Proverbs 6:26

For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:20-35 The word of God has something to say to us upon all occasions. Let not faithful reproofs ever make us uneasy. When we consider how much this sin abounds, how heinous adultery is in its own nature, of what evil consequence it is, and how certainly it destroys the spiritual life in the soul, we shall not wonder that the cautions against it are so often repeated. Let us notice the subjects of this chapter. Let us remember Him who willingly became our Surety, when we were strangers and enemies. And shall Christians, who have such prospects, motives, and examples, be slothful and careless? Shall we neglect what is pleasing to God, and what he will graciously reward? May we closely watch every sense by which poison can enter our minds or affections.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The two forms of evil bring, each of them, their own penalty. By the one a man is brought to such poverty as to beg for "a piece of bread" (compare 1 Samuel 2:36): by the other and more deadly sin he incurs a peril which may affect his life. The second clause is very abrupt and emphatic in the original; "but as for a man's wife; she hunts for the precious life."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

26. The supplied words give a better sense than the old version: "The price of a whore is a piece of bread."

adulteress—(Compare Margin), which the parallel and context (Pr 6:29-35) sustain. Of similar results of this sin, compare Pr 5:9-12.

will hunt—alluding to the snares spread by harlots (compare Pr 7:6-8).

precious life—more valuable than all else.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

To a piece of bread; to extreme poverty, so as to want and be forced to beg his bread. Hunt for the precious life; to take away a man’s life; either by consuming his body and spirits, and so shortening his days; or more directly and strictly, when she hath any great provocation to it, or any prospect of considerable advantage by it. Or, for the precious soul, which she corrupteth and destroyeth. But I prefer the former sense.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread,.... To be glad of one, and to beg for one, for the least morsel; it is expressive of the extreme poverty and want which harlots bring men to, who strip them of all their substance, and then send them going to get their bread as they can; thus the prodigal, having spent his substance with harlots, was so reduced as to desire the husks which swine ate, Luke 15:13; so spiritual fornication or idolatry leaves men without bread for their souls, brings them into spiritual poverty, and even to desperation and death;

and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life; or "soul" (n); not content with his precious substance, his jewels, his gold and silver; having stripped him of his goods and livelihood, though some think that is here intended; she lays snares for him, and draws him into those evils which bring him into the hands of her husband, who avenges himself by slaying the adulterer; or into the hands of the civil magistrate, by whom this sin of adultery was punished with death; nay, is the occasion of the ruin of his precious and immortal soul to all eternity: the precious souls of men are part of the wares of antichrist, Revelation 18:13.

(n) "animam", Pagninus, Montanus, &c.

Geneva Study Bible

For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adultress will hunt for the precious life.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

26. the adulteress] Lit. a man’s wife. It is the same woman who is contemplated in both clauses of the verse, a married woman, who has become a “whorish woman.”

will hunt] Rather, hunteth, R.V. Not only substance (Proverbs 6:31) but life itself (Proverbs 6:34-35) may be the forfeit, and a more precious substance than bodily life also. “Every sin is the precursor of spiritual bankruptcy; it is setting one’s hand to a bill, which when it comes in must break the wealthiest signatory.” Horton, p. 75.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 26. - For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread. From this verse onwards to the end of the chapter the discourse consists of a series of arguments, each calculated to deter youth from the sins of fornication and adultery, by exhibiting the evil consequences of such indulgence. The first is the poverty and extreme beggary to which a man is brought. For by means of; Hebrew, ki v'ad. Lee gives the preposition vaad the force of "after," i.e. after associating with. The radical idea of the preposition is that of nearness, by, near, and easily passes to that of "because" (Gesenius) or "by means of," as in the Authorized Version. It is here used for per, "through," as in Joshua 2:15; 2 Samuel 20:23, and so indicates the transit through the way of fornication to extreme beggary (Gejerus). A whorish woman; Hebrew, ishshah zonah; Vulgate, scortum; LXX., πόρνη; "a harlot," here corresponding to "the adulteress" (esheth ish), since the root zonah, "to commit fornication," is attributed both to married and unmarried women (Genesis 38:24; Leo. 19:29; Hosea 3:3). The word zonah is sometimes written alone, as in Genesis 38:15 and Deuteronomy 23:19. The fuller expression, as here, occurs in Leviticus 21:7; Joshua 2:1; Judges 11:1. To a piece of bread; Hebrew, adkikkar lakhem. It will be noticed that there is an ellipsis in the Hebrew, which, however, may be easily supplied, as in the Authorized Version. Delitzsch supplies "one cometh down to;" so Zockler. "A piece of bread' is properly "a circle of bread, a small round piece of bread, such as is still baked in Italy (pagnotta) and in the East (Arabic kurs), here an expression for the smallest piece" (Fleischer). The term occurs in Exodus 29:23; 1 Samuel 2:36, in the latter of which passages it expresses the extreme destitution to which the members of the house of Eli were to be reduced. As illustrating the term, see also ch. 38:21 and Ezekiel 13:19. The LXX. and Vulgate singularly render, "For the price of a harlot is scarcely that of a bit of bread," which may mean, as Castalio, that she is of so little value; but the context is opposed to this rendering, where the Point brought out is not the vile character of the harlot as the ruin she inflicts or is the cause cf. Besides, the Hebrew ad does not mean ever "scarcely," or "hardly," which the Vulgate vix gives to it. And the adulteress will hunt for the precious life. The adulteress is isheth ish, literally, "the woman of a man," or "a man's wife," as in the margin - as, therefore, strictly an adulteress here (cf. Leviticus 20:10). Will hunt; Hebrew, thatsud; LXX., ἀγρεύει; Vulgate, capit. The Hebrew verb tsud, "to lie in wait for," "to hunt," also signifies "to take, or capture," like the Vulgate capere, The verb in its metaphorical use also occurs in Lamentations 3:52; Micah 7:2; Psalm 140:12, and refers to those beguilements resorted to by the adulteress to seduce youth. In Ezekiel 13:18 it carries with it the idea of death, and if understood in this sense here it may have reference to the death penalty inflicted on adulterer and adulteress by the Mosaic Law (Leviticus 20:10), and introduces what is said more fully in vers. 32, 34, 35. The precious life; Hebrew, nephesh y'karah The epithet y'karah is appropriately added to nephesh, as indicating the high value of the life. All is implied in the nephesh, "the life," moral dignity of character, the soul of man. It is the ever-existing part of the man, and therefore is precious - nothing can exceed it in value. Our Lord says (Matthew 16:26), "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" and the psalmist (Psalm 49:8), "For the redemption of their life is precious." But it is for this life, or soul, that the adulteress hunts, and which she destroys. Lives of fornication and adultery, therefore, carry with them the severest penalties, the loss of temporal possessions, for the enjoyment of a transient passion, and far beyond this the loss of life both temporal and eternal. We cannot imagine a more deterrent warning. Proverbs 6:26

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The proaemium of these twelve proverbial discourses is now at an end. Wisdom herself begins striking the note of the Decalogue:

25 Long not for her beauty in thy heart,

     And let her not catch thee with her eyelids;

26 Because for a harlot one cometh down to a piece of bread,

     And a man's wife lieth in wait for a precious soul.

The warning 25a is in the spirit of the "thou shalt not covet," Exodus 20:17, and the ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὑτοῦ, Matthew 5:28, of the Preacher on the Mount. The Talmudic proverb הרהודי עבירה קשו מעבירה (Joma 29a) means only that the imagination of the sinful act exhausts the body even more than the act itself. The warning, "let her not catch thee with her eyelids," refers to her (the adulteress's) coquettish ogling and amorous winking. In the reason added, beginning with כּי בעד־ (thus it is to be punctuated), there is the appositional connection אשּׁה זונה, Gesen. 113; the idea of זונה goes over into 26b. "לחם כּכּר [ equals כּרכּר, R. kr, to round, vid., at Genesis 49:5], properly a circle of bread, is a small round piece of bread, such as is still baked in Italy (pagnotta) and in the East (Arab. ḳurṣ), here an expression for the smallest piece" (Fl.). בּעד (constr. of בּעד), as Job 2:4; Isaiah 32:14, is used in the sense of ὑπέρ, pro, and with עד there is connected the idea of the coming down to this low point. Ewald, Bertheau explain after the lxx, τιμὴ γὰρ πόρνης ὅση καὶ ἑνὸς ἄρτου, γυνὴ δὲ ἀνδρῶν τιμίας ψυχὰς ἀγρεύει. But nothing is said here of price (reward); the parallelism is synonymous, not antithetic: he is doubly threatened with loss who enters upon such a course. The adulterer squanders his means (Proverbs 29:3) to impoverishment (vid., the mention of a loaf of bread in the description of poverty 1 Samuel 2:36), and a man's wife (but at the same time seeking converse with another) makes a prey of a precious soul; for whoever consents to adulterous converse with her, loses not perhaps his means, but certainly freedom, purity, dignity of soul, yea, his own person. צוּד comprehends - as צידון, fisher's town [Zidon], Arab. ṣyâd, hunter and fisher, show - all kinds of hunting, but in Hebr. is used only of the hunting of wild beasts. The root-meaning (cf. צדיּה) is to spy, to seize.