Proverbs 23:33

33 Thy eyes shall behold strange women, and thy 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 Look not upon the wine when it is yellow, when the colour thereof shineth in the glass: it goeth in pleasantly,
32 But in the end, it will bite like a snake, and will spread abroad poison like a basilisk.
33 Thy eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter perverse things.
34 And thou shalt be as one sleeping in the midst of the sea, and as a pilot fast asleep when the stern is lost.
35 And thou shalt say: They have beaten me, but I was not sensible of pain: they drew me, and I felt not: when shall I awake and find wine again?
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