Read Proverbs 5:15–23
Questions from the Scripture text: Who does Proverbs 5:15 say should drink from your cistern/well? What does Proverbs 5:16 ask about other possible drinkers? What answer does Proverbs 5:17 give, regarding these potential drinkers? When will the fountain of a man’s life (Proverbs 5:18a) receive a blessing from God (verse 18b)? What does Proverbs 5:19a say about the beauty that such a man finds in his wife? What does verse 19b say about the nourishment/comfort that such a man would find from his wife? What does verse 19c say about the protective/diverting effect of such a man’s enjoyment of his wife’s love? Where should he not be looking for any of these (Proverbs 5:20, n.b. that NKJ’s ‘immoral’ and ‘seductress’ are translating the same words as ‘alien’ and ‘foreigner’ from Proverbs 5:10)? What factor should determine one’s choices in this area of our lives (Proverbs 5:21)? What do iniquities and sins in this area of life do (Proverbs 5:22)? With what ultimate result (Proverbs 5:23a)? As a consequence of having done what, in what way (verse 23b)?
What keeps a man from being diverted to unauthorized women? Proverbs 5:15–23 looks forward to the sermon in this week’s midweek meeting. In these nine verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that a man is kept from being diverted to unauthorized women by the promise and treasuring of his own wife, but especially by regarding his God.
“Drink from your own cistern/well” (Proverbs 5:15) pivots from the fifth (submitting to teaching) and seventh (illicit romance) commandments to the eighth. The main idea here is that it is ultimately God, in His providence, Who assigns to us our wife and our offspring, just as much as He assigns to us our property. And what a blessing a wife is—like a cistern, or even a well that continually has running water! And just as she is exclusively for her husband (verse 15), her husband is exclusively for her (Proverbs 5:16). God has not assigned “strangers” (same word as NKJ’s “immoral” in Proverbs 5:3 and “alien” in Proverbs 5:10) to benefit from you as husband and father (Proverbs 5:17).
The illustration of cistern (Proverbs 5:15a)/well (verse 15b)/spring (Proverbs 5:16a)/stream (verse 16b) continues with a fifth synonym, which NKJ also translates “fountain” in Proverbs 5:18. A man is designed by God to be a source of life and provision for his wife and his children. And when he sticks to God’s own design, rejoicing in the wife of his youth (verse 18b) he finds himself “blessed” (verse 18a). There is a value placed upon marrying young, here. A youth should not let himself be diverted to pseudo-marital sweetness and comfort; rather, he should be aiming to marry, and to rejoice with that divinely-assigned woman all his days. And, in this rejoicing with her, he will find himself blessed as an instrument of God’s provision to her as well.
Of course, this blessing goes two ways. The loving deer and graceful doe of Proverbs 5:19a is a metaphor of pure and elegant beauty: beauty the way God created it, beauty that enjoys the goodness of the Creator and compels worshiping Him. The image in verse 19b is one of nourishment; just as the wife’s body is uniquely designed to nourish their children, so there is nourishment and comfort and help that God has designed her to be unto her husband. Finally, the word “enraptured” (lit. “diverted”) in verse 19c is the same as that in Proverbs 5:20a and in Proverbs 5:23 (where NKJ has “astray”).
Either the promise of one’s own wife, and then the enjoyment of that wife, will divert a man from the unauthorized woman, or the unauthorized woman will divert him from his wife. Again, our English version’s “immoral” and “seductress” in Proverbs 5:20 is painting a more evidently sinister picture, when the evil and danger are often more subtle. They are the same words as “alien” and “foreigner,” respectively from Proverbs 5:10—referring to any woman who is not the wife that God has assigned to the man. One’s own wife is a blessing in herself, and also as one by whom God diverts him from the unauthorized woman.
Ultimately, however, it is not merely a man’s future (or present) wife that he must regard. First and foremost, his regard must be for the Lord (Proverbs 5:21). Sin is not just something that might lead you into a trap; sin itself is that trap, and you are already ensnared when you commit it (Proverbs 5:22). How dreadful to reject this instruction (Proverbs 5:23a) and be diverted not only later by the unauthorized woman, but initially by one’s own great folly (verse 23b)!
How are you treating sin as a trap? How are you treating each marriage as divinely assigned to that man and woman?
Sample prayer: Lord, thank You for what Your providence has assigned to each of us. And make us to enjoy that which You have given us as a way of diverting us from that which You haven’t, we ask through Christ, AMEN!
Suggested songs: ARP45B “Daughter, Incline Your Ear” or TPH128B “Blest the Man That Fears Jehovah”
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