Proverbs 9:16 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Whoso is simple Which title is not given to them by her; for such a reproach would not have allured them, but driven them away; but by Solomon, who represents the matter of her invitation in his own words, that he might discover the truth of it, and thereby dissuade and deter those whom she invited. Stolen waters are sweet A proverbial expression for unlawful pleasures, which are said to be sweet, partly from the difficulty of obtaining them, and partly because the very prohibition renders them more agreeable to man's corrupt nature. But he knoweth not He doth not consider it seriously, (whereby he proves his folly,) that the dead are there The dead in sin, the spiritually dead, and those who are in the high road to be eternally dead. In other words, she invites him to his utter ruin, both of soul and body: for her guests are in the depths of hell She sinks all those who accept of her invitation down to the very bottom of that pit from whence there is no redemption. “One of the profitable lessons to be learned from this chapter is, that there is nothing more inconsistent with wisdom than the service of those impure lusts which have been the ruin of all those who have been led by them; and therefore with this the wise man concludes his preface to the book of Proverbs, again repeating, Proverbs 9:10, that first principle on which all religion is built, and wherewith he began this preface, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Indeed there is no true wisdom but religion.”