Proverbs 7:5-15

5 in order to guard yourself from an adulterous woman, from a loose woman with her smooth talk.

6 From a window in my house I looked through my screen.

7 I was looking at gullible people when I saw a young man without much sense among youths.

8 He was crossing a street near her corner and walking toward her house

9 in the twilight, in the evening, in the dark hours of the night.

10 A woman with an ulterior motive meets him. She is dressed as a prostitute.

11 She is loud and rebellious. Her feet will not stay at home.

12 One moment she is out on the street, the next she is at the curb, on the prowl at every corner.

13 She grabs him and kisses him and brazenly says to him,

14 "I have some sacrificial meat. Today I kept my vows.

15 That's why I came to meet you. Eagerly, I looked for you, and I've found you.

Proverbs 7:5-15 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO PROVERBS 7

The sum of this chapter is to exhort men to attend to the doctrines and precepts of Wisdom, in order to avoid the adulterous woman; the exhortation to keep them with care, affection, and delight, in order to answer the end, is in Pr 7:1-5. A story is told, of Solomon's own knowledge, of a young man ensnared and ruined by a lewd woman; it begins Pr 7:6. The young man is described as foolish, and as throwing himself in the way of temptation, Pr 7:7-9; the harlot that met him is described by her attire, her subtlety, her voice, her inconstancy, her impudence, and pretensions to piety, Pr 7:10-14. The arguments she made use of to prevail upon him to go with her are taken partly from the elegance of her bed, the softness of it, and its sweet perfume, and satiety of love to be enjoyed in it, Pr 7:15-18; and partly from the absence of her husband, who was gone a long journey, and had made provision for it for a certain time, Pr 7:19,20. By which arguments she prevailed upon him to his utter ruin: which is illustrated by the similes of an ox going to the slaughter, a fool to the stocks, and a bird to the snare, Pr 7:21-23. And the chapter is concluded with an exhortation to hearken to the words of Wisdom, and to avoid the ways and paths of the harlot, by which many and mighty persons have been ruined; they being the direct road to hell and death, Pr 7:24-27.