Solomon warns his son against the seductive trap of adultery. This chapter contrasts the bitter consequences of sexual immorality with the sweet satisfaction of faithful marriage. The father urges vigilance and wisdom, painting a vivid picture of how the adulteress's smooth words lead to death while a man's own wife brings life and joy. It's a call to guard one's heart and find contentment in the covenant of marriage.
The passage opens with the characteristic address 'my son' (bᵉnî), the pedagogical frame that structures much of Proverbs 1–9. The imperative verbs haqšîḇâ ('give attention') and haṭ ('incline') demand active engagement, not passive hearing. The parallelism of verse 1—'my wisdom' paired with 'my understanding' (tᵉḇûnâ)—establishes the father as a conduit of divine insight, while the body-part imagery ('ear') emphasizes the physicality of learning. Verse 2 shifts to purpose clauses introduced by lᵉ ('that you may'), articulating the protective function of wisdom: it enables the son to 'keep discretion' (lišmōr mᵉzimmôṯ) and to have lips that 'guard knowledge' (yinṣōrû). The verb nṣr ('guard, keep, preserve') appears twice in verses 2 and 20, creating an inclusio around the warning—wisdom guards the son, and the son must guard himself.
Verse 3 introduces the adulteress with the emphatic particle kî ('for'), signaling the reason for the preceding exhortation. The description is sensory and seductive: her lips 'drip' (tiṭṭōp̄nâ) honey, and her palate is 'smoother than oil' (ḥālāq miššemen). The verb nṭp̄ in the Hiphil suggests continuous, flowing speech—words that coat and overwhelm. The comparative miššemen ('than oil') intensifies the image: not merely smooth, but smoother than the smoothest substance. Yet verse 4 shatters this allure with the adversative wᵉ ('but'): 'her end' ('aḥărîṯāh) is bitter and sharp. The noun 'aḥărîṯ ('end, outcome, latter part') is theologically loaded, appearing in Proverbs to denote the ultimate consequence of a chosen path (23:18; 24:14, 20). The dual similes—'bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword'—create a chiastic reversal of verse 3's dual images. Honey becomes wormwood; smoothness becomes sharpness.
Verses 5-6 shift from metaphor to stark declaration. The subject 'her feet' (raḡleyha) and 'her steps' (ṣᵉʿāḏeyha) personify the adulteress as a path herself—she is not merely on a path but is the path. The participle yōrᵉḏôṯ ('going down') conveys continuous action: she is always descending toward death (māweṯ). The verb tmk ('take hold, grasp, support') in verse 5b suggests that her steps 'lay hold of' Sheol, as if the underworld itself reaches up to claim her. This is not accidental wandering but a trajectory with a fixed destination. Verse 6 then diagnoses the root problem: 'she does not ponder the path of life' (pen-tᵉp̄allēs 'ōraḥ ḥayyîm). The verb pls ('to weigh, to make level') with the negative pen can mean either 'lest she ponder' (suggesting avoidance) or 'she does not make level' (suggesting failure). Either reading indicts her: she neither reflects on where she is going nor achieves a stable way. The final clause—'her ways wander, but she does not know it' (nāʿû maʿgᵉlōṯeyha lō' ṯēḏāʿ)—is devastating. The verb nwʿ ('to waver, to wander, to be unstable') describes aimless movement, and the ignorance (lō' ṯēḏāʿ) compounds the tragedy. She is lost and does not know she is lost.
The rhetorical structure of the passage is a study in contrasts: wisdom versus folly, life versus death, stability versus wandering, knowledge versus ignorance. The father's appeal in verses 1-2 frames wisdom as protective knowledge—something that guards and preserves. The description of the adulteress in verses 3-6 then demonstrates what wisdom protects against: seductive speech that conceals deadly consequences, a path that descends to Sheol, and a life characterized by instability and self-deception. The progression from sensory allure (honey, oil) to bitter outcome (wormwood, sword) to ultimate destination (death, Sheol) traces the full trajectory of sin. The passage does not merely warn against a particular woman but against a way of life—one that prioritizes immediate pleasure over long-term consequence, that mistakes smoothness for goodness, and that wanders without reflection toward death.
The adulteress is not merely immoral but unreflective—she does not know her ways wander. Sin's deepest tragedy is not only that it leads to death but that it blinds us to the path we are on, making us confident in our wandering.
The language of 'life' and 'death' as two paths in Proverbs 5:5-6 echoes the covenantal choice set before Israel in Deuteronomy 30:15-20: 'See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil... I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your seed may live.' Moses presents obedience to Yahweh's commandments as the 'path of life' ('ōraḥ ḥayyîm), while disobedience leads to death. Proverbs 5 applies this covenantal framework to the specific arena of sexual ethics: the adulteress's path is a path of death (māweṯ) and Sheol, while the father's wisdom is a path of life. The verb 'to ponder' (pls) in Proverbs 5:6 recalls the call to meditate on Torah day and night (Deut 6:6-9; Josh 1:8)—the adulteress's failure to ponder the path of life is a failure to live reflectively under God's instruction.
Moreover, the imagery of 'feet going down to death' in Proverbs 5:5 resonates with the Deuteronomic warnings about idolatry and covenant unfaithfulness, which are frequently described in sexual terms (Deut 31:16; Judg 2:17). The prophets later develop this metaphor extensively, depicting Israel's idolatry as adultery (Hosea 1-3; Jeremiah 3; Ezekiel 16, 23). In this light, the 'strange woman' of Proverbs 5 functions on multiple levels: she is literally an adulteress, but she also represents the seductive pull of any path that leads away from covenant faithfulness. The father's exhortation to 'give attention to my wisdom' (v. 1) parallels the Shema's call to 'hear, O Israel' (Deut 6:4)—both demand wholehearted devotion that resists the allure of alternatives. The choice between wisdom and folly in Proverbs is ultimately the choice between life and death, blessing and curse, that defines Israel's covenant existence.
Verses 7-14 form the climactic warning section of the father's instruction on adultery, structured as a direct appeal (vv. 7-8), a series of consequence clauses (vv. 9-11), and a dramatic first-person confession (vv. 12-14). The opening 'Now then' (wə-ʿattâ) marks a rhetorical pivot from description to application, while the vocative 'O sons' (bānîm) broadens the audience from the individual 'my son' of verse 1 to all who would hear. The dual imperatives—'listen to me' (positive) and 'do not turn away from the words of my mouth' (negative)—create a chiastic urgency, framing obedience as both active attention and refusal to deviate. Verse 8 intensifies with two more imperatives in synonymous parallelism: 'Keep your way far from her' and 'do not go near the door of her house.' The spatial language is tactical—distance is the strategy, proximity the danger. The sage is not counseling resistance in the moment of temptation but avoidance of the geography of temptation altogether.
Verses 9-11 deploy four consecutive 'lest' (pen) clauses, building a crescendo of consequences. The first two (v. 9) are parallel: 'lest you give your vigor to others / and your years to the cruel one.' The second pair (v. 10) shifts from what is given to what is taken: 'lest strangers be filled with your strength / and your hard-earned goods go to the house of an alien.' The progression moves from personal vitality (hôḏ, 'vigor') to temporal capital (šənōteykā, 'your years') to physical strength (kōaḥ) to material wealth (ʿăṣāḇîm, 'hard-earned goods'). The recipients of this transfer—'others,' 'the cruel one,' 'strangers,' 'an alien'—are deliberately vague, suggesting that the fool loses control over where his resources go; they simply hemorrhage into the hands of those who have no covenant obligation to him. Verse 11 provides the temporal endpoint: 'at your end' (bə-ʾaḥărîtekā), when 'your flesh and your body are consumed.' The verb kālâ ('consumed, finished, spent') is the same used for the completion of God's wrath (Lam 4:11); here it describes the body's exhaustion, the physical ruin that mirrors the moral and economic collapse.
The shift to direct speech in verses 12-14 is rhetorically devastating. The sage ventriloquizes the fool's future lament, forcing the reader to inhabit the regret before experiencing the ruin. The opening 'How I have hated discipline!' uses the interrogative ʾêk (often translated 'how' in laments, as in Lamentations 1:1) to express not a question but bitter astonishment at one's own past folly. The two parallel clauses—'I have hated mûsār' and 'my heart spurned tôkaḥat'—indict both the will ('hated') and the affections ('my heart spurned'). Verse 13 continues with two more parallel negations: 'I have not listened to the voice of my teachers / nor inclined my ear to my instructors.' The body-part imagery ('ear') and the vocabulary of pedagogy ('teachers,' 'instructors') recall the opening call to 'listen' in verse 7, creating an inclusio of tragic irony—the fool now confesses he did not do the very thing the sage is urging the sons to do. Verse 14 concludes with the spatial and social horror: 'I was almost in utter ruin / in the midst of the assembly and congregation.' The phrase 'in utter ruin' (bə-kol-rāʿ, literally 'in all evil') suggests comprehensive disaster, while the location 'in the midst of the assembly' underscores that this shame is public, witnessed by the covenant community that should have been the context of honor.
The grammar of consequence throughout this passage is relentlessly causal. The pen clauses function as purpose/result constructions, showing that the outcomes are not arbitrary punishments but the organic fruit of the action. The sage is not threatening external penalties but describing the internal logic of adultery: it is a transfer of life-force, a squandering of irreplaceable capital, a consumption of the body, and a public forfeiture of honor. The retrospective confession in verses 12-14 serves as a 'flash-forward,' allowing the reader to hear the end from the beginning. This is wisdom's pedagogy: to make the future so vivid that it reorders present desire. The passage assumes that the young man can be moved by consequences if those consequences are made sufficiently real, sufficiently embodied, and sufficiently public. The final image—standing in ruin 'in the midst of the assembly'—is the nightmare of honor-shame culture: to be exposed as a fool before the very community whose esteem one craved.
Wisdom's warnings are not threats but previews—the sage lets you hear the groan before you make the choice, so that future regret might become present restraint. The fool's lament is not 'I was caught' but 'I hated the very correction that could have saved me.'
The passage unfolds as a sustained metaphor of water and springs, moving from imperative (v. 15) to rhetorical question (v. 16) to prohibition (v. 17) to renewed imperative (v. 18) and finally to motivational question (v. 20). The opening command—'Drink water from your own cistern'—establishes the controlling image: marital fidelity as exclusive access to a private water source. The parallelism of 'cistern' (בּוֹר) and 'well' (בְּאֵר) reinforces ownership ('your own') and freshness ('flowing waters'). The metaphor is transparent yet decorous, allowing the sage to speak of sexual intimacy with both clarity and dignity. The imperative mood signals that this is not mere advice but divine wisdom, a command as binding as any other in the moral law.
Verse 16 pivots to a rhetorical question that expects a resounding 'No!' The hypothetical scattering of springs 'in the streets' evokes public shame and wasted resources. The imagery is deliberately jarring: what belongs in the privacy of home is now exposed in the רְחֹבוֹת (rᵉḥōbôt, 'public squares'). The sage is not asking whether adultery is permissible but whether it is rational—why would anyone squander what is precious by making it common? Verse 17 answers with a terse prohibition: 'Let them be yours alone and not for strangers with you.' The phrase לְבַדֶּךָ (lᵉbaddeḵā, 'for you alone') echoes the exclusivity language of covenant (cf. Deut 6:4, Yahweh is 'one'). The contrast between 'yours' and 'strangers' (זָרִים, zārîm) underscores the binary: covenant or chaos, intimacy or alienation.
Verse 18 shifts from prohibition to celebration with a jussive ('Let your fountain be blessed') and an imperative of joy ('rejoice'). The 'fountain' (מָקוֹר, māqôr) recalls the earlier water imagery but now focuses on the source itself—the wife. The phrase 'wife of your youth' (אֵשֶׁת נְעוּרֶךָ) is covenantal language, evoking the original marriage bond (cf. Mal 2:14–15, where Yahweh is witness to 'the wife of your youth'). Verse 19 intensifies the celebration with animal imagery ('loving hind,' 'graceful doe') and explicit physical language ('let her breasts satisfy you at all times'). The verb רָוָה (rāwâ, 'satisfy, drench') suggests not mere adequacy but overflowing abundance. The temporal phrase בְכָל־עֵת (bᵉḵol-ʿēt, 'at all times') and תָמִיד (tāmîd, 'always, continually') emphasize the perpetual nature of marital delight—this is not a honeymoon phase but a lifelong intoxication.
Verse 20 closes with a pointed rhetorical question that mirrors verse 16: 'Why should you be exhilarated with a strange woman?' The repetition of תִּשְׁגֶּה (tišgeh, 'be intoxicated') from verse 19 creates a deliberate contrast—the same verb, but radically different objects. The sage is not condemning passion but misdirected passion. The verb חָבַק (ḥābaq, 'embrace') is intimate and physical, used elsewhere of lovers (Song 2:6; 8:3) and of parental affection (Gen 48:10). To 'embrace the bosom of a foreigner' is to seek in the wrong place what God has already provided in the right place. The rhetorical force is devastating: the strange woman offers nothing that the wife does not already provide, but she offers it at the cost of covenant, honor, and life itself. The question expects no answer because the answer is self-evident—there is no reason, only folly.
God commands what He blesses: the intoxication of marital love is not concession to weakness but celebration of design. The same passion that destroys in adultery satisfies forever in covenant.
Verse 21 opens with the emphatic particle כִּי ('for'), signaling that what follows provides the theological rationale for the preceding warnings about sexual immorality. The structure is chiastic: 'before the eyes of Yahweh' frames 'the ways of a man,' while the parallel second line intensifies with 'all his paths' and the active participle מְפַלֵּס ('weighing'). The divine name Yahweh (not the generic Elohim) emphasizes covenant relationship and personal accountability—this is not abstract divine knowledge but the scrutiny of Israel's God who has revealed His moral standards. The imagery shifts from passive observation ('before the eyes') to active evaluation ('weighing'), suggesting not merely omniscience but moral assessment. Every path, every trajectory of life, is under divine examination.
Verse 22 employs vivid personification: iniquities become active agents that 'capture' (יִלְכְּדֻנוֹ) the wicked man. The subject-verb-object order is emphatic—'His own iniquities will capture him'—stressing the self-inflicted nature of judgment. The verb לכד, used of military conquest, portrays sin not as mere consequence but as hostile force that takes the sinner prisoner. The second line intensifies with 'cords of his sin,' the plural חַבְלֵי suggesting multiple strands of entanglement. The Niphal verb יִתָּמֵךְ ('he will be held/sustained') is bitterly ironic: the support system that should come from wisdom and righteousness is replaced by the binding cords of transgression. The wicked man is not struck down by external judgment but held captive by his own accumulated choices. This is the doctrine of immanent retribution—sin carries its own punishment within itself.
Verse 23 concludes with two parallel lines describing the inevitable outcome. 'He will die' (יָמוּת) is unambiguous—this is not metaphorical death but literal mortality, perhaps premature death as consequence of dissolute living. The phrase בְּאֵין מוּסָר ('for lack of discipline') identifies the root cause: not the presence of external evil but the absence of internal formation. Discipline (מוּסָר) is the preventative medicine; its lack is fatal. The second line shifts from cause to manner: 'in the greatness of his folly he will go astray' (יִשְׁגֶּה). The verb שגה means 'to wander, stray, go astray,' often used of sheep leaving the path. The 'greatness' (רֹב) of folly suggests not a single misstep but a comprehensive life-pattern of foolish choices. The imperfect verbs throughout (יִלְכְּדֻנוֹ, יִתָּמֵךְ, יָמוּת, יִשְׁגֶּה) indicate certain, inevitable future—this is not possibility but prophecy. The passage moves from divine observation (v. 21) to self-inflicted captivity (v. 22) to fatal wandering (v. 23), a complete trajectory of moral collapse.
Sin is not merely punished—it *is* the punishment, weaving cords that bind the sinner in self-made captivity. What we think we control ends up controlling us, and the eyes of Yahweh see not only the act but the trajectory, weighing every path with precision that exposes the fatal folly of rejecting discipline.
The LSB's rendering of 'Yahweh' in verse 21 preserves the personal covenant name rather than the generic 'LORD,' emphasizing that this is not abstract divine omniscience but the specific, relational knowledge of Israel's God who has entered into covenant and revealed His moral will. The use of the tetragrammaton underscores accountability within relationship—these are not merely cosmic laws but the standards of the God who has made Himself known.
The translation 'discipline' for מוּסָר in verse 23 captures the full range of the Hebrew term, which encompasses both instruction and correction. Some versions opt for 'instruction' alone, but 'discipline' better conveys the formative, sometimes corrective nature of wisdom's pedagogy. The LSB recognizes that biblical discipline is not merely informational but transformational, involving the whole person in a process of moral formation that, when rejected, leads to death.