Proverbs 7 explained: A Night Walk Toward Ruin

Hold wisdom close (vv. 1-5)

The father asks his son to guard his teaching like 'the apple of the eye', meaning the pupil, the part of the body we protect most, and to keep it as close as a ring on the finger. Calling wisdom 'sister' means treating it as family, a close bond that will keep him away from another man's wife.

A young man drifts (vv. 6-9)

Looking out through a window screen, the speaker watches an aimless young man wander at dusk toward a certain woman's corner. The point is that he walks into danger himself, going where he has no business just as night falls and fewer eyes can see.

The woman meets him (vv. 10-13)

She comes out dressed to attract, restless and always out in the streets, and boldly grabs and kisses him. The poem is addressed to young men, so she stands for the temptation they face, not for women in general.

Her invitation (vv. 14-20)

She says she has made a 'fellowship offering', a sacrifice where the worshiper kept some of the meat for a meal to be eaten within a day or two, so she has a feast waiting. Some readers think she mentions it to seem respectable, but it may simply explain the meal; she then describes a perfumed bed and assures him her husband is away until the full moon, perhaps about two weeks.

He follows like prey (vv. 21-23)

Won over by her smooth talk, he follows at once, like an ox led to slaughter or a bird flying into a trap, until an arrow pierces his liver, then thought of as a seat of life. Part of verse 22 is unclear in the Hebrew, which is why translations picture it differently.

The final warning (vv. 24-27)

The father speaks to his sons directly: do not even let your heart lean toward her path, because many have been ruined this way. Her house is called the road to Sheol, the Hebrew name for the grave and the world of the dead.

Key verse: Proverbs 7:25

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on whether the chapter is mainly a literal warning about adultery or also a broader picture of folly luring people away from wisdom, set against Wisdom's own call in the next chapter.

Something to think about

What makes something we suspect will hurt us feel so convincing in the moment?