The counterpart of the foregoing warning against vice, placing connubial joys in the brightest light, of poetic fancy.
I. IMAGES OF WIFEHOOD. The wife is described:
1. As a spring, and as a cistern. Property in a spring or well was highly, even sacredly, esteemed. Hence a peculiar force in the comparison. The wife is the husband's peculiar delight and property; the source of pleasures of every kind and degree; the fruitful origin of the family (comp. Isaiah 51:1; Song of Solomon 4:12).
2. As "wife of one's youth. (Cf. Deuteronomy 24:5; Ecclesiastes 9:9.) One to whom the flower of youth and manhood has been devoted. The parallel description is companion of youth" (Proverbs 2:17). Her image, in this case, is associated with the sunniest scenes of experience.
3. As a "lovely hind, or charming gazelle. A favourite Oriental comparison, and embodied in the names Tabitha and Dorcas, which denote gazelle." There are numberless uses of the figure in Arabian and Persian poets. The beautiful liquid eye, delicate head, graceful carriage of the creature, all point the simile. Nothing can surpass, as a husband's description of a true wife, Wordsworth's exquisite stanza beginning -
"She was a phantom of delight,
When first she gleam'd upon my sight
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles." II. IMAGES OF THE HUSBAND'S BLISS.
1. It is like taking draughts from a fresh and ever-running stream. There is "continual comfort in a face, the lineaments of gospel books."
2. It is a peculiar, a private possession. Ver. 16 should be rendered interrogatively; it conveys the contrast of the profaned treasures of the unchaste woman's love, and thus fits with ver. 17. The language of lovers finds a true zest in the word, "My own!" Life becomes brutish where this feeling does not exist.
3. Yet it attracts sympathy, admiration, and good will. Ver. 18 is the blessing wished by the speaker or by any looker on. Wedding feasts bring out these feelings; and the happiness and prosperity of married pairs are as little exposed to the tooth of envy as any earthly good.
4. It is satisfying; for what repose can be more sweet and secure than that on the bosom of the faithful spouse? It is enrapturing, without being enfeebling, unlike those false pleasures, "violent delights with violent endings, that in their triumph die" (ver. 19).
III. CONCLUDING EXHORTATION (ver. 20), founded on the contrast just given.
1. The true rapture (the Hebrew word shagah, "reel" as in intoxication, repeated) should deter from the false and vicious.
2. To prefer the bosom of the adulteress to that of the true wife is a mark of the most vitiated taste, the most perverted understanding. - J.
That thou mayest regard discretion.
Some knit these words to what follows, and understand them thus: "I wish thee to hearken to wise counsels, that thy heart may not admit thoughts of the beauty of strumpets, nor thy lips talk of such wanton objects as they talk of, but that thy thoughts and words may be sober and honest." Others knit them to the words before, as if he had said, "Observe my wise precepts, that thou mayest well ruminate of them, and be so full of good thoughts in thy heart, that thou mayest be able to produce them copiously in thy words for the good of others, as I do for thine. But especially that thou mayest know what to think and speak of strumpets' fair words and alluring carriage."I. A READINESS TO ATTEND WILL BRING A STORE OF KNOWLEDGE.
II. LET US GET READY EARS AND HEARTS TO GET KNOWLEDGE.
III. GOOD THINGS HEARD MUST BE SERIOUSLY THOUGHT ON, THEN AND AFTER.
IV. WE MUST LABOUR TO KNOW SO AS NOT ONLY TO UNDERSTAND, BUT ALSO TO UTTER WHAT WE KNOW IN FIT WORDS. That we may profit others.
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People
SolomonPlaces
JerusalemTopics
Adulteress, Adventuress, Alien, Arms, Bosom, Captivated, Embrace, Exhilarated, Foreigner, Infatuated, Loose, Magnify, Man's, Ravished, Shouldest, Strange, Stranger, Thyself, Wife, WiltOutline
1. Solomon exhorts to wisdom3. He shows the mischief of unfaithfulness and riot15. He exhorts to contentedness, generosity, and chastity22. The wicked are overtaken with their own sinsDictionary of Bible Themes
Proverbs 5:20 5126 arm
6188 immorality, sexual
6242 adultery
Proverbs 5:1-23
5276 crime
5481 proverb
Proverbs 5:18-20
6237 sexual sin, nature of
8299 love, in relationships
Proverbs 5:18-23
5468 promises, human
Proverbs 5:19-20
5140 breasts
Proverbs 5:20-21
8821 self-indulgence
Library
The Cords of Sin
'His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.'--PROVERBS v. 22. In Hosea's tender picture of the divine training of Israel which, alas! failed of its effect, we read, 'I drew them with cords of a man,' which is further explained as being 'with bands of love.' The metaphor in the prophet's mind is probably that of a child being 'taught to go' and upheld in its first tottering steps by leading-strings. God drew Israel, though Israel did not yield …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureLast Things
A sermon (No. 667) delivered on Sunday morning, December 31, 1865 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, by C. H. Spurgeon. "At the last."--Proverbs 5:11. The wise man saw the young and simple straying into the house of the strange woman. The house seemed so completely different from what he knew it to be that he desired to shed a light upon it, that the young man might not sin in the dark, but might understand the nature of his deeds. The wise man looked abroad and he saw but one lamp suitable …
C.H. Spurgeon—Sermons on Proverbs
Sinners Bound with the Cords of Sin
A Sermon (No. 915) delivered on Sabbath morning, February 13th, 1870 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, by C. H. Spurgeon. "His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins." -- Proverbs 5:22. The first sentence has reference to a net in which birds or beasts are taken. The ungodly man first of all finds sin to be a bait, and charmed by its apparent pleasantness he indulges in it and then he becomes entangled in its meshes so that he cannot …
C.H. Spurgeon—Sermons on Proverbs
Sinners Bound with the Cords of Sin
The first sentence of the text also may have reference to an arrest by an officer of law. The transgressor's own sins shall take him, shall seize him; they bear a warrant for arresting him, they shall judge him, they shall even execute him. Sin, which at the first bringeth to man a specious pleasure, ere long turneth into bitterness, remorse, and fear. Sin is a dragon, with eyes like stars, but it carrieth a deadly sting in its tail. The cup of sin, with rainbow bubbles on its brim, is black with …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 16: 1870
How the Silent and the Talkative are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 15.) Differently to be admonished are the over-silent, and those who spend time in much speaking. For it ought to be insinuated to the over-silent that while they shun some vices unadvisedly, they are, without its being perceived, implicated in worse. For often from bridling the tongue overmuch they suffer from more grievous loquacity in the heart; so that thoughts seethe the more in the mind from being straitened by the violent guard of indiscreet silence. And for the most part they …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great
How the Rude in Sacred Learning, and those who are Learned but not Humble, are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 25.) Differently to be admonished are those who do not understand aright the words of the sacred Law, and those who understand them indeed aright, but speak them not humbly. For those who understand not aright the words of sacred Law are to be admonished to consider that they turn for themselves a most wholesome drought of wine into a cup of poison, and with a medicinal knife inflict on themselves a mortal wound, when they destroy in themselves what was sound by that whereby they ought, …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great
Twenty Second Sunday after Trinity Paul's Thanks and Prayers for Churches.
Text: Philippians 1, 3-11. 3 I thank my God upon all my remembrance of you, 4 always in every supplication of mine on behalf of you all making my supplication with joy, 5 for your fellowship in furtherance of the gospel from the first day until now; 6 being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ: 7 even as it is right for me to be thus minded on behalf of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as, both in my bonds …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III
"The Truth. " Some Generals Proposed.
That what we are to speak to for the clearing and improving this noble piece of truth, that Christ is the Truth, may be the more clearly understood and edifying, we shall first take notice of some generals, and then show particularly how or in what respects Christ is called the Truth; and finally speak to some cases wherein we are to make use of Christ as the Truth. As to the first. There are four general things here to be noticed. 1. This supposeth what our case by nature is, and what we are all …
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life
Thirdly, for Thy Actions.
1. Do no evil, though thou mightest; for God will not suffer the least sin, without bitter repentance, to escape unpunished. Leave not undone any good that thou canst. But do nothing without a calling, nor anything in thy calling, till thou hast first taken counsel at God's word (1 Sam. xxx. 8) of its lawfulness, and pray for his blessings upon thy endeavour; and then do it in the name of God, with cheerfulness of heart, committing the success to him, in whose power it is to bless with his grace …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety
The Right Understanding of the Law
Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.' Exod 20: 3. Before I come to the commandments, I shall answer questions, and lay down rules respecting the moral law. What is the difference between the moral laud and the gospel? (1) The law requires that we worship God as our Creator; the gospel, that we worship him in and through Christ. God in Christ is propitious; out of him we may see God's power, justice, and holiness: in him we see his mercy displayed. (2) The moral law requires obedience, but gives …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments
Second Great Group of Parables.
(Probably in Peræa.) Subdivision F. Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. ^C Luke XVI. 19-31. [The parable we are about to study is a direct advance upon the thoughts in the previous section. We may say generally that if the parable of the unjust steward teaches how riches are to be used, this parable sets forth the terrible consequences of a failure to so use them. Each point of the previous discourse is covered in detail, as will be shown by the references in the discussion of the parable.] …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel
Proverbs
Many specimens of the so-called Wisdom Literature are preserved for us in the book of Proverbs, for its contents are by no means confined to what we call proverbs. The first nine chapters constitute a continuous discourse, almost in the manner of a sermon; and of the last two chapters, ch. xxx. is largely made up of enigmas, and xxxi. is in part a description of the good housewife. All, however, are rightly subsumed under the idea of wisdom, which to the Hebrew had always moral relations. The Hebrew …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament
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