Proverbs 5:4-11

5:4 but in the end ¹  she is bitter ²  as wormwood, ³ 

sharp as a two-edged ⁴  sword.

5:5 Her feet go down to death;

her steps lead straight to the grave. ⁵ 

5:6 Lest ⁶  she should make level the path leading to life, ⁷ 

her paths are unstable ⁸  but she does not know it. ⁹ 

5:7 So now, children, ¹⁰  listen to me;

do not turn aside from the words I speak. ¹¹ 

5:8 Keep yourself ¹²  far ¹³  from her,

and do not go near the door of her house,

5:9 lest you give your vigor ¹⁴  to others

and your years to a cruel person,

5:10 lest strangers devour ¹⁵  your strength, ¹⁶ 

and your labor ¹⁷  benefit ¹⁸  another man’s house.

5:11 And at the end of your life ¹⁹  you will groan ²⁰ 

when your flesh and your body are wasted away. ²¹ 

[5:4]  ¹ sn Heb “her end” (so KJV). D. Kidner notes that Proverbs does not allow us to forget that there is an afterward (Proverbs [TOTC], 65).

[5:4]  ² sn The verb “to be bitter” (מָרַר, marar) describes things that are harmful and destructive for life, such as the death of the members of the family of Naomi (Ruth 1:20) or finding water that was undrinkable (Exod 15:22-27). The word indicates that the sweet talking will turn out badly.

[5:4]  ³ tn The Hebrew term translated “wormwood” refers to the aromatic plant that contrasts with the sweetness of honey. Some follow the LXX and translate it as “gall” (cf. NIV). The point is that there was sweetness when the tryst had alluring glamour, but afterward it had an ugly ring (W. G. Plaut, Proverbs, 74).

[5:4]  ⁴ sn The Hebrew has “like a sword of [two] mouths,” meaning a double-edged sword that devours/cuts either way. There is no movement without damage. There may be a wordplay here with this description of the “sword with two mouths,” and the subject of the passage being the words of her mouth which also have two sides to them. The irony is cut by the idiom.

[5:5]  ⁵ tn The term שְׁאוֹל (she’ol, “grave”) is paralleled to “death,” so it does not refer here to the realm of the unblessed.

[5:6]  ⁶ tn The particle פֶּן (pen) means “lest” (probably from “for the aversion of”). It occurs this once, unusually, preceding the principal clause (BDB 814 s.v.). It means that some action has been taken to avert or avoid what follows. She avoids the path of life, albeit ignorantly.

[5:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “the path of life.” The noun חַיִּים (khayyim, “of life”) functions as a genitive of direction (“leading to”).

[5:6]  ⁸ sn The verb נוּעַ (nua’) means “to quiver; to wave; to waver; to tremble”; cf. KJV “her ways are moveable”; NAB “her paths will ramble”; NLT “She staggers down a crooked trail.” The ways of the adulterous woman are unstable (BDB 631 s.v.).

[5:6]  ⁹ sn The sadder part of the description is that this woman does not know how unstable her life is, or how uneven. However, Thomas suggests that it means, “she is not tranquil.” See D. W. Thomas, “A Note on לא תדע in Proverbs v 6,” JTS 37 (1936): 59.

[5:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “sons.”

[5:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the words of my mouth” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV).

[5:8]  ¹² tn Heb “your way.”

[5:8]  ¹³ sn There is a contrast made between “keep far away” (הַרְחֵק, harkheq) and “do not draw near” (וְאַל־תִּקְרַב, vÿ’al-tiqrav).

[5:9]  ¹⁴ sn The term הוֹד (hod, “vigor; splendor; majesty”) in this context means the best time of one’s life (cf. NIV “your best strength”), the full manly vigor that will be wasted with licentiousness. Here it is paralleled by “years,” which refers to the best years of that vigor, the prime of life. Life would be ruined by living this way, or the revenge of the woman’s husband would cut it short.

[5:10]  ¹⁵ tn Or “are sated, satisfied.”

[5:10]  ¹⁶ tn The word כֹּחַ (coakh, “strength”) refers to what laborious toil would produce (so a metonymy of cause). Everything that this person worked for could become the property for others to enjoy.

[5:10]  ¹⁷ tn “labor, painful toil.”

[5:10]  ¹⁸ tn The term “benefit” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

[5:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “at your end.”

[5:11]  ²⁰ tn The form is the perfect tense with the vav consecutive; it is equal to a specific future within this context.

[5:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “in the finishing of your flesh and your body.” The construction uses the Qal infinitive construct of כָּלָה (calah) in a temporal clause; the verb means “be complete, at an end, finished, spent.”