Bible Commentaries
Proverbs 5

Verses 1-23

Chapter 5

Now my son, attend unto my wisdom, bow your ear to my understanding: That you may regard discretion, and that your lips may keep knowledge ( Proverbs 5:1 , Proverbs 5:2 ).

And now he's going to warn his son again about the strange woman.

For the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: But her end is bitter as wormwood ( Proverbs 5:3-4 ),

Now, though her lips drop like a honeycomb, all the sweetness and sugar and all, yet the end is bitter. Bitter as wormwood. And though her mouth is smoother than oil, in the end it's like

a two-edged sword ( Proverbs 5:4 ).

It'll cut you to pieces.

Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell ( Proverbs 5:5 ).

Actually, he's talking here, of course, a prostitute, an adulterous woman, strange woman.

Lest you should ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that you cannot know them. Hear me now therefore, O ye children, do not depart from the words of my mouth. Remove your way far from her, do not come near the door of her house: Lest you give your honor to others, and your years unto the cruel: Lest strangers be filled with your wealth; and your labors be in the house of a stranger; And you mourn in the end, when your flesh and body are consumed ( Proverbs 5:6-11 ),

When you have contracted some venereal disease.

And you say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof ( Proverbs 5:12 );

How can I do such a stupid thing? Why did I do that? And save yourself all the remorse of your own folly.

And you have not obeyed the voice of your teachers, nor inclined your ear to those that instructed! ( Proverbs 5:13 )

You cry out, "Why didn't I obey the voice of my teachers? Why didn't I listen to those that were instructing me?"

I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly. Now drink waters out of your own cistern, and running waters out of your own well ( Proverbs 5:14-15 ).

In other words, enjoy the marital relationship with your own wife. Drink the waters of your own cistern, of your own well. Don't go looking for strange water.

Lest thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and the rivers of water in the streets ( Proverbs 5:16 ).

Lest you just chase after anything that goes down the street. Keep yourself actually pure.

And with your own wife, and not with a stranger. Let your fountain of life be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of your youth. Let her be as a loving hind, as a pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love ( Proverbs 5:17-19 ).

The Bible speaks so much of the beauty of the love and the love relationship within marriage. God has ordained marriage. In the beginning when God made them male and female. He said, "For this cause shall a man leave his mother and father, and cleave to his wife: and they two shall become one flesh. Therefore, that which God has joined together, let no man put asunder" ( Matthew 19:5-6 ). Now when God created us and He created our bodies, in a true understanding of the scriptural teaching, the real you is not your body. The real you is spirit that dwells in your body. But as my spirit is dwelling in my body, my body does have certain appetites, certain drives, certain needs. There are certain hormones and chemicals and all that work in my body. And these working through the glands, sends signals to my brain, and they keep my body in balance.

If I run around the church, I am burning up a lot of oxygen. And as the oxygen burns up, as the oxygen is being carried by the blood to the various cells of my body that they might burn, the muscles and so forth, that they might burn this oxygen. The byproduct of the burnt oxygen is carbon dioxide. And as this carbon dioxide begins to fill up in my bloodstream, as it gets to a certain level, it sends a message to my brain and it says, "There's too much carbon dioxide in the blood. You need to get rid of it and the cells are needing some fresh oxygen supply." And my brain responds to these chemical messages that are coming to it as the body is monitoring its own chemical structures. And so the brain sends the message to the lungs to start pumping. It sends a message to the heart, "Get to working. Start really pumping it through." And to the lungs, "Get to really pumping also." And so I start to pant and my heartbeat increases. And thus, I am exhaling the carbon dioxide, the waste materials, and I'm inhaling the fresh oxygen to give fresh shots through my whole system. And this is known as the homeostasis; it keeps my body in balance.

Now if the moisture level gets low in my body, again, a message is sent to my brain, "You're needing more moisture." And it sends a message to my throat. It gets dry. Man, I got to have a drink of water, you know. I've been out perspiring and my moisture level gets down to a dangerous level. And so the chemicals, they respond and I get thirsty.

Now God has built in these systems and they're marvelous. If He didn't build in these little systems, when you ran around and all, you just fall over and you could actually die. With all of that extra carbon dioxide in your blood and without the oxygen you need, you'd pass out soon. You wouldn't be able to run very far. You'd run so far, and then you'd just pass out. But God has put these balances and these drives there. The air drive, and the thirst drive, and then, of course, your cells need other types of energy supplies and so you get hungry. Now this is somewhere where the system has gone haywire, I am sure, but I am sure that I don't need to eat as much as I do. But yet I have to eat. That's all a part of the whole system to keep it going.

Now God wanted the earth to be populated by man. And so God created the reproduction organs in the body. And God created strong sexual drives, strong sexual urges. And He made the experience very exciting, very pleasurable in order that children might be born. Otherwise, the human species probably would have disappeared from the world years ago, as man would have found it more pleasurable to go fishing. So it is a God-created drive. The purpose is primarily the populating of the earth. And God has ordained that these drives be satisfied and be fulfilled within the bonds of a marriage covenant, where two persons of opposite sex make a covenant before God that they will love, honor, cherish one another until death separates them. Because God also knows that the children that are born of this relationship need to have the security, the stability of a strong, happy, loving home, lest society disintegrates.

So the whole thing has been planned of God. It's a part of God's process. In its place it is not evil. It's absolutely beautiful and desirable. God has created it in order that it might become a deepest expression of the oneness that does exist between a husband and a wife, where the two become one flesh, joined together, one flesh. And even God has taken this beautiful experience and spiritualized it in likening it unto that relation that exists in the deepest love and the oneness between Christ and His church.

Now, move it out of the environment in which and for which God has created it, and that which was created to be beautiful and meaningful and glorious becomes sinful. Missing the mark. Twisting the use. And it becomes wrong. And it now is laden with feelings of guilt; it has all of its counter issues that come forth from it. It becomes counterproductive.

So God speaks and here, of course, Solomon speaks to his son and he is exhorting him about this beautiful gift that he has from God, fountains of life. Don't go spilling them on the street with just anybody. But enjoy the wife of your youth. "Be ravished always with her love."

And why will you, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? ( Proverbs 5:20 )

And now the clincher comes:

For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all of his goings ( Proverbs 5:21 ).

God is watching you. You don't do it in secret. It isn't something that is done in under a cover of darkness. "The ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and God ponders all of his goings." Now why is he going there?

His own iniquities will take the wicked himself, and he will be held with the cords of his own sins. He will die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray ( Proverbs 5:22-23 ).

Just good, clean advice given by the father to his son. It's just good, plain advice for all of us.

Shall we pray.

Father, we pray that we might learn to prize wisdom. May we seek it as a treasure. May we, O God, hate evil. May we not tolerate or give a place for it in our lives. But may we flee in order that we might walk, Lord, in Your way, in the way of truth, of righteousness. And so help us, Lord, to give heed to the instructions, to Your laws, to Your commandments. In Jesus' name. Amen. "