Proverbs 5:15

Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. DRINK WATERS OUT OF THINE OWN CISTERN, AND RUNNING WATERS OUT OF THINE OWN WELL. As all desire resembles thirst, to drink water means to gratify desire, and the woman is compared to a well. Embrace thine own wife, and enjoy her love alone. Enjoy only lawful pleasures. So the hcavenly spouse is called "a foundation sealed" (; contrast , "A whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit"). To allay thirst at poisonous and filthy waters would be suicidal folly. In Easters countries the two sources of supply of water are wells of living water and cisterns of rain water, covered over. The appropriateness of the image appears from the fact, that each house had its own cistern ...

15-23 Lawful marriage is a means God has appointed to keep from these destructive vices. But we are not properly united, except as we attend to God's word, seeking his direction and blessing, and acting with affection. Ever remember, that though secret sins may escape the eyes of our fellow-creatures, yet a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, who not only sees, but ponders all his goings. Those who are so foolish as to choose the way of sin, are justly left of God to themselves, to go on in the way to destruction....

Verse Proverbs 5:15. _DRINK WATERS OUT OF THINE OWN CISTERN_] Be satisfied with thy own wife; and let the wife see that she reverence her husband; and not tempt him by inattention or unkindness to seek elsewhere what he has a right to expect, but cannot find, at _home_....

The teacher seeks to counteract the evils of mere sensual passion chiefly by setting forth the true blessedness of which it is the counterfeit. The true wife is as a fountain of refreshment, where the weary soul may quench its thirst. Even the joy which is of the senses appears, as in the Song of Solomon, purified and stainless (see Proverbs 5:19 marginal reference)....

EXPOSITION PROVERBS 5:1 8. _Eighth admonitory discourse. Warning against adultery, and commendation of marriage. _The teacher, in this discourse, recurs to a subject which he has glanced at before in Proverbs 2:15, and which he again treats of in the latter part of the sixth and in the whole of the seventh chapters. This constant recurrence to the same subject, repulsive on account of its associations, shows, however, the importance which it had in the teacher's estimation as a ground of warning, and that he ranked it among the foremost of the temptations and sins which called the young off from the pursuit of Wisdom, and so led them astray from "the fear of the Lord." The vividness with which the ruin, bodily and moral, ensuing with absolute certainty on a

DRINK WATERS OUT OF THINE OWN CISTERN,.... Arguments being used to dissuade from conversation with an adulterous woman, taken from the disgrace, diseases, poverty, and distress of mind on reflection, it brings a man to; the wise man proceeds to direct to marriage, as a proper antidote against it: take a wife and cleave to her, and enjoy all the pleasures and comforts of a marriage state. As every man formerly had his own cistern for the reception of water for his own use, 2 Kings 18:31; so every man should have his own wife, and but one: and as drinking water quenches thirst, and allays heat; so the lawful enjoyments of the marriage bed quench the thirst of appetite, and allay the heat of lust; for which reason the apostle advises men to marry and not burn, 1 Corinthians 7:9; and a man that is mar

CHAPTER 5 _ 1. Shun the strange woman and sinful passion (Proverbs 5:1)_ 2. The life of chastity (Proverbs 5:15) Proverbs 5:1. It is a warning against literal fornication and the accompanying spiritual fornication, turning away from the worship of Jehovah and worshipping idols. The dreadful results of sinful lust are vividly described. How many a young man has found out the truth as given in these words in his licentious life. _ And thou mourn at thy latter end_ When thy flesh and thy body are consumed. Solomon received these repeated warnings, yet after great prosperity and honor came to him, and his glory spread in every direction like many a rich and successful man o

PROVERBS 5:1; PROVERBS 5:10; PROVERBS 5:20. Three hortatory discourses exactly similar to those in Proverbs 5:2 and Proverbs 5:3. The subject is the praise of Wisdom, and the description of the blessings she confers. PROVERBS 5:3 F. One of the few passages referring to Heb. educational methods (pp. 109f.). Instruction is oral, given by the father or the mother (Proverbs 1:8

The remedy against sin is to be found in the holy estate which God has ordained. "The resemblance between the two Books (the Song of Solomon and the Book of Proverbs) in their treatment of this subject is singularly striking." _Speaker's Comm., ad loc_....

DRINK WATERS OUT OF THINE OWN CISTERN— The allegory here begun is carried on through several verses. It has been differently understood; but the interpretation which seems most generally followed, is that of those who conceive that the wise man here subjoins a commendation of matrimony and the chaste preservation of the marriage-bed for the propagation of a legitimate offspring, to his dehortation from illegitimate practices and stolen waters; and Schultens observes, that no figure is more elegant, or more common among the easterns, than this. See Numbers 24:7. Isaiah 48:1; Isaiah 51:1.Jeremiah 2:23. According to this sense of the allegory, the