Proverbs 5:15-17

EXHORTATION TO CHASTENESS AND PROPER CONJUGAL DUTIES, Proverbs 5:15-23.

15-17. Drink waters Waters often stand for posterity. Numbers 24:7. Fountains, wells, and cisterns, in the East were regarded as of great importance. Hence they were largely used metaphorically for that which is noble, desirable, and even sacred. Compare Psalms 68:26; Isaiah 43:1; Song of Solomon 4:12; Genesis 26:15-20; Jeremiah 18:14. These verses, under an allegory, contain an exhortation to restrain the sexual appetite within the boundaries of thine own married life. The figure is eminently Oriental and vivid, but chaste; and the subject is treated with the utmost delicacy of language and purity of thought. By the fountains of Proverbs 5:16 is commonly understood lawful issue, of which a man need not be ashamed, but, on the contrary, lead them forth into the streets as his joy and pride. But some versions have a negative before the word fountains. Let NOT thy fountains, etc. Fountains then would mean our sexual gratifications, and they are forbidden here to rove. The sense would then harmonize well with the next verse, where the same thought is, after the Hebrew manner, presented under a fuller form. Zockler translates interrogatively: “Shall thy streams flow abroad as water in the streets?” So, also, Conant. There is no sign of the interrogative, but this is sometimes omitted, as in Psalms 56:7.