Proverbs 7: The young man who walked into a trap | Bible study

Proverbs 7:1

My child, hold on to what I say. Store up my rules inside you like treasure.

My son, guard what I say,

The chapter starts with defence before it describes the danger. The first protection is to keep watch over what you have been taught.

and store my commands away inside you.

The second line goes deeper: from guarding to storing up. A person who has a reserve of instruction inside him has something to draw on when the moment comes.

שמר · shamar · guard, keep

To stand guard over. Used three times in the first five verses.

אמר · emer · saying, speech

Spoken sayings. The woman has her own in verse 5, and the choice is which set he keeps.

צפן · tsaphan · hide, store up

To hide away as valuables are hidden. In 1:11 the same verb was used for lurking in ambush; here it is put to good use.

מצוה · mitsvah · command

Direct orders from someone with the right to give them.

Proverbs 7:2

Do what I tell you and you will live. Guard my teaching as carefully as you guard your own eyes.

Guard my commands and you will live;

The stake is stated at once. This is about staying alive, and the end of the chapter shows the alternative.

guard my teaching like the pupil of your eye.

The comparison explains how carefully to guard it. You protect your eye by reflex, without having to decide to. The teaching should be protected the same way.

חיה · chayah · live

In Hebrew this is a command: guard them, and live. Life is the result of keeping them.

תורה · torah · direction, instruction

Instruction that points the way. Here it is the father's own torah.

אישון · ishon · pupil of the eye

The dark centre of the eye, usually explained as 'little man' from the tiny reflection seen in it. Deuteronomy 32:10 uses it for how God guards Israel.

'Apple of the eye' is an old English idiom for the pupil. The Hebrew is simply the pupil of your eye: the most sensitive and most instinctively protected part of the body.

Proverbs 7:3

Wear my words like a ring on your finger. Write them deep in your heart so you never forget them.

Tie them on your fingers;

Fingers are always in front of you and are what you act with. The teaching should be as present as a ring and should govern what the hands do.

write them on the tablet of your heart.

The second line moves from outside to inside. A tablet is for permanent record. The teaching is to be so much a part of his thinking that he need not look it up.

קשר · qashar · tie on

The verb of Deuteronomy 6:8, where God's words are bound on the hand.

אצבע · etsba · finger

In 6:13 the troublemaker's fingers gave signals. These fingers carry instruction.

כתב · katav · write, inscribe

To write down so that it stays. Writing made a thing fixed and official.

לוח · luach · writing tablet

The word for the stone tablets of the ten commandments (Exodus 24:12). The heart is to be a tablet like those.

לב · lev · heart, mind

The mind and will. A written-on heart is the answer to the empty heart of verse 7.

Proverbs 7:4

Treat wisdom like your own sister. Make good sense your closest friend.

Say to wisdom, You are my sister,

Wisdom is to be claimed as family. A sister is a woman you live close to and are loyal to for life. The young man needs that bond in place before another woman speaks to him.

and call insight your close relative,

The second line repeats the idea with a wider family term. If wisdom is your kin, the woman of verse 5 is seen for what she is: a stranger.

חכמה · chokmah · skill

Skill at living. A feminine noun, which makes the picture of a sister natural in Hebrew.

אחות · achot · sister

A sister, and in love poetry a term of affection for a bride (Song of Songs 4:9).

בינה · binah · insight

The ability to tell things apart, exactly what the youth in verse 7 lacks.

מודע · moda · kinsman, relative

From yada, to know: someone known to you, a relative. A related form describes Boaz as Naomi's kinsman (Ruth 2:1).

Proverbs 7:5

They will keep you safe from a woman who is married to someone else and who tries to win you with sweet talk.

so that they guard you from the strange woman,

This is the purpose of verses 1 to 4. The son guards the teaching and the teaching guards him. Her name sets her against the sister of verse 4: family on one side, an outsider on the other.

from the outsider who makes her words smooth.

Her method is identified before she appears. She will win, if she wins, by talk. The story that follows is a demonstration of this line.

שמר · shamar · guard, keep

The third use. What he guards in verses 1 and 2 now guards him.

זרה · zarah · strange woman

Literally a strange woman, one who is outside. She is off limits because she belongs to another household, as verse 19 shows.

נכריה · nokriyah · outsider woman

A parallel term with the same sense: a woman who is foreign to you. The same pair of words appears in 2:16.

חלק · chalaq · make smooth

To be smooth or slippery. Her words have had every rough edge taken off so that nothing in them makes him hesitate.

אמר · emer · saying, speech

The same noun as the father's words in verse 1. Two sets of sayings compete for the son.

Proverbs 7:6

One day I was at home, looking out through my window.

For at the window of my house,

The father begins a story as an eyewitness. He was at home, looking down into the street.

through my lattice, I looked down,

He could see without being seen. The detail gives the account the feel of something that really happened in front of him.

חלון · challon · window opening

An opening in the wall, usually on an upper floor.

בית · bayit · house, household

The story is framed by two houses: the father's, where teaching is given, and hers, where the story ends.

שקף · shaqaph · look down from above

To lean out and look down, the usual verb for looking from a window or from a height.

אשנב · eshnav · window lattice

A rare word, found only here and in Judges 5:28, where Sisera's mother looks out through one.

Houses had no glass. Windows were openings covered by a wooden lattice that let in air and light and let the person inside watch the street while staying hidden.

Proverbs 7:7

Down in the street were some young people who did not know much yet. One young man stood out, and he had no sense at all.

and I saw among the gullible,

There was a group of inexperienced young people in the street. They are not yet bad, only unformed and easily led.

I picked out among the sons

One of them caught the father's attention. The word 'sons' quietly links this youth to the son being addressed: he could be you.

a youth with no sense.

This is the diagnosis that explains everything he is about to do. He has nothing inside him to weigh the offer with.

פתי · peti · open, gullible

From a root meaning to be open. The peti is open to any influence, so the first strong voice wins.

בין · bin · tell apart, perceive

The father exercises the very ability the youth lacks: he can tell what he is looking at.

נער · na'ar · young person

A youth whose direction is not yet set, the audience named in 1:4.

חסר לב · chasar lev · lacking heart

Literally lacking heart. The same phrase was the verdict on the adulterer in 6:32.

Proverbs 7:8

He was walking down the street near her corner, along the road that led to her house.

crossing the street close to her corner,

He is in her neighborhood. The story does not say he planned anything, but he has put himself near the place where she is found.

and he strolls along the road to her house,

The second line narrows it: not only her corner but the road that leads to her door. His fall begins with where he chooses to walk.

שוק · shuq · street

A narrow city street, the kind lined with houses and shops.

פנה · pinnah · corner

A street corner. It is called her corner; verse 12 says she waits at every one.

צעד · tsa'ad · step, stride

To take steps, to pace. A deliberate verb: he is not rushing, he is sauntering that way.

דרך · derek · road, way of life

A literal road here. Verse 27 will say where this road actually goes.

בית · bayit · house, household

Her house, the destination of the whole story.

Proverbs 7:9

The sun was going down. Evening came, and then the dark of night, when he thought nobody would see.

at dusk, as the day turns to evening,

The time is given. He goes as the light is failing, when a person expects not to be seen.

in the pupil of the night, in the dark.

The four time words move from twilight to pitch black. The darkness deepens as he gets closer, and it matches what is happening inside him.

נשף · nesheph · dusk

The dim light after sunset. Job 24:15 says the adulterer's eye waits for it.

ערב · erev · evening

The Hebrew is 'in the evening of the day', the close of the day.

אישון · ishon · pupil, dark centre

The word for the pupil of the eye in verse 2. The night has a pupil too, its blackest point. He should have been guarding the one and is walking into the other.

אפלה · aphelah · deep darkness

Thick darkness, gloom. The word for the plague of darkness in Egypt (Exodus 10:22).

Proverbs 7:10

Then a woman came out to meet him. She was dressed to catch his eye, and she kept her real plan hidden.

And look, a woman comes toward him,

The word 'look' makes the hearer see it happen. He was drifting; she is purposeful. She is the one who closes the distance.

dressed like a prostitute, with a guarded heart.

Two facts about her. Her clothing advertises openly, and her real intentions are locked away. She shows everything except what she is thinking.

קרא · qara · meet, encounter

To come face to face with. She will use the same word about herself in verse 15.

זונה · zonah · prostitute

She is a married woman (verse 19) wearing the outfit of a prostitute. The Hebrew says 'the attire of a zonah'.

נצרת לב · netsurat lev · guarded of heart

From natsar, to guard. Her heart is kept under guard: she is secretive about her real aims while he has no heart at all.

Proverbs 7:11

She was loud and did just as she pleased. She never stayed at home.

She is loud and defiant;

The father breaks off the action to describe her character. She is noisy and will not accept restraint from anyone.

her feet do not stay in her own house.

This shows what the defiance looks like. She is restless, always out, looking for something her home does not give her.

המה · hamah · be noisy, clamor

To make an uproar. The same root describes the noisy streets where Wisdom calls in 1:21, and Folly in 9:13.

סרר · sarar · be stubborn

To be stubborn and resist control. Hosea 4:16 uses it of a heifer that will not be led.

שכן · shakan · settle, dwell

To settle down. In 1:33 the one who listens to Wisdom dwells secure; her feet never settle.

בית · bayit · house, household

Her own house, the place she should be loyal to and will not stay in.

Proverbs 7:12

One minute she was in the street, the next in the town square. At every corner she waited to catch someone.

One moment in the street, the next in the squares,

She is everywhere in public. These are the very places where Wisdom stood and called in 1:20, so the two voices compete on the same ground.

and at every corner she lies in wait.

The verb is the one for an ambush. The youth thought he had wandered near her corner by chance, but she was hunting.

חוץ · chuts · outside

Out of doors. The same word as the street where Wisdom cries out in 1:20.

רחוב · rechov · broad place, plaza

The open plazas of a town, also from 1:20.

ארב · arab · lie in ambush

The gang's verb in 1:11. She is as much a predator as they were.

פנה · pinnah · corner

The corner of verse 8. Not one corner only but every corner.

Proverbs 7:13

She grabbed hold of him and kissed him. Without any shame at all, she said to him:

She grabs him and kisses him,

The action resumes. She acts before she speaks, with physical contact that leaves him no time to think.

and with a hardened face she says to him:

She shows no embarrassment at all. The set face tells us that what follows is practised, not spontaneous.

חזק · chazaq · take firm hold

To be strong, and so to grip hard. She takes hold of him as one takes hold of something caught.

נשק · nashaq · kiss

A kiss was a normal greeting between relatives. From a stranger in the street at night it is an assault on his judgment.

עזז פנים · azaz panim · make the face hard

Literally she made her face strong. The same expression describes the wicked man in Proverbs 21:29.

Proverbs 7:14

I went to worship God today and kept my promises to Him. So there is a big meal waiting at my house.

I had fellowship sacrifices to make;

She opens with religion. She has been to worship, which makes her sound respectable and makes what she proposes seem harmless.

today I fulfilled my vows.

It also means something practical: there is a meal of fresh sacrificial meat waiting at her house today. Her piety is the bait for a feast.

שלמים · shelamim · fellowship sacrifices

From the root of shalom. The one sacrifice whose meat the worshipper took home and ate (Leviticus 7:11-18).

שלם · shalam · complete, pay in full

To make complete, and so to pay what is owed. It shares its root with the name of the offering.

נדר · neder · vow

A promise made to God, often to bring an offering if a prayer was answered.

When a peace offering was made to fulfil a vow, part was burned, part went to the priest, and the rest was eaten by the worshipper with family and guests. It had to be eaten that day or the next (Leviticus 7:16). So she is telling him there is a meat feast at her house tonight, a rare thing in a society that seldom ate meat.

Proverbs 7:15

That is why I came out to look for you. I searched just for you, and here you are!

That is why I came out to meet you,

Now the flattery. She claims the feast was meant for him in particular. Verse 12 already told us she waits at every corner for anyone.

to look eagerly for your face, and I have found you.

She makes him feel singled out and sought after. To a youth with no sense, being wanted is hard to resist. The lie is that he is special to her.

יצא · yatsa · go out

To go out. She presents her constant roaming (verse 11) as a single errand done for his sake.

קרא · qara · meet, encounter

The word of verse 10. The narrator said she came to meet him; she turns it into a compliment.

שחר · shachar · seek eagerly

To seek early and earnestly. In 8:17 Wisdom uses this verb of those who seek her, so the woman borrows the language of devotion.

מצא · matsa · find

To find what was looked for. Wisdom also promises to be found (8:17, 8:35); this is the counterfeit.

Proverbs 7:16

I have covered my bed with lovely, bright cloth from far away in Egypt.

I have covered my couch with spreads,

She moves to what he can picture. The bed is prepared, and prepared richly.

with coloured linen from Egypt.

Imported fabric signals wealth and luxury. She is appealing to his eyes and to his sense that this is a step up in the world.

ערש · eres · couch, bed frame

A bed with a frame, a piece of furniture the poor did not own.

מרבד · marvad · spread, coverlet

A bed covering. The verb she uses, I have spread, is from the same root.

אטון · etun · fine linen

A word that occurs only here in the Old Testament. It refers to fine linen thread or cloth.

מצרים · Mitsrayim · Egypt

Egypt was the ancient world's great producer of fine linen, so this is an expensive import.

Proverbs 7:17

I have made my bed smell sweet with spices and perfume.

I have perfumed my bed

After sight, smell. Every sense is being recruited before he has made any decision.

with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.

All three are costly imported spices. The list builds the impression of a rich, special occasion. Myrrh and aloes were also used on the dead (John 19:39), which suits where the chapter ends.

נוף · nuph · sprinkle

To sprinkle or scatter over. She has scented the bedding.

משכב · mishkav · place of lying

From shakav, to lie down. The word is also used for sexual relations.

מר · mor · myrrh

A fragrant resin from Arabia, an ingredient of the holy anointing oil (Exodus 30:23).

אהלים · ahalim · aloeswood

A scented wood from the east, not the aloe plant known today.

קנמון · qinnamon · cinnamon

The English word comes from this one. The same three spices appear together in Song of Songs 4:14.

Proverbs 7:18

Come home with me. Let's be together like a husband and wife and enjoy ourselves all night.

Come, let us soak ourselves in lovemaking until morning;

Only now does she say plainly what she is offering. She promises that there will be more than enough and that it will last all night.

let us enjoy each other's love.

She calls it love. The words she uses belong to married love in the Song of Songs. She takes the vocabulary of something good and applies it to its theft.

רוה · ravah · be saturated

To drink until soaked, like watered ground. The same verb is used of a man's delight in his own wife in 5:19.

דדים · dodim · lovemaking

The plural of dod, beloved. It means physical love, as in Song of Songs 1:2.

עלס · alas · enjoy, rejoice

A rare verb for taking pleasure in something.

אהבים · ahavim · loves

A plural noun from ahav, to love. She names it love though it is a single night with a stranger.

Proverbs 7:19

My husband is not home. He has gone on a long trip.

For the man is not in his house;

She answers the objection he has not voiced: what about your husband? This is the first open admission that she is married.

he has gone on a far road.

He is too far away to come back unexpectedly. The whole offer rests on the claim that no one will find out.

איש · ish · man, husband

She says 'the man', not 'my husband'. The cold wording shows how little the marriage means to her.

בית · bayit · house, household

In Hebrew, 'his house'. The house the youth is being invited into belongs to another man.

דרך · derek · road, way of life

The road word again. The husband's road takes him far off; the youth's road takes him in.

Proverbs 7:20

He took a big bag of money with him, and he won't be back for a couple of weeks.

He took the pouch of silver in his hand;

The detail proves her point. A man who takes that much money is on a long business trip, not an errand.

he will come back to his house on the day of the full moon.

She gives the date of his return. There is a fixed, safe stretch of time, she says. Her last word is reassurance, aimed at his fear and not his conscience.

צרור · tseror · tied pouch

From a verb meaning to bind up. A pouch tied shut, used for carrying silver.

כסף · keseph · silver

Silver, which was weighed out as payment before coins were common.

כסא · kese · full moon

A rare word for the full moon, found also in Psalm 81:3.

בית · bayit · house, household

Again 'his house'. She twice calls it his while inviting another man into it.

Months began with the new moon, so the full moon fell in the middle of the month. Verse 9 describes a very dark night, which suggests the husband's return is still some way off.

Proverbs 7:21

She kept talking and talking until he gave in. Her sweet words pulled him along.

She turns him with all her persuasive teaching;

The father steps back in as narrator. It was her speech that did it. He had no words stored inside to set against hers, so hers prevailed.

with the smoothness of her lips she pushes him along.

The second verb is stronger than the first. First he is bent toward her, then driven. Verse 5 warned about smooth words, and here they do their work.

לקח · leqach · teaching, what is received

The word for learning in 1:5. She has a 'teaching' of her own, and he receives hers when he should have received his father's.

נטה · natah · turn, bend aside

To bend or turn something from its course.

חלק · cheleq · smoothness

The noun from chalaq in verse 5. The warning and the event use the same root.

שפה · saphah · lip, speech

The lips as the organ of speech. The same lips kissed him in verse 13.

נדח · nadach · drive, push away

To thrust or drive off, as an animal is driven. Deuteronomy 13 uses it for being drawn away to other gods.

Proverbs 7:22

All at once he followed her. He was like an ox being led off to be killed, or like a prisoner in chains walking to his punishment.

He goes after her all at once,

The decision takes a moment. After the slow walk of verses 8 and 9 the end comes suddenly, with no weighing of anything.

like an ox on its way to the slaughterhouse,

The first comparison. An ox walks calmly behind the person leading it because it has no idea what is ahead. He thinks he is going to a feast, and he is the meat.

like a man in shackles going to a fool's punishment,

The second comparison is hard in Hebrew, but the sense matches the others: someone bound and led off to a penalty his own folly earned.

פתאם · pit'om · all at once

The word used for the troublemaker's ruin in 6:15. Here it marks an impulsive choice with no thought behind it.

שור · shor · ox, bull

A strong animal that is still led wherever its owner wants.

טבח · tevach · butchering

The killing of animals for meat. She spoke of sacrifices in verse 14; he is the one slaughtered.

עכס · ekes · anklet, fetter

A band around the ankle. Elsewhere the noun appears only in Isaiah 3:18, for women's ankle ornaments; here it is taken as a shackle.

מוסר · musar · discipline, correction

The great word of chapter 1. He refused musar as teaching, so he gets it as punishment.

אויל · evil · stubborn fool

The fool who despises discipline in 1:7.

The third line reads literally 'and like an anklet to the discipline of a fool', which is obscure. The ancient Greek translation read it as an animal, and several modern versions follow it with 'like a deer stepping into a noose'. NASB keeps the Hebrew as it stands.

Proverbs 7:23

He was like a bird flying fast into a trap. He had no idea it would cost him his life.

until an arrow splits his liver;

This finishes the picture of the animal. It walks on unaware until the moment the fatal wound comes, in a vital organ.

like a bird rushing into a trap,

A third animal. The bird sees only the bait and flies at it eagerly. Its own hurry is what kills it.

and he does not know it will cost him his life.

This is the key line of the story. Everything turns on what he does not know. The father is telling it so that his son will know.

חץ · chets · arrow

The hunter's weapon. The end comes from outside, sudden and unseen.

כבד · kaved · liver

The heavy organ, from a root meaning heavy. A wound there is fatal.

צפור · tsippor · small bird

The bird of 6:5, which there escaped from the fowler's hand. This one flies in.

פח · pach · bird trap

A spring trap for birds that snaps shut when the bait is touched.

נפש · nephesh · soul, whole self

His whole self. In 6:26 the married woman hunts a precious nephesh; this is the catch.

Proverbs 7:24

So now, my children, listen to me. Pay attention to what I say.

So now, sons, listen to me,

The story is over and the father applies it. He widens the address from one son to all of them, because the youth in the street could be any of them.

and give your attention to what my mouth says.

The young man listened to her mouth. The remedy offered is a different voice to listen to, and it must be heard beforehand.

שמע · shama · hear and heed

To hear and act on it. Hebrew does not separate the two.

קשב · qashav · prick up the ears

To listen alertly, with effort.

אמר · emer · saying, speech

The noun of verses 1 and 5. The chapter returns to the father's sayings after showing what hers do.

Proverbs 7:25

Don't let your heart lean toward a woman like that. Don't even wander near the roads she walks.

Do not let your heart swerve toward her roads;

The command is aimed at the heart, before the feet. The youth's feet went where his empty heart let them.

do not wander onto her paths.

The second line covers the drift itself. He never set out to commit adultery. He wandered near, and that was enough, so the wandering is what is forbidden.

לב · lev · heart, mind

The last of the chapter's four hearts. Everything depends on which way it leans.

שטה · satah · swerve, turn off

To turn off the right course. The same verb in 4:15 tells the son to turn away from the path of the wicked.

דרך · derek · road, way of life

The road of verse 8, now plural: her whole manner of life.

תעה · ta'ah · wander, go astray

To wander off, the verb used of a lost sheep (Isaiah 53:6).

נתיבה · netivah · trodden track

A track worn by many feet. Verse 26 says how many have used it.

Proverbs 7:26

She has brought down many, many people. The number she has ruined is huge.

For many are the slain she has brought down,

The reason for the command. The youth was not her first. She has a record, and it is described in the language of a battlefield.

and all those she has killed are a great host.

The second line pushes the number higher. No one should think he will be the exception when so many before him were not.

חלל · chalal · pierced, slain

Literally the pierced: the usual word for those killed in battle. It fits the arrow of verse 23.

נפל · naphal · cause to fall

To fall; here in the form meaning to make fall. She has felled them.

עצום · atsum · mighty, numerous

The word means both strong and many.

הרג · harag · slay

To kill outright. In 1:32 the same verb says what the turning away of the naive does to them.

Because atsum means both mighty and numerous, the second line can also be read 'even strong men have all been killed by her'. On that reading the warning is that strength is no protection.

Proverbs 7:27

Her house is the road to the grave. It leads down to the place of the dead.

Her house is the roads to the grave,

The last verse says what her house really is. The youth walked the road to her house in verse 8. It was never only a house; it was the entrance to the realm of the dead.

going down to the inner rooms of death.

She promised him her bedroom. The final word names the rooms he actually reaches. The road goes down, and the chapter that began with 'live' ends on 'death'.

בית · bayit · house, household

The last of the chapter's houses, and the truth about the one in verse 8.

דרך · derek · road, way of life

Plural in Hebrew: her house is roads to Sheol. Every route through it leads to the same place.

שאול · she'ol · the grave

The realm of the dead, the place that takes everyone and returns no one.

חדר · cheder · inner room, bedroom

A private inner room, often a bedroom. The bedroom she offered turns out to be one of death's.

מות · mavet · death

The last word of the chapter in Hebrew, answering 'and live' in verse 2.