Proverbs 23:33

33 Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.

Proverbs 23:33 Meaning and Commentary

Proverbs 23:33

Thine eyes shall behold strange women
Being inflamed with wine, shall look upon women, other men's wives, and lust after them; or harlots, whom seeking after or meeting with, when in their cups, are drawn into their embraces; excess of wine leads to whoredom {w}. So Aben Ezra supplies the word "women", and Jarchi interprets it to this sense; but the Targum renders it, "strange things"; and so many others: a drunken man, through the lunges and vapours that ascend into his brain, fancies he sees strange sights; he sees things double; imagines that he sees trees walk, and many such like absurd and monstrous things; and thine heart shall utter perverse things;
or the mouth, from the abundance of the heart, and imagination of it, shall utter things contrary to sense and reason, contrary to truth and righteousness, contrary to chastity and good manners, contrary to their own honour and credit, contrary to God and men; the mouth then utters all that is in the heart, which it at other times conceals. It may have a particular respect to the unchaste, filthy, and obscene words, uttered to strange women, into whose company men fall when in liquor.


FOOTNOTES:

F23 "Vina parant animos Veneri", Ovid. de Arte Amandi, l. 1.

Proverbs 23:33 In-Context

31 Do not look upon the wine when it is red, when it gives its colour in the cup, it goes down smoothly.
32 At the last it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder.
33 Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.
34 Yea, thou shalt be as he that lies down in the midst of the sea or as he that sleeps at the rudder.
35 They have stricken me, thou shalt say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not; when I shall awake, I will seek it yet again.
The Jubilee Bible (from the Scriptures of the Reformation), edited by Russell M. Stendal, Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2010