Proverbs 5:17
in Proverbs 5Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Let them be for thyself alone, And not for strangers with thee.
KJV
Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.
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This verse in Proverbs 5
Commentary
6 notes on this verseLet them be only thine own - The off-spring of a legitimate connection; a bastard brood, however numerous, is no credit to any man.
This site's exposition
Drink waters out of thine own cistern
on Proverbs 5:15-17
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.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
A commentator
Augustine of HippoTRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 7:6 · Written in the 5th century.
proposed
"Let the fountain of your water be your own and let no stranger share with you." For all who do not love God are strangers, are antichrists. And although they enter the basilicas, they cannot be numbered among the sons of God. That fountain of life does not belong to them. Even an evil person can have baptism; even an evil person can have prophecy. We find that king Saul had prophecy; he was persecuting the holy David and was filled with the Spirit of prophecy and began to prophesy. Even an evil person can receive the sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord, for about such it has been said, "He who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself." Even an evil person can have the name of Christ, that is, even an evil person can be called Christian; and about these it has been said, "They profaned the name of their God." Therefore, even an evil man can have all these mysteries. But he cannot have love and be evil. This, then, is the peculiar gift; it is the unique fountain. For drinking of this the Spirit of God encourages you; for drinking of himself the Spirit of God encourages you.
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
): "Look upon them as streams from thy own pure fountains" (the Jews are said to come forth out of the waters of Judah, Isa. xlviii. 1 ), "so that they are parts of thyself, as the streams are of the fountain.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens+odd-straight-quotes
Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
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."
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
On the verses either side of this one
May your springs spread out In the end you will acquire disciples, and you will promulgate decisions in public, and you will gain a reputation.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 3 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| יִֽהְיוּ־ | yihyu- | let them belong | H1961 → | 3559 times |
| לְךָ֥ | lekha | to you | ||
| לְבַדֶּ֑ךָ | levadekha | to alone you | H905 → | |
| וְאֵ֖ין | veein | and not | H369 → | 789 times |
| לְזָרִ֣ים | lezarim | to strangers | H2114 → | 77 times |
| אִתָּֽךְ׃ | ʾitakh | with you | H854 → | 929 times |
יִֽהְיוּ־let them belong
yihyu-H1961 →3559 times
לְךָ֥to you
lekha
לְבַדֶּ֑ךָto alone you
levadekhaH905 →
וְאֵ֖יןand not
veeinH369 →789 times
לְזָרִ֣יםto strangers
lezarimH2114 →77 times
אִתָּֽךְ׃with you
ʾitakhH854 →929 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
About Proverbs
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Augustine of Hippo, TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 7:6; Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Proverbs of Solomon; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.