CHAPTER 7 Mar. 29 
Beware of the Adulteress
My son, keep my words. Lay up my commandments within you. 2Keep my commandments and live! Guard my teaching as the apple of your eye. 3Bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart. 4Tell wisdom, You are my sister. Call understanding your relative, 5that they may keep you from the strange woman, from the foreigner who flatters with her words. 6For at the window of my house I looked out through my lattice. 7I saw among the simple ones. I discerned among the youths a young man void of understanding, 8passing through the street near her corner, he went the way to her house, 9in the twilight, in the evening of the day, in the middle of the night and in the darkness. 10Behold, there a woman met him with the attire of a prostitute, and with crafty intent. 11She is loud and defiant. Her feet don’t stay in her house. 12Now she is in the streets, now in the squares, and lurking at every corner. 13So she caught him, and kissed him. With an impudent face she said to him: 14Sacrifices of peace offerings are with me. This day I have paid my vows. 15Therefore I came out to meet you, to diligently seek your face, and I have found you. 16I have spread my couch with carpets of tapestry, with striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt. 17I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. 18Come, let’s take our fill of loving until the morning. Let’s solace ourselves with loving. 19For my husband isn’t at home. He has gone on a long journey. 20He has taken a bag of money with him; he will come home at the full moon. 21With persuasive words she led him astray. With the flattering of her lips, she seduced him. 22He followed her immediately, as an ox goes to the slaughter, as a fool stepping into a noose. 23Until an arrow strikes through his liver, as a bird hurries to the snare, and doesn’t know that it will cost his life. 24Now therefore, sons, listen to me. Pay attention to the words of my mouth. 25Don’t let your heart turn to her ways. Don’t go astray in her paths, 26for she has thrown down many wounded. Yes, all her slain are a mighty army. 27Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the rooms of death. 

Commentary

7:2 The idea of keeping commandments in order to live is a reference back to the many Deuteronomy passages where Moses pleads with Israel to keep God’s commands and live. But Solomon came to perceive his father David’s commands as those of God, and in his generation he watered this down in his own mind until he assumed that his commands to his children were to be treated by them as the law of God- no matter how far he had strayed himself from God’s law. It’s a gripping, frightening psychology. “O my son, receive my sayings; and the years of your life shall be many” (Prov. 4:10) is alluding to the promise of long life for the obedient to God’s laws; but never does Solomon make the admission that his laws are only a repetition of God’s laws. He was playing God by implying that his words carried the weight of God’s words. He taught his son obedience to him as a father, but not to God Himself.
7:14 Sacrifices of peace offerings are with me- It is the mixing of spirituality and sensuality which is such a powerful temptation; in the same way as Israel never totally rejected Yahweh, but mixed His worship with that of idols. Likewise many false doctrines contain a mixture of truth and error.
7:16 With striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt- Solomon perceived the association of Egypt with failure with women; and yet made the very same mistake which he so well perceived and eloquently preached against to others.
7:18 Let’s solace ourselves with loving- The justification of any sin, but especially sexual sin, is that we have had hard lives and deserve some break, some solace, some human comfort.