Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.
Let them be for thyself alone, And not for strangers with thee.
Let them be to thee for thyself, And not to strangers with thee.
Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.
Proverbs — Gnomic wisdom — sayings, instructions, and the binary of wisdom vs. folly. Fear of the LORD as the integrative theme; the virtuous woman of Prov 31 as the book's closing portrait of wisdom embodied.
Voices3
Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)reformed
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, 1832evangelical
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, 1871reformed
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread — the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
