Proverbs 7

Chapters 1–9 of Proverbs consist of extended instructions from a father to his son. Chapter 7 belongs to this introductory section. Following chapter 5 and the latter part of Proverbs 6, it concludes the warnings against the adulteress (an unfaithful wife) in narrative form. In the next chapter, Proverbs 8, Wisdom is personified and calls out to the people.

Structure

• Verses 1–5 The father urges his son to keep his commandments as the apple of his eye and to write them on his heart. If the son calls wisdom his sister and understanding his kinswoman, they will keep him from the woman who flatters with her words.
• Verses 6–9 Looking through the lattice of his house, the speaker sees a youth void of understanding heading toward the adulteress's house at dusk.
• Verses 10–20 A woman dressed as a harlot seizes him. She entices him by saying that she has offered peace offerings and paid her vows, that she has prepared her bed, and that her husband has gone on a long journey with a bag of money and will not return until the full moon.
• Verses 21–23 The youth follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter and as a bird hastens into the snare.
• Verses 24–27 The father again warns his sons not to turn aside to her ways, declaring that her house is the way to Sheol.

Key Verses

• Proverbs 7:2–3 "Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye… write them upon the table of thine heart." This language calls for the teaching to be impressed upon both body and heart, and it resembles expressions in Proverbs 3 and 6 and in Deuteronomy 6:6–9.
• Proverbs 7:27 "Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death." This conclusion makes unmistakable that the end of temptation is death.

Characters and Places

• The speaker (the father): He observes the scene from the window and instructs his son.
• The youth: He is unnamed and is called "simple" and "void of understanding."
• The adulteress: She is portrayed as a married woman. The "stranger" of verse 5 (rendered "foreign woman" in the Korean Bible) reflects a Hebrew expression meaning "strange woman." For this reason, many interpreters take it to refer to another man's wife rather than to a foreign woman.
• Egypt: Mentioned in verse 16 as the source of her bed coverings.
• Sheol: The place of the dead, mentioned in verse 27.

Points for Reflection

• The meat of the peace offering mentioned in verse 14 had to be eaten within a set time (Leviticus 7). Some interpreters therefore read the verse to mean that the woman had meat on hand for a feast. This reading highlights how she used a religious act as a pretext for seduction.
• In verse 20, the expression for the time of the husband's return (KJV "at the day appointed"; the Korean Bible reads "in fifteen days") is understood to mean "at the time of the full moon" in the original.
• Some interpreters read the chapter literally as a warning against sexual temptation. Others also read it as a symbol of folly, in contrast to "Lady Wisdom" in chapters 8–9.
• In the New Testament, the exhortation to flee fornication in 1 Corinthians 6:15–18 and the teaching of James 1 that a person is tempted when drawn away by his own lust are often read alongside this chapter.

In the Korean Church

This passage is frequently cited in sermons and retreats for youth and young adults that address sexual purity and temptation. The phrase "write them upon the table of thine heart" in verse 3 is also used as a motto encouraging Scripture memorization.