Proverbs 7:1-10

1 My son, keep my words and treasure up my commandments with you;

2 keep my commandments and live, keep my teachings as the apple of your eye;

3 bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart.

4 Say to wisdom, "You are my sister," and call insight your intimate friend;

5 to preserve you from the loose woman, from the adventuress with her smooth words.

6 For at the window of my house I have looked out through my lattice,

7 and I have seen among the simple, I have perceived among the youths, a young man without sense,

8 passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house

9 in the twilight, in the evening, at the time of night and darkness.

10 And lo, a woman meets him, dressed as a harlot, wily of heart.

Proverbs 7:1-10 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.