Proverbs 9:13-18

CONTRASTIVE PICTURE OF WISDOM’S OPPONENT THE SEDUCTIVE HARLOT, Proverbs 9:13-18.

The foolish woman of this passage is vividly drawn in contrast with the hhokmah, Wisdom, and may be taken as the type or incarnation of carnal pleasure, or the immoderate and unlawful indulgence of the appetites and passions. As in the preceding verses Wisdom was represented as a pure and queenly woman, enthroned in a palace, inviting all uninstructed ones to enjoy with her a pure, intellectual, and spiritual feast, the result of which would give vigour, long life, and happiness; so the opposite, this “foolish woman,” who knoweth nothing at all that is useful or virtuous this woman, אשׁת כסילות , ( esheth kesilouth.) woman of follies the representative of ignorant sensuality, is also placed upon her seat, כסא , ( kisse,) a throne. She sits in state at the door of her house, (Jeremiah 3:2; Genesis 38:14,) and that house in the most public place; in the very places where the maidens of Wisdom invite men to the feast of knowledge. Proverbs 9:3. She sits there with her lascivious arts and speech to divert men from intellectual and moral culture, and to overwhelm them in sensual pleasures. Comp. Proverbs 7:11, seq.