1My son, keep my sayings,
and store up my commands within you.
2Keep my commands and live,
my teaching like the apple of your eye.
3Bind them on your fingers,
write them on the tablet of your heart.
4Say to Wisdom, “You are my sister,”
and call Discernment a friend.
5To keep you from a stranger-woman,
from a smooth-talking alien woman.
6For from the window of my house,
through my lattice I looked down,
7and I saw among the dupes,
discerned among the young men a witless lad,
8passing through streets, by the corner,
on the way to her house he strides,
9at twilight, as evening descends,
in pitch-black night and darkness.
10And, look, a woman to meet him,
whore’s attire and hidden intent.
11Bustling she is and wayward,
in her house her feet do not stay.
12Now outside, now in the square,
and by every corner she lurks.
13She seizes him and kisses him,
impudently says to him:
14“I had to make well-being offerings,
today I’ve fulfilled my vows.
15And so I’ve come out to meet you,
to seek you, and I’ve found you.
16With coverlets I’ve spread my couch,
dyed cloths of Egyptian linen.
17I’ve sprinkled my bed with myrrh,
with aloes and cinnamon.
18Come, let us drink deep of loving till morn,
let us revel in love’s delights.
19For the man is not in his house,
he’s gone on a far-off way.
20The purse of silver he took in his hand,
at the new moon he’ll return to his house.”
21She sways him with all her talk,
with her smooth speech she leads him astray.
22He goes after her in a trice,
as an ox goes off to the slaughter,
as a stag prances into a halter.
23Till an arrow pierces his liver,
as a bird hastens to the snare,
not knowing the cost is his life.
24And now, sons, listen to me,
and attend to my mouth’s sayings.
25Let your heart not veer to her ways,
and do not go astray on her paths.
26For many the victims she has felled,
innumerable all whom she has killed.
27Through her house are the ways to Sheol,
going down to the chambers of Death.
CHAPTER 7 NOTES
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1. My son, keep my sayings. This poem, a unified structure that takes up the entire chapter, is framed by a five-line exordium, with the specific topic introduced in verse 5, and a four-line conclusion (verses 24–27), in which the speaker points the moral of his story. What unfolds in between these frames is the closest to a sustained narrative that one finds in Proverbs.
6. from the window of my house, / through my lattice I looked down. The Mentor enjoys a spatially superior position, able to survey the street scene below where sexual dangers await the unwitting, he himself sheltered from curious eyes by the lattice through which he peers. As he goes on with his story, however, he moves from visual observation to novelistic invention in the vivid dialogue he provides for the seductress. His post of observation in his house is a counterpoint to the house of the stranger-woman with its lethal dangers. The narrative will be defined in part by the two thematic key words, “house” and “way.”
9. at twilight . . . / in pitch-black night and darkness. This line is a vivid instance of the deployment of narrative development from the first verset to the second in lines of biblical poetry. When the young man goes into the streets, heading in the direction of the seductress’s house—whether intentionally or inadvertently—evening is falling. In the next moment—one might recall that sunset is quick in the latitude of the land of Israel—it is already night, under the cloak of which the arts of seduction can be exercised with impunity. The word for “pitch-black” is ʾishon, otherwise the apple of the eye (as in verse 2)—that is, the darkest part of the eye. It is a characteristic procedure of biblical narrative and poetry to repeat the same word with a different meaning as a move is effected from one segment of the text to the next.
10. whore’s attire. Since she is a married woman, not a professional prostitute, the reference is probably to provocative attire, not to clothing explicitly marked for the practice of prostitution.
hidden intent. Literally, “guarded of heart.” The translation follows an apt suggestion by Michael V. Fox.
11. in her house her feet do not stay. In this society, a woman’s place is in her home. Her going out into the streets is an expression of her sexual restlessness (no doubt encouraged by the extended absence of her husband).
13. She seizes him and kisses him. Her role as sexual aggressor is manifest.
14. I had to make well-being offerings. The point is not merely her hypocrisy in launching an overture to adultery fresh from the Temple service but also that she is proposing to him a sumptuous meat dinner as a prelude to sex. The shelamim, well-being offerings, would have only in part been burned on the altar with another part of the animal reserved for feasting.
16. With coverlets I’ve spread my couch, / dyed cloths of Egyptian linen. Now she moves to the site of sexual consummation, explaining that she has lavishly prepared her bed with luxurious cloths imported from Egypt, scented with aromatic spices (verse 17) imported from Arabia and the east (probably India). It is clear that the seductress has means of affluence at her disposal, in all likelihood provided by her husband’s activities as a merchant (see verse 20).
18. let us drink deep of loving till morn. The word for “loving,” dodim, refers explicitly to lovemaking, and the drinking of dodim is a phrase used in the Song of Songs. Counting on his youthful vigor, she is offering him a whole night of continuous sex.
19. For the man is not in his house. This reference to her husband—not “my man” or “my husband” but “the man”—is vaguely contemptuous. This line neatly counterparts the two thematic key words, “house” and “way.” While the man is “on a far-off way,” his house can become a love nest of adultery.
20. The purse of silver. This detail equally suggests that the husband is a prosperous merchant and that he will be away for a long time. Some interpreters see in it a hint that she is requesting money from the young man, though that is not a necessary inference.
at the new moon. Many understand the Hebrew keseh to mean full moon, but the term clearly reflects the verbal root that means “to cover,” which would accord far better with the new moon. If this assumption is correct, the story would unfold in the early days of the lunar month, when the moon is still a sliver and it is quite dark at night. That would give the wayward wife and the young man almost four weeks to drink deep of love’s pleasures.
22. a stag prances into a halter. The received text at this point is garbled. The New Jewish Publication Society, for example, renders it “as a fool for the stocks of punishment,” not translating the first, incomprehensible word ukheʿekhes, and producing an unlikely parallel to the preceding verset about the ox going to slaughter. Instead of the Masoretic ukheʿekhes ʾel-musar ʾewil, this translation adopts a proposed emendation ukheʿakes ʾel-musar ʾeyal, which involves merely a revocalization of the first word and deleting the waw in the last word, with revocalization. Musar in this animal context would not mean “reproof,” as it does elsewhere in Proverbs, but “sash” or “halter” (the meaning of this word in Job 12:18).
23. an arrow pierces his liver. This may be simply an image of a fatal wound, though biblical Hebrew links the liver with sexual desire, so it could conceivably refer to venereal disease. Otherwise, the fate of death would be at the hands of the vengeful husband. It is a reflection of the pragmatic orientation of Proverbs that the Mentor warns against adultery not as a violation of a divine commandment but as an act that can have lethal consequences.
27. Through her house are the ways to Sheol. Here at the end, the key terms “house” and “way” are pointedly brought together. Her house turns out to hide a kind of metaphoric trapdoor—perhaps underneath that bed with its fancy linens—opening on a chute that takes one down to the realm of death.