Who are the tempted? Young people who have been well-educated; these she will triumph most in being the ruin of.
I. What their real character is. “Passengers that go right on their ways”; that have been trained up in the paths of religion and virtue, and set out very hopefully and well; that seemed determined and designed for good, and are not (as that young man in Pro_7:8) “going the way to her house.” Such as these she has a design upon, and lays snares for, and uses all her arts, all her charms, to pervert them; if they go right on, and will not look toward her, she will call after them, so urgent are these temptations.
II. How the foolish woman represents them. She calls them “simple” and “wanting understanding,” and therefore courts them to her school, that they may be cured of the restraints and formalities of their religion. This is the method of the stage, where the sober young man that has been virtuously educated is the fool in the play, and the plot is to make him seven times more a child of hell than his profane companions, under colour of polishing and refining him, and setting him up for a wit and a beau. What is justly charged upon sin and impiety (Pro_9:4) that it is folly, is here very unjustly retorted upon the ways of virtue; but the day will declare who are the fools. (Matthew Henry.)
