Глава 5

1–6. A general and preliminary warning against the temptations of unchastity. 7–14. A deliberate and detailed warning against the seductions of unchastity with a depiction of its disastrous consequences. 15–20. An equally detailed exhortation to the opposite virtue - marital fidelity and chastity in general. 21–23. In conclusion, it points to omniscience and the highest justice and reward of God from which no criminal act can escape with impunity. Proverbs 5:1. My son! listen to my wisdom, and incline your ear to my understanding, Proverbs 5:2. that you may preserve discretion, and that your lips may preserve knowledge. [Do not listen to a flattering woman;] Proverbs 5:3. For the mouth of another man's wife drips honey, and her speech is softer than oil; Proverbs 5:4. but the consequences from it are bitter, like wormwood, sharp, like a two-edged sword; Proverbs 5:5. her feet descend to death, her feet reach to the underworld. Proverbs 5:6. If you wanted to comprehend the path of her life, then her ways are fickle, and you will not recognize them. Turning now to a new group of admonitions, mainly to the conviction to flee debauchery and the influence of dissolute women, the Wise One here (vv. 1-2), as below (Proverbs 6.20, 7.1), where he returns again and again to the same subject, with special intensity of fatherly love and goodwill, demands from his listeners special attention to his instructions and special care in keeping the dear and sacred covenants that should be the basis well-being of the listeners. The words in parentheses “do not listen to a flattering woman” (Art. 2, according to the Slavic volume - the beginning of Art. 3) are found only in the LXX and in the Vulgate (in some codd. LXX are absent) and, apparently, are a later gloss placed at the beginning of the chapter as an indication of the topic of the speech of Ch. V. In Art. 3–6 The Wise So far makes only an indirect warning to his listeners against the harmful influence of “another man’s wife,” that is, a harlot (Proverbs 2.16), depicting, on the one hand, her external attractiveness and seductiveness, and on the other, her final inglorious death. The external attractiveness of this woman, the fascination of her speech is expressed by comparing her speeches (like the bride in the book of Song of Songs 4.11, 5.16) with drops of the best honey (3a) and with oil (3b, cf. Ps 54.22), but the consequences of being carried away by her caresses are extremely harmful: those who are carried away by them will experience the same bitter and painful feeling as those who tasted them. bitter wormwood (Hebrew laana. Vulg.: abstinthtum, - so called in botany Artemisia abstintium - a common image of bitterness in the Old Testament (Deut. 29.18; Jer. 9.15; Am 5.17, 6.12; Jer. 9.14), in the LXX Glav. not exactly: χολὴ, bile) or having received a deep and wide wound from a two-edged sword (v. 4). All the more natural and understandable is the inevitable final death of the dissolute wife herself: her destiny is death (v. 5), first spiritual, since the spiritual principle in her is finally suppressed by the carnal, and then an early and inglorious bodily death, followed by torment in Sheol - hell. However, with the cunning characteristic of such a wife, it is not easy for a carried away young man to discover the true nature and proper value of her actions (v. 6), since she always knows how to give a plausible form. Proverbs 5:7. So, children, listen to me and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Proverbs 5:8. Keep your path farther from her and do not come close to the doors of her house, Proverbs 5:9. so as not to give your health to others and your years to the tormentor; Proverbs 5:10. so that strangers are not satisfied with your power, and your labors are not for someone else’s house. Proverbs 5:11. And you will groan later, when your flesh and your body are exhausted, -: Proverbs 5:12. and you will say: “Why did I hate instruction, and my heart despised reproof? Proverbs 5:13. and I did not listen to the voice of my teachers, I did not incline my ear to my teachers: Proverbs 5:14. I almost fell into all sorts of evil among the congregation and society!” Bearing in mind the ability of a young man to be carried away and easily excited by all kinds of sensual temptations, the Wise advises his listener to avoid in every possible way any close meeting with a dissolute wife (v. 6), since any type of adultery inevitably leads to the perpetrator - the Wise speaks only about the man, the perpetrator of adultery, and not about the woman, since in general he addresses his instructions mainly, even almost exclusively, only to the male half Israeli society, - two kinds of severe consequences: 1) to material losses - partly due to the special demands of the dissolute wife herself, partly due to forced slave service in the house of the husband of the woman who seduced this young man: to satisfy the anger and thirst for revenge of the offended husband (cf. Proverbs 6.34), the young man could serve as a slave in his house (vv. 9-10) 3, so that the young man would have to work for someone else house (v. 10); 2) to a formal public court (Article 14), the result of which could even be the death penalty for the perpetrators (Article 14, n. Lev.20:10; Deut.20:11, Deut.22; Ezekiel 16:40). Then the unfortunate young man is left only with late and fruitless, and therefore especially painful, repentance. For a person who has indulged in revelry and debauchery, “the time will come when it will no longer be possible to continue a dissolute life, when the body exhausted by debauchery will wear out over time and from the diseases that accompany debauchery and the heat of carnal lust will go out” (Bishop Vissarion, p. 62). Then the time for the sinner’s self-accusation will begin (vv. 11-12). Proverbs 5:15. Drink the water from your cistern and the water that flows from your well. Proverbs 5:16. Let not your springs overflow in the streets, nor let your streams of water over the squares; Proverbs 5:17. let them belong to you alone, and not to strangers with you. Proverbs 5:18. May your source be blessed; and be comforted by the wife of your youth, Proverbs 5:19. a kind doe and a beautiful brimstone: let her breasts intoxicate you at all times, delight in her love constantly. Proverbs 5:20. And why do you, my son, get carried away by strangers and embrace someone else’s breasts? In contrast to the distortions of family and sexual instinct, the Wise One convinces his disciple to be content with the benefits of a marital union with a single legal wife, and compares her with his own home pond and spring sources. For every homeowner, especially in water-poor eastern countries, it is a special pleasure to have his own well or cistern for his everyday needs and not have to turn to his neighbors for water. With similar pleasure the Wise One compares (vv. 15–16) the possession of one, lawful wife, without violating the purity of a marriage, one’s own or someone else’s. Due to the connection of the speech with the previous one (Proverbs 5.3 ff., Proverbs 5.8 ff.), this comparison has, first of all, the same meaning as the saying of the Apostle: “It is better to marry than to become thin” (1 Cor 7.9). But this same comparison (vv. 16–17) also has another side: it denotes numerous offspring from a legal, chaste marriage, since in other biblical places (Num. 24.7; Isa. 48.1, 51.1–2) children are depicted under the image of water flowing from a source, i.e. from their parents. LXX, apparently, also understood Art. 16 only in the first sense - about enjoying the pleasures of marriage with one wife, and therefore they added at the beginning of Art. 16 negation μὴ – μῆ ὑπερεκχείσθω. But many Greek codd. (29, 109, 147, 157, 161, 248, 252, 253, 254, 260, 295, 297 in Golmes, also Alex., Ald. Compl.) do not have a negation, it is not in the Vulgate and in the Slavs. Therefore, it seems that the reading of Hebrews should be preferred. Masor., although the understanding of Art. 16, given in LXX, is consistent with the general context of the passage in question (cf. Proverbs 7.12). In Art. 18 repeats the instruction of Art. 15, but with the addition of the advice “be comforted by the wife of your youth”; The image of the expression directly resembles the passage from the law of Deuteronomy 24.5 about newlyweds. The legal wife is expressively compared (v. 19) with a doe or chamois: a common image in Eastern poetry of a woman’s grace and comeliness (cf. Song 2.9, 17, 8.14). Reminding the husband of the duty of marital fidelity, the Wise One expresses the desire that the tender relationship between husband and wife established in the early stages of their life together would not weaken over time, so that the mutual affection of the spouses would last a lifetime, and there would be no need for the spouse to seek marital pleasures on the side (vv. 19–20). Proverbs 5:21. For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He measures all his paths. Proverbs 5:22. The lawless one is caught by his own iniquities, and he is kept in the bonds of his sin: Proverbs 5:23. he dies without guidance, and is lost from his multitude of madness. As the highest and final motive for avoiding any type of unchastity, the omniscience of God and the comprehensiveness of the world-ruling providence of God are pointed out (cf. Job 24.23, 34.21, 31.4 from which one who indulges in debauchery would think in vain to hide: according to the judgment of God, debauchery, like any crime in general, entails partly natural, partly deliberately sent by God disastrous consequences (cf. Proverbs 1.31–32, 9.5, 18.7; Ps 7.16 and many others). It should be noted, however, that this opinion, accepted by some Western learned commentators (Ewald, Umbreit, Berto), about punishing the perpetrator of a violation of the integrity of a marriage by enslaving the offender to the offended person, is not confirmed by any evidence from the Law of Moses and biblical history and is only an assumption, which is thoroughly objected to, for example, by Delitzsch (p. 97). You might be interested in: