Biblion Bible Commentary
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Drink Water From Your Own Cistern
Proverbs 5:1-23
1 My son, pay attention to my wisdom. Turn your ear to my understanding, · WEB
The warning runs on a contrast between what is sweet at the start and what is bitter at the end, and its remedy is not restraint but delight.
The chapter opens on the mouth. Her lips drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil. What the honey turns into is stated in the next breath: bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. The whole warning turns on that gap. Nothing is said about the offer being unattractive. It is described as genuinely sweet, and then followed forward to where it ends.
The consequences listed are worldly and specific. Years given to the cruel. Wealth going into a stranger's house. Strength spent, and the body consumed. The man's regret is quoted in advance, and the sentence he says is the one that matters: How I have hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof! He does not say he was unlucky. He identifies the exact moment the road forked, and it was a moment of correction he refused.
The remedy is the surprise of the chapter. A book of this period could have counseled discipline or avoidance. What it counsels is enjoyment. Drink water out of your own cistern, running water out of your own well. In a dry country a private cistern is a serious asset, and the image is of a man drinking from something that is genuinely his. Then it becomes explicit: Rejoice in the wife of your youth... let her breasts satisfy you at all times. Be captivated always with her love.
That is not a grudging concession. The verb translated captivated is the same one used two verses later of the adulteress, so the passage takes the strongest word available for intoxication with a woman and applies it to a marriage. The book's argument against adultery is not that desire is dangerous. It is that desire has a proper object which is better, and that the man is being asked to trade something rich for something that ends in wormwood.
The closing image is a rope. The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare him. The cords of his sin hold him firmly. Nobody ties him up. The cords are described as his own conduct, wrapped around him by repetition until they hold. And the last verse names the cause of death with the same word that ran through the regret: He will die for lack of instruction.
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