Proverbs 23:28

23:19-28 The gracious Saviour who purchased pardon and peace for his people, with all the affection of a tender parent, counsels us to hear and be wise, and is ready to guide our hearts in his way. Here we have an earnest call to young people, to attend to the advice of their godly parents. If the heart be guided, the steps will be guided. Buy the truth, and sell it not; be willing to part with any thing for it. Do not part with it for pleasures, honours, riches, or any thing in this world. The heart is what the great God requires. We must not think to divide the heart between God and the world; he will have all or none. Look to the rule of God's word, the conduct of his providence, and the good examples of his people. Particular cautions are given against sins most destructive to wisdom and grace in the soul. It is really a shame to make a god of the belly. Drunkenness stupifies men, and then all goes to ruin. Licentiousness takes away the heart that should be given to God. Take heed of any approaches toward this sin, it is very hard to retreat from it. It bewitches men to their ruin.

She also lieth in wait as for a prey,.... At the door of her house, in the corner of the streets, in the dark of the night; laying her snares, and spreading her nets, for unwary persons, to make a prey of their virtue and of their money. Or, "as a man of prey" (k); a thief and robber, so Gersom; thus she watches and takes all opportunities to seize on persons, and rob them of their substance, health, and credit; or rather "as a beast of prey"; ravenous, devouring, and insatiable; so the Targum, "as a beast ravening, she lies in wait with her eyes;'' and increaseth the transgressors among men; there is none that occasions wore sin, or makes more sinners, than a whorish woman; swearing, lying, drunkenness, thieving, stealing, housebreaking, robbing on the highway, &c. are the sins she leads into.

Or, "increaseth treacherous" (l) persons; to God, to their king, to their wives, to their master's; and all that they may consume, what they can get by perfidious practices, upon them, or, "perfidious persons among men, she adds "to herself" (m);'' she gets a parcel of abandoned wretches about her, whom she employs as her panders for her lust, or as bullies to spoil her gallants of their substance, or murder them for the sake of it. (k) "tanquam vir praedae", Vatablus; "ut praedator", Mercerus, Gejerus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "ut raptor", Cocceius; "velut praedo", Michaelis; "ut harpago", Schultens. (l) "perfidos", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Schultens. (m) "adjungitque sibi", Tigurine version.

Lieth in wait as for a prey; watching all opportunities of insnaring young men to their destruction. Increaseth the transgressors among men; she is the cause of innumerable sins against God, and against the marriage-bed, against the soul and body too, and by her wicked example and arts involveth many persons in the guilt of her sins.

Verse 28. - She also lieth in wait as for a prey. "Yea, she [ Proverbs 22:19 ] lieth in wait," as is graphically described in ch. 7. (comp. Jeremiah 3:2 ). Chetheph is better taken, not as "prey," but in a concrete sense as the person who snatches it, the robber. Vulgate, Insidiatur in via quasi latro (comp. Psalm 10:9 ). And increaseth the transgressors among men. The Greek and Latin versions have taken רוסִיפ as meaning "kills," "destroys." But the verb yasaph always means "to add," here "to multiply." The special transgression indicated is treachery or faithlessness. The harlot leads her victim to be faithless to his God, his wife, his parents, his tutor, his master. Septuagint, "For he shall perish suddenly, and every transgressor shall be destroyed." Proverbs 23:28

This hexastich warns against unchastity. What, in chap. 1-9, extended discourses and representations exhibited to the youth is here repeated in miniature pictures. It is the teacher of wisdom, but by him Wisdom herself, who speaks: 26 Give me, my son, thine heart; And let thine eyes delight in my ways. 27 For the harlot is a deep ditch, And the strange woman a narrow pit. 28 Yea, she lieth in wait like a robber, And multiplieth the faithless among men We have retained Luther's beautiful rendering of Proverbs 23:26, (Note: The right punctuation of 26a is תּנה־בני לבּך, as it is found in the editions: Ven. 1615; Basel 1619; and in those of Norzi and Michaelis.) in which this proverb, as a warning word of heavenly wisdom and of divine love, has become dear to us. It follows, as Symmachus and the Venet., the Chethı̂b תּרצנה (for תרצינה, like Exodus 2:16; Job 5:12), the stylistic appropriateness of which proceeds from Proverbs 16:7, as on the other hand the Kerı̂ תּצּרנה (cf. 1 Samuel 14:27) is supported by Proverbs 22:12, cf. Proverbs 5:2. But the correction is unnecessary, and the Chethı̂b sounds more affectionate, hence it is with right defended by Hitzig. The ways of wisdom are ways of correction, and particularly of chastity, thus placed over against "the ways of the harlot," Proverbs 7:24. Accordingly the exhortation, Proverbs 23:26, verifies itself; warning, by Proverbs 23:27, cf.

Proverbs 22:14, where עמקּה was written, here as at Job 12:22, with the long vowel עמוּקה (עמקה). בּאר צרה interchanges with שׁוּחה עמוקה, and means, not the fountain of sorrow (Lwenstein), but the narrow pit. בּאר is fem. gen., Proverbs 26:21., and צר means narrow, like troit (old French, estreit), from strictus. The figure has, after Proverbs 22:14, the mouth of the harlot in view. Whoever is enticed by her syren voice falls into a deep ditch, into a pit with a narrow mouth, into which one can more easily enter than escape from. Proverbs 23:28 says that it is the artifice of the harlot which draws a man into such depth of wickedness and guilt. With אף, which, as at Judges 5:29, belongs not to היא but to the whole sentence, the picture of terror is completed. The verb חתף (whence Arab. ḥataf, death, natural death) means to snatch away. If we take חתף as abstr.: a snatching away, then it would here stand elliptically for חתף (בּעל) אישׁ, which in itself is improbable (vid., Proverbs 7:22, עכס) and also unnecessary, since, as מלך, עבד, הלך, etc. show, such abstracta can pass immediately into concreta, so that חתף thus means the person who snatches away, i.e., the street robber, latro (cf. חטף .fc(, Arab. khaṭaf, Psalm 10:9, rightly explained by Kimchi as cogn.).