Proverbs 5:18
in Proverbs 5May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Let thy fountain be blessed; And rejoice in the wife of thy youth.
KJV
Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
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This verse in Proverbs 5
Commentary
9 notes on this verseYe 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.
This site's exposition
rejoice with the wife of thy youth
on Proverbs 5:18-19
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.
The record, by era
The Medieval Church1 voice
"Let your fountain be blessed," etc. Maintain such temperance with the woman you married in your youth, even in old age, that by faithful chastity you may rightly gain a blessing in your offspring. "A loving doe, a graceful fawn." Let her always be your …
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
Let thy fountain be blessed,....
Those comforts we are likely to have joy of that are sanctified to us by prayer and the blessing of God. It is not only allowed us, but commanded us, to be pleasant with our relations; and it particularly becomes yoke-fellows to rejoice together and in each other.
Let him that is married take delight in his wife, and let him be very fond of her, not only because she is the wife that he himself has chosen and he ought to be pleased with his own choice, but because she is the wife that God in his providence appointed for him and he ought much more to be pleased with the divine appointment, pleased with her because she is his own.
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
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.
2 more voices on this verse
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."
Modern Voices1 voice
The same principle (by the way) applies to the difficult problem of wives. Variability is one of the virtues of a woman. It avoids the crude requirement of polygamy. So long as you have one good wife you are sure to have a spiritual harem.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| יְהִֽי־ | yehi- | may it be | H1961 → | 3559 times |
| מְקוֹרְךָ֥ | mekorcha | spring your | H4726 → | 18 times |
| בָר֑וּךְ | varukh | blessed | H1288 → | 330 times |
| וּ֝שְׂמַ֗ח | usemach | and rejoice | H8055 → | 155 times |
| מֵאֵ֥שֶׁת | meeshet | from [the] wife of | H802 → | 781 times |
| נְעוּרֶֽךָ׃ | neurekha | youth<s> your | H5271 → |
יְהִֽי־may it be
yehi-H1961 →3559 times
מְקוֹרְךָ֥spring your
mekorchaH4726 →18 times
בָר֑וּךְblessed
varukhH1288 →330 times
וּ֝שְׂמַ֗חand rejoice
usemachH8055 →155 times
מֵאֵ֥שֶׁתfrom [the] wife of
meeshetH802 →781 times
נְעוּרֶֽךָ׃youth<s> your
neurekhaH5271 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Ecclesiastes 9:9Enjoy life with your beloved wife all the days of the fleeting life that God has given you under the sun—all your fleeting days. For this is your portion in life and in your…
it leads to
- Proverbs 5:18–19
May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:
- Ecclesiastes 2:10
Anything my eyes desired, I did not deny myself. I refused my heart no pleasure. For my heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor.
- Ecclesiastes 6:12
For who knows what is good for a man during the few days in which he passes through his fleeting life like a shadow? Who can tell a man what will come after him…
- Malachi 2:15
Has not the LORD made them one, having a portion of the Spirit? And why one? Because He seeks godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit and do not break faith with the…
- Ecclesiastes 3:13
and also that every man should eat and drink and find satisfaction in all his labor—this is the gift of God.
- Proverbs 5:18–19
Through
Song of Solomon 4:12My sister, my bride, you are a garden locked up, a spring enclosed, a fountain sealed.
it leads to
- Proverbs 5:15–18
Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well.
- Revelation 21:27
But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who practices an abomination or a lie, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
- Proverbs 5:15–18
Through
Song of Solomon 4:15You are a garden spring, a well of fresh water flowing down from Lebanon.
it leads to
- John 4:10
Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God and who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
- John 4:10
About Proverbs
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Apostolic Constitutions, Constitutions of the Holy Apostles Book 6; Bede, Commentary on Proverbs; Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs; GK Chesterton, Alarms and Discursions, The Glory of Grey; 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.