Chapter Five

1–6. General and preliminary warning against the temptations of unchastity. 7–14. Explicit and detailed warning against the seductions of unchastity, with depiction of its ruinous consequences. 15–20. Similarly detailed exhortation to the opposite virtue — conjugal fidelity and chastity in general. 21–23. In conclusion, attention is directed to God’s omniscience and supreme justice and recompense, from which no criminal act can hide unpunished.

Proverbs 5:1. My son! Listen to my wisdom, and incline your ear to my understanding, Proverbs 5:2. So that you may preserve prudence, and your lips may guard knowledge. [Do not listen to the flattering woman;] Proverbs 5:3. For honey flows from the lips of a strange woman, and her speech is smoother than oil; Proverbs 5:4. But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword; Proverbs 5:5. Her feet go down to death, her steps lead to the grave. Proverbs 5:6. If you were to trace the path of her life, her ways are unstable, and you will not know them. Turning now to a new group of exhortations, chiefly to persuade against licentiousness and the influence of licentious women, the Wise One here (v. 1–2), as well as below (Prov 6:20), where he repeatedly returns to this same subject, with particular intensity of fatherly love and goodwill, demands from his listeners special attention to his teachings and particular care in keeping the precious and sacred commandments, which ought to be the foundation of their prosperity. The words in brackets “Do not listen to the flattering woman” (v. 2, in the Slavonic text — the beginning of v. 3) are found only in the LXX and the Vulgate (in some LXX codices they are absent), and seem to be a later gloss placed at the beginning of the chapter as a kind of indication of the theme of Chapter V. In vv. 3–6 the Wise One merely makes an indirect warning to his listeners against the harmful influence of the “strange woman,” that is, the harlot (Prov 2:16), depicting, on the one hand, her external attractiveness and seductive power, and on the other hand, her final shameful ruin. The external attractiveness of this woman and the charm of her speech is expressed by comparing her words (as also the bride in the Song of Songs Song 4:11) with drops of the finest honeycomb (3a) and with oil (3b, cf. Ps 54:22); but the consequences of being drawn to her caresses are extremely harmful: he who is drawn to them will experience the same bitter and painful feeling as one who has tasted bitter wormwood (Hebrew laa’ana; Vulg.: absinthtum — so called in botany Artemisia absintium — a common image in the Old Testament of bitterness (Deut 29:18; Jer 9:15; Amos 5:17; Jer 9:14); in the LXX and Slavonic, not accurately: χολὴ, gall) or one who has received a deep and wide wound from a two-edged sword (v. 4). All the more natural and understandable, then, is the inevitable final ruin of the licentious woman herself: her lot is death (v. 5), first spiritual, since the spiritual principle in her is finally suppressed by the carnal, and then early and shameful bodily death with subsequent torments in Sheol — hades. However, given the deceitfulness inherent in such a woman, it is difficult for the seduced youth to discover the true nature and proper value of her actions (v. 6), for she always knows how to give her deeds a specious appearance.

Proverbs 5:7. Now then, children, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Proverbs 5:8. Keep far from her the way of your path, and do not come near the door of her house, Proverbs 5:9. So that you do not give your health to others and your years to your tormentor; Proverbs 5:10. So that strangers may not be satisfied with your strength, and your labors may not belong to another’s house. Proverbs 5:11. And you will groan afterward, when your flesh and body are wasted away, Proverbs 5:12. And you will say: “Why did I hate instruction, and my heart despised correction, Proverbs 5:13. And I did not listen to the voice of my teachers, did not incline my ear to my instructors: Proverbs 5:14. I barely escaped falling into every evil in the midst of the assembly and community! Given the characteristics of youth — the capacity for infatuation and the easy excitability of sensual inclinations by every kind of sensual temptation — the Wise One advises his young listener to avoid as much as possible any close encounter with the licentious woman (v. 6), for every kind of adultery inevitably leads for the perpetrator — the Wise One speaks only of the man, the perpetrator of adultery, not the woman, since he generally directs his teachings chiefly and almost exclusively only to the male half of Israelite society — to two kinds of grave consequences: 1) material losses — partly because of the particular demands of the licentious wife herself, partly as a result of forced slave service in the house of the husband of the woman who seduced the young man: to satisfy the anger and thirst for vengeance of the offended husband (cf. Prov 6:34), the youth could serve as a slave in his house (vv. 9–10), so that the youth would have to work for another’s house (v. 10); 2) to an actual public trial (v. 14), the result of which could even be the death penalty for those responsible (v. 14, note Lev 20:10; Deut 20:11, Deut 22; Ezek 16:40). Then all that remains for the unfortunate youth is late and fruitless, and therefore particularly torturous repentance. For a person who has given himself to debauchery and licentiousness, “there comes a time when one can no longer continue the dissolute life, when a body worn out by licentiousness grows weak from time and from the diseases accompanying licentiousness, and the heat of carnal lust dies out” (Bishop Vissarion, p. 62). Then the season of the sinner’s self-condemnation begins (vv. 11–12).

Proverbs 5:15. Drink water from your own cistern and flowing from your own well. Proverbs 5:16. Let [not] your springs overflow into the street, your streams of water into the squares; Proverbs 5:17. Let them belong to you alone, and not to strangers with you. Proverbs 5:18. Let your spring be blessed; and rejoice with the wife of your youth, Proverbs 5:19. A lovely doe and a beautiful gazelle: let her breasts satisfy you at all times, delight yourself in her love always. Proverbs 5:20. And why should you, my son, be drawn to a stranger and embrace the breasts of another? In contrast to the distortions of family and sexual instinct, the Wise One persuades his student to be content with the blessings of the conjugal union with one lawful wife, comparing her to his own domestic cistern and spring sources. For every householder, especially in water-scarce eastern lands, it was a matter of particular pleasure to have for his household use his own well or cistern and not to have recourse to neighbors for water. With such pleasure the Wise One compares (vv. 15–16) the possession of one lawful wife without violation of conjugal purity, whether one’s own or another’s. By the connection of speech with what precedes (Prov 5:3 ff., Prov 5:8 giving.), this comparison has chiefly the same meaning as the Apostle’s statement: “it is better to marry than to burn” (1 Cor 7:9). But this same comparison (vv. 16–17) has another aspect: it denotes numerous offspring from lawful, chaste conjugal union, since in other biblical passages (Num 24:7; Isa 48:1) children are depicted under the image of waters flowing from a source — that is, from parents. The LXX apparently understood vv. 16 only in the first sense — the use of conjugal pleasure with one wife, and therefore added at the beginning of v. 16 the negation μὴ — μῆ ὑπερεκχείσθω. But many Greek codices (29, 109, 147, 157, 161, 248, 252, 253, 254, 260, 295, 297 according to Holmes, also Alex., Ald. Complutensian) do not have the negation, nor do the Vulgate and Slavonic. Therefore, it seems preferable to choose the Hebrew Massoretic reading, although the understanding of v. 16 given in the LXX is consistent with the general context of the passage under consideration (cf. Prov 7:12). In v. 18 the teaching of v. 15 is repeated, but with the addition of the advice to “rejoice with the wife of your youth”; the mode of expression directly recalls the place from the legislation (Deut 24:5) about newlyweds. The lawful wife is thereby expressed (v. 19) in a comparison with a doe or gazelle: a common image in Eastern poetry of the graciousness and beauty of a woman (cf. Song 2:9). Reminding the husband of the duty of conjugal fidelity, the Wise One expresses the wish that the tender relations between husband and wife established at the beginning of their life together should not weaken over time, that mutual attachment of spouses should last a lifetime, and for the spouse there should be no need to seek conjugal pleasure elsewhere (vv. 19–20).

Proverbs 5:21. For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He weighs all his paths. Proverbs 5:22. The wicked man is caught by his own iniquities, and he is held fast by the cords of his sin: Proverbs 5:23. He dies without instruction, and in the abundance of his folly goes astray. As the highest and final motive to avoid every kind of unchastity, attention is directed to God’s omniscience and the comprehensiveness of God’s providential rule (cf. Job 24:23), from which it would be futile to think of hiding if one gives himself to licentiousness: according to God’s judgment, licentiousness, like every transgression in general, entails as a consequence partly natural, partly intentionally sent by God, ruinous consequences (cf. Prov 1:31-32; Ps 7:16 and many others). * * * Notes It must be noted, however, that the opinion adopted by some Western scholarly commentators (Ewald, Umbreit, Bertheau) concerning the punishment of the perpetrator of violation of conjugal integrity by slavery to the offended party is not confirmed by any testimony of the Mosaic law or biblical history, and is merely a supposition, against which, for example, Delitzsch reasonably objects (p. 97).