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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 2:16 - 2:16
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With the resumption of לְהַצִּילְךָ, the watchful protection which wisdom affords to its possessors is further specified in these verses:
16 To save thee from the strange woman,
From the stranger who useth smooth words;
The subject here continued is the fourfold wisdom named in Pro 2:10, Pro 2:11. זָר signifies alienus, which may also be equivalent to alius populi, but of a much wider compass - him who does not belong to a certain class (e.g., the non-priestly or the laity), the person or thing not belonging to me, or also some other than I designate; on the other hand, נָכְרִי, peregrinus, scarcely anywhere divests itself of the essential mark of a strange foreign origin. While thus אִשָּׁה זָרָה is the non-married wife, נָכְרִיָּה designates her as non-Israelitish. Prostitution was partly sanctioned in the cultus of the Midianites, Syrians, and other nations neighbouring to Israel, and thus was regarded as nothing less than customary. In Israel, on the contrary, the law (Deu 23:18.) forbade it under a penalty, and therefore it was chiefly practised by foreign women (Pro 23:27, and cf. the exception, Rth 2:10),
(Note: In Talmudic Heb. אֲרָמִית (Aramean) has this meaning for the Biblical נָכְרִיָּה.)
an inveterate vice, which spread itself particularly from the latter days of Solomon, along with general ungodliness, and excusing itself under the polygamy sanctioned by the law, brought ruin on the state. The Chokma contends against this, and throughout presents monogamy as alone corresponding to the institution and the idea of the relation. Designating marriage as the “covenant of God,” it condemns not only adulterous but generally promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, because unhallowed and thus unjustifiable, and likewise arbitrary divorce. Regarding the ancient ceremonies connected with the celebration of marriage we are not specially informed; but from Pro 2:17, Mal 2:14 (Ewald, Bertheau, Hitzig, but not Köhler), it appears that the celebration of marriage was a religious act, and that they who were joined together in marriage called God to witness and ratify the vows they took upon themselves. The perf. in the attributive clause אֲמָרֶיהָ הֶחֱלִיקָה proceeds on the routine acquired in cajoling and dissembling: who has smoothed her words, i.e., learned to entice by flattering words (Fl.).