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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 9:16 - 9:16
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The woman, who in her own person serves as a sign to her house, addresses those who pass by in their innocence (לְתֻמָּם, 2Sa 15:11):
16 “Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither!”
And if any one is devoid of understanding, she saith to him:
17 “Stolen waters taste sweet,
And the bread of secrecy is pleasant.”
פְּתִי (folly, simplicity) has a side accessible to good and its contrary: Wisdom is connected with the one side, and Folly with the other. And as the חסר־לב offers a vacuum to Wisdom which may perhaps be filled with the right contents, so is this vacuum welcome to Folly, because it meets there no resistance. In this sense, Pro 9:16 is like Pro 9:4 (excepting the addition of a connecting and of a concluding ו: et si quis excors, tum dicit ei); the word is the same in both, but the meaning, according to the two speakers, is different. That to which they both invite is the pleasure of her fellowship, under the symbol of eating and drinking; in the one case it is intellectual and spiritual enjoyment, in the other sensual. That Wisdom offers (Pro 9:5) bread and wine, and Folly water and bread, has its reason in this, that the particular pleasure to which the latter invites is of a sensual kind; for to drink water out of his own or out of another fountain is (Pro 3:15-20) the symbol of intercourse in married life, or of intercourse between the unmarried, particularly of adulterous intercourse. מַיִם גְּנוּבִים (correct texts have it thus, without the Makkeph) is sexual intercourse which is stolen from him who has a right thereto, thus carnal intercourse with אֵושׁת אִישׁ; and לֶחֶם סְתָרִים fleshly lust, which, because it is contrary to the law, must seek (cf. furtum, secret love intrigue) concealment (סתרים, extensive plur., as מַֽעֲמַקּים; Böttcher, §694). Just such pleasure, after which one wipes his mouth as if he had done nothing (Pro 30:20), is for men who are without wisdom sweet (מתק, Job 20:12) and pleasant; the prohibition of it gives to such pleasure attraction, and the secrecy adds seasoning; and just such enjoyments the כסילות, personified carnality, offers. But woe to him who, befooled, enters her house!