Proverbschapter 5
23 verses · KJVProverbs book hub →
A.Honeyed Lips, and an End Bitter as Wormwoodvv. 1-14
Proverbs 5:1-6
attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding: The son is told to keep discretion and knowledge in view before the warning even names its subject, because the strange woman's danger begins with speech that sounds pleasant, lips that drop as an honeycomb and a mouth smoother than oil. Her end reverses everything her opening promised: what began sweet turns bitter as wormwood, sharp as a blade honed on both sides, a taste that only shows itself after the pleasant one has done its work. Her feet go down to death and her steps take hold on hell, and the commentators read the whole picture as a warning against a road that looks good only from its beginning.
Voices on this verse, 2What preachers and commentators have said about Proverbs 5:1, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:1
“My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my prudence, that thou mayest guard thy thoughts. For, indeed, nothing is more fugitive than the heart, which deserts us as often as it slips away through bad thoughts. For hence the Psalmist says, My heart hath failed me. Hence, when he returns to himself, he says, Thy servant hath found his heart to pray to Thee. When, therefore, thought is kept under guard, the heart which was wont to fly away is found.”
Gregory the Dialogist· seventh century· The Book of Pastoral Rule, Part 3, Chapter 14patristic
Proverbs 5:1
“This connection of wisdom and understanding is frequent (Pr 2:2; 3:7); the first denotes the use of wise means for wise ends; the other, the exercise of a proper discrimination in their discovery.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Voices on this verse, 1What a preacher or commentator has said about Proverbs 5:2, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:2
“That thou mayest regard discretion,.... Observe it; retain it in thine heart, as Aben Ezra adds, and use it; think, speak, and act discreetly, and so avoid the bad woman afterwards described: the Vulgate Latin version is, "that thou mayest keep the thoughts"; and so Gersom interprets the word; "good thoughts", according to the Septuagint version; the thoughts of the heart are to be observed.”
Voices on this verse, 3What preachers and commentators have said about Proverbs 5:3, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:3-4
“Even when the sinner looks for gratification, he doesn't find the fruit of his sin pleasant. As the wisdom of God says in another place, "Bread of deceit is pleasant to a man, but after he eats it, his mouth will be filled with gravel." And, "Honey drips from the lips of an adulteress, and for a time it tastes sweet, but in the end you will find it more bitter than gall and sharper than a two-edged sword." So he eats and is quite pleased for a little while.”
Athanasius of Alexandria· fourth century· LETTER 7:5patristic
Proverbs 5:3
“For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb,.... "Mulsa dicta", "honey words", as is Plautus's (e) expression.”
Proverbs 5:3
“The lips of a strange woman - One that is not thy own, whether Jewess or heathen. Drop as a honey-comb - She uses the most deceitful, flattering, and alluring speeches: as the droppings of the honey out of the comb are the sweetest of all.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Voices on this verse, 2What preachers and commentators have said about Proverbs 5:4, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:4
"In the end," [Solomon] says, "you will find what seemed sweet in the beginning to be more bitter than gall and sharper than the edge of a sword." But the nature of righteousness is the opposite: In the beginning, it seems more bitter, but in the end, when it produces fruits of virtue, it is found to be sweeter than honey.
Origen of Alexandria· third century· HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 14:2patristic
Proverbs 5:4
“Bitter as wormwood - כלענה Kelanah, like the detestable herb wormwood, or something analogous to it: something as excessive in its bitterness, as honey is in its sweetness.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Voices on this verse, 1What a preacher or commentator has said about Proverbs 5:5, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:5
“Her feet go down to death,.... The ways in which she walks, and in which she leads others, issue oftentimes in corporeal death; and always in eternal death, if grace prevent not; and unless men are brought to a sense of sin, to repent of it and leave it. The Septuagint and Arabic versions render it, "the feet of imprudence" or "folly", in opposition to wisdom; that is, the feet of the foolish woman, such an one the harlot is; and such is the whore of Rome, notwithstanding all her boasted knowledge and wisdom.”
Voices on this verse, 1What a preacher or commentator has said about Proverbs 5:6, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:6
“Her ways are unstable, etc. The ways of heretical deception are unstable, because some deny Christ to be God, others to be man; some deny he took flesh, others a soul; some that he was born of a virgin; some that the Holy Spirit, others …”
Bede· eighth century· Commentary on Proverbspatristic
Proverbs 5:7-11
depart not from the words of my mouth: The counsel turns practical: remove thy way far from her, come not nigh the door of her house, treating distance itself as the safeguard rather than trusting resolve alone to hold at close range. The losses named are severe and public, honour given to others, years given to the cruel, wealth filling a stranger's house, labor spent to enrich a household that is not one's own. Gill reads the piling up of losses as deliberate, since the sin promises private pleasure but delivers public ruin.
Voices on this verse, 1What a preacher or commentator has said about Proverbs 5:7, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:7
“Hear me - O ye children - בנים banim, sons, young men in general: for these are the most likely to be deceived and led astray.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Voices on this verse, 1What a preacher or commentator has said about Proverbs 5:8, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:8
“Your flight is a good one if your heart does not act out the counsels of sinners and their designs. Your flight is a good one if your eye flees the sight of cups and drinking vessels, so that it may not become envious as it lingers over the wine. Your flight is good if your eye turns away from the woman stranger, so that your tongue may keep the truth. Your flight is a good one if you do not answer the fool according to his folly.”
Ambrose of Milan· fourth century· FLIGHT FROM THE WORLD 9:56patristic
Voices on this verse, 2What preachers and commentators have said about Proverbs 5:9, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:9
“Give not thine honour unto aliens and thy years unto the cruel, lest haply strangers be filled with thy wealth, and thy labours be in the house of a stranger, and thou moan at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed. For who are aliens from us but malignant spirits, who are separated from the lot of the heavenly country? And what is our honour but that, though made in bodies of clay, we are yet created after the image and likeness of our Maker?”
Gregory the Dialogist· seventh century· Pastoral Rule, Part 3, Chapter 12patristic
Proverbs 5:9
“Thine honor - i. e., “The grace and freshness of thy youth” (compare Hos 14:6; Dan 10:8). The thought of this is to guard the young man against the sins that stain and mar it. The slave of lust sacrifices “years” that might have been peaceful and happy to one who is merciless.”
Voices on this verse, 2What preachers and commentators have said about Proverbs 5:10, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:10
“Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth,.... The adulteress, her husband, children, friends, bawds, and such like persons she is concerned with; these share the wealth of the adulterer, abound with it, and live profusely on it, until he is stripped quite bare and destitute: or, "with thy strength"; See Gill on Pro 5:”
Proverbs 5:10
“Strangers - The whole gang of those into whose hands the slave of lust yields himself. The words are significant as showing that the older punishment of death Deu 22:21; Eze 16:38; Joh 8:5 was not always inflicted, and that the detected adulterer was exposed rather to indefinite extortion. Besides loss of purity and peace, the sin, in all its forms, brings poverty.”
Voices on this verse, 2What preachers and commentators have said about Proverbs 5:11, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:11
“And thou mourn at the last,.... Or roar as a lion, as the word (s) signifies; see Pro 19:12; expressing great distress of mind, horror of conscience, and vehement lamentations; and yet not having and exercising true repentance, but declaring a worldly sorrow, which worketh death.”
Proverbs 5:11
“When thy flesh and thy body are consumed - The word שאר shear, which we render body, signifies properly the remains, residue, or remnant of a thing: and is applied here to denote the breathing carcass, putrid with the concomitant disease of debauchery: a public reproach which the justice of God entails on this species of iniquity. The mourning here spoken of is of the most excessive kind: the word נהם naham is often applied to the growling of a lion, and the hoarse incessant murmuring of the sea.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Proverbs 5:12-14
How have I hated instruction: The father stages the son's own future regret as a speech he can hear now before he lives it, a man near ruin confessing that he hated instruction and despised reproof. I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly names a public fall, not a private one, the very exposure the earlier verses warned against. Henry notes the timing: the regret arrives after the ruin, when correction can no longer undo what indulgence has done.
Voices on this verse, 2What preachers and commentators have said about Proverbs 5:14, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:14
“I was almost in all evil, etc. The Church and the Synagogue are Greek names, and they signify the same thing in Latin, that is, an assembly of many together. But if they are distinguished more subtly, the Church is interpreted as a calling together, …”
Bede· eighth century· Commentary on Proverbspatristic
Proverbs 5:14
“I was almost in all evil - This vice, like a whirlpool, sweeps all others into its vortex. In the midst of the congregation and assembly - In the mydel of the Curche and of the Synagoge - Old MS. Bible. Such persons, however sacred the place, carry about with them eyes full of adultery, which cannot cease from sin.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
B.Drink Waters Out of Thine Own Cisternvv. 15-23
Proverbs 5:15-17
Drink waters out of thine own cistern: Against the stranger's well the father sets the son's own cistern, marital love pictured as water that is safely and rightly his, and the command to drink from it is the positive form of the warning that came before it. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad reads two ways in the commentators, either a father's hope for a full household or a warning read against wasted seed, and both readings are carried without one erasing the other. Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee returns the point to its center: the water is good precisely because it is not shared.
Voices on this verse, 3What preachers and commentators have said about Proverbs 5:15, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:15
“And I hope, O man, that you imitate the example of this kind, so that you yourself may bear fruit of joy and delight! The sweetness of your grace is within yourself, it sprouts from you, it remains in you, it is within you, that is, the joy of your conscience is to be sought within yourself. Therefore, it says: Drink water from your own vessels, and from the fountains of your own wells (Prov., V, 15).”
Ambrose of Milan· fourth century· The Six Days of Creationpatristic
Proverbs 5:15
“The teacher seeks to counteract the evils of mere sensual passion chiefly by setting forth the true blessedness of which it is the counterfeit. The true wife is as a fountain of refreshment, where the weary soul may quench its thirst. Even the joy which is of the senses appears, as in the Song of Solomon, purified and stainless (see Pro 5:19 marginal reference).”
Proverbs 5:15-20
By figures, in which well, cistern, and fountain [Pr 5:15, 18] represent the wife, and rivers of waters [Pr 5:16] the children, men are exhorted to constancy and satisfaction in lawful conjugal enjoyments. In Pr 5:16, fountains (in the plural) rather denote the produce or waters of a spring, literally, "what is from a spring," and corresponds with "rivers of waters."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Voices on this verse, 1What a preacher or commentator has said about Proverbs 5:16, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:16
"Let your fountains be dispersed abroad," etc. Give your son and daughter in marriage to others, and do this openly with many witnesses.
Bede· eighth century· Commentary on Proverbspatristic
Voices on this verse, 1What a preacher or commentator has said about Proverbs 5:17, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:17
“Let them be only thine own - The off-spring of a legitimate connection; a bastard brood, however numerous, is no credit to any man.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Proverbs 5:18-19
rejoice with the wife of thy youth: The chapter's positive command is stated without hedging: let thy fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth, marriage set forward as the answer to the strange woman rather than mere abstinence from her. The images that follow, the loving hind, the pleasant roe, are drawn from courtship language elsewhere in the wisdom books, and the son is told to be satisfied and even ravished with his own wife's love at all times, not only in youth. The commentators read the plainness of the language as intentional, a married love the text is not embarrassed to name.
Voices on this verse, 2What preachers and commentators have said about Proverbs 5:18, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:18
“Ye wives, be subject to your own husbands, and have them in esteem, and serve them with fear and love, as holy Sarah honoured Abraham. For she could not endure to call him by his name, but called him lord, when she said, "My lord is old." In like manner, ye husbands, love your own wives as your own members, as partners in life, and fellow-helpers for the procreation of children. For says He, "Rejoice with the wife of thy youth.”
Apostolic Constitutions· fourth century· Constitutions of the Holy Apostles Book 6patristic
Proverbs 5:18
“Let thy fountain be blessed - יהי מקורך ברוך yehi mekorecha baruch. Sit vena tua benedicta. Thy vein; that which carries off streams from the fountain of animal life, in order to disperse them abroad, and through the streets. How delicate and correct is the allusion here! But anatomical allusions must not be pressed into detail in a commentary on Scripture.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Voices on this verse, 3What preachers and commentators have said about Proverbs 5:19, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:19
“He shows also, by the mention of the creature (the hind), the purity of that pleasure; and by the roe he intimates the quick responsive affection of the wife. And whereas he knows many things to excite, he secures them against these, and puts upon them the indissoluble bond of affection, setting constancy before them. And as for the rest, wisdom, figuratively speaking, like a stag, can repel and crush the snaky doctrines of the heterodox. Let her therefore, says he, be with thee, like a roe, to keep all virtue fresh.”
Hippolytus of Rome· third century· Hippolytus Exegetical Fragmentspatristic
Proverbs 5:19
“Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe,.... That is, the wife of youth; let her always appear to thee as amiable and lovely as these creatures are; or let her be loved by thee as these are by princes and great men (w), who used to keep them tame, keep them clean, wash, comb them, and adorn them, and play with them; or rather, as these creatures are loving to their mates, let thy love be single, chaste, pure, and fervent, as theirs; see Son 2:”
Proverbs 5:19
“Better, “A loving hind (is she) and pleasant roe.” As in the whole circle of Arab and Persian poetry the antelope and the gazelle are the chosen images of beauty, so they served with equal fitness for the masculine and feminine types of it. (Compare the names Tabitha and Dorcas Act 9:36.”
Proverbs 5:20-23
embrace the bosom of a stranger?: The father's question, why wilt thou be ravished with a strange woman, borrows the very word given to lawful love in verse nineteen and turns it against the appetite that verse just blessed, making plain that the danger is misdirected desire rather than desire itself. The chapter closes on a claim that reframes every private choice already named: the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his goings, so that no cistern is truly hidden. Gill reads the final verses, holden with the cords of his sins and dying without instruction, as sin's own discipline rather than an added penalty, the trap a man ties for himself.
Voices on this verse, 1What a preacher or commentator has said about Proverbs 5:20, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:20
“When Scripture says, "Do not keep going steady with a foreign woman," it is advising us to make use of secular education but not to settle there permanently. Each generation received beneficial gifts at the appropriate points, but they were in preparation for the Word of the Lord.”
Clement of Alexandria· third century· The Stromata Book 1patristic
Voices on this verse, 2What preachers and commentators have said about Proverbs 5:21, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:21
“The Lord looks upon the ways of man, etc. Let adulterers not think they are covered by the darkness of night against the wall, nor heretics that their schemes can be hidden, because the darkness will not be obscured from the Lord, and night will …”
Bede· eighth century· Commentary on Proverbspatristic
Proverbs 5:21
“One more warning. The sin is not against man, nor dependent on man’s detection only. The secret sin is open before the eyes of Yahweh. In the balance of His righteous judgment are weighed all human acts. Pondereth - Note the recurrence of the word used of the harlot herself (see Pro 1:6 note): she ponders not, God does.”
Voices on this verse, 3What preachers and commentators have said about Proverbs 5:22, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:22
Clothed as you are in the rotten garments of your offenses and "held fast in the meshes of your own sins," listen to the prophet's voice saying, "Wash yourselves clean! Put away the misdeeds of your souls from before my eyes," that the angelic choir may chant over you: "Happy [are] they whose faults are taken away, whose sins are covered."
Cyril of Jerusalem· fourth century· Catechetical Lecture 1:1patristic
Proverbs 5:22
“He shall be holden with the cords of his sins - Most people who follow unlawful pleasures, think they can give them up whenever they please; but sin repeated becomes customary; custom soon engenders habit; and habit in the end assumes the form of necessity; the man becomes bound with his own cords, and so is led captive by the devil at his will.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Proverbs 5:22
“THE first sentence has reference to a net, in which birds or beasts are taken. The ungodly man first of all finds sin to be a bait, and, charmed by its apparent pleasantness he indulges in it, and then he becomes entangled in its meshes so that he cannot escape. That which first attracted the sinner, afterwards detains him.”
Charles Spurgeon· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 915: “Sinners Bound with the Cords of Sin” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) (1870)Particular (Reformed) Baptist / Five-point Calvinist / 1689 LBCF / 19th-c. evangelical
Voices on this verse, 1What a preacher or commentator has said about Proverbs 5:23, in their own words.
Proverbs 5:23
“The end of the sensual life: to “die without instruction,” life ended, but the discipline of life fruitless; to “go astray,” as if drunk with the greatness of his folly (the same word is used as for “ravished” in Pro 5:19, see marg.), even to the end. This is the close of what might have gone on brightening to the perfect day Pro 4:18.”
Where the chapter sits
Proverbs 5 falls in Sayings of Solomon: long discourses (chapters 1–9). The opening nine chapters frame wisdom and folly as two paths. Wisdom personified (ch 8): the book's poetic high point and a future Christ-as-Wisdom anchor.
After it: Solomon's proverbs proper, chapters 10–24.
The whole shape of Proverbs→Key words
The Hebrew words this chapter turns on, by how often it uses them. Each one opens its word study.
| Word | What it means | Verses |
|---|---|---|
| זוּרzûwr4 times, as זָרָ֑ה, זָרִ֣ים, לְזָרִ֣ים | be a stranger | 3, 10, 17, 20 |
| בֵּןbên3 times, as בְּ֭נִי, בָ֭נִים, בְנִ֣י | son | 1, 7, 20 |
| פֵּןpên3 times, as פֶּן־, פֶּֽן־ | lest | 6, 9, 10 |
| שָׁגָהshâgâh3 times, as תִּשְׁגֶּ֥ה, תִשְׁגֶּ֣ה, יִשְׁגֶּֽה׃ פ | to wander | 19, 20, 23 |
| נָטָהnâṭâh2 times, as הַט־, הִטִּ֥יתִי | to stretch | 1, 13 |
| אֹזֶןʼôzen2 times, as אָזְנֶֽךָ׃, אָזְנִֽי׃ | ear | 1, 13 |
Cross references
The 8 chapters this one speaks with, most first. Open a row for the verses it shares.
Proverbs 75 verses
Proverbs 5:20
Proverbs 7:5That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words.Proverbs 5:3
Proverbs 7:21With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him.Proverbs 5:7
Proverbs 7:24Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth.Proverbs 5:8
Proverbs 7:25Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths.Proverbs 5:5
Proverbs 7:27Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.- Read Proverbs 7 →
Proverbs 43 verses
Proverbs 5:7
Proverbs 4:1Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding.Proverbs 5:1
Proverbs 4:20My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings.Proverbs 5:6
Proverbs 4:26Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.- Read Proverbs 4 →
Proverbs 153 verses
Proverbs 5:21
Proverbs 15:3The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.Proverbs 5:12
Proverbs 15:5A fool despiseth his father’s instruction: but he that regardeth reproof is prudent.Proverbs 5:2
Proverbs 15:7The lips of the wise disperse knowledge: but the heart of the foolish doeth not so.- Read Proverbs 15 →
Proverbs 62 verses
Proverbs 5:3, 20
Proverbs 6:24To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.Proverbs 5:10
Proverbs 6:35He will not regard any ransom; neither will he rest content, though thou givest many gifts.- Read Proverbs 6 →
The rest of the chapters this one speaks with, 4 of them, for a reader following a thread past the four above
- Malachi 22 verses
- Proverbs 22 verses
- Hosea 42 verses
- Proverbs 12 verses
Cross-references from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and OpenBible.info.
The world behind itThe place, the time and the people around this chapter, for a reader who wants the setting.
The world behind this chapter
Proverbs 5The history
The chapter's central picture is water rights. Judah gets no rain from May to September, so a household cut a cistern in the rock under or beside the house, plastered it, and fed it from the roof through a channel. That water was private property, guarded, and rationed. "Drink waters out of thine own cistern" is not poetry to people who lived that way; it is the difference between having water and begging for it.
"Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad" turns the picture around, water running out into the street is water wasted, spilled where anyone can take it. In a dry country that image carried real disgust.
The consequences named are legal and financial, not only moral. An adulterer could lose his "honour" and his "years unto the cruel", the wronged husband and his clan had standing to pursue him, the Law made adultery a capital matter, and a settlement could strip a man's estate and hand "thy labours" to a stranger's house.
"Her lips drop as an honeycomb" and "her end is bitter as wormwood" pair the sweetest and the bitterest things in the local pantry. Wild honey was the region's only concentrated sweetener; wormwood was a scrubby desert plant so bitter it became the standard word for what poisons a good thing.
What it meant to them
Hearers in a small town understood the arithmetic instantly: everyone would know, and the cost would be paid in front of the whole assembly.
But the chapter's strongest note is not the threat. It is the command to rejoice in the wife of your youth, a settled, warm, lifelong delight held up as the actually better deal, in a culture where a man with means could easily have arranged otherwise.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Proverbs 5. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 17 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Ambrose of Milan; Apostolic Constitutions, Constitutions of the Holy Apostles Book 6; Athanasius of Alexandria, LETTER 7:5; Bede, Commentary on Proverbs; Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 915: “Sinners Bound with the Cords of Sin” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) (1870); Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata Book 1; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 1:1; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Proverbs of Solomon; Gregory the Dialogist; Hippolytus of Rome, Hippolytus Exegetical Fragments; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Origen of Alexandria, HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 14:2.