The loving hind and pleasant roe - By אילת aiyeleth , the deer; by יעלה yaalah , the ibex or mountain goat, may be meant. Let her breasts satisfy thee - As the infant is satisfied with the breasts of its mother; so shouldst thou be with the wife of thy youth. read more
Victims of vice One particular vice is here denounced; it is necessary to warn the young against its snares and sorrows. What is here said, however, of this sin is applicable, in most if not all respects, to any kind of unholy indulgence; it is an earnest and faithful warning against the sin and shame of a vicious life. I. ITS SINFULNESS . The woman who is a sinner is a "strange" woman ( Proverbs 5:3 ). The temptress is all too common amongst us, but she is strange in the... read more
8. Eighth admonitory discourse. Warning against adultery, and commendation of marriage. The teacher, in this discourse, recurs to a subject which he has glanced at before in Proverbs 2:15-19 , and which he again treats of in the latter part of the sixth and in the whole of the seventh chapters. This constant recurrence to the same subject, repulsive on account of its associations, shows, however, the importance which it had in the teacher's estimation as a ground of warning, and that... read more
Drink waters out of thine own cistern, etc.; i.e. in the wife of your own choice, or in the legitimate sphere of marriage, seek the satisfaction of your natural impulses. The pure, innocent, and chaste nature of such pleasures is appropriately compared with the pure and wholesome waters of the cistern and the wellspring. The "drinking" carries with it the satisfying of a natural want. Agreeably with oriental and scriptural usage, "the wife" is compared with a "cistern" and "well." Thus in... read more
Home joys I. THE HOME IS A DIVINE INSTITUTION OF THE FIRST IMPORTANCE FOR THE WELFARE OF MANKIND . Here and throughout the Bible the sanctity of the home is insisted on as something to be guarded inviolably. It is evident that this beautiful institution is in harmony with our nature. To live according to nature is not to indulge ill-regulated passions, to follow chance impulses, to subordinate reason and conscience to instinct and appetite. It is to live so as... read more
Commendation of the chaste intercourse of marriage. In this section the teacher passes from admonitory warnings against unchastity to the commendation of conjugal fidelity and pure love. The allegorical exposition of this passage, current at the period of the Revision of the Authorized Version in 1612, as referring to liberality, is not ad rem . Such an idea had no place certainly in the teacher's mind, nor is it appropriate to the context, the scope of which is, as we have seen, to warn... read more
Fidelity and bliss in marriage The counterpart of the foregoing warning against vice, placing connubial joys in the brightest light, of poetic fancy. I. IMAGES OF WIFEHOOD . The wife is described: 1 . As a spring, and as a cistern. Property in a spring or well was highly, even sacredly, esteemed. Hence a peculiar force in the comparison. The wife is the husband's peculiar delight and property; the source of pleasures of every kind and degree; the fruitful origin of the... read more
Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. The figurative language is still continued, and under the terms "fountains" and "rivers of waters," are to be understood children, the legitimate issue of lawful marriage. So Aben Ezra and the majority of modern commentators, Schultens, Doderlein, Holden, Muenscher, Noyes, Wardlaw, etc. The meaning appears to be, "Let thy marriage be blessed with many children, who may go forth abroad for the public good." Other... read more
Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee. By confining yourself to chaste intercourse with your lawful wife, be assured that your offspring is your own. Promiscuous and unlawful intercourse throws doubt upon the paternity of children. Thy children may be thine, they may belong to another. The natural pride which is felt in a legitimate offspring is the motive put forward to commend the husband to confine himself exclusively to his wife. Grotius on this verse remarks, "Ibi... read more
Get Bible verse every day in your inbox
Read on Mobile
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Proverbs 5:18
Let thy fountain be blessed - ברוך מקורך יהי 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. read more