Proverbs 7:1-27
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.
6 For at the window of my house I looked through my casement,
7 And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths,a 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,b in the black and dark night:
10 And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart.
11 (She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house:
12 Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.)
13 So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him,
14 I have peace offerings with me; this day have I payed my vows.
15 Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee.
16 I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt.
17 I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
18 Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves.
19 For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey:
20 He hath taken a bag of money with him, and will come home at the day appointed.
21 With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him.
22 He goeth after her straightway,c as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks;
23 Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life.
24 Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth.
25 Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths.
26 For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her.
27 Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.
The longest and most elaborate description of the adulteress, the fate of her victim, and the value of wisdom as a safeguard.
Proverbs 7:1. General advice to the young man to observe the commandments and the torah of the sage, that he may be preserved from the adulteress.
Proverbs 7:3 b. cf. 2 Corinthians 3:3, and for the opposite thought Jeremiah 17:1.
Proverbs 7:4. kinswoman: lit. one well known, familiar friend, only in Ruth 2:1; Ruth 3:2 besides.
Proverbs 7:6. A vivid and dramatic representation of the capture of a young and foolish man by an adulteress.
Proverbs 7:6. 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 Proverbs 7:10, of her eager rush to meet him.
Proverbs 7:10. 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 Genesis 38:15 (cf. Ca. Proverbs 5:7).
Proverbs 7:13. Description of the adulteress's greeting and allurements.
Proverbs 7:13 b. i.e. with brazen face (cf. mg.).
Proverbs 7:14. Read mg. The shelâ mim, peace- or thank-offerings (p. 98, Leviticus 3*, Leviticus 7:11 *), 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, Leviticus 7:16 f.*, Numbers 30) of course are frequently mentioned in the N. Semitic inscriptions.
Proverbs 7:15. carpets of tapestry: render coverlets (Proverbs 31:22). striped cloths: perhaps correct. Some kind of covering is intended.
Proverbs 7:20. full moon: only here and Psalms 81:3. The husband's absence will extend from the beginning of the month (Proverbs 7:9 may indicate the absence of the moon) until the mid-month feast of full moon (p. 101).
Proverbs 7:22 c. The text is plainly corrupt (mg.). Toy's emendation, like a calf to the stall, yields a good sense.
Proverbs 7:24. 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.
Proverbs 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 Esther 7:32, where the same Gr. word is used as in the LXX of this verse).