraded and godless as it is. It is truly “as an ox goeth to the slaughter, and as in fetters to his correction the fool; till a dart strike through his liver, as a bird hasteth to the snare and knoweth not that it is for its life.”
The close of the 7th chapter is a short, touching, and solemn appeal.
“And now, sons, hearken to me, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thy heart decline to her ways; go not astray in her paths: for she hath cast down many wounded; and all slain by her are strong. Her house [is] the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.” vv. 24-27.
Youth is prone to impulse and self-confidence, as we have seen the danger not for the depraved only, but for the idle, because of the corruption in the world through lust. Hence the earnestly affectionate summing up of what has gone before with a fresh warning of uncommon grace. “And now, sons, hearken to me, and attend to the words of my mouth.” A father’s call to heed his words in the face of inward propensity and outward seduction is entitled to the gravest attention. There is but one such friend in the nearest degree who has passed through like snares. His wise love no son can slight with impunity.
What then are the words of his mouth on that head? “Let not thy heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her path.” Joseph had no father near to counsel him when the temptation arose, and persistently, through his master’s wife. But he refused utterly her shameless blandishments as one seeing the Unseen. The ten words were not yet spoken; but he feared God, and he was jealous for his master’s honour. “How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” Good reason had a father to counsel sons to steer clear. If the whole world lies in wickedness, or in the wicked one, one needs dependence to pass through the streets safely, and obedience with the worthy object in view. Emptiness exposes the soul for evil to enter and take possession. “Abide in me, and I in you.” “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall come to pass to you”; so spoke the Holy, the True. Nor is there any other way of fruit agreeable to the Father. In this is He glorified that we bear much fruit, and not merely that we be kept from sin and shame and ruin. Evil begins not with the steps, but the heart declining to such ways; to follow them is to stray.
And who has lived a while here below without the saddest memories and most humbling sights in confirmation? “For she hath cast down many wounded, and all slain by her are strong.” Such seems the force of the latter clause, which is illegitimately rendered in the A.V., for “all” in such a sentence at least cannot be reduced to “many,” as in the former clause. But it is difficult to understand that “all” her slain should be strong. The R.V. suggests that “all her slain are a mighty host.” This, whether or not accepted, is assuredly true, and an advance on the words which preceded, according to the Hebrew style. No wonder that the words recall not only Samson, but even David, who if not slain himself, brought the sword on his house, and caused the enemies of Jehovah to blaspheme.
And how energetic the words that follow! “Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.” They are words of truth and sobriety, so they exaggerate in nothing.
My son. See note on Pro 1:8.
keep = watch.
words = sayings. Hebrew. imrah. App-73.
Chapter 7
He continues his exhortation to the son in chapter 7. Still talking about these women that are the wrong sort.
My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the pupil of your eye. Bind them upon your fingers, write them on the table of your heart. Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman: That they may keep thee from the strange woman, and from the stranger who flatters with her words ( Pro 7:1-5 ).
So keep the commandments. Say to wisdom, “Thou art my sister.” Be wise, my son.
For at the window of my house I looked through the casement, and I beheld among the simple ones, and I discerned among the young people, a young man who was void of understanding, and he was passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way towards her house, and in the twilight, and in the evening, and in the black and the dark night: And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of a harlot, subtile of heart. (She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house: Now is she without, now she’s in the streets, she’s lying in wait at every corner.) So she caught him, and she kissed him, and with an impudent face she said unto him, I have made my peace offerings; this day I have paid my vows ( Pro 7:6-14 ).
Which was declaring, “I am ceremonially clean. I have gone, you know, I’ve had my period.” And after the period a woman was then to bring the peace offering to offer, and now you’re ceremonially clean for sexual relationships. Now this to me is interesting. It is an interesting kind of a paradox. Here she is observing the law for purification, following the law. “I’ve paid my vows, you know, and I brought my peace offerings. I have my peace offerings, paid my vows and all, you know. So I’m now ceremonially clean. I’m able to have intercourse.” And yet a harlot, yet seeking to entice a man. And this strange paradox of obedience to the law, and yet disobedience to God. And unfortunately, we observe this strange paradox so often.
In the religious circles where somehow we have a weird kind of a twisted judgment, thinking that because I’ve gone to church, because I’ve done my righteous thing, that I now have some kind of a license to do the unrighteous thing. And this admixture of light and darkness, walking after the Spirit and trying to live after the flesh. Trying to please God and still following the lust of my own flesh. It’s an incongruency. And yet we see it so often in the religious circles where people are trying to get this strange admixture of the flesh and the Spirit.
So here she is. “I’ve done my peace offering, and I’ve got it with me. I’ve paid my vows. Come to my house, you know, my husband’s gone. He took a bag of money. He’s gone on a trip. He’s not going to be back ’til the new moon. So, you know, come on over.” And how wrong it is. How often some of the young people from the College and Career or Singles fellowship tell about meeting someone here. And because they met them in church, they figured that they would be morally upright and all, and how that the guys just keep trying to come on when they’re out on a date or something. And though they come to church and they’ll read the Word and they’ll sing the choruses, they’ll raise their hands and all, and yet turn right around, and you get out in the car or something and they’re trying to make advances that are improper advances. These things ought not to be, that weird kind of an inconsistency.
“So she caught him, she kissed him, and with an impudent face she said to him, ‘I have a peace offering with me; this day I have paid my vows.'”
Therefore I came to meet you, and I diligently sought you until I found you. And I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestries, with the carved works, of fine linen from Egypt. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves ( Pro 7:15-18 ).
Now here again is a total misconception that prevails to the present day. Somehow people have a weird terminology calling sexual intercourse love. It can be an expression of love. But it is generally, when outside of marriage always an expression of lust. And so rather than saying, “Come, let’s take our fill of love,” in reality you should say, “Come, let’s take our fill of lust. Let’s seek to fulfill the desires of our flesh.”
There isn’t true love in that. True love is giving, not seeking to receive. Seeketh not its own. But yet people have classified this love from the time of Proverbs and they still do today. “Oh, we made love last night.” No, that’s degrading to the term of love. Unless, as I say, it’s as God has ordained within the sacred bonds of marriage and it becomes that beautiful expression between husband and wife, where as God said, “The two become one flesh” ( Gen 2:24 ).
For my husband is not at home, he’s gone on a long journey: He has taken a bag of gold with him, he’s not going to come back until the appointed day. And so with her fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him. And he’s going after her straightway, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a fool goes to the correction of the stocks; Until a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hastes to the snare, and he knows not that it is for his life. Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, and going down to the chambers of death ( Pro 7:19-27 ).
So in speaking of and warning his son concerning the whorish woman, first of all, he makes mention of the fact that she can bring a man to a crust of bread. Oh, I think of the lives and the homes and the values that have been destroyed by these kind of women. All of the homes that are suffering today because some little gal’s flirting in the office. Flattering, telling you how smart you are, how strong you are, how macho you are. And you get home and your wife is maybe saying, “Why don’t you ever want to do anything, you know? And when you going to mow the lawn? You’re so lazy, you know.” And you’re getting this kind of a crossfire. Pretty soon, you’ve imagined yourself to be in love, and pretty soon you’re brought to a crust of bread. Destroyed. “She has cast down many wounded, many strong men have been slain by her.” Oh, God, I think of the many strong men who have been slain by the weakness of their own flesh. “Her house is the way to hell.” “
Pro 7:1-5
Pro 7:1-5
“This chapter describes the way of an adulteress, contrasting with Proverbs 8 which sets forth the way of wisdom. It features an eye-witness account of the seduction of a young man by an adulteress. The account is realistic and needs only brief interpretation.
“It is the fearful desolation which adultery causes that does not allow the author of Proverbs to abandon this theme which he has already discussed again and again. Here he reiterates the warning once more, reinforcing it with an illustration that he himself had witnessed. “Here we see how helpless the young simpleton is under the skillful temptation that confronted him. “This is the longest and most elaborate description of the adulteress in the Bible. And this is indeed a classic!
WISDOM VS. THE STRANGE WOMAN (THE THIRTEENTH DISCOURSE)
Pro 7:1-5
“My son, keep my words,
And lay up my commandments with thee.
Keep my commandments and live;
And my law as the apple of thine eye.
Bind them upon thy fingers;
Write them upon the tablet of thy heart.
And say unto Wisdom, Thou art my sister;
And call Understanding thy kinswoman:
That they may keep thee from the strange woman,
From the foreigner that flattereth with her words.”
“Lay up my commandments” (Pro 7:1). “The words, commandments and teachings here are the Torah. These are the words shared by the wisdom literature with the Pentateuch, Prophets and Psalms.
“Keep … my law, as the apple of thine eye” (Pro 7:2). “This is a proverbial expression for anything particularly precious and liable to be injured unless zealously guarded.
“Write them upon the tablet of your heart” (Pro 7:3). This is not a reference to the prominent phylacteries ostentatiously paraded by the Pharisees. It simply means, “Whatever you do, do not forget these instructions.”
“Say unto Wisdom, Thou art my sister” (Pro 7:4). Again we have Wisdom personified; and in this chapter she is presented in contrast to the strange woman in a dramatic challenge concerning which woman the youth will choose, whether Wisdom and life, or the strange woman and death. There is a New Testament counterpart to this. Jesus Christ is our Wisdom (1Co 1:30); “And Christ calls those who do God’s will his brother and sister and mother (Mat 12:50).
These first five verses set the stage for the confrontation and seduction of the youth next reported.
Pro 7:1. Before the father begins this lengthy warning against his sons getting involved with a wicked woman, he urges him to be obedient to what he is teaching him. Why does the father go over and over this warning in Proverbs? Because he is training up his son in the way that he should go the promise for which is, He will not depart from it (Pro 22:6).
Pro 7:2. The apple of the eye is the pupil of the eye (Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary). To keep something as the apple of thine eye was a proverbial expression for anything particularly precious and liable to be injured unless guarded with scrupulous care (Pulpit Commentary). The expression is used also in Deu 32:10; Psa 17:8; Zec 2:8. What does one guard or keep any more than his eye? The fathers promise was that if his son would keep his commandments as he would his eye, he would live and not be cut off from the living as a wicked person (Psa 37:1-2).
Pro 7:3. Bind means to tie. The thought of his binding his fathers instructions upon his fingers seems similar to our talk of tying a string on our finger when we dont want to forget something, The heart is here spoken of as a tablet, a writing surface. And indeed the heart is a place to lay up things precious and dear: Mary did so concerning many things said about her son Jesus and said by Him (Luk 2:19; Luk 2:51); we are told to write Gods Word upon our hearts (Heb 8:10; Psa 119:11).
Pro 7:4. Claim a close relationship with those women Wisdom and Understanding, and such relationship will keep one from any relationship with the wicked, immoral woman about to be discussed (beginning in the next verse-Pro 7:5). Note that the young man who got involved with her did not make Understanding his close relative, for Pro 7:7 says he was void of understanding. From antiquity many virtues have been portrayed in sculpturing, art, and literature as women. It does seem that many virtues can reach their highest pinnacle in womanhood or if lacking can be sacrificed the most my womanhood.
Pro 7:5. Keep my words, says the father in Pro 7:1, that they may keep thee from the strange woman (this verse). Pulpit Commentary aptly observes: When the heart is filled with the love of what is good, it is armed against the seductions of evil pleasure or whatever may entice the soul from God and duty. Pro 2:16 and Pro 6:24 also speak of being kept from the evil woman-she is someone to avoid!
STUDY QUESTIONS – Pro 7:1-5
1. Contrast the child who regards his parents teachings with one who does not (Pro 7:1).
2. What is the apple of the eye (Pro 7:2)?
3. Why is heart used for mind so many times in the Bible (Pro 7:3)?
4. Why are graces and virtues often misrepresented in sculpturing, art, and literature as women (Pro 7:4)?
5. Yet Pro 7:5 shows that women may be ……………… as well as virtuous.
This is a second parental exhortation, and consists of a warning against the allurements of the strange woman. A graphic picture of the seduction of a youth void of understanding is given. The woman whom Solomon saw is still in our cities, and, alas, so is the youth void of understanding. The address closes with words of burning which tell the issue. The deceived youth passes to the place of slaughter like an ox, till physical nemesis overtakes him. Like a bird hasting to a snare, without consciousness that it means the ending of life, so goes the simple one to the place of sin. In order that it may not be so, this parental counsel is given. In the hour of sin’s glamor it is good for the soul to look through to the end which is in Sheol and the chambers of death. When the voice of the siren is heard, it is good to pause and listen to the moan of the breakers on the shore of darkness and death, for to that shore the way of impurity assuredly leads.
Proverbs 7
Only God can correctly estimate the depravity of the human heart. He knows its perverseness and the need for continued warning. Therefore this entire chapter continues with the subject that we have been considering. The strange womans ways and behavior are graphically delineated to save the youth from her snare. If he chooses to follow her now, he does so with his eyes fully opened.
7:1-5
Constant dwelling on the Word of God preserves from sin. Notice that the Word is to be bound and written on both hand and heart. This involves far more than cursory reading of the Scriptures. It is making Gods Word an integral part of ones life by daily feeding on it that preserves the soul.
Satans most powerful weapon against the young is flattery. Wisdom and understanding can preserve the youth from this snare by teaching him to mistrust flatterers and to judge himself correctly. Then he can discern the lying words of any who would seek to ruin him by means of insincere praise.
7:6-23
This portion of the chapter requires little comment. An eye-witness clearly describes a scene that has been duplicated millions of times. It is as relevant today as in the days of Solomon. The young man should consider it carefully, and be warned of the dangers of trusting in his own heart, and departing from the living God.
The strange women described here can be seen as an illustration of the false, apostate church. She is loud and stubborn, and her devious ways ensnare those who otherwise would never seek association with her. The vision of Revelation 17 may well be studied in connection with this chapter.
Finally, the author of Proverbs reveals the dreadful fate of the youth who foolishly followed the strange woman. Shameful death will be the sad result of refusing instruction and listening to the words of the flatterer.
7:24-27
With enduring patience God continues to instruct all who hear and desire to have an understanding heart. In this passage, as in all Scripture, we hear the very voice of God and find every word profitable. Happy the youth who keeps these instructions. He will be preserved from the bitterness of remorse that so many have suffered when ignoring Gods warnings.
Pro 7:6
From Solomon’s observation we learn:-
I. The special perils of great cities. (1) The vastness and multitudinousness of many of our modern cities provide a secrecy which is congenial to vice. This enormously adds to the power of temptation, that you may pluck the poisonous fruit unobserved. Only keep the inward monitor quiet, and you may run undetected and unchallenged into every excess. (2) In all great towns, solicitations to vice abound as they do not elsewhere. Every passion has a tempter lying in wait for it.
II. We learn from this passage the evil of late hours. The devil, like the beast of prey, stalks forth when the sun goes down. Midnight on earth is hell’s midnoon.
III. The next warning in the text is the danger of foolish company. The word “simple” means in the Book of Proverbs silly, frivolous, idle, abandoned. You could almost predict with certainty the future of one who selected such society. “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but the companion of fools shall be destroyed.”
IV. No man’s understanding can be called thoroughly sound till it has been brought under the power of the truth as it is in Jesus. Your only security against the perils of the city, of the dark night and of evil company, is a living faith in God, a spiritual union with Christ.
J. Thain Davidson, The City Youth, p. 3.
References: Pro 8:4.-R. M. McCheyne, Memoir and Remains, p. 325. Pro 8:10.-W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven, 1st series, p. 197. Pro 8:11.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xi., p. 86. Pro 8:12.-A. Mursell, Christian World Pulpit, p. 406. Pro 8:13.-W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven, 1st series, p. 200.
CHAPTER 7
The entire chapter is a continuation of the strange woman and the warning against her. The Word and the law of the Lord will keep the obedient son from her. If Solomon had obeyed the Word of God, not to multiply wives (Deu 17:17) his end would not have been spent in the degrading fellowship with the harlots of other nations. The description is very graphic. What the word pictures is as prominent in the great centers of Christendom as it was thousands of years ago in Babylon and Egypt. And so it is still true:
She hath cast down many wounded;
Yea, many strong men have been slain by her.
Her house is the way to hell,
Going down to the chambers of death.
But think of Solomon after having received these inspired descriptions and warnings, that he should have been forgetful of them all.
My son: Pro 1:8, Pro 3:1
keep: Luk 8:15, Luk 11:28, Joh 14:23, Joh 15:20, Rev 1:3, Rev 22:9
lay: Pro 2:1-7, Pro 10:14, Deu 11:28, Job 22:22
Reciprocal: Gen 49:2 – hearken Deu 4:9 – lest they Psa 90:12 – that Pro 4:20 – General Pro 6:20 – General Joh 5:38 – ye have 1Th 2:11 – as Heb 2:1 – the more
Pro 7:1. Keep my wordslay up my commandments. These terms being of constant occurrence in the didactic scriptures, will be found explained in the beginning of the hundred and nineteenth psalm.
Pro 7:2. Keepmy law, as the apple of thine eye; a most precious, beautiful, and tender sense. The idea is often repeated, as in Deu 32:10. Psa 17:8.
Pro 7:3. Bind them upon thy fingers, as the phylacteries. Deu 6:8. Love them, have them always at hand, and ready in thy mind. Love the holy scriptures, and wisdom will love you.
Pro 7:4. Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister. Claim with her the nearest affinity: her value is far above rubies. She is the spirit and power of God, a pure influence or emanation of the divine glory. No spot of impurity can touch her: she is the brightness of everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of divine omnipotence. It is this hallowed affinity with wisdom, this genuine conversion of the soul to God, which alone can save youth from an unhallowed affinity with the profane character, here contrasted with wisdom.
Pro 7:5. The strange womanflattereth with her words. A woman in meretricious array, exposing herself in the shades of night, faithless to her husband, and abandoned to vice. Canst thou, oh pupil of divine wisdom, forget the lovely virgin to whom thou art betrothed, whose society is so pleasant, whose graces are brilliant, whose virtues elevate thy soul. Canst thou, I say, leave a wife, lovely in innocence, for one whose body is all corruption, and whose soul is the seat of every sin? Oh no! Let the graceless, let the incorrigible go after her, as the ox goes to the slaughter, and be hurried away with an untimely death.
Pro 7:14. I have peace-offerings, as at the new moon; a delicious supper at home. These embraces are followed by disease, by murder, and the immolation of the soul in hell.
Pro 7:22-23. Or as a fool to the correction of the stocks, till a dart strike through his liver. The LXX read, as a dog to his halter, or as a stag pierced with a dart through his liver.
Pro 7:26. Many strong ones have been slain by her. The way to hell is her house: Pro 7:27. In war, the conquerors boast of their trophies; but here is the conqueror of heroes, here is glory lost in shame; here is nobility and honour, here is wealth and fortune, here is literature and science I do not say, men of the sacerdotal habit, all lying prostrate at the feet of a harlot. Hear how she boasts in her songs, and in her wine, of the great ones bowed at her feet. But short is her song; death is at the door, and hell follows after.
Pro 7:1-27. The longest and most elaborate description of the adulteress, the fate of her victim, and the value of wisdom as a safeguard.
Pro 7:1-5. General advice to the young man to observe the commandments and the torah of the sage, that he may be preserved from the adulteress.
Pro 7:3 b. cf. 2Co 3:3, and for the opposite thought Jer 17:1.
Pro 7:4. kinswoman: lit. one well known, familiar friend, only in Rth 2:1; Rth 3:2 besides.
Pro 7:6-23. A vivid and dramatic representation of the capture of a young and foolish man by an adulteress.
Pro 7:6-9. The sage, looking through his lattice in the evening, sees a young man approach the corner where the adulteress lives. The LXX makes her look out of her window in search of prey, a more vivid reading than that of MT, and not necessarily incompatible with the next picture, in Pro 7:10, of her eager rush to meet him.
Pro 7:10-12. Description of the adulteress, her restlessness and boisterous heartiness of manner. The harlot or temple prostitute could probably be easily distinguished by her style of dress and manner, even if she did not wear a distinctive garment, or veil, as in Gen 38:15 (cf. Ca. Pro 5:7).
Pro 7:13-20. Description of the adulteresss greeting and allurements.
Pro 7:13 b. i.e. with brazen face (cf. mg.).
Pro 7:14. Read mg. The shelmim, peace- or thank-offerings (p. 98, Leviticus 3*, Lev 7:11-34*), were probably common to the other Semitic cults; they are mentioned in the Marseilles temple tariff, c. fourth century B.C. Hence the woman need not be an Israelite. Vows (p. 105, Lev 7:16 f.*, Numbers 30) of course are frequently mentioned in the N. Semitic inscriptions.
Pro 7:15. carpets of tapestry: render coverlets (Pro 31:22).striped cloths: perhaps correct. Some kind of covering is intended.
Pro 7:20. full moon: only here and Psa 81:3. The husbands absence will extend from the beginning of the month (Pro 7:9 may indicate the absence of the moon) until the mid-month feast of full moon (p. 101).
Pro 7:22 c. The text is plainly corrupt (mg.). Toys emendation, like a calf to the stall, yields a good sense.
Pro 7:24-27. The fatal results of yielding to her wiles. The nature of the disaster is not explained, but early death seems to be implied, either by judicial penalty, by the vengeance of the husband, or by the physical decay resulting from excess.
Pro 7:27. chambers of death: may be a poetical synonym for Sheol, but if the section be late, it may imply divisions in the underworld (cf. the treasuries in 2Es 7:32, where the same Gr. word is used as in the LXX of this verse).
CHAPTER 8
REALISM IN MORAL TEACHING
“I looked forth through my lattice; and I beheld.” Pro 7:6
THE three chapters which close the introduction of our book (7-9) present a lively and picturesque contrast between Folly and Wisdom-Folly more especially in the form of vice; Wisdom more generally in her highest and most universal intention. Folly is throughout concrete, an actual woman portrayed with such correctness of detail that she is felt as a personal force. Wisdom, on the other band, is only personified: she is an abstract conception: she speaks with human lips in order to carry out the parallel, but she is not a human being, known to the writer. As we shall see in the next Lecture, this high Wisdom never took a human shape until the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ; Folly, unhappily, had become incarnate in myriads of instances: scarcely any city or place where men congregate was, or is without its melancholy example. It follows from this difference between the two that the picture of Folly is a piece of vigorous realism, while the account of Wisdom is a piece of delicate idealism. Folly is historical. Wisdom is prophetic. In this chapter we are concerned with facts which the author witnessed from the window of his house, looking forth through the lattice. {Pro 7:6} In the next chapter we shall touch on ideas which he had not seen, and could not have seen unless it were in lofty vision, looking out through the lattice of the soul. In the present chapter we have an opportunity of noticing the immense value and power of pictorial delineation and concrete images in moral teaching; in the next we shall experience the peculiar fascination and inspiration of beautiful abstract conceptions, of disembodied ideals which, so far as we know at the time, are not capable of actual realization.
It is important to remember this difference in order to understand why Wisdom, the shadowy contrast to that Mistress Folly who was only too concrete and familiar, shaped itself to the writers mind as a fair and stately woman, a queenly hostess inviting simple ones to her feast; though, as Christians, we have learnt, the historical embodiment of Wisdom was a man, the Word of God, who of God was made unto us wisdom.
Now before we take our stand at the window and look through the lattice into the street, we must notice the exhortations to the young man to make wisdom and understanding his intimate friends, with which the chapter begins. The law is to be kept as the apple of the eye, which is so sensitive, so tender, and at the same time so surpassingly important, that the lid has to shield it by a quick instinctive movement outrunning thought, and the hand has to be ready at all times to come to its succor. The commandments are to be written on the fingers, like engraved rings, which would serve as instant reminders in unwary moments: the very instruments through which the evil would be done are to be claimed and sealed and inscribed by the righteousness which can preserve it from evil, while in the secret tablets of the heart the holy truths are to be written: so that if, in the business of life, the writing on the fingers may get blurred or effaced, the principles of righteousness may yet be kept like priceless archives stored in the inviolable chambers of the inner man. Wisdom is to be treated as a sister, {Pro 7:4} not as if there were a natural kinship, but on the ground of the beautiful influence which a true sister, a pure woman soul, exercises over a young mans life. It is given to a sister again and again, by unfailing sympathy and by sweet comprehending ways, not teasing nor lecturing, but always believing and hoping and loving, to weave a magical spell of goodness and truth around a brother who is exposed to dangerous temptations; she will “maintain for him a saving intercourse with his true self”; when the fires of more ardent affections are burning low, or extinguished in doubt or disgust she will be with him like a calm impersonal presence, unobtrusive, unforgotten, the more potent because she makes no show of power. Such a lovely fraternal relation is to be maintained with Wisdom, constant as a tie of blood, firm as a companionship from earliest infancy, yet exalted and enthusiastic in its way, and promising a lifelong attraction and authority.
This blessed kinship with Understanding should save the young man front such a fate as we are now to contemplate.
It is twilight, not yet absolutely dark, but the shuddering horror of the scene seems to quench the doubtful glimmer of evening and to plunge the observer suddenly into midnight. {Pro 7:9} There is a young man coming round the corner of the street. His is no manly walk, but an idle, effeminate saunter-a detail which is not brought out in the English Version. He is a dandy and sadly empty-headed. Now all young men, good and bad alike, pass through a period of dandyism, and it has its uses: but the better the stuff of which the man is made, the more quickly he gets over the crisis, and returns to his senses. This young man is “void of understanding”; his dandyism will be chronic. His is a feeble will and a prurient mind; but his special weakness consists in this, that he thinks he can always resist temptation, and therefore never hesitates to thrust himself in its way. It is as if one were to pride himself on being able to hang on with his fingers to the rim of a well: he is always hanging there, and a touch will send him in. One who is in his opinion weaker would give the dangerous place a wide berth, and nothing but sheer force would bring him to the edge.
This young dandy has nothing to say for himself. A tempter need not be at the trouble to bring any sound arguments, or to make the worse appear the better reason; to this poor weakling the worse the reason is the better it will appear. As you see him lolling down the path with his leering look and his infinite self-satisfaction-good-natured, but without any other goodness; not with bad intentions, but with everything else bad-you can foresee that he will be blown over as easily as a pleasure skiff on a stormy ocean; if you have a compassionate heart you mourn over him at once, for you see the inevitable.
The woman has come out to meet him like a bird-catcher who has been watching for the unwary bird. Now he should escape at once, for her very attire warns him of her intentions. But this is just his weakness; he delights to place himself in such a position; he would say that it is the proof of his manliness that he can resist. She approaches him with a smirk and a smile, with an open countenance but a closed heart. She utters a sound, moving and pathetic like the murmur of harp-strings; it comes from that inward tumult of passion in the womans nature which always flutters the heart of a weak youth. She is a wild, undisciplined creature; she always hankers after the forbidden; the quiet home ways are insufferable to her; out in the streets, with their excitement, their variety, their suggestions, their possibilities, she forgets, if she does not quiet, her restlessness. The poor woman-nature which, rightly taught and trained, might make the beauty and sweetness of a home, capable of sanctified affections and of self-sacrificing devotion, is here entirely perverted. The passion is poisoned and now poisonous. The energy is diseased. The charms are all spurious. She goes abroad in the blackness of night because in even a faint light her hideousness would appear; under the paint and the finery she is a hag; her eyes are lusterless but for the temporary fire of her corruptions; behind that voice which croons and ripples there is a subdued moan of despair-the jarring of harp-strings which snap and quiver and shudder and are silent forever. The wise man looks at her with compassionate loathing, God with pity which yearns to save; but this foolish youth is moved by her as only a fool could be moved. His weak understanding is immediately overcome by her flatteries; his polluted heart does not perceive the poison of her heartless endearments.
She throws her arms around him and kisses him, and he makes no question that it is a tribute to the personal attractions which he has himself often admired in his mirror. She would have him believe that it was he whom she had come out specially to seek, though it would have been just the same whoever had caught her eye; and he, deceived by his own vanity, at once believes her. She has a great deal to say; she does not rely on one inducement, for she does not know with whom she has to do; she pours out therefore all her allurements in succession without stopping to take breath.
First, she holds out the prospect of a good meal. She has abundant meat in the house, which comes from the sacrifice she has just been offering, and it must be eaten by the next day, according to the commandment of the Law. {Lev 7:16} Or if he is not one to be attracted merely by food, she has appeals to his aesthetic side; her furniture is rich and artistic, and her chamber is perfumed with sweet spices. She perceives perhaps by now what a weak, faint-hearted creature, enervated by vice, unmanly and nervous, she has to do with, and she hastens to assure him that his precious skin will be safe. Her good man is not at home, and his absence will be prolonged; he took money with him for a long journey, and she knows the date of his return. The foolish youth need not fear, therefore, “that jealousy which is the rage of a man”; he will not have to offer gifts and ransom to the implacable husband, because his deed will never be known. How hollow it all sounds, and how suspicious; surely one who had a grain of understanding would answer with manly scorn and with kindling indignation. But our poor young fool, who was so confident of himself, yields without a struggle; with her mere talk, playing upon his vanity, she bends him as if he were a water-weed in a stream-her appeals to his self-admiration drive him forth as easily as the goads urge an ox to the slaughter-house.
And now you may watch him going after her to destruction!
Is there not a pathos in the sight of an ox going to the slaughter? The poor dumb creature is lured by the offer of food or driven by the lash of the driver. It enters the slaughterhouse as if it were a stall for rest and refreshment; it has no idea that “it is for its life.” The butcher knows; the bystanders understand the signs; but it is perfectly insensible, taking a transitory pleasure in the unwonted attentions which are really the portents of death. It is not endeared to us by any special interest or affection; the dull, stupid life has never come into any close connection with ours. It has never been to us like a favorite dog, or a pet bird that has cheered our solitary hours. It gave us no response when we spoke to it or stroked its sleek hide. It was merely an animal. But yet it moves our pity at this supreme moment of its life; we do not like to think of the heavy blow which will soon lay the great slow-pacing form prostrate and still in death.
Here is an ox going to the slaughter, -but it is a fellow-man, a young man, not meant for ignominious death, capable of a good and noble life. The poor degraded woman who lures him to his ruin has no such motive of serviceableness as the butcher has. By a malign influence she attracts him, an influence even more fatal to herself than to him. And he appears quite insensible, -occupied entirely with reflections on his glossy skin and goodly form; not suspecting that bystanders have any other sentiment than admiration of his attractions and approval of his manliness, he goes quietly, unresistingly, lured rather than driven, to the slaughter-house.
The effect of comparison with dumb animals is heightened by throwing in a more direct comparison with other human beings. Transposing the words, with Delitzsch, as is evidently necessary in order to preserve the parallelism of the similitude, we find this little touch: “He goeth after her straightway, as a fool to the correction of the fetters,”-as if the Teacher would remind us that the fate of the young man, tragic as it is, is yet quite devoid of the noble aspects of tragedy. This clause is a kind of afterthought, a modification. “Did we say that he is like the ox going to the slaughter?-nay, there is a certain dignity in that image, for the ox is innocent of its own doom, and by its death many will benefit; with our pity for it we cannot but mingle a certain gratitude, and we find no room for censure; but this entrapped weakling is after all only a fool, of no service or interest to any one, without any of the dignity of our good domestic cattle; in his corrupt and witless heart is no innocence which should make us mourn. And the punishment he goes to, though it is ruin, is so mean and degrading that it awakes the jeers and scorn of the beholders. As if he were in the village stocks, he will be exposed to eyes which laugh while they despise him. Those who are impure like himself will leer at him; those who are pure will avert their glance with an ill-disguised contempt.” There, then, goes the ox to the slaughter; nay, the mere empty-headed fool to the punishment of the fetters, which will keep him out of further mischief, and chain him down to the dumb lifeless creation to which he seems to belong.
But the scorn changes rapidly to pity. Where a fellow-creature is concerned we may not feel contempt beyond that point at which it serves as a rebuke, and a stimulus to better things. When we are disposed to turn away with a scornful smile, we become aware of the suffering which the victim of his own sins will endure. It will be like an arrow striking through the liver. Only a moment, and he will be seized with the sharp pain which follows on indulgence. Oh the nausea and the loathing, when the morning breaks and he sees in all their naked repulsiveness the things which he allowed to fascinate him yester-eve! What a bitter taste is in his mouth; what a ghastly and livid hue is on the cheek which he imagined fair! He is pierced; to miserable physical sufferings is joined a sense of unspeakable degradation, a wretched depression of spirits, a wish to die which is balanced in horrid equilibrium by a fear of death.
And now he will arise and flee out of this loathly house, which seems to be strewn with dead mens bones and haunted by the moaning spirits of the mighty host which have here gone down into Sheol. But what is this? He cannot flee. He is held like a bird in the snare, which beats its wings and tries to fly in vain; the soft yielding net will rise and fall with its efforts, but will not suffer it to escape. He cannot flee, for if he should escape those fatal doors, before to-morrows sun sets he will be seized with an overmastering passion, a craving which is like the gnawing of a vulture at the liver; by an impulse which he cannot resist he will be drawn back to that very corner; there will not be again any raptures, real or imagined, only racking and tormenting desires; there will be no fascination of sight or scent or taste; all will appear as it is-revolting; the perfumes will all be rank and sickly, the meat will all be blighted and fly-blown; but none the less he must back; there, poor, miserable, quivering bird, he must render himself, and must take his fill of loves? no, of maudlin rapture and burning disgust; solace himself? no, but excite a desire which grows with every satisfaction, which slowly and surely, like that loathsome monster of the seas, slides its clinging suckers around him, and holds him in an embrace more and more deadly until he finally succumbs.
Then he perceives that the fatal step that he took was “for his life,” that is, his life was at stake. When he entered into the trap, the die was cast; hope was abandoned as he entered there. The house which appeared so attractive was a mere covered way to hell. The chambers which promised such imagined delights were on an incline which sloped down to death.
Look at him during that brief passage from his foolish heedlessness to his irretrievable ruin, a Rakes Progress presented in simple and vivid pictures, which are so terrible because they are so absolutely true.
After gazing for a few minutes upon the story, do we not feel its power? Are there not many who are deaf to all exhortations, who will never attend to the words of Wisdoms mouth, who have a consummate art in stopping their ears to all the nobler appeals of life, who yet will be arrested by this clear presentation of a fact, by the teachers determination not to blink or underrate any of the attractions and seductions, and by his equal determination not to disguise or diminish any of the frightful results?
We may cherish the sweetness and the purity which reticence will often preserve, but when the sweetness and the purity are lost, reticence will not bring them back, and duty seems to require that we should lay aside our fastidiousness and speak out boldly in order to save the soul of our brother.
But after dwelling on such a picture as this there is a thought which naturally occurs to us; in our hearts a yearning awakes which the book of Proverbs is not capable of meeting. Warnings so terrible, early instilled into the minds of our young men, may by Gods grace be effectual in saving them from the decline into those evil ways, and from going astray in the paths of sin. Such warnings ought to be given, although they are painful and difficult to give. But when we have gone wrong through lack of instruction, when a guilty silence has prevented our teachers from cautioning us, while the corrupt habits of society have drawn us insensibly into sin, and a thousand glozing excuses have veiled from our eyes the danger until it is too late, is there nothing left for us but to sink deeper and deeper into the slough, and to issue from it only to emerge in the chambers of death?
To this question Jesus gives the answer. He alone can give it. Even that personified Wisdom whose lofty and philosophical utterances we shall hear in the next chapter, is not enough. No advice, no counsel, no purity, no sanctity of example can avail. It is useless to upbraid a man with his sins when he is bound hand and foot with them and cannot escape. It is a mockery to point out, what is only too obvious, that without holiness no man can see God, at a moment when the miserable victim of sin can see nothing clearly except the fact that he is without holiness. “The pure in heart shall see God” is an announcement of exquisite beauty, it has a music which is like the music of the spheres, a music at which the doors of heaven seem to swing open; but it is merely a sentence of doom to those who are not pure in heart. Jesus meets the corrupt and ruined nature with the assurance that He has come “to seek and to save that which was lost.” And lest a mere assertion should prove ineffectual to the materialized and fallen spirit. Jesus came and presented in the realism of the Cross a picture of Redemption which could strike hearts that are too gross to feel and too deaf to hear. It might be possible to work out ideally the redemption of man in the unseen and spiritual world. But actually, for men whose very sin makes them unspiritual, there seems to be no way of salvation which does not approach them in a tangible form. The horrible corruption and ruin of our physical nature, which are the work of sin, could be met only by the Incarnation, which should work out a redemption through the flesh.
Accordingly, here is a wonder which none can explain, but which none can gainsay. When the victim of fleshly sin, suffering from the arrow which has pierced his liver, handed over as it seems to despair, is led to gaze upon the Crucified Christ, and to understand the meaning of His bearing our sins, in His own body on the tree, he is touched, he is led to repentance, he is created anew, his flesh comes again to him as a little child, he can offer up to God the sacrifice of a contrite heart, and he is cleansed.
This is a fact which has been verified again and again by experience. And they who have marked the power of the Cross can never sufficiently admire the wisdom and the love of God, who works by ways so entirely unlike our ways, and has resources at His command which surpass our conception and baffle our explanation.
If there is a man literally broken down and diseased with sin, enfeebled in will and purpose, tormented by his evil appetite so that he seems like one possessed, the wisest counsels may be without any effect paint in the most vivid hues the horrible consequences of his sin, but he will remain unmoved: apply the coercion of a prison and all the punishments which are at the disposal of an earthly judge, and he will return to his vicious life with a gusto increased by his recuperated physical strength: present to him the most touching appeals of wife and children and friends, and while he sheds sentimental tears he will continue to run the downward way. But let him be arrested by the spectacle of Christ crucified for him, let the moving thought of that priceless love and untold suffering stir in his heart, let his eyes be lifted never so faintly to those eyes of Divine compassion, -and though he seemed to have entered the very precincts of the grave, though the heart within him seemed to have died and the conscience seemed to be seared with a hot iron, you will observe at once the signs of returning animation; a cry wilt go up from the lips, a sob will convulse the frame, a light of passionate hope will come into the eyes. Christ has touched him. Christ is merciful. Christ is powerful. Christ will save.
Ah, if I speak to one who is bound with the cords of his sin, helplessly fettered and manacled, dead as it were in trespasses, I know there is no other name to mention to you, no other hope to hold out to you. Though I knew all science, I could not effectually help you; though I could command all the springs of human feeling, I could not stir you from your apathy, or satisfy the first cries of your awaking conscience. But it is permitted to me to preach unto you-not abstract Wisdom,-but Jesus, who received that name because He should save His people from their sins.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
A hateful wound he bore by Cypris given,
Who in his liver fixed the fatal dart.”
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
and as fetters (serve) for the correction of fools
and knoweth not that his life is at stake.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
LOVE TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES INCULCATED
To encourage this acquaintance with the Divine counsels, we will proceed to state,
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary