PROVERBS 7

This is a simple but powerful warning against becoming involved with women of loose morals. But in spite of that apparent simplicity, this chapter is not at all free from difficulties in translation and interpretation. Without quoting from any specific commentators, here are some notes regarding individual verses which are in question or need some explanation:

Notes

Verse 2 utilizes the common phrase “the apple of your eye,” referring to the pupil. However, the actual literal Hebrew wording is “the little man of your eye.” It has been explained that this is a reference to the small image of a person reflected in one's eye.

Verse 3: This admonition to bind wise teachings on your fingers has been taken literally by observant Jews in their practice of placing phalacteries, small pouches containing Scripture passages, on their forehead and left arm during morning prayers.

Verse 4: Calling Wisdom one's sister is an indication of nearness to her rather than specifying an actual family relationship (See Song of Songs 4:9, for example).

Verse 5: The temptress in this chapter is identified in various ways. Here she is called the “strange” or “loose” woman. Elsewhere she is associated with prostitutes and adulteresses. These various terms have caused some scholars to concoct elaborate theories to the effect that she might be a pagan cult prostitute or that the different descriptions betray the fact that this chapter was cobbled together from several original sources. None of these theories is especially persuasive, although the Hebrew term “strange” could indicate that she is not Jewish.

Verse 6: This image of someone looking out the window of their house has given rise to all sorts of postulates. Since the person is not identified, it might either be (1) the father giving these admonitions, (2) personified Wisdom, or (3) the loose woman on the lookout for a victim. The last possibility may be supported by the Septuagint translation of this verse, and each of these ideas has been proposed in the scholarly literature.

The majority opinion appears to be that it is the father who is talking in this verse. The only real reason for feeling that the person in this verse is a woman comes from two diverse sources. The first is the fact that a queen is said to be looking out a window in Judges 5:28; II Samuel 6:16; and II Kings 9:30. The second piece of “evidence” is that a number of Phoenician ivory plagues have been uncovered in which a woman, perhaps a goddess, is pictured looking out a window. However, there is really no reason at all to associate any of these with the words in Proverbs 7.

Verses 14-15: These verses seem to make little sense in that the loose woman couples the fact that she has just made a sacred sacrifice with her wish to find a man to come to her house. If this is a Jewish sacrifice she has made, then OT rulings stipulated that the offered food had to be entirely eaten up that day or the next. Therefore she is stating that she needs someone to help her share her meal so it won't go to waste. But her real motive becomes obvious as she describes her bed chamber in verses 16-20.

On the other hand, if the temptress has just made an offering to a pagan god or goddess such as Aphrodite, an integral part of that worship service might have included ritual copulation afterward.

Verses 19-20: Much has been made of the fact that her husband is a rich, traveling businessman. Some feel that it indicates he and his wife were foreigners and not Jewish, but that is not at all necessarily true.

Verse 22 contains two similes describing the foolish man's going into the woman's trap. There is some uncertainty regarding the translation of the second part of this verse. McKane explains that it could be taken to read “as a hart is tied to a cord” ready for slaughter or “as a hart skips into a noose.”

Verse 23 provides yet a third image:

    “until an arrow pierces its entrails,

    He is like a bird rushing into a snare, not knowing that it will cost him his life.” (NRSV)

McKane feels that the first line above would make more since if it were transposed with the second line. However, note how the NRSV takes care of the problem by connecting line 1 with the end of verse 22 rather than with 23b. The Jerusalem Bible takes the same approach.

Verse 24: Since this admonition is basically a repeat of verse 1 which begins with an address to “my son,” the Septuagint altered the Hebrew “my sons” to the singular. Some commentators and translators go with that reading to provide a closer parallel between the opening and closing sections of the chapter. Others maintain the Hebrew original and explain that the plural in v. 24 has the effect of generalizing and extending the admonition to all mankind.

Verses 26-27: The connection of the loose woman with death has given rise to the opinion among some scholars that the Canaanite deity Mot is the background of this image.

Organization

Determining the overall structural arrangement of Proverbs 7 begins with an understanding of its breakdown into individual sections or paragraphs. Treating it as a tripartite structure (verses 1-5; 6-23; 24-27) are commentators such as Scott and McKane, as well as translations such as NEB. On the other hand, there are four paragraph divisions found in NRSV: 1-5; 6-9; 10-23; and 24-27. But since verses 22-23 describe the actions of the young man rather than those of the seductress, it would seem better to break these out as a separate unit.

In terms of actual structure, Waltke has done the best job of describing the organization this chapter: “The lecture's structure suggests the father's urgency to protect his son. His call to listen (7:1-5, 24-27) frames the father's characterization of the unfaithful wife who embodies all that is against true Israel's world-and-life view (vv. 6-23)...he faces the challenge of making his son feel her seduction, yet in such a way that she becomes utterly repugnant to him. He does so by framing her seductive speech (7:14-20) with his negative characterization of the vixen (vv. 6-13) and the horrid consequences for her prey.”

I would agree with Waltke so far, but must depart from his further three-part division of verses 6-23 into Encounter (6-13), Seduction (14-20) and Fall (21-23).

But another perceptive observation by Waltke is that the description of the loose woman starts out literally in verses 24-25 but moves to the figurative when the “monstrous, mythic dimension of the strange woman” with its military and sexual imagery in the last two verses of the chapter. I would add that the opposite trend appears to be present in the opening admonition of Proverbs 7:1-5.

Putting together some of the above observations leads to the proposed overall organization of Proverbs 7 shown below:

                                                        Figure 1: Organization of Proverbs 7

    A. “My son, keep my words” (1-5)

        1. call to listen (1)

            2. figurative admonition (2-4)

                3. literal admonition (5)

                    B. The young man passes by (6-9)

                        C. The loose woman (10-21)

                            1. her actions (10-13)

                                2. her speech (14-20)

                                    a. her situation (“I”) (14-17)

                                        b. invitation (“us”) (18)

                                    a'. husband's situation (“he”) (19-20)

                            1'. her actions (21)

                    B'. The young man follows (22-23)

        A'. “My sons, listen to me” (24-27)

                1'. call to listen (24)

                            3'. literal admonition (25)

                    2'. figurative admonition (26-27)

Some verbal confirmations of the structure of Figure 1 can also be seen:

“Heart” appears in both A (v. 3) and A' (v. 25).

    There is a purposeful contrast between the “smooth words” of the adulteress (v. 5, Section A) and the words of the teacher in v. 24, Section A'.

    “Live” in verse 2 (Section A2) is purposely contrasted with “death” in v. 27 (A'2).

    Progressive movement characterizes the actions of the young man in sections B and B' as he begins by walking on the woman's street (v. 8) and ends up following her into the house (v. 22).

    She is definitely characterized as the brazen initiator of her interactions with the man as she seizes and kisses him in C1 (v. 13) and then “compels” him with her smooth talk in C1' (v. 21).

    As pointed out by Waltke, there are exactly seven lines of poetry in the central speech of Section C2, with “seven” standing symbolically for completion.

    There is a correspondence between C1 with its mention of the woman's “kiss” (v. 13) and her seductive “lips” in C1' (v. 21).

    The tripartite division of Section C shown in Figure 1 is informed by the obvious changes in pronouns found within that unit:

            6x “I” in vv. 14-17;

            2x each “us” and “our” in v. 18; and

            3x “he” in vv. 19-20 (according to the NRSV translation).

    The woman's feet do not stay at home (C2a, v. 17), and her husband is not at home either (C2a', v. 19).

This passage is illustrated in a 1994 collage of mine: