Proverbs 5:7 - Exposition

The subject of which the teacher is heating demands the utmost attention of youth. Enough, it might be supposed, had been said to deter from intercourse with the "strange woman." She has been portrayed in her real colours, plunging recklessly into ruin herself, and carrying her victims with her; deceitful, full of intrigues, neither walking in nor knowing the way of life. But the warning is amplified and made more impressive. There is another side of the picture, the complete bodily and temporal ruin of her victim. The argumentum ad hominem is applied. There is an appeal to personal interest in the details which follow, which ought not to fail in holding youth back. The form of the address which is repeated is very similar to that in Proverbs 7:24 . The plural form, "O ye children" (cf. Proverbs 4:1 and Proverbs 7:24 ), immediately passes into the singular for the reason mentioned before, that, though the address is made to all, yet each individually is to apply it to himself.