Proverbs 5:15-20

Enjoy Marriage

15 Drink water from your own cistern, water flowing from your own well.[a]
16 Should your springs flow in the streets, streams of water in the public squares?[b]
17 They should be for you alone and not for you [to share] with strangers.
18 Let your fountain be blessed, and take pleasure in the wife of your youth.[c]
19 A loving doe, a graceful fawn- let her breasts always satisfy you; be lost in her love forever.
20 Why, my son, would you be infatuated with a forbidden woman or embrace the breast of a stranger?

Proverbs 5:15-20 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO PROVERBS 5

The general instruction of this chapter is to avoid whoredom, and make use of lawful marriage, and keep to that. It is introduced with an exhortation to attend to wisdom and understanding, Pr 5:1,2; one part of which lies in shunning an adulterous woman; who is described by her flattery, with which she deceives; by the end she brings men to, which is destruction and death; and by the uncertainty of her ways, which cannot be known, Pr 5:3-6. Wherefore men are advised to keep at the utmost distance from her, Pr 5:7,8; lest their honour, strength, wealth, and labours, be given to others, Pr 5:9,10; and repentance and mourning follow, when too late, Pr 5:11-14. And, as a remedy against whoredom, entering into a marriage state is advised to, and a strict regard to that; allegorically expressed by a man's drinking water out of his fountain, and by his wife being as a loving hind and pleasant roe to him, the single object of his affections, Pr 5:15-19. As also the consideration of the divine omniscience is proposed, to deter him from the sin of adultery, Pr 5:20,21; as well as the inevitable ruin wicked men are brought into by it, Pr 5:22,23.

Footnotes 3

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