Proverbs 6:20

WARNING AGAINST THE HARLOT AND THE ADULTERESS (THE TWELFTH DISCOURSE)

"My son, keep the commandment of thy father,

And forsake not the law of thy mother:

Bind them continually upon thy heart;

Tie them about thy neck.

When thou walkest, it shall lead thee;

When thou sleepest, it shall watch over thee;

And when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.

For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light;

And the reproofs of instruction are the way of life:

To keep thee from the evil woman,

From the flattery of the foreigner's tongue.

Lust not after her beauty in thy heart;

Neither let her take thee with her eyelids.

For on account of a harlot a man is brought to a piece of bread;

And the adulteress hunteth for the precious life.

Can a man take fire in his bosom,

And his clothes be not burned?

Or can one walk upon hot coals,

And his feet be not scorched?

So he that goeth in to his neighbors wife;

Whosoever toucheth her shall not be unpunished.

Men do not despise a thief, if he steal

To satisfy himself when he is hungry:

But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold;

He shall give all the substance of his house.

He that committeth adultery with a woman is void of understanding:

He doeth it who would destroy his own soul.

Wounds and dishonor shall he get;

And his reproach shall not be wiped away.

For jealousy is the rage of a man;

And he will not spare in the day of vengeance.

He will not regard any ransom;

Neither will he rest content, though thou givest many girls."

There is a translation problem with these verses as a glance at the Revised Standard Version (RSV) will indicate. We shall follow the RSV in portions of this section. In previous references in Proverbs to the vice mentioned here, we have already made many comments that are also applicable in this section.

We appreciate Fritsch's statement regarding the purpose of these long sections on unlawful sex indulgence in Proverbs, "It is not to titillate the passions of the reader, as so much modern literature does, but to portray the disillusionment of illicit love and its certain end in unquenchable remorse and bitter death."[27] We find it difficult to think of Solomon as an instructor of his son Rehoboam as we study these lines. As Wordsworth stated it, "The unhappy example of Solomon in his old age was more potent for evil in the life of Rehoboam than the sacred precepts of Proverbs were for righteousness. At the age of forty-one Rehoboam was a feeble libertine. The warnings of Proverbs fell flat on the ears of the royal son of the author, and Rehoboam derived little benefit from the Book of Proverbs."[28]

"Lust not after her beauty in thy heart" (Proverbs 6:25). "These words push the sin of adultery back to the heart of the sinner, even as does the New Testament (Matthew 5:28; Mark 7:21; James 1:14-15)."[29]

There are two fundamentally different interpretations of this section; and the difficult text may be so translated as to support either one of them. This writer accepts the view that there are two different kinds of sexual misbehavior spoken of in this passage, namely cohabiting with a professional prostitute and committing adultery with a neighbor's wife.

This is supported by the fact that "the strange woman" (Proverbs 6:24 KJV) cannot be applied to a neighbor's wife; and "one emendation reads for a harlot's sake," a translation that Kidner rejected on the grounds that, "The RSV shrugs off the first (harlotry) in a manner that is hardly true."[30]

We call special attention to the fact that adultery with a neighbor's wife in the latter part of this long paragraph is definitely contrasted with thievery; and it is logical to understand the first half of the paragraph as a contrast between committing sexual sin with a prostitute and doing so with a neighbor's wife.

Furthermore, the RSV does not "shrug off" intercourse with a prostitute. Proverbs has already warned against this evil in the most vigorous language; and what is said here is merely that adultery with a neighbor's wife is even a whole lot worse!

Also note the following verse as rendered in the RSV: For a harlot may be hired for a loaf of bread, But an adulteress stalks a man's very life (Proverbs 6:26). The contrast stated here is profoundly true. Terrible and deadly as the prostitute most certainly is, cohabitation with the neighbor's wife is even a greater and more foolish sin.

Driver wrote that, "All of the Ancient Versions support the view that in this passage the harlot is contrasted with the neighbor's wife."[31] We might add that the same is true of the Modern Versions: The Anchor Bible, the NIV, the new RSV, the Good News Bible, and Moffatt.

"Thus the RSV makes sexual intercourse with an adulteress far more dangerous and expensive than with a harlot."[32] This is by no means hard to understand. The adulteress has a far greater advantage than the harlot, because the wrath and vengeance of the adulteress' husband is a key weapon under her control. Also, if a man steals his neighbor's pig, he can restore the animal, but he cannot do that if he steals his wife!

"He that committeth adultery ... would destroy his own soul" (Proverbs 6:22). "The adulterer pays a far greater price than the robber, viz, his own soul"![33]