Amsal 5:3-11

5:3 For the lips ¹  of the adulterous woman drip honey,

and her seductive words ²  are smoother than olive oil,

5:4 but in the end ³  she is bitter ⁴  as wormwood, ⁵ 

sharp as a two-edged ⁶  sword.

5:5 Her feet go down to death;

her steps lead straight to the grave. ⁷ 

5:6 Lest ⁸  she should make level the path leading to life, ⁹ 

her paths are unstable ¹⁰  but she does not know it. ¹¹ 

5:7 So now, children, ¹²  listen to me;

do not turn aside from the words I speak. ¹³ 

5:8 Keep yourself ¹⁴  far ¹⁵  from her,

and do not go near the door of her house,

5:9 lest you give your vigor ¹⁶  to others

and your years to a cruel person,

5:10 lest strangers devour ¹⁷  your strength, ¹⁸ 

and your labor ¹⁹  benefit ²⁰  another man’s house.

5:11 And at the end of your life ²¹  you will groan ²² 

when your flesh and your body are wasted away. ²³ 

Amsal 7:25-27

7:25 Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways –

do not wander into her pathways;

7:26 for she has brought down ²⁴  many fatally wounded,

and all those she has slain are many. ²⁵ 

7:27 Her house is the way to the grave, ²⁶ 

going down ²⁷  to the chambers ²⁸  of death.

Amsal 22:14

22:14 The mouth ²⁹  of an adulteress is like ³⁰  a deep pit; ³¹ 

the one against whom the Lord is angry ³²  will fall into it. ³³ 

[5:3]  ¹ sn “Lips” is a metonymy of cause, referring to her words. Dripping honey is an implied comparison between the product and her words, which are flattering and smooth (cf. Song 4:11). See M. Dahood, “Honey That Drips. Notes on Proverbs 5:2-3,” Bib 54 (1973): 65-66.

[5:3]  ² tn Heb “her palate.” The word חֵךְ (khekh, “palate; roof of the mouth; gums”) is a metonymy of cause (= organ of speech) for what is said (= her seductive speech). The present translation clarifies this metonymy with the phrase “her seductive words.”

[5:4]  ³ sn Heb “her end” (so KJV). D. Kidner notes that Proverbs does not allow us to forget that there is an afterward (Proverbs [TOTC], 65).

[5:4]  ⁴ sn The verb “to be bitter” (מָרַר, marar) describes things that are harmful and destructive for life, such as the death of the members of the family of Naomi (Ruth 1:20) or finding water that was undrinkable (Exod 15:22-27). The word indicates that the sweet talking will turn out badly.

[5:4]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew term translated “wormwood” refers to the aromatic plant that contrasts with the sweetness of honey. Some follow the LXX and translate it as “gall” (cf. NIV). The point is that there was sweetness when the tryst had alluring glamour, but afterward it had an ugly ring (W. G. Plaut, Proverbs, 74).

[5:4]  ⁶ sn The Hebrew has “like a sword of [two] mouths,” meaning a double-edged sword that devours/cuts either way. There is no movement without damage. There may be a wordplay here with this description of the “sword with two mouths,” and the subject of the passage being the words of her mouth which also have two sides to them. The irony is cut by the idiom.

[5:5]  ⁷ tn The term שְׁאוֹל (she’ol, “grave”) is paralleled to “death,” so it does not refer here to the realm of the unblessed.

[5:5]  sn The terms death and grave could be hyperbolic of a ruined life, but probably refer primarily to the mortal consequences of a life of debauchery.

[5:6]  ⁸ tn The particle פֶּן (pen) means “lest” (probably from “for the aversion of”). It occurs this once, unusually, preceding the principal clause (BDB 814 s.v.). It means that some action has been taken to avert or avoid what follows. She avoids the path of life, albeit ignorantly.

[5:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “the path of life.” The noun חַיִּים (khayyim, “of life”) functions as a genitive of direction (“leading to”).

[5:6]  ¹⁰ sn The verb נוּעַ (nua’) means “to quiver; to wave; to waver; to tremble”; cf. KJV “her ways are moveable”; NAB “her paths will ramble”; NLT “She staggers down a crooked trail.” The ways of the adulterous woman are unstable (BDB 631 s.v.).

[5:6]  ¹¹ sn The sadder part of the description is that this woman does not know how unstable her life is, or how uneven. However, Thomas suggests that it means, “she is not tranquil.” See D. W. Thomas, “A Note on לא תדע in Proverbs v 6,” JTS 37 (1936): 59.

[5:7]  ¹² tn Heb “sons.”

[5:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “the words of my mouth” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV).

[5:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “your way.”

[5:8]  ¹⁵ sn There is a contrast made between “keep far away” (הַרְחֵק, harkheq) and “do not draw near” (וְאַל־תִּקְרַב, vÿ’al-tiqrav).

[5:9]  ¹⁶ sn The term הוֹד (hod, “vigor; splendor; majesty”) in this context means the best time of one’s life (cf. NIV “your best strength”), the full manly vigor that will be wasted with licentiousness. Here it is paralleled by “years,” which refers to the best years of that vigor, the prime of life. Life would be ruined by living this way, or the revenge of the woman’s husband would cut it short.

[5:10]  ¹⁷ tn Or “are sated, satisfied.”

[5:10]  ¹⁸ tn The word כֹּחַ (coakh, “strength”) refers to what laborious toil would produce (so a metonymy of cause). Everything that this person worked for could become the property for others to enjoy.

[5:10]  ¹⁹ tn “labor, painful toil.”

[5:10]  ²⁰ tn The term “benefit” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

[5:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “at your end.”

[5:11]  ²² tn The form is the perfect tense with the vav consecutive; it is equal to a specific future within this context.

[5:11]  sn The verb means “to growl, groan.” It refers to a lion when it devours its prey, and to a sufferer in pain or remorse (e.g., Ezek 24:23).

[5:11]  ²³ tn Heb “in the finishing of your flesh and your body.” The construction uses the Qal infinitive construct of כָּלָה (calah) in a temporal clause; the verb means “be complete, at an end, finished, spent.”

[7:26]  ²⁴ tn Heb “she has caused to fall.”

[7:26]  ²⁵ tn Heb “numerous” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT) or “countless.”

[7:27]  ²⁶ tn The noun “Sheol” in parallelism to “the chambers of death” probably means the grave. The noun is a genitive of location, indicating the goal of the road(s). Her house is not the grave; it is, however, the sure way to it.

[7:27]  sn Her house is the way to the grave. The young man’s life is not destroyed in one instant; it is taken from him gradually as he enters into a course of life that will leave him as another victim of the wages of sin. The point of the warning is to prevent such a course from starting. Sin can certainly be forgiven, but the more involvement in this matter the greater the alienation from the healthy community.

[7:27]  ²⁷ tn The Qal active participle modifies “ways” to Sheol. The “road,” as it were, descends to the place of death.

[7:27]  ²⁸ tn “Chambers” is a hypocatastasis, comparing the place of death or the grave with a bedroom in the house. It plays on the subtlety of the temptation. Cf. NLT “Her bedroom is the den of death.”

[22:14]  ²⁹ sn The word “mouth” is a metonymy of cause; it refers to the seductive speech of the strange woman (e.g., 2:16-22; and chs. 5, 7).

[22:14]  ³⁰ tn The comparative “like” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is implied by the metaphor; it is supplied for the sake of clarity.

[22:14]  ³¹ sn The point of the metaphor is that what the adulteress says is like a deep pit. The pit is like the hunter’s snare; it is a trap that is difficult to escape. So to succumb to the adulteress – or to any other folly this represents – is to get oneself into a difficulty that has no easy escape.

[22:14]  ³² tn Heb “the one who is cursed by the Lord” (cf. NASB). The construction uses the passive participle in construct with Yahweh. The “Lord” is genitive of agency after the passive form. The verb means “be indignant, express indignation.” So it is talking about one against whom the Lord is angry.

[22:14]  ³³ tn Heb “will fall there.” The “falling” could refer to the curse itself or to the result of the curse.

[22:14]  sn The proverb is saying that the Lord will use the seductive, deceptive words of the adulteress to bring about the downfall of one who is inclined to such folly.