Proverbs 5a

Many commentators assume that Solomon is talking about sex here, a prostitute in Las Vegas, perhaps, or a neighbor’s wife who seduces a naïve and careless husband. There are several problems with this interpretation. First, Solomon himself should know better than blame wily women for men’s indiscretions. David, Solomon’s father, caused his own downfall with Solomon’s mother, Bathsheba. Solomon himself could not have been an innocent man who was seduced 300 times in a row by loose women. It takes two to tango, as the old saying goes.

Remember that Proverbs and Psalms are interesting literature because of the metaphors, similes, and allusions that they use. While sexual sin might be in view, Solomon here also has something deeper in mind: wisdom and discretion (discernment) in all of life. These are the character traits of the Lady Wisdom in chapters 1 and 2. Now, Lady Strange provides a contrast. She is a threat to more than the body, she twists the soul.

5: 1-6. My child, be attentive to my wisdom;

incline your ear to my understanding,

so that you may hold on to prudence,

and your lips may guard knowledge.

For the lips of a loose [or strange] woman drip honey,

and her speech is smoother than oil,

but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,

sharp as a two-edged sword.

Her feet go down to death;

her steps follow the path to Sheol.

She does not keep straight to the path of life;

her ways wander, and she does not know it.

The ‘lips’ refer to persuasive words, sweet as honey and comforting as massage oil. Since wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) has been and still can be used for healing certain maladies, the point here is simply that it has a bitter taste. It has long been a common contrast. John in the book of Revelation captures some of the sense, “So I went to the angel and told him to give me the scroll; and he said to me, ‘Take it, and eat; it will be bitter to your stomach but sweet as honey in your mouth’. So I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it; it was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter” (Revelation 10: 9-10),

The meaning of this contrast is that there is a delay between the experience and the effect. If it is illicit sex, pleasure turns into guilt and remorse. If it is a departure from God’s perception of the world, then the first step off the path may seem adventuresome or bold, but it leads a person to be lost later in life. We close the Lord’s prayer with the phrase, “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.” These things belong to God (‘thine is’) and Jesus secured them by his sacrificial death, not by taking up the two swords that the disciples brought and fighting to defeat Satan and world. Yet, there are groups of Christians who think that our mandate is to fight to secure the kingdom in America. What they really mean is to secure the power and privilege that they had enjoyed previously.

Hebrews says, “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire” (12: 28). The kingdom is a gift from God; no one earned it, it is not our job to defend it. It is our job to live as someone who rejects the worldly practice of seeking power: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12: 2).

5: 7-14. And now, my children, listen to me,

and do not depart from the words of my mouth.

Keep your way far from her,

and do not go near the door of her house,

lest you give your honor to others

and your years to the merciless,

and strangers take their fill of your wealth,

and your labors go to the house of an alien,

and at the end of your life you groan,

when your flesh and body are consumed,

and you say, “Oh, how I hated discipline,

and my heart despised reproof!

I did not listen to the voice of my teachers

or incline my ear to my instructors.

Now I am at the point of utter ruin

in the public assembly.”

The writer of Hebrews agrees with Solomon: “And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children—‘My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when you are punished by him, for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves and chastises every child whom he accepts’” (Hebrews 12: 5-6; based on Proverbs 3: 11-12 and Psalm 94:12).