1 My son, keep my words. Lay up my commandments within you.
2 Keep my commandments and live! Guard my teaching as the apple of your eye.
3 Bind them on your fingers. Write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 Tell wisdom, “You are my sister.” Call understanding your relative,
5 that they may keep you from the strange woman, from the foreigner who flatters with her words.
6 For at the window of my house, I looked out through my lattice.
7 I saw amongst the simple ones. I discerned amongst the youths a young man void of understanding,
8 passing through the street near her corner, he went the way to her house,
9 in the twilight, in the evening of the day, in the middle of the night and in the darkness.
10 Behold, there a woman met him with the attire of a prostitute, and with crafty intent.
11 She is loud and defiant. Her feet don’t stay in her house.
12 Now she is in the streets, now in the squares, and lurking at every corner.
13 So 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.
15 Therefore I came out to meet you, to diligently seek your face, and I have found you.
16 I have spread my couch with carpets of tapestry, with striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt.
17 I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
18 Come, let’s take our fill of loving until the morning. Let’s solace ourselves with loving.
19 For my husband isn’t at home. He has gone on a long journey.
20 He has taken a bag of money with him. He will come home at the full moon.”
21 With persuasive words, she led him astray. With the flattering of her lips, she seduced him.
22 He followed her immediately, as an ox goes to the slaughter, as a fool stepping into a noose.
23 Until an arrow strikes through his liver, as a bird hurries to the snare, and doesn’t know that it will cost his life.
24 Now therefore, sons, listen to me. Pay attention to the words of my mouth.
25 Don’t let your heart turn to her ways. Don’t go astray in her paths,
26 for she has thrown down many wounded. Yes, all her slain are a mighty army.
27 Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the rooms of death.
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary, 1706
Verses 1–5
We must lay up God’s commandments safely. Not only, Keep them, and you shall live; but, Keep them as those that cannot live without them. Those that blame strict and careful walking as needless and too precise, consider not that the law is to be kept as the apple of the eye; indeed the law in the heart is the eye of the soul. Let the word of God dwell in us, and so be written where it will be always at hand to be read. Thus we shall be kept from the fatal effects of our own passions, and the snares of Satan. Let God’s word confirm our dread of sin, and resolutions against it.
Verses 6–27
Here is an affecting example of the danger of youthful lusts. It is a history or a parable of the most instructive kind. Will any one dare to venture on temptations that lead to impurity, after Solomon has set before his eyes in so lively and plain a manner, the danger of even going near them? Then is he as the man who would dance on the edge of a lofty rock, when he has just seen another fall headlong from the same place. The misery of self-ruined sinners began in disregard to God’s blessed commands. We ought daily to pray that we may be kept from running into temptation, else we invite the enemies of our souls to spread snares for us. Ever avoid the neighbourhood of vice. Beware of sins which are said to be pleasant sins. They are the more dangerous, because they most easily gain the heart, and close it against repentance. Do nothing till thou hast well considered the end of it. Were a man to live as long as Methuselah, and to spend all his days in the highest delights sin can offer, one hour of the anguish and tribulation that must follow, would far outweigh them.