Verses 15-23 point out a better way, namely, fidelity. Strict faithfulness will not result in unhappiness or failure to experience what is best in life, as the world likes to try to make us think. Rather it guards us from the heartbreak and tragedy that accompany promiscuity. The figures of a cistern and well (v. 15) refer to one's wife (cf. Song of Sol. 4:15) who satisfies desire.
The Hebrew text favors taking verse 16 as a positive statement ("Let your streams . . .") rather than as a question, as in the NASB. The meaning of verses 17-18 then becomes, "The influence of the faithful man (His springs') become a blessing to others."71Another view is that the springs and streams in view belong to the man being warned who might share them with a woman of the street.72
The erotic language of verses 19-20 is unusual in Scripture, but it shows that God approves sexual joy in marriage and it is a prophylactic against unfaithfulness (1 Cor. 7:5). A man can either find his exhilaration (v. 19, i.e., sexual stimulation, also translated intoxication in 20:1 and Isa. 28:7) in his wife or in another woman. The same Hebrew word reads "go astray"in verse 23b. The issue is self-discipline.
"Lack of discipline"(RSV, v. 23a) is better than "lack of instruction."People usually do not become unfaithful to their spouses because they do not know better but because they do not choose better.73
". . . if the young man is not captivated[Heb. sagah] by his wife but becomes captivatedwith a stranger in sinful acts, then his own iniquities will captivatehim; and he will be led to ruin."74
