Proverbs 5:1-23 - G. Campbell Morgan's Exposition on the Whole Bible

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Bible Comments

This is a parental exhortation against impurity. It is expressed in words of great delicacy and beauty, but it is none the less urgent and searching. It recognizes one of the most subtle and natural temptations likely to assail the life of the young, and sets it in the light of true wisdom, which begins in the fear of Jehovah and expresses itself in perpetual recognition of Him. The allurement of the strange woman is vividly described, but it is put into immediate contrast with the issue of yielding thereto. It is a change from honey to wormwood, from the smoothness of oil to the sharpness of a sword, from the path of life to the highway of death. The woman's abode is to be shunned, lest the remorse of those who disobey become the portion of the soul. The paralysis caused by impurity is suggested in the advice that the ideal joys of the marriage relation must be hopelessly marred by all sinful indulgence.

Here, as everywhere, wisdom consists in recognizing that human life is ever under the observation, and within the government, of Jehovah. That government insures the taking of the wicked by the cords which they weave out of their own sins. Impurity of conduct may seem to be of silken texture in its enticement. It becomes a hard and unyielding cable when it binds the life in slavery.

Related Commentaries of Proverbs 5:1

Proverbs 5:1-23

1 My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:

2 That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.

3 For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her moutha is smoother than oil:

4 But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.

5 Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.

6 Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.

7 Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.

8 Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:

9 Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:

10 Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth;b and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;

11 And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

12 And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;

13 And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!

14 I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

15 Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

16 Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.

17 Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.

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

19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfyc thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.

20 And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?

21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.

22 His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.d

23 He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.