Chapter 7
2021 - Again we start with "My son..." Reasons for heeding the coming advice are given. The advice is in 4, and the consequence in 5. It seems that here in 7, the advice of the previous three chapters, each of which was a standalone lesson, is now tied together into one connecting principle.
Introduction. The reader, "my son", is urged to listen to the teaching, to the wisdom of the writer, and keep it close and follow it always. Then the last verse introduces the subject of the lesson: Keep away from strange women, from foreign women. This verse:
4 Say to wisdom, "You are my sister," and call insight your intimate friend, [Pro 7:4 ESV]
Once again, the word translated insight is elsewhere translated understanding. Maybe we are to understand that both wisdom (intangible) and understanding (based on learning and knowledge and facts) are necessary to accrue the benefits described in proverbs. Maybe wisdom is not possible without understanding. Maybe it is part of the foundation that wisdom is built on.
2023 - In verse 5 we find that word "issa" yet again. This time it is not translated wife but "strange woman". This seems to be to be entirely inconsistent with what we saw in the last chapter in vss 24-26. Why is it about a stranger here? Here is the verse, so we can consider how it might have been translated more consistently:
5 to keep you from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words. [Pro 7:5 ESV]. Seems to me that "evil woman", as in 6:24, would make the same sense here, and again identify that the aims of both women to whom we are emotionally attached and prostitutes - strangers - is the same. Yeah...ESV needs to be at least consistent with "issa", unless there is context to change the translation. Hmm....and vss 6-9 may very well give us the context of the kind of woman we're talking about, and at the same time show us just how variable the translations of issa can be. Hebrew makes Greek seem easy to learn! ...And yet another twist! The "wife" in the contextual story claims to be married, she just goes out and prostitutes herself when her husband is gone. For the money or the thrill we do not know. But this would make the context of "issa" in vs 5 indicative of an unfaithful, perverse, evil wife that ought not be trusted by her own husband. So I am back to "evil woman" instead of forbidden woman.
Lesson: The next three sections tell a story illustrating the dangers of the women in the introduction. The writer tells a story from personal experience. The first character is a young man lacking sense, who wanders thoughtlessly through the streets, and unintentionally ends up near "her" corner. The second character is dressed as a prostitute. Interesting that it doesn't label her a prostitute. Her character and manner are described. Loud and wayward. Moving always moving here and there. She meets the first character and tempts him with sex, and says she came to meet him specifically and share her bed with him. She is a wife, because she tells him her husband is not at home. (12/7/19. No, I had this wrong. She tells him she is married so he won't know she is a prostitute. She tells him her "husband" has money, so he won't think she's going to charge him for her time. She is deceiving him on many levels in order to corrupt him. Sleeping with a married women is pretty bad, but at least both are motivated to keep it secret, so their reputations can remain intact and appearances be kept up. So a man might be more tempted by a "wife" than by a prostitute who has no care for her reputation or that of her clients. Much easier to say no to a prostitute than to a married woman who can't stay away from you. This is what "I Honestly Love You" is really about.) Maybe true, maybe part of the act - so he won't be put off by a prostitute so much as have an affair with another man's wife. Seems less sinful somehow, though we've already seen that the opposite is the case. Then the result. She persuades him. Suddenly he makes up his mind to go with her, not knowing that he will ultimately pay with his life for this.
2021 - Following the combined advice, the consequences of not heeding the advice are illustrated with a story about what happened to one young man. We seem to be talking about a prostitute, but she never asks for money. She claims to have a husband who is not home. So the second kind of woman. More dangerous than a prostitute. More deadly than a prostitute. While co-signing for your neighbor can get you into trouble, far more time is spent on warnings against the wrong women, and this closing verse of Chapter 7 tells why:
27 Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death. [Pro 7:27 ESV]. Stay away from married, but adulterous, women.
Final paragraph: Sons, listen to me, and stay away from women like this. She has destroyed many a man already, and her house is the way to hell.
11/7/21 - Two thing as I read this today: In vss 19, 20, this woman claims to be married. She is not at all faithful if she is married. Does this refer us back to the woman in 6:25 to the end of the chapter? Not a mere prostitute, which would be bad enough, but a married woman behaving like a prostitute, the most dangerous of all?
And also there is vs 26: 26 for many a victim has she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng. [Pro 7:26 ESV]. This is a woman serially unfaithful, if married, or serially promiscuous if unmarried. In either case, this father is letting his sons know that they can judge these women by their reputations. This is not like deciding whether to have sex before marriage when you're both virgins. This is about knowing what you are dealing with when a different kind of woman comes into your life - either a prostitute or a married woman. Vs 6:26 seems to say that prostitutes should be fairly easy to deal with, and while they are to be avoided they perhaps don't ruin your life. But a married woman, as described here in 7? You better look out, and you better not believe you can change her and settle her down, and you better not be so naive as to think this is her first time being unfaithful. You will be wrong on all counts.
2023 - Is it ironic that Solomon is writing these words? Is this before or after he had 300 wives and 500 concubines? Before he was seduced into building altars and temples for his wives so they could worship false gods right there in his capitol city? Did Solomon write this before all that, or is he warning his sons not to make the same mistakes he did? I think it was written before, and he failed to take his own advice. He lost his resolve as he got older. Another very big problem for men.