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Since we have been discovering these Proverbs, we have noticed wisdom has been personified as a beautiful lady who is to be desired and pursued. In the Proverbs, there are two ways, the way of wisdom leading to true joy, and the way of folly leading to destruction. In the background of the Proverbs has been a warning against the adulterous woman, the flatterer who seduces and destroys. Proverbs 5 is so far our most explicit warning against the adulterous woman’s flattering ways.
Again, in the pattern of Deuteronomy 6, a father gives his son instructions. Here the father gives his son “the talk” and warns him of the “forbidden woman” and encourages the benefits of monogamous marital fidelity. In other words, Proverbs 5 concerns itself with sexual ethics and encourages something strange in our current culture – sexual morality.
Proverbs 5:1 begins by encouraging the seeking of wisdom and then comes the warning that every son or daughter needs to hear from their dad:
My son, be attentive to my wisdom;
incline your ear to my understanding,
that you may keep discretion,
and your lips may guard knowledge.
For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey,
and her speech is smoother than oil,
but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a two-edged sword.
Her feet go down to death;
her steps follow the path to Sheol;
she does not ponder the path of life;
her ways wander, and she does not know it. (Proverbs 5:1–6, ESV)
The forbidden woman is alluring but deadly. The closer you get to her, the further you fall prey to her devices of destruction. The instruction is to stay as far away from her as possible (v.8).
Where sexual desires usually lives in a moment, the wisdom of the Proverbs calls us to consider the long-term effects of immorality:
and at the end of your life you groan,
when your flesh and body are consumed,
and you say, “How I hated discipline,
and my heart despised reproof!
I did not listen to the voice of my teachers
or incline my ear to my instructors.
I am at the brink of utter ruin
in the assembled congregation.” (Proverbs 5:11–14, ESV)
Notice the reason the son fell into sexual temptation was due to his lack of discipline.
Sexual purity takes discipline. An undisciplined life is a life prone to immorality.
The solution for the woes of immorality is God’s design for monogamous heterosexual marital fidelity. To find true satisfaction, the son is called to love his wife.
Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
Should your springs be scattered abroad,
streams of water in the streets?
Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for strangers with you.
Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be intoxicated always in her love. (Proverbs 5:15–19, ESV)
After such considerable words are expressed towards the intoxicating love of a man and woman, the Proverbs put a question before us, Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? (v.20) The question makes the most sense after considering the woes engaging with a forbidden woman brings and the joys of your own wife.
The language in verse 15 of drinking from your own well reminds me of the time Jesus encountered a woman of Samaria who was known in her town for her promiscuity. When Jesus asked her to call her husband she admitted she was not married. Jesus then told her she had had five husbands and the man she was currently with was not her husband. The point: the woman was immoral and in need of something to satisfy her, something she tried to find but was unable to satisfy. Jesus told the woman to give him a drink and told her that the water he offers always satisfies.
Proverbs 5 tells us the water that satisfies is the living waters of God’s ways. The living waters of God’s ways are pure and bring relief not regret.
Proverbs 5:21 reminds us, A man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths. The Lord who ponders the path, who knows the way, guides us as we listen to him. He warns us:
The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.
He dies for lack of discipline,
and because of his great folly he is led astray. (Proverbs 5:22–23, ESV)
The woman at the well left forever changed because she followed Jesus. The same Jesus who called her away from a life of sin is warning us today by telling us following him means being led in a pleasant path.