Reflections on Proverbs 5

 

Proverbs 05 (Contemporary English Version)


1. My son, if you listen closely to my wisdom and good sense,
   
2. you will have sound judgment, and you will always know the right thing to say.
   
3. The words of an immoral woman may be as sweet as honey and as smooth as olive oil.
   
4. But all that you really get from being with her is bitter poison and pain.
   
5. If you follow her, she will lead you down to the world of the dead.
   
6. She has missed the path that leads to life and doesn't even know it.
   
7. My son, listen to me and do everything I say.
   
8. Stay away from a bad woman! Don't even go near the door of her house.
   
9. You will lose your self-respect and end up in debt to some cruel person for the rest of your life.
   
10. Strangers will get your money and everything else you have worked for.
    
11. When it's all over, your body will waste away, as you groan
    
12. and shout, "I hated advice and correction!
    
13. I paid no attention to my teachers,
    
14. and now I am disgraced in front of everyone."
    
15. You should be faithful to your wife, just as you take water from your own well.
    
16. And don't be like a stream from which just any woman may take a drink.
    
17. Save yourself for your wife and don't have sex with other women.
    
18. Be happy with the wife you married when you were young.
    
19. She is beautiful and graceful, just like a deer; you should be attracted to her and stay deeply in love.
    
20. Don't go crazy over a woman who is unfaithful to her own husband!
    
21. The LORD sees everything, and he watches us closely.
    
22. Sinners are trapped and caught by their own evil deeds.
    
23. They get lost and die because of their foolishness and lack of self-control.
    

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As mentioned with Proverbs 1, one must ask themselves if they really desire wisdom, particularly if it attempts to deter them from activities in which they would really prefer to participate, whether or not it is the wise thing to do. Proverbs 5 draws a rather clear picture of the path one chooses when they decide to seek sexual gratification outside of marriage. Solomon's argument against such a choice is not one of whether it is sinful or not, but instead he argues from a very practical standpoint. Pure and simple, it will lead to one's destruction. This destruction may be slow in coming, but it is sure to come. Let's look at some of his arguments.

Solomon doesn't mince words, but goes right to the heart of it from the first. Being drawn in by the prostitute, he says, will lead to death. She may be enticing and may promise a good time, but "she doesn't consider the path of life. She doesn't know that her ways are unstable."  Though she may be ignorant of where her activities lead, the reader of the Proverb needs not be ignorant. By giving in and being drawn in to the prostitute, "you will give up your vitality to others and your years to someone cruel; strangers will drain your resources, and your earnings will end up in a foreigner's house." A huge price to pay in exchange for a moment of so called "pleasure."  Of course, the unwise or foolish person will argue that Solomon is being prudish and that this will not be the outcome. How could having a little "fun" lead to all that?  But Solomon warns, "At the end of your life, you will lament when your physical body has been consumed."

Verse 15 and following offer the solution to such actions: "Drink water from your own cistern." What is he saying? He says it more clearly in verse 18, "take pleasure in the wife of your youth." Don't go drinking from someone else's cistern (seeking someone else's wife) or even from the public cistern (going to the prostitute). Take pleasure in your own wife.  Why is that not enough? It is at this point that Solomon goes to the sinful side of the argument, though the practical is still interwoven. "A man's ways are before the Lord's eyes." Nothing is hidden from the Lord. Now he uses the word "wicked" for those who participate in this illicit sex, and the word "sin" for their actions. Solomon says that the one who is enticed to drink from cisterns other than his own becomes entrapped by his iniquity, entangled in the ropes of his own sin, and lost because of his great stupidity.

Those who seek wisdom will heed such warnings. Those who do not heed these warnings will eventually learn the truth of them, but it will be too late. They will have already become entangled by their own sin, and lost by their own stupidity.