Proverbs 7:23

Pro 7:23 Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it [is] for his life.

Ver. 23. Till a dart strike through his liver, ] i.e, Filthy lust, that fiery dart of the devil, pointed and poisoned (as the Scythian darts are said to be) with the gall of asps and vipers. Philosophers a place lust in the liver. Mathematicians subject the liver to Venus; the poets b complain of cupid’s wounding them in that part.

“ Cor sapit, et pulmo loquitur, fel commovit iras:

Splen ridere facit, cogit amare iecor."

Or, as some sense it, Till the adulterer be, by the whore’s husband or friends, or by the hand of justice, deprived of life; perhaps in the very act, as Zimri and Cozbi were by Phinehas in the very flagrancy of their lust.

a Plato in hepate το επιθυμητικον ponit.

b Horat., Ode v. lib. iv., and Ode xxv. lib. v. Ovid. Trist.