Day 157: Proverbs 7

SCRIPTURE LINK: Proverbs 7

BACKGROUND

This chapter opens with the father once again pleading with his son to treasure his words and advice. He reiterates his plea over and over again, rephrasing it just in case it’s not clear to his son.

Then he uses two kinds of women as metaphors for wisdom and immorality. He tells his son that if he loves wisdom like a beloved sister, she will keep him from listening to the flattery of sin, who is pictured as an adulterous woman.

Two women – two very different appeals, with opposite consequences.

As we will see later this month, the next chapter of Proverbs (Proverbs 8) personifies wisdom as a woman, a woman we are to be close to. This chapter (7) tells a story of a youth who is seduced by an adulterous woman. Because wisdom is personified as a woman, I believe this immoral woman could personify sin, since sin is adultery from God. The woman Wisdom leads us to God; the woman Sin seduces us away from Him.

The chapter ends with a final plea from the father to his children: Don’t wander onto the immoral woman’s path! Though she looks attractive and inviting, her ways lead to death.

REFLECTION

Verse 2 says, “Keep my commandments and live, and my teaching as the apple of your eye.” The phrase “apple of your eye” is used to show that something is treasured and protected. (The “apple” is the pupil of the eye, the hole in the middle of the iris that admits light so that we can see.) God calls His people the apple of His eye! Here we are told to treasure and safeguard God’s instructions and teaching – His word.

Have you read the words of verse 3 anywhere recently? See Deuteronomy 6:8! Again, we are reminded to keep God’s commands close to us, almost a part of us.

As I read the story of the simple youth I am struck by its vividness. I am struck by the fact that the man who is led astray is young. He is young and seems to be hanging out with other youths without any apparent purpose. The passage says he lacks understanding. He wasn’t listening to wisdom as he would a beloved sister. He wasn’t keeping God’s words in the center of his vision.

It was evening and dark, shadows all around. I wonder about that. Isn’t it easier for us to sin when we think no one will see?

What about the woman? How did she tempt him? It we look a bit deeper we’ll see how sin seduces. For one thing, she isn’t passive. She is crafty and loud and rebellious. She is out looking for someone. How many people went by before she found the one who was vulnerable?

She puts on a nice front to the one she approaches. She says in verse 14 that she’d just paid her vows (worshipped). To someone without understanding, that might feel safe.

Next she flatters the youth. “I’ve been waiting for you! You are the one I desire!”

And she entices him with beauty and comfort and luxury and sensuality.

Then she says, “Come let us take our fill of love until morning; let us delight ourselves with love. For my husband… ” How ironic! If the youth was at all discerning that should alert him! And what a lie! She is equating sex with love. There is no way that the casual sex that she wants could satisfy the longing for love and mutual delight that comes through commitment.

She uses words to entice and words to flatter and words to seduce. And the naïve young man, having no purpose and not listening to his sister Wisdom, goes with her like an ox to the slaughter, or a bird caught by a snare. He doesn’t know it, but he is going to death.

So sad and so scary. What a lesson.

APPLICATION

Using this chapter, come up with some principles that can help you give wise counsel to your friends, your children, and even yourself.

Sin is out there all the time looking for those who are vulnerable. How can we be prepared?

PRAYER

Thanks for Your word, Lord. Help me to treasure it as the apple of my eye, so that I can see clearly. Help us, too, as we teach our children, to make clear to them the need for the wisdom and insight that come from clinging to You and Your word. Please give our children discernment and purpose in You. In Jesus’ Name. Amen