Verse 16
16. From the strange woman Solomon here proceeds to show that this wisdom of which he speaks will also preserve from the snares of the dissolute woman. Such a woman is described. She is זרה , ( zarah,) and נכריה , ( nokhriyyah,) a strange woman, an adulteress; that is, a foreigner either as to nation or to the household; another woman than the man’s wife. It is probable that those women who surrendered themselves to licentious practices among the Hebrews were mostly foreigners, and hence the words corresponding to our words harlot, prostitute, and the term stranger or foreign woman, came to be nearly synonymous. By the Canaanites, especially the Phoenicians, women were consecrated to prostitution as priestesses of their impure goddess of love. In periods of her corruption Israel received these foreign women, and temples of licentious rites, scattered through Palestine, reduced the young Israelites to debauchery.
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