4:8 Esteem her highly 1 and she will exalt you;
she will honor you if you embrace her.
5:20 But why should you be captivated, 2 my son, by an adulteress,
and embrace the bosom of a different woman? 3
1 tn The verb is the Pilpel imperative from סָלַל (salal, “to lift up; to cast up”). So the imperative means “exalt her; esteem her highly; prize her.”
2 tn In the interrogative clause the imperfect has a deliberative nuance.
3 tn Heb “foreigner” (so ASV, NASB), but this does not mean that the woman is non-Israelite. This term describes a woman who is outside the moral boundaries of the covenant community – she is another man’s wife, but since she acts with moral abandonment she is called “foreign.”