Proverbs

Proverbs 7

27 verses · Wisdom · Old Testament

1My son, keep my words. Lay up my commandments within you. 2Keep my commandments and live! Guard my teaching as the apple of your eye. 3Bind them on your fingers. Write them on the tablet of your heart. 4Tell wisdom, “You are my sister.” Call understanding your relative, 5that they may keep you from the strange woman, from the foreigner who flatters with her words. 6For at the window of my house, I looked out through my lattice. 7I saw among the simple ones. I discerned among the youths a young man void of understanding, 8passing through the street near her corner, he went the way to her house, 9in the twilight, in the evening of the day, in the middle of the night and in the darkness. 10Behold, there a woman met him with the attire of a prostitute, and with crafty intent. 11She is loud and defiant. Her feet don’t stay in her house. 12Now she is in the streets, now in the squares, and lurking at every corner. 13So she caught him, and kissed him. With an impudent face she said to him: 14“Sacrifices of peace offerings are with me. Today I have paid my vows. 15Therefore I came out to meet you, to diligently seek your face, and I have found you. 16I have spread my couch with carpets of tapestry, with striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt. 17I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. 18Come, let’s take our fill of loving until the morning. Let’s solace ourselves with loving. 19For my husband isn’t at home. He has gone on a long journey. 20He has taken a bag of money with him. He will come home at the full moon.” 21With persuasive words, she led him astray. With the flattering of her lips, she seduced him. 22He followed her immediately, as an ox goes to the slaughter, as a fool stepping into a noose. 23Until an arrow strikes through his liver, as a bird hurries to the snare, and doesn’t know that it will cost his life.
24Now therefore, sons, listen to me. Pay attention to the words of my mouth. 25Don’t let your heart turn to her ways. Don’t go astray in her paths, 26for she has thrown down many wounded. Yes, all her slain are a mighty army. 27Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the rooms of death.

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What others are saying

4 commentators · 62 notes on this chapter

Matthew HenryEnglish Puritan / Nonconformist · 1708–17143

Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.

Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.

v. 1–5

These verses are an introduction to his warning against fleshly lusts, much the same with that, Pro 6:20, etc., and ending (Pro 7:5) as that did (Pro 6:24), To keep thee from the strange woman; that is it he aims at; only there he had said, Keep thy father's…

v. 6–23

Solomon here, to enforce the caution he had given against the sin of whoredom, tells a story of a young man that was ruined to all intents and purposes by the enticements of an adulterous woman. Such a story as this would serve the lewd profane poets of our…

v. 24–27

We have here the application of the foregoing story: "Hearken to me therefore, and not to such seducers (Pro 7:24); give ear to a father, and not to an enemy." 1. "Take good counsel when it is given you. Let not thy heart decline to her ways (Pro 7:25); never…

John GillParticular Baptist / High Calvinist · 1746–176327

The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.

Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.

v. 1

My son, keep my words,.... Doctrines and instructions; which, as a father to a son, or a master to his scholars, he had delivered; these he would have him observe and attend to; and lay up my commandments with thee: as a treasure in his heart, to be brought…

v. 2

Keep my commandments and live,.... Not the commandments of the law only, but the commandments of Christ; and even the doctrines of Christ are so called, as faith in him, and love to the saints, 1 John 3:23; which is the way to live comfortably, peaceably…

v. 3

Bind them upon thy fingers,.... Let the above words and doctrines be as ready and familiar as if they were at the fingers' ends; or let them be always fresh in memory, as a piece of thread is tied about the fingers, to put in mind of anything to be done; or…

Keil & DelitzschGerman Lutheran, conservative-critical · 1861–187513

The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.

Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.

v. 1–3

The introduction first counsels in general to a true appreciation of these well-considered life-rules of wisdom. 1 My son, keep my words, And treasure up my commandments with thee. 2 Keep my commandments, and thou shalt live; And my instruction as the apple…

v. 4–5

The subject-matter of this earnest warning are the admonitions of the teacher of wisdom, and through him of Wisdom herself, who in contrast to the world and its lust is the worthiest object of love, and deserves to be loved with the purest, sincerest love: 4…

v. 6–7

How necessary it is for the youth to guard himself by the help of wisdom against the enticements of the wanton woman, the author now shows by a reference to his own observation. 6 For through the window of my house, From behind the lattice I looked out; 7…

Jamieson, Fausset & BrownScottish Presbyterian / Reformed · 187119

The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.

Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.

v. 2

apple . . . eye--pupil of eye, a custody (Pro 4:23) of special value.

v. 3–4

Bind . . . fingers--as inscriptions on rings.

v. 5

The design of the teaching (compare Pro 2:16; Pro 6:24).

World English Bible — Public domain