Proverbs 2:18

2:10-22 If we are truly wise, we shall be careful to avoid all evil company and evil practices. When wisdom has dominion over us, then it not only fills the head, but enters into the heart, and will preserve, both against corruptions within and temptations without. The ways of sin are ways of darkness, uncomfortable and unsafe: what fools are those who leave the plain, pleasant, lightsome paths of uprightness, to walk in such ways! They take pleasure in sin; both in committing it, and in seeing others commit it. Every wise man will shun such company. True wisdom will also preserve from those who lead to fleshly lusts, which defile the body, that living temple, and war against the soul. These are evils which excite the sorrow of every serious mind, and cause every reflecting parent to look upon his children with anxiety, lest they should be entangled in such fatal snares. Let the sufferings of others be our warnings. Our Lord Jesus deters from sinful pleasures, by the everlasting torments which follow them. It is very rare that any who are caught in this snare of the devil, recover themselves; so much is the heart hardened, and the mind blinded, by the deceitfulness of this sin. Many think that this caution, besides the literal sense, is to be understood as a caution against idolatry, and subjecting the soul to the body, by seeking any forbidden object. The righteous must leave the earth as well as the wicked; but the earth is a very different thing to them.

Proverbs 2:18-19 . For her house inclineth unto death — Conversation with her (which was most usual in her own house) is the certain way to death, which it brings many ways, and undoubtedly, without repentance, to God’s wrath and the second death. None that go unto her — That is, few or none; a hyperbolical expression, used Isaiah 64:7 ; return again — From her and from this wicked way unto God and his ways. Whoremongers and adulterers are very rarely brought to repentance, but are generally hardened by the power and deceitfulness of their sin, and by God’s just judgment, peculiarly inflicted upon such persons, Hebrews 13:4 ; neither take they hold of the paths of life — Of those courses which lead to true and eternal life and happiness.

(18) For her house inclineth . . .—Rather, she sinks down with her house: house and all, like Dathan and Abiram. Unto the dead.—In Hebrew the Rephāîm. The word may signify those “at rest” (comp. Job 3:17 : “There the weary are at rest”); or the “weak.” (Comp. Isaiah 14:10 : “Art thou also become weak as we?”)

18 . her house &c.] It is a steep descent, ending in death. The rendering of R.V. marg., she sinketh down unto death which is her house , is less forcible and impairs the parallelism. the dead ] Lit. the Rephaim . The Rephaim were among the Aborigines of Canaan ( Genesis 14:5 ; Genesis 15:20 ) and were people of giant stature ( Deuteronomy 2:11 ; Deuteronomy 2:20-21 , R.V.). They may have come to be identified in the popular mind in the dim retrospect of the past, with the shadowy spectres that loomed large in Sheol ( Isaiah 14:9 , R.V. marg.). See Smith’s Dict. of Bible , Art. Rephaim .

Her house inclineth unto death, conversation with her (which was most free and usual in her own house) is the ready and certain way to death, which it brings many ways; by wasting a man’s vital spirits, and shortening his life; by exposing him to many and dangerous diseases, which physicians have declared and proved to be the effects of inordinate lust; as also to the fury of jealous husbands or friends, and sometimes to the sword of civil justice, and undoubtedly, without repentance, to God’s wrath and the second death. This is here mentioned as one great privilege and blessed fruit of wisdom, to be delivered from this evil. Unto the dead; or, as the Chaldee and some others render it, unto the giants , to wit, those rebellious giants, Genesis 6:4 ; or, as others, unto the damned , or unto hell . See for this word Job 7:9 Psalm 88:11 Proverbs 9:18 21:16 .

Verse 18. - For her house inclineth unto death; rather, she sinks down to death together with her house (Bottcher, Delitzsch). The objection to the Authorized Version is that it does not tbllow the construction of the original, the verb "sinks down" ( שָׁחָה , shakhah ) being feminine, while "house" ( בָיִת , bayith ) is invariably masculine. Aben Ezra translates, "She sinks down to death, (which is to be) her house;" but it seems better to regard "her house" as an adjunct of the strange woman. Her house includes all who belong to her. She and they are involved in the same fate. The Authorized Version is evidently influenced by the Vulgate, Inclinata est enim ad mortem domus ejus , "For her house is inclined to death." The LXX. gives a different rendering, Ἕθετο γὰρ παρὰ τῷ θανάτῳ τὸν οϊκον αὐτῆς , "For she hath placed her house beside death." So the Arabic. The "for" ( כִּי , ki ) refers back to ver. 16, and indicates how great is the deliverance effected by wisdom. The meaning of the passage is aptly illustrated by Proverbs 7:27 , "Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death." And her paths unto the dead. The dead ( רְפָאִים , r'phaim ) are properly the quiet, or the feeble. They are the shadowy inhabitants or shades of Hades, the inferi of the Vulgate, and are here put for Sheol itself. Compare the ἔδωλα καμνόντων of Homer, and the umbrae , "shades," of Virgil.