For at the window of my house, I looked out through my lattice.
I saw among the simple ones. I discerned among the youths a young man void of understanding,
passing through the street near her corner, he went the way to her house,
in the twilight, in the evening of the day, in the middle of the night and in the darkness.
Behold, there a woman met him with the attire of a prostitute, and with crafty intent.
She is loud and defiant. Her feet don’t stay in her house.
Now she is in the streets, now in the squares, and lurking at every corner.
So she caught him, and kissed him. With an impudent face she said to him:
“Sacrifices of peace offerings are with me. Today I have paid my vows.
Therefore I came out to meet you, to diligently seek your face, and I have found you.
I have spread my couch with carpets of tapestry, with striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt.
I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
Come, let’s take our fill of loving until the morning. Let’s solace ourselves with loving.
For my husband isn’t at home. He has gone on a long journey.
He has taken a bag of money with him. He will come home at the full moon.”
With persuasive words, she led him astray. With the flattering of her lips, she seduced him.
He followed her immediately, as an ox goes to the slaughter, as a fool stepping into a noose.
Until an arrow strikes through his liver, as a bird hurries to the snare, and doesn’t know that it will cost his life.
Now therefore, sons, listen to me. Pay attention to the words of my mouth.
Don’t let your heart turn to her ways. Don’t go astray in her paths,
for she has thrown down many wounded. Yes, all her slain are a mighty army.
Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the rooms of death.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv6, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 20, 22, 23, 26 Solomon useth this parable to declare their folly, that…
Solomon useth this parable to declare their folly, that suffer themselves to be abused by harlots.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv6–27 Pro 7:6 For at the window of my house…
Pro 7:6 For at the window of my house I looked through my casement,
Ver. 6. I looked through my casement.] Little did this young fool think whose eye was upon him, less did he heed the all-seeing eye of Heaven. Solomon was observing his subjects’ carriages, and found a miscarriage. Magistrates, as they have many eyes upon them (whence also they have their name in the Hebrew tongue), {a} so they are to have their eyes upon many, watching when other men sleep, and observing what other men slight. The poets feign that Jupiter overlooks the world, and that Somnus or sleep, dared never come near him. "A king that sitteth in the throne of judgment scattereth away all evil with his eyes." {Pro 20:8}
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{a} Nagid a Neged, quod in eam omnes conieciant oculos.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27 This is either an historical relation, or rather a…
This is either an historical relation, or rather a parabolical representation of that which frequently happened.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv6, 24 Solomon here, to enforce the caution he had given…
Solomon here, to enforce the caution he had given against the sin of whoredom, tells a story of a young man that was ruined to all intents and purposes by the enticements of an adulterous woman. Such a story as this would serve the lewd profane poets of our age to make a play of, and the harlot with them would be a heroine; nothing would be so entertaining to the audience, nor give them so much diversion, as her arts of beguiling the young gentleman and drawing in the country squire; her conquests would be celebrated as the triumphs of wit and love, and the comedy would conclude very pleasantly; and every young man that saw it acted would covet to be so picked up. Thus fools make a mock at sin. But Solomon here relates it, and all wise and good men read it, as a very melancholy story. The impudence of the adulterous woman is very justly looked upon, by all that have any sparks of virtue in them, with the highest indignation, and the easiness of the young man with the tenderest compassion; and the story concludes with sad reflections, enough to make all that read and hear it afraid of the snares of fleshly lusts and careful to keep at the utmost distance from them. It is supposed to be a parable, or imagined case, but I doubt it was too true, and, which is worse, that notwithstanding the warning it gives of the fatal consequences of such wicked courses it is still too often true, and the agents for hell are still playing the same game and with similar success.
Solomon was a magistrate, and, as such, inspected the manners of his subjects, looked often through his casement, that he might see with his own eyes, and made remarks upon those who little thought his eye was upon them, that he might know the better how to make the sword he bore a terror to evil-doers. But here he writes as a minister, a prophet, who is by office a watchman, to give warning of the approach of the enemies, and especially where they lie in ambush, that we may not be ignorant of Satan's devices, but may know where to double our guard. This Solomon does here, where we may observe the account he gives,
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I. Of the person tempted, and how he laid himself open to the temptation, and therefore must thank himself if it end in his destruction. 1. He was a young man, Pro 7:7. Fleshly lusts are called youthful lusts (Ti2 2:22), not to extenuate them as tricks of youth, and therefore excusable, but rather to aggravate them, as robbing God of the first and best of our time, and, by debauching the mind when it is tender, laying a foundation for a bad life ever after, and to intimate that young people ought in a special manner to fortify their resolutions against this sin. 2. He was a young man void of understanding, that went abroad into the world, not principled as he ought to have been with wisdom and the fear of God, and so ventured to sea without ballast, without pilot, cord, or compass; he knew not how to depart from evil, which is the best understanding, Job 28:28. Those become an easy prey to Satan who, when they have arrived to the stature of men, have scarcely the understanding of children. 3. He kept bad company. He was a young man among the youths, a silly young man among the simple ones. If, being conscious of his own weakness, he had associated with those that were older and wiser than himself, there would have been hopes of him. Christ, at twelve years old, conversed with the doctors, to set young people an example of this. But, if those that are simple choose such for their companions as are like themselves, simple they will still be, and hardened in their simplicity. 4. He was sauntering, and had nothing to do, but passed through the street as one that knew not how to dispose of himself. One of the sins of filthy Sodom was abundance of idleness, Eze 16:49. He went in a starched stately manner, so (it is said) the word signifies. He appeared to be a nice formal fop, the top of whose accomplishments was to dress well and walk with a good air; fit game for that bird of prey to fly at. 5. He was a night-walker, that hated and scorned the business that is to be done by day-light, from which the evening calls men in to their repose; and, having fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, he begins to move in the twilight in the evening, Pro 7:9. And he chooses the black and dark night as fittest for his purpose, not the moonlight nights, when he might be discovered. 6. He steered his course towards the house of one that he thought would entertain him, and that he might be merry with; he went near her corner, the way to her house (Pro 7:8), contrary to Solomon's advice (Pro 5:8), Come not night the door of her house. Perhaps he did not know it was the way to an infamous house, but, however, it was a way that he had no business in; and when we have nothing to do the devil will quickly find us something to do. We must take heed, not only of idle days, but of idle evenings, lest they prove inlets to temptation.
II. Of the person tempting, not a common prostitute, for she was a married wife (Pro 7:19), and, for aught that appears, lived in reputation among her neighbours, not suspected of any such wickedness, and yet, in the twilight of the evening, when her husband was abroad, abominably impudent. She is here described, 1. By her dress. She had the attire of a harlot (Pro 7:10), gaudy and flaunting, to set her off as a beauty; perhaps she was painted as Jezebel, and went with her neck and breasts bare, loose, and en deshabille. The purity of the heart will show itself in the modesty of the dress, which becomes women professing godliness. 2. By her craft and management. She is subtle of heart, mistress of all the arts of wheedling, and knowing how by all her caresses to serve her own base purposes. 3. By her temper and carriage. She is loud and stubborn, talkative and self-willed, noisy and troublesome, wilful and headstrong, all tongue, and will have her saying, right or wrong, impatient of check and control, and cannot bear to be counselled, much less reproved, by husband or parents, ministers or friends. She is a daughter of Belial, that will endure no yoke. 4. By her place, not her own house; she hates the confinement and employment of that; her feet abide not there any longer than needs must. She is all for gadding abroad, changing place and company. Now is she without in the country, under pretence of taking the air, now in the streets of the city, under pretence of seeing how the market goes. She is here, and there, and every where but where she should be. She lies in wait at every corner, to pick up such as she can make a prey of. Virtue is a penance to those to whom home is a prison.
III. Of the temptation itself and the management of it. She met the young spark. Perhaps she knew him; however she knew by his fashions that he was such a one as she wished for; so she caught him about the neck and kissed him, contrary to all the rules of modesty (Pro 7:13), and waited not for his compliments or courtship, but with an impudent face invited him not only to her house, but to her bed.
1. She courted him to sup with her (Pro 7:14, Pro 7:15): I have peace-offerings with me. Hereby she gives him to understand, (1.) Her prosperity, that she was compassed about with so many blessings that she had occasion to offer peace-offerings, in token of joy and thankfulness; she was before-hand in the world, so that he needed not fear having his pocket picked. (2.) Her profession of piety. She had been today at the temple, and was as well respected there as any that worshipped in the courts of the Lord. She had paid her vows, and, as she thought, made all even with God Almighty, and therefore might venture upon a new score of sins. Note, The external performances of religion, if they do not harden men against sin, harden them in it, and embolden carnal hearts to venture upon it, in hopes that when they come to count and discount with God he will be found as much in debt to them for their peace-offerings and their vows as they to him for their sins. But it is sad that a show of piety should become the shelter of iniquity (which really doubles the shame of it, and makes it more exceedingly sinful) and that men should baffle their consciences with those very things that should startle them. The Pharisees made long prayers, that they might the more plausibly carry on their covetous and mischievous provisions. The greatest part of the flesh of the peace-offerings was by the law returned back to the offerers, to feast upon with their friends, which (if they were peace-offerings of thanksgiving) was to be all eaten the same day and none of it left until the morning, Lev 7:15. This law of charity and generosity is abused to be a colour for gluttony and excess: "Come," says she, "come home with me, for I have good cheer enough, and only want good company to help me off with it." It was a pity that the peace-offerings should thus become, in a bad sense, sin-offerings, and that what was designed for the honour of God should become the food and fuel of a base lust. But this is not all. (4.) To strengthen the temptation, [1.] She pretends to have a very great affection for him above any man: "Therefore, because I have a good supper upon the table, I came forth to meet thee, for no friend in the world shall be so welcome to it as thou shalt, Pro 7:15. Thou art he whom I came on purpose to seek, to seek diligently, came myself, and would not send a servant." Surely he cannot deny her his company when she put such a value upon it, and would take all this pains to obtain the favour of it. Sinners take pains to do mischief, and are as the roaring lion himself; they go about seeking to devour, and yet pretend they are seeking to oblige. [2.] She would have it thought that Providence itself countenanced her choice of him for her companion; for how quickly had she found him whom she sought!
2. She courted him to lie with her. They will sit down to eat and drink, and then rise up to play, to play the wanton, and there is a bed ready for them, where he shall find that which will be in all respects agreeable to him. To please his eye, it is decked with coverings of tapestry and carved works, exquisitely fine; he never saw the like. To please his touch, the sheets are not of home-spun cloth; they are far-fetched and dear bought; they are of fine linen of Egypt, Pro 7:16. To gratify his smell, it is perfumed with the sweetest scents, Pro 7:17. Come, therefore, and let us take our fill of love, Pro 7:18. Of love, does she say? Of lust she means, brutish lust; but it is a pity that the name of love should be thus abused. True love is from heaven; this is from hell. How can those pretend to solace themselves and love one another who are really ruining themselves and one another?
3. She anticipated the objection which he might make of the danger of it. Is she not another man's wife, and what if her husband should catch them in adultery, in the very act? he will make them pay dearly for their sport, and where will the solace of their love be then? "Never fear," says she, "the good man is not at home" (Pro 7:19); she does not call him her husband, for she forsakes the guide of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God; but "the good man of the house, whom I am weary of." Thus Potiphar's wife, when she spoke of her husband, would not call him so, but he, Gen 39:14. It is therefore with good reason taken notice of, to Sarah's praise, that she spoke respectfully of her husband, calling him lord. She pleases herself with this that he is not at home, and therefore she is melancholy if she have not some company, and therefore whatever company she has she may be free with them, for she is from under his eye, and he shall never know. But will he not return quickly? No: "he has gone a long journey, and cannot return on a sudden; he appointed the day of his return, and he never comes home sooner than he says he will. He has taken a bag of money with him, either," (1.) "To trade with, to buy goods with and he will not return till he has laid it all out. It is a pity that an honest industrious man should be thus abused, and advantage taken of his absence, when it is upon business, for the good of his family." Or, (2.) "To spend and revel with." Whether justly or not, she insinuates that he was a bad husband; so she would represent him, because she was resolved to be a bad wife, and must have that for an excuse; it is often groundlessly suggested, but is never a sufficient excuse. "He follows his pleasures, and wastes his estate abroad" (says she), "and why should not I do the same at home?"
IV. Of the success of the temptation. Promising the young man every thing that was pleasant, and impunity in the enjoyment, she gained her point, Pro 7:21. It should seem, the youth, though very simple, had no ill design, else a word, a beck, a wink, would have served, and there would have been no need of all this harangue; but though he did not intend any such thing, nay, had something in his conscience that opposed it, yet with her much fair speech she caused him to yield. His corruptions at length triumphed over his convictions, and his resolutions were not strong enough to hold out against such artful attacks as these, but with the flattery of her lips she forced him; he could not stop his ear against such a charmer, but surrendered himself her captive. Wisdom's maidens, who plead her cause, and have reason on their side, and true and divine pleasures to invite men to, have a deaf ear turned to them, and with all their rhetoric cannot compel men to come in, but such is the dominion of sin in the hearts of men that its allurements soon prevail by falsehood and flattery. With what pity does Solomon here look upon this foolish young man, when he sees him follow the adulterous woman! (1.) He gives him up for gone; alas! he is undone. he goes to the slaughter (for houses of uncleanness are slaughter-houses to precious souls); a dart will presently strike through his liver; going without his breast-plate, he will receive his death's wound, Pro 7:23. It is his life, his precious life, that is thus irrecoverably thrown away, he is perfectly lost to all good; his conscience is debauched; a door is opened to all other vices, and this will certainly end in his endless damnation. (2.) That which makes his case the more piteous is that he is not himself aware of his misery and danger; he goes blindfold, nay, he goes laughing to his ruin. The ox thinks he is led to the pasture when he is led to the slaughter; the fool (that is, the drunkard, for, of all sinners, drunkards are the greatest fools) is led to the correction of the stocks, and is not sensible of the shame of it, but goes to it as if he were going to a play. The bird that hastes to the snare looks only at the bait, and promises herself a good bit from that, and considers not that it is for her life. Thus this unthinking unwary young man dreams of nothing but the pleasures he shall have in the embraces of the harlot, while really he is running headlong upon his ruin. Though Solomon does not here tell us that he put the law in execution against this base harlot, yet we have no reason to think but that he did, he was himself so affected with the mischief she did and had such an indignation at it.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv6–26 For at the window of my house,.... This is…
For at the window of my house,.... This is either an historical account of a matter of fact known to Solomon, or a parable made by him, setting forth the cunning artifices of an harlot, the folly and weakness of a young man ensnared, and the ruin he is brought into by her. As Solomon was a public magistrate, he is here represented as a private observer of the behaviour of his subjects, as sitting in his palace at a window, at the small windows of it, as the Targum, where he could see and not be seen himself; near to which was an harlot's house; for they generally get about the courts of princes, where they make their prey;
I looked through my casement; or "lattice" (c); the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions: understand this of the harlot looking out of the window of her house and through the casement, when she spied a young man, as follows; but this agrees not with the Hebrew text, which carries it to Solomon; though a greater than he may be designed, the omniscient God, who looks through the windows and lattice of heaven, and beholds all the actions of the children of men; those that are most private, and done in the dark; and Christ the Son of God, whose "eyes are like unto aflame of fire", to look through all the darkness of Popery, represented by the Thyatirian church state; into all the intrigues of the Romish harlot, and behold all the follies of those that commit fornication with her, Rev 2:18.
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(c) "per cancellum meum", Montanus; "per cancellos", Tigurine version, Michaelis.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv8, 12, 14, 20, 22, 23 Passing - Idle and careless, near the corner of…
Passing - Idle and careless, near the corner of the street in which her house stood.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 27 Verse 6. I looked through my casement] The casement…
Verse 6. I looked through my casement] The casement is a small aperture in a large window, or a window opening on hinges. Here it means the lattice, for they had no glass windows in the East. And the latticed windows produced a double advantage:
1. Making the apartments sufficiently private; and
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2. Admitting fresh air to keep them cool.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv6, 11, 14, 15, 21, 24 Pro 7:6-10. For I looked through my casement —…
Pro 7:6-10. For I looked through my casement — Hebrew, בעד אשׁנבי, per fenestellam meam, my little window, or lattice, rather. For “in Palestine they had no glass to their windows: they closed them with lattices or curtains.” This may either be considered as an historical relation, or a parabolical representation of that which frequently happened. I beheld among the simple ones — Among the fools; a young man void of understanding — חסר לב, destitute of a heart, a body without a mind, one as ignorant and foolish as they; one whose youth, and heat, and strength, made him more subject to those passions which are termed by the apostle youthful lusts, and who wanted both judgment and experience, as well as grace, to keep him from such courses. Passing through the street — Sauntering and idle, perhaps in quest of amusement; near her corner — The corner of the street where the adulteress lived. And he went the way to her house — Walked carelessly on till he came near her house. “It is not said that he intended to visit her, or even that he knew she lived there; but he was loitering about in a place where he had no business, and at an unseasonable hour.” — Scott. In the evening — When, the day-labour being ended, he was at leisure for any thing; and when such strumpets used, and, alas! still use, to walk abroad for prey; in the black and dark night — Hebrew, באישׁון לילה ואפלה, when night and darkness were yet in embryo, or just beginning, as Dr. Waterland interprets the words. And behold, there met him a woman — Thus through idleness he was led into temptation. This woman was not a prostitute, for she was a married woman, (Pro 7:19,) and, for aught that appears, lived in reputation among her neighbours, not suspected of any such wickedness. She was now, however, dressed in the attire of a harlot — And her carriage and conduct were agreeable to her quality and design; and she was subtle of heart — As she showed in her following discourse, wherein she proposes all things which might invite him to comply with her desire, and conceals whatsoever might discourage him.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv6, 7, 11, 14, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22, 23, 26 Casement - The latticed opening of an Eastern house,…
Casement - The latticed opening of an Eastern house, overlooking the street (compare Jdg 5:28).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Charles Bridges 1846 · Public Domain On vv6, 24 Solomon paints the deadly snare of the strange woman…
Solomon paints the deadly snare of the strange woman with a master’s hand, and with exquisite fidelity of colouring. A young man without understanding (Pro 1:4, Pro 1:22 ; Pro 13:16 ) in company with youths as simple as himself, takes in the dark of evening the way to the harlot’s house. She meets him. Her attire (Gen 38:14-15 ): her subtlety (Pro 23:27 . Ecc 7:26 . Jdg 16:4-20 ); her loud and stubborn voice (Pro 9:13 ); her feet at this late hour not abiding in her house (Compare 1Ti 5:13 ; Tit 2:5 ); lying in wait at every corner of the street;†1 her impudent face and conduct — all show the harlot’s forehead. (See Gen 39:7, Gen 39:12 . Jer 3:3 .) She allures her victim with the garb of sanctity. She had just been engaged in special religious duties. Now she was come forth to seek diligently her lover, that they might feast together upon her peace-offerings,†2 and solace themselves with love, with every indulgence. ’The goodman (perhaps the name of husband might have awakened conscience) is gone a long journey till the time appointed. Meanwhile, therefore, we may take our fill of love without fear of interruption.’ Unarmed with principle, the weakness of resolution yields to the seduction of lust; and her unsuspecting prey rushes on to ruin.
Trace this sad end to its beginning. Was not idleness the parent of this mischief? (2Sa 11:2 .) The loitering evening walk; the unseasonable hour (Job 24:15 . Rom 13:12-13 ); the vacant mind — all bringing youth into contact with evil company (Pro 13:20 . 1Co 15:33 ) — was not this courting sin, tempting the tempter? "The house was empty," and therefore ready for his reception, and soon altogether in his possession. (Mat 12:44-45 .) How valuable are self-discipline, self-control, constant employment, active energy of pursuit, as preservatives under the Divine blessing from fearful danger!
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See also the base varnish of religion. It is often a cover for sin! (1Sa 2:22 . 2Sa 15:8-11 . Joh 18:28 .) ’She durst not play the harlot with man till she had played the hypocrite with God, and stopped the mouth of her conscience with her peace-offerings.’†3 Nay — she seems to have emboldened herself in her wickedness, as if her meeting was a happy providence, the reward of her religious services. (Pro 7:14-15 . 1Sa 23:7 . Zec 11:5 .) Beware of any voice, though from the most revered quarter, that manifestly encourages forbidden indulgence.
Observe also the infatuation of the snare. ’Man cannot be ruined till he has been made confident to the contrary. A man must get into his victim’s heart with fair speeches and promises, before he can come at it with a dagger.’†4 Thus the harlot’s flattering speech chained the youth blindfolded for destruction. As the ox goeth to the slaughter, unconscious of his fate, perhaps dreaming of rich pasture: or as a fool goeth to the stocks (Ecc 7:26 . Jdg 16:16-19 ), careless and unfeeling; so does this poor deluded victim rush on with pitiable mirth or indifference, till the dart strikes through his liver. (Hos 4:11, Hos 4:14 .) He hasteth as a bird to the snare (Ecc 9:12 ), thinking only of the bait; and he knoweth not that it is for his life. (Pro 9:18 .) What will recollection bring, but the fragrance of exciting perfume (Pro 7:16-17 ), changed into the bitterness of wormwood and gall; the short night of pleasure succeeded by the eternal night of infernal torment!†5 for a cup of pleasure drinking an ocean of wrath! (Pro 7:27 ; Pro 9:18 .)
Lastly — mark the danger of venturing into temptation. Could we expect any other results, when we saw the youth going the way to the harlot’s house? (Pro 4:15 ; Pro 5:8 . Jdg 16:1 .) He intended merely his own idle gratification; and when he yielded, it was probably not without some struggle. But it is a just judgment, that those who fear not temptation should fall. ’Who would avoid danger must avoid temptation to sin. Who would avoid sin must avoid temptation to sin.’†6 The force, to which the youth’s own folly subjected him, he could not plead as an excuse. When the first bounds of modesty are broken through, the door of the fancy is opened to the tempter for the kindling of lust. Thus to rush into the very jaws of ruin is to "enter into temptation" by our own will; instead of being led or falling into it, under the providential discipline and dispensation of God. (Mat 26:41, with Mat 4:1 . Jas 1:2 .) Self-confidence has ruined many a promising profession. Tenderness of conscience, sensibility of weakness, dependence on Divine strength and promise — in this frame "he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not." (1Jn 5:18 .)
Footnotes:
†1 Pro 9:14-15; Pro 23:28 . Dr. Richardson mentions seeing "these wretched women in a large commercial town in Egypt, in the harlot’s attire, sitting at the doors of their houses, and calling on the passengers as they went by, in the same manner as we read in the Book of Proverbs." — Travels, vol. i. p. 270.
†2 See Holden. Compare Lev 7:16 ; Lev 19:6 ; Deu 12:6 . Scott takes the same view — adding — ’that it is no wonder, that these sacred ordinances should have given occasion to carnal indulgence, when our Christian festivals (Christmas especially) are abused for similar profanations.’
†3 Gurnal. It is a well known fact, that the favourite mistress of Louis XIV was so rigid in her religious duties, that her bread was weighed during Lent, lest she should transgress the austerity of fasting.
†4 South’s Sermons, iii. 130.
†5 ’Delectat in momentum; cruciat in aeternum.’ — Jerome.
†6 Geier on Pro 7:9 .
Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1846) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv6, 7, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 26, 27 Lattice. No glass was used, on account of the…
Lattice. No glass was used, on account of the great heat. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26 For--or, "Since," introducing an example to illustrate the warning,…
For--or, "Since," introducing an example to illustrate the warning, which, whether a narrative or a parable, is equally pertinent.
window--or, "opening"
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looked--literally, "watched earnestly" (Jdg 5:28).
casement--or, "lattice."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24, 26, 27 6. Casement — Lattice or window-slats, like our Venetian…
6. Casement — Lattice or window-slats, like our Venetian blinds, made to keep out the sun and rain, but to admit the air. The Israelites had no glass.
Looked through — The original implies to bend forward or lean over, as people often do in looking from a window. It describes close and interested watching and listening. Comp. Jdg_5:28; Psa_14:2.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27 6. casement] Or, lattice, R.V., as the same Heb.…
6. casement] Or, lattice, R.V., as the same Heb. word is translated in A.V. in Jdg_5:28, the only other place in which it occurs.
Pro_7:7-9. A few graphic strokes draw the picture of the victim. He is not yet positively vicious; but his feeble moral character (Pro_7:7), his thoughtless running into danger (Pro_7:8), and the perilous hour he chooses (Pro_7:9), conspire to render him an easy prey.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 19, 22, 23 (7) Among the simple ones.—He was not yet vicious,…
(7) Among the simple ones.—He was not yet vicious, only empty-headed.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv6–27 Vers. 6-23. To show the greatness of the danger…
Vers. 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.
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. Jud_1:5:28) A person within could see all that passed in the street without being himself visible from without. (Son_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.
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Vers. 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 home sanctities 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 it all 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.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 16, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27 A young man void of understanding.
Pro_7:7
A young man void of understanding.
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A youth void of understanding
Solomon was pre-eminently a student of character. His forte lay in the direction of moral philosophy, in the sense of the philosophy of morals.
I. The special peril of great cities. Human nature remains the same in every age. The descriptions of the temptations that assailed the youth of Jerusalem and Tyre answers precisely to what we see in our own day. Therefore the counsels and warnings of the ancient sage are as valuable and fitting as ever. The vastness and multitudinousness of our modern cities provide a secrecy which is congenial to vice. In all great towns solicitations to vice abound as they do not elsewhere. Every passion has a tempter lying in wait for it. Whatever be your temperament or constitution, a snare will be skilfully laid to entrap you. Vice clothes itself here in its most pleasing attire, and not seldom appears even under the garb of virtue.
II. The evil of late hours. The devil, like the beast of prey, stalks forth when the sun goes down. Night is the time for unlawful amusements and mad convivialities and lascivious revelry. Now Jezebel spreads her net, and Delilah shears the locks of Samson. Young men, take it kindly when I bid you beware of late hours. Your health forbids it; your principles forbid it; your moral sense forbids it; your safety forbids it. Purity loves the light. Late hours have proved many young mans ruin.
III. The danger of foolish company. Simple in the Book of Proverbs means silly, frivolous, idle, abandoned. You could almost predict with certainty the future of one who selected such society. The ruin of most young men is due to bad company. It is commonly the finest natures that are first pounced upon. The good-hearted, amiable fellow, with open countenance and warm heart and generous disposition, is at once seized by the vermin of the pit, and poisoned with every kind of pollution. Take care with whom you associate. There are men who will fawn upon you, and flatter you, and call you good company, and patronise you wonderfully, and take you anywhere you wish to go; and--allow you to pay all expenses. As a rule, a companion of loose character is the most mean and selfish of creatures. Void of understanding. Understanding is more than wisdom, more than knowledge; it is both and something besides. It is a mind well-balanced by the grace of God; it is the highest form of common-sense, sanctified by a genuine piety. No mans understanding can be called thoroughly sound until 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, your only safety amid the lusts that attack the flesh, and the scepticisms that assail the mind, is a living faith in God, a spiritual union with Christ. (J. Thain Davidson, D. D.)
A beacon to young men
Now reason is the glory of man. It is a light within the soul by which he is exalted above the brutes that perish. And yet God often charges men with displaying less judgment than the mere animal creatures (Isa_1:3).
I. The evidences of this state. How can we know with certainty the young who are void of understanding?
1. Those who throw off the restraints and counsels of their parents and friends. When counsel and supervision are most needed they are rejected, and who so fit to guide and counsel as the parent?
2. Those who become the companion of the foolish and wicked. No other influence will be so disastrous on our highest interests as that of evil companionship. It will insidiously undermine every good principle.
3. Those who disregard the opinions of the wise and good around them.
4. Those who neglect the institutions of religion. The atmosphere of religious ordinances is that of health and life to every virtue and grace of the soul. By neglecting Divine ordinances and services, the heart and mind run fallow.
5. Those who yield themselves up to sensual gratifications. The text refers to the ensnaring woman. For at the window of my house I looked through my casement, etc. How fearful the result! Money, reputation, health, mind, morals, life, and the soul, all sacrificed!
II. Its evil results.
1. The morally evil condition of the youths themselves. Here are powers perverted--talents prostituted--sin and misery increased.
2. The pernicious influence they exert on others. Every such youth has his young friends and relations, all of whom may be corrupted by his conduct.
3. The eternal misery to which they are hastening.
III. The only remedy.
1. Immediate and genuine repentance. Prompt consideration.
2. There must be the yielding of the heart to Christ. Christ alone can open the blind eyes, expel the foul spirit, renew the heart.
3. By the regulation of the life by the Word of God.
4. Union to, and fellowship with, Gods people. (J. Burns, D. D.)
The ignorance and folly of the man of pleasure
It is a mortifying truth that that age, which of all others stands most in need of advice, thinks itself the least in want of it. Youth is warm even in its desires, hasty in its conceptions, and confident in its hopes. Talk to it when its passions are high, or when pleasure is glittering around it, it will in all likelihood look upon you as come to torment it before its time, and will none of your reproof. The particular error of youth is its pursuit of licentious pleasures. This writer gives us an interesting picture of a young man, confident in his own wisdom, and relying on his own strength, met by a character whom the world has denominated Pleasure. He paints to us the charms which she displays for his seduction, describes the flattery of her tongue, the crafty wiliness of her allurements, and shows us his simple heart won by her deceptions, and following her guilty call.
I. The man of pleasure betrays an utter want of acquaintance with his own being. It is among the foremost arguments in support of this kind of life that it is only in conformity with that nature which God has given us. But your nature, as long as it is without the renovation of the Eternal Spirit, cannot possibly be made your guide. In reality full of diseases, the man imagines himself in perfect health. Bound in misery and iron, he dreams that he is happy and at liberty. In following his carnal desires a man is surely void of understanding.
II. The man of Pleasure shows his ignorance and folly in his want of acquaintance with his duties in this world. The sins of impurity are doubly sinful, inasmuch as they incapacitate the follower of them from those exertions to which he is bound in whatever state of life it hath pleased God to call him. The libertine imagines that his duties are easily reconcilable with his pursuits of pleasure; and in few cases does he show himself more void of understanding. It is their direct tendency to enervate the spirit; to absorb the native vigour of the mind; to extinguish generous ambition, that incitement to worthy deeds; and to drown all in dissipation, indolence, and trifling. The pagans made the temple of honour lie through the temple of virtue.
III. The libertine shows his want of understanding in his ignorance or defiance of Omnipotence. Of all the instances of want of wisdom, a disregard of the injunctions of Almighty God is surely the most absurd, as well as the most wicked. And it never can be confined to yourself, but involves often the misery, and always the guilt, of others. The man bent on pleasure seldom considers whom he offends, whom he injures, whose confidence he abuses, whose innocence he betrays, what friendship he violates, or what enmities he creates. Your first vice might arise from the seduction of bad companions, but a continuance of it becomes your own sin.
IV. The libertine acts in opposition to his own conviction. There is always an inward monitor whispering against him. Rouse, then. Break from the infatuating circle. No longer miscall the things of this world. (G. Matthew, M. A.)
The young man void of understanding
Understanding or reason is the glory of human nature. It is the candle of the Lord, to light us on our destiny. Where this is not, you have a traveller on a devious path without light, a vessel on a treacherous sea without rudder or compass. Who is the young man void of understanding?
1. One who pays more attention to his outward appearance than to his inner character. He sacrifices the jewel for the casket.
2. One who seeks happiness without rather than within. But the well of true joy must be found in the heart, or nowhere.
3. One who identifies greatness with circumstances rather than with character. But true greatness is in the soul, and nowhere else.
4. One who is guided more by the dictates of his own nature than by the counsels of experience. He acts from the suggestions of his own immature judgment. He is his own master, and will be taught by no one.
5. One who lives in show and ignores realities. He who lives in these pursuits and pleasures which are in vogue for the hour, and neglects the great realities of the soul and eternity, is void of understanding. (Homilist.)
A simple youth, void of understanding
The young man Solomon had in mind perhaps thought himself wise, but in the opinion of the sober and virtuous part of mankind, he was one of the most infatuated of men. When may a young man be spoken of as void of understanding?
1. When he suffers his mind to remain unacquainted with the great principles of religion.
2. When he follows the dictates of his own corrupt heart. How shall we account for all that wickedness which abounds in the world if there is no bad principle from which it breeds? Take corruption out of the heart, and this world would become a paradise. Simple souls, instead of checking the evil principle within them, rather give it the greatest indulgence.
3. When he throws himself in the way of temptation. Snares abound. There is hardly a step in our way in which we do not run some hazard of stumbling. Have we not often complied when we ought to have resisted? Sin is sometimes so artfully disguised that it loses its deformity, and we are insensibly drawn into the commission of it. Is it not, then, wise and prudent to keep at a distance and not to tamper with temptation? The old serpent is too cunning and subtle for us, and if we throw ourselves in his way we must fall.
4. When he has not resolution to withstand the allurements with which he may be surrounded. We can hardly hope to escape allurement altogether. All depends on our yielding to or resisting first enticements. And what avails the most enlightened understanding if we have not firmness to follow its dictates?
5. When he does not hearken to the admonitions of those who are older and more experienced than himself. Vanity and self-conceit are too natural to young minds, and numbers have been led away by them. Positive and headstrong, they refuse to be admonished, and scorn to be controlled. Hence they run headlong into vice, and involve themselves in misery.
6. When he flatters himself with seeing long life and many years. This is very natural to youth. But there is nothing more vain and uncertain. Can there be a greater defect of understanding than to flatter ones self with what we may never enjoy? (D. Johnston, D. D.)
A young man void of understanding
1. One who makes light of parental restraints and counsels. No young man is walking in safe paths who is engaged in pursuits or pleasures which a wise father or a tender mother would be mortified and grieved to see him mixed up with.
2. One who neglects the cultivation of his mind. If knowledge is power, ignorance is weakness. The mind must be carefully trained in order that the soul may fulfil her destiny upon earth, and be prepared for a more glorious existence hereafter. 3 One who is content to live an idle and aimless life. To spend the golden hours of existence in irresolution and idleness, with no definite purpose, betrays, as much as anything could do, the lack of good sense.
4. One who chooses his bosom companions from the ranks of the thoughtless and the profane. We are naturally social beings, and seek for pleasure in the company of others.
5. One who yields to the enticements of folly and wickedness. As soon as he reaches the point when he is indifferent to the opinion of the wise and the good, his case may well be set down as desperate. The young are always surrounded by temptations, and every evil thought which is allowed a resting-place in the mind vitiates and corrodes the fibres of the soul, and every sinful deed unnerves the arm and paralyses the essential power of manhood.
6. One who makes light of religion. Religion never encouraged anybody to be indolent and improvident; never led him into the haunts of vice; never wasted his substance in riotous living; never dragged a single victim to the prison or the gallows. All its offices in the world have been elevating and beneficent. Unbelief is not a misfortune, but it is the sin, the damning sin, of the world. Men first do wrong and then believe wrong in order to escape from its consequences. True religion will make you abhor sin, and draw you to Christ, the Redeemer; it will strengthen you for duty, and nerve you for endurance. It will give songs in the night, and through the grave and gate of death it will brighten your pathway to eternal glory. (John N. Norton.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v6 "I looked forth through my lattice; and I beheld."…
CHAPTER 8
REALISM IN MORAL TEACHING
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"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.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v6 Pro_7:7. Simple, “inexperienced.”
CRITICAL NOTES.
Pro_7:7. Simple, “inexperienced.”
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Pro_7:8. Went, “moved leisurely, sauntered.”
Pro_7:9. In the black and dark night, literally, “in the apple,” or “pupil” of the night.
Pro_7:10. Literally, “a woman, the attire of a harlot,” with no connecting word between, as though the woman were nothing but such a dress. Subtil, “guarded.” Wordsworth renders “her heart is like a walled fortress.”
Pro_7:11. Stubborn, rather “boisterous, ungovernable.”
Pro_7:14. The offerings here named are those of thanksgiving for blessings received. Of such offering, which, in accordance with the law (Lev_7:16), must be eaten by the second day, the guests partook, so that a rich feast is here offered to the young man under the garb of religious usage.
Pro_7:16. With carved works, rather, “variegated coverlets of Egyptian linen.”
Pro_7:20. The purse, etc., indicating long delay; the day appointed, rather, “the day of the full moon.”
Pro_7:22. Straightway. “The Hebrew implies that he had at first hesitated, until the 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” (Lange’s Commentary). The latter clause of the verse is literally, “and as fetters for the punishment of a fool.” It has been variously rendered. Many expositors read, “As the obstinate fool is suddenly caught and held fast by a trap lying in a forbidden path, so has the deceitful power of the adulteress caught the young man.”
Pro_7:23. “The liver stands here as representative of the vitals in general as in Lam_2:11, as in some instances the heart, or again, the reins” (Psa_16:7; Psa_73:21, etc.). According to Delitzsch, 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, this view may be received as probably correct” (Lange’s Commentary). Knoweth not that it is for his life, i.e. “that his life is at stake.”
NOTE ON THE SIGNIFICATION OF THE “STRANGE WOMAN” OF THIS CHAPTER, AND OF MANY KINDRED PASSAGES IN THE BOOK.—Although most modern commentators attach no other meaning to this woman than that which would occur to the general reader, there are some who, as will be seen from the comments, agree with most of the early expositors in attaching to the representation an ideal meaning also. Wordsworth, referring to the original meaning of the word mashal, or proverb (see preface), says, “By a consideration of the proper meaning of this word mashal, used in the title of this book, and by reflecting on the use made of it in the Gospels, we are led to recognise in the Proverbs or Parables of Solomon not only moral apothegms for practical use in daily life, but to ponder deeply upon them as having also a typical character and inner spiritual significance concerning heavenly doctrines of supernatural truth, and as preparing the way for the evangelical teaching of the Divine Solomon, Jesus Christ, in parables on the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven.” Following out this principle of interpretation, he continues, “As in Solomon’s delineation of Wisdom we recognised Christ, so in the portraiture of the “strange woman,” who is set in striking contrast to Wisdom in this book, we must learn to see something more than at first meets the eye. Doubtless we must hold fast the literal interpretation, and must strenuously contend for it;.… but in the gaudy and garish attire and alluring cozenage of the strange woman we may see a representation of the seductive arts with which the teachers of unsound doctrine, repugnant to the truth of Christ, endeavour to charm, captivate, and ensnare unwary souls, and to steal them away from Him. There is a harlotry of the intellect—there is an adultery of the soul, and this harlotry and adultery are not less dangerous and deadly than the grossest sins and foulest abominations. Indeed they are more perilous, because they present themselves in a more specious and attractive form.” Hengstenberg, commenting on Ecc_7:26, says, “There are strong grounds for thinking that the woman of the Proverbs is the personification of heathenish folly, putting on the airs of wisdom and penetrating into the territory of the Israelites.… The key to Pro_2:16-17, is Jer_3:4-20. In Proverbs 5. the evil woman must needs be regarded as an ideal person, because of the opposition in which she is set to the good woman, Wisdom. If Wisdom in chap. Pro_7:4-5, is an ideal person, her opponent must be also.… In chap. 9. again, the evil woman is put in contrast with Wisdom;.… the explanation is, in fact, plainly given in Pro_7:13. Last of all, in chap. Pro_22:14, we read, “The mouth of the foreigner is a deep pit,” etc. That the writer here treats of false doctrine is clear from the mention of the mouth. Nah_3:4, presents an analogous instance of such a personification.… To the woman here, corresponds in Rev_2:20 : “the woman Jezebel,” a symbolical person. Miller, as will be seen in the suggestive comments on chap. Pro_2:16, looks upon this woman as an emblem of impenitence.
The following comment is by Professor Plumptre: “The strange woman,” the “stranger,” may mean simply the adulteress, as the “strange gods” the “strangers” (Deu_32:16; Jer_3:13), are those to whom Israel, forsaking her true husband, offered an adulterous worship. But in both cases there is implied also some idea of a foreign origin, as of one who by birth is outside the covenant of Israel. In the second word used, this meaning is still stronger. It is the word used of the strange wives of Solomon (1Ki_11:1-8), and of those of the Jews who returned from Babylon (Ezra 10.), of Ruth, as a Moabitess (Rth_2:10), of heathen invaders (Isa_2:6). Whatever form the sin here referred to had assumed before the monarchy (and the Book of Judges testifies to its frequency), the intercourse with Phœnicians and other nations under Solomon had a strong tendency to increase it. The king’s example would naturally be followed, and it probably became a fashion to have foreign wives and concubines. At first it would seem this was accompanied by some show of proselytism. The women made a profession of conformity to the religion of their masters. But the old leaven breaks out. They sin and “forget the covenant of their God.” The worship of other gods, a worship in itself sensual and ending in the foulest sin, leads the way to a life of harlotry. Other causes may have led to the same result. The stringent laws of the Mosaic code may have deterred the women of Israel from that sin, and led to a higher standard of purity than prevailed among other nations. Lidonian and Tyrian women came, like the Asiatic hetaeræ at Athens, at once with greater importunity and with new arts and fascinations to which the home-born were strangers.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Pro_7:6-27
A PICTURE DRAWN FROM LIFE
The woman depicted here has been before us twice before. (See on chap. Pro_2:16-19 and Pro_6:24). We will therefore confine ourselves in this chapter to the picture of her dupe. He fully justifies his right to the title here given to him, viz., “a young man void of understanding.”
I. Because he did not wait for temptation to seek him, but went where he knew it would meet him. Those who carry gunpowder upon their persons ought never to go into a blacksmith’s forge, ought never even to approach the door lest some sparks fall upon them. How much more foolish is he who, knowing that there is a tendency to sin within him, seeks out the place where the spark will be fanned into a flame. This young man is found “near the corner” of the house of the temptress, “he went the way to her house.”
II. He goes to ruin with his eyes wide open. The woman’s character is plainly written upon her dress and upon her face. There is no pretence at disguise. She boasts of her infidelity to her husband. Yet he yields to her invitation; yet he believes her professions of attachment to himself. The most silly fish that swims will not bite if the steel hook gleams through the bait, but this simpleton takes the hook without any bait. The ox resists when he feels that he is being driven to death, but this fool goes deliberately to the house of death. He walks into the snare which he knows has been the death of myriads of his fellow creatures. The remedy for this folly is found in Pro_7:1-4.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Pro_7:6-27. From the earlier and copious warnings against adultery the one now before us is distinguished by the fact, that while chapter 5. contrasted the blessings of conjugal fidelity and chaste marital love with unregulated sexual indulgence, and chapter Pro_6:20-35 particularly urged a contending against the inner roots and germs of the sin of unchastity, our passage dwells with special fulness 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 … Aside from the fact that it is nocturnal rambling that delivers the thoughtless idle youth into the hands of temptation (Pro_7:9), and aside from the other significant feature that after the 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. Jas_1:15), we have to notice here chiefly the important part played by the luxurious and savoury feast of the adulteress, as a co-operating factor in the allurement of the self-indulgent youth (Pro_7:14 seq.). It is surely not a feature purely incidental, without deeper significance or design, that this meal is referred to as preceding the central or chief sin; for, that the tickling of the palate with stimulating meats and drinks prepares the way for lust is an old and universal observation (comp. Exo_32:6; 1Co_10:17, as also similar passages from the classical authors).—Lange’s Commentary.
Apart from the external blandishments which are portrayed in this passage, there belongs to them a power of internal deception the most fallacious and insinuating—and this not merely because of their strength, and of their fitness to engross the whole man when once they take possession of him, and so to shut out all reflection and seriousness—those counteractives to evil passions; but because of their alliance with, and the affinity which they bear to, the kindly and benevolent and good feelings of our nature. As the poet says—himself a wild and wayward, and most dangerously seductive writer—the transition is a most natural one, from “loving much to loving wrong.” Let all such affections be sedulously kept at bay, and the occasions of them shunned and fled from, rather than hazarded and tampered with. Let them never be wilfully encountered, or presumptuously braved and bid defiance to, lest the victory be theirs; and no sooner do they win the heart than they war against the soul.—Chalmers.
Pro_7:5. This woman not only represents the harlot and the adulteress literally, but is also a figure of whatever seduces the soul from God, whether in morals or religion, and whether in doctrine and practice, or in religious worship.—Wordsworth.
Strange, indeed, if she alienate us from the very God that made her, and stir the jealousy of the very Being that gives us our power to love her. (Hos_2:8).—Miller.
Pro_7:6. God is ever at His window, His casement is always open to see what thou dost.—Jermin.
Pro_7:8. Circumstances which give an occasion to sin are to be noticed and avoided. They who love danger fall into it. The youth (as Pro_7:21 shows) did not go with the intention of defiling himself with the “strange woman,” but to flatter his own vanity by seeing and talking with her, and hearing her flatteries. It is madness to play with Satan’s edged tools.—Faussett.
The beginning of the sad end. The loitering evening walk, the unseasonable hour (Job_24:15; Rom_13:12-13); the vacant mind. “The house was empty,” and therefore ready for the reception of the tempter (Mat_12:44-45), and soon altogether in his possession. How valuable are self-discipline, self-control, constant employment, active energy of pursuit, as preservatives under the Divine blessing from fearful danger.—Bridges.
Pro_7:7-9. The first character appears on the scene, young, “simple” in the bad sense of the word; open to all impressions of evil, empty-headed and empty-hearted; lounging near the place of ill-repute, not as yet deliberately purposing to sin, but placing himself in the way of it; wandering idly to see one of whose beauty he had heard, and this at a time when the pure in heart would seek their home. It is impossible not to see a certain symbolic meaning in this picture of the gathering gloom. Night is falling over the young man’s life as the shadows deepen.—Plumptre.
Pro_7:9. He thought to obscure himself, but Solomon saw him; how much more God, before whom night will convert itself into noon, and silence prove a speaking evidence. Foolish men think to hide themselves from God, by hiding God from themselves.—Trapp.
Pro_7:10. A careless sinner shall not need to go far to meet with temptation. The first woman met with it almost as soon as she was made, and who meets not everywhere with the woman Temptation?—Jermin.
Pro_7:14. Though I indulge in amours, do not think I am averse to the worship of God; nay, I offer liberally to Him: He is now therefore appeased, and will not mind venial offences.—Cartwright.
It is of course possible that the worship of Israel had so degenerated as to lose for the popular conscience all religious significance; but the hypothesis stated above (see note at the beginning of chapter), affords a simpler explanation. She who speaks is a foreigner who, under a show of conformity to the religion of Israel, still retains her old notions, and a feast-day is nothing to her but a time of self-indulgence, which she may invite another to share with her. If we assume, as probable, that these harlots of Jerusalem were mainly of Phœnician origin, the connection of their worship with their sin would be but the continuation of their original cultus.—Plumptre.
An awful portraiture of the mystery of iniquity. It is applicable also to corrupt churches, especially to the spiritual harlot described by St. John in the Apocalypse. She professes zeal for God’s house and service, while she is offending Him by heretical doctrine, and insulting Him by the fascinations of idolatrous worship, with which she beguiles unwary souls to commit spiritual fornication with her. (See Rev_17:1-5; Rev_18:9). As Bede says, following in the steps of Basil and others: All the description which is here given is true, in a literal sense, of the meretricious allurements of an adulteress; but it is to be interpreted also spiritually. False doctrine tricks herself out with the embellishments of worldly rhetoric and spurious philosophy, and is ever lurking at the corners of the streets, to allure and deceive the simple, and to caress them with her embraces; and she makes religious professions. She has her couch adorned with heathen embroidery, and yet sprinkled with the odours of spiritual virtues; but Christ says of her in the Apocalypse, “I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds” (Rev_2:22).—Wordsworth.
The immoral devotionist.
1. The absurd conduct of those who indulge in immorality, and think to compound with God for so doing, by paying Him outward forms of worship.
2. All external observances vain and useless unless they are accompanied with purity of heart, and real goodness of life. True religion is an end, and all external observances are only means leading to that end. (See Mic_6:5). Agreeably to this St. Paul assures us that the end of the Christian revelation is to-teach men to “live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world” (Tit_2:12). And Christ assures us that no ceremonious method of atonement without practical goodness will entitle us to the rewards of Christianity (Mat_7:21). All duties enjoined by God can be enjoined by Him only for the good they do us. “Can a man be profitable unto God, as he that is wise is profitable to himself?” (Job_22:2). And in which way can we possibly conceive how an immoral man can reap any benefit from the mere forms and ceremonies of religion. Is there any reason to think that God will accept this religious flattery instead of purity of life? No, rather it is an aggravation of his crimes. (See Isa_1:11.)—N. Ball.
Pro_7:15. O how diligent is wickedness, thinking that thing never done soon enough which is too soon done at any time! O how diligent a helper is Satan of wickedness, administering all opportunities for it! And, therefore, as the harlot seeketh diligently, so she findeth readily. Which is the shame of religion in many that profess it, and who are so slow in the performance of religious duties, as if they were both servants and masters, and had the commandments of God at their own command, to do them at their pleasure; which is a great reason that they are so ill observed. But if they would use their own diligence, they should find God much more diligent to give a blessing to it.—Jermin.
Pro_7:16. Her coverings of tapestry could not cover her naughtiness, her carved work could not embellish her own deformed work, her white Egyptian linen could not make white her black Egyptian soul.—Jermin.
Pro_7:17. This might have minded the young man that he was going to his grave, for the bodies of the dead were so perfumed. Such a meditation would much have rebated his edge—cooled his courage.—Trapp.
Pro_7:18. But what if death draw the curtains, and look in the while? If death do not, yet guilt will.—Trapp.
Pro_7:19. Instead of saying, “My husband,” she contemptuously calls him “the goodman,” as though he were unconnected with her.—Fausset.
Man may not be at home, but God is always at home, whose house is the world: man may be gone a far journey, but God’s journey is at once to be everywhere; His farthest off, to be present always.… She talketh that the goodman was not at home, but the good woman was not at home rather; she saith that her husband was gone a far journey, but she herself was gone much farther from her duty. If she had been at home, to have heard her conscience the home reprover of wickedness, the goodman, though not at home, had not been so much wronged; if she had not gone far from her covenant, her husband, though gone far, had still been near and present in her heart.—Jermin.
Our hearts must be guarded against the admission of sin by stronger motives than the fear of detection and disgrace, for artful solicitors to evil will easily baffle such restraints as these. Joseph might have expected his master’s favour by complying with the wishes of his mistress, but the motive that induced him to decline her company was irresistible,—“How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?”—Lawson.
Pro_7:22. He goeth to the slaughter when he thinketh he goeth to the pasture; or as those oxen brought forth by Jupiter’s priests, with garlands unto the gates, but it was for a slain sacrifice (Act_14:13).—Trapp.
The butcher’s yard would show the meaning of this first similitude. In every sort of way the ox may be coaxed, or, in turn, may be desperately beaten, and apparently to no purpose. But though he may stand, ox-like, like a rock, yet the experienced herdman knows that he will suddenly start in. This is his nature. One inch may cost a hurricane of blows; but at a dash, as the butcher expects, he will suddenly rush in to his doom.—Miller.
Pro_7:25. Cut off the beginnings of desire. The first trickling of the crevasse is the manageable, and, therefore, more culpable, period of the difficulty.—Miller.
Pro_7:26. As Solomon himself subsequently was (Neh_13:26). So Samson and David previously. It is better to learn by the awful example of others than by our own suffering. Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.—Fausset.
The house of the harlot had been compared before to the grave, to the world of the dead; now it is likened to a battle-field strewn with the corpses of armed men. The word speaks rather of the multitude than of the individual strength of those who have perished.—Plumptre.
In a figurative sense, some of the greatest teachers of Christendom have been seduced by the allurements of heresy, and have been cast down from their place in the firmament of the Church, like stars falling from heaven.—Wordsworth.
The valour of men hath oft been slaved by the wiles of a woman. Witness many of your greatest martialists, who conquered countries, and were vanquished of vices. The Persian kings commanded the whole world, and were commanded by their concubines.—Trapp.
The secret thought that one can saunter toward her house (Pro_7:8), and at any time turn back, is cruelly met by most discouraging examples. The whole passage is the more impressive, if we consider it as a warning against confidence in strength, and particularly grand, if we mark the second clause … All men are strong, and strong in the most substantial sense. All men, saved, are princes (Rev_1:6); and they are offered the second place in God’s kingdom (Isa_61:7). All men are bone of Christ’s bone; all men are born with a birthright to be kings and priests, if they choose to be, and brothers of Emmanuel.—Miller.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v27 Heb. "Sheol," (See Scofield "Hab 2:5")
hell
Heb. "Sheol," (See Scofield "Hab 2:5")
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv6, 8, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 24, 26 a covering over a window made of thin strips…
lattice
a covering over a window made of thin strips of wood that cross one another in a slanted pattern that forms square-shaped openings in the pattern
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naive
inexperienced or immature
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv6, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 21, 24 7:6-23 The young man’s father tells a story to…
7:6-23 The young man’s father tells a story to illustrate his teaching about immoral women.
7:6-7 Naive young men, not yet set in their ways, are still open to correction. With each foolish act, they move closer to becoming fools.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.