Proverbs 5:10

10 Lest strangers feast on your wealth, And your labors enrich another man's house.

Proverbs 5:10 Meaning and Commentary

Proverbs 5:10

Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth
The adulteress, her husband, children, friends, bawds, and such like persons she is concerned with; these share the wealth of the adulterer, abound with it, and live profusely on it, until he is stripped quite bare and destitute: or, "with thy strength"; (See Gill on Proverbs 5:9). Jarchi interprets it of the prophets of Baal, that exact money by their falsehoods; it may well enough be applied to the fornicating merchants of Rome, who wax rich through the abundance of her delicacies and adulteries, ( Revelation 18:3 ) ; persons, strangers indeed to God and Christ, and all true religion; and thy labours [be] in the house of a stranger;
that is, wealth gotten by hard labour, with toil and sweat, grief and trouble, as the word used F17 signifies; and yet, after all, not enjoyed by himself and his lawful wife and children, but by the strange woman and her accomplices, and spent in maintaining whores, bawds, and bastards; hence the fable of the Harpies eating and spoiling the victuals of Phineus, who were no other than harlots that consumed his substance {r}: and sometimes they are carried into a strange country, and possessed by foreigners. These are the wretched effects and miserable consequences of adultery, and therefore by all means to be shunned and avoided. Jarchi understands it of the house of idolatry, or an idol's temple; and everyone knows what vast riches are brought into the temples or churches of the Papists by idolatry.


FOOTNOTES:

F17 (Kybue) "dolores tui", Montanus, Cocceius, Michaelis.
F18 Heraclitus de Incredibil. c. 3.

Proverbs 5:10 In-Context

8 Remove your way far from her. Don't come near the door of her house,
9 Lest you give your honor to others, And your years to the cruel one;
10 Lest strangers feast on your wealth, And your labors enrich another man's house.
11 You will groan at your latter end, When your flesh and your body are consumed,
12 And say, "How I have hated instruction, And my heart despised reproof;
The Hebrew Names Version is in the public domain.