Proverbs 5:10

10 lest peradventure strangers be filled with thy strengths, and lest (the rewards of) thy travails be in an alien's house; (lest perhaps strangers take all thy wealth, and the rewards of all thy efforts be in someone else'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 Make far thy way from her (Make thy way far away from her), and nigh thou not to the doors of her house.
9 Give thou not thine honour to aliens (Give thou not thy honour to strangers), and thy years to the cruel;
10 lest peradventure strangers be filled with thy strengths, and lest (the rewards of) thy travails be in an alien's house; (lest perhaps strangers take all thy wealth, and the rewards of all thy efforts be in someone else's house;)
11 and thou bewail in the last days, when thou hast wasted thy flesh, and thy body;
12 and say, Why loathed I teaching, and mine heart assented not to blamings; (and thou say, Why did I loathe discipline, and why did I not listen to rebukes;)
Copyright © 2001 by Terence P. Noble. For personal use only.