Scripture Daily

Context No. 1109 of 4322 · Proverbs

Context · Reflection

Proverbs 7:17-27: in context

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.

This is the climax of a father's warning to his son about the adulteress. She has decked her bed with myrrh and cinnamon, and she lures the young man with her invitation: my husband is away on a long journey, come, let us take our fill of love. With smooth, persuasive words she seduces him, and he follows her at once, the father says, like an ox going to the slaughter, like a bird darting into a snare, not knowing it will cost his life. Her house, the warning ends, is the road to death, going down to the chambers of the grave.

The father is unsparing about where this path leads, and the honesty is the mercy. The seduction is dressed up as harmless pleasure, perfumed sheets, sweet words, the thrill of the forbidden while the husband is conveniently away, and the young man, caught in the moment, sees only the invitation. What he does not see is the ending, and that is exactly the point of the warning: he follows immediately, like an ox to slaughter, and does not know it will cost his life. Sin sells the entrance and hides the exit; it advertises the pleasure and conceals the grave the pleasure opens onto. The whole purpose of the father's blunt language, her house is the way to Sheol, is to make visible in advance the destination the seduction keeps hidden, so the son can see the whole road and not just its inviting first step. This is love speaking, refusing to let the young man walk blind into ruin. The wisdom is to look past the perfumed invitation to where the path actually leads, and to see, before you take the first step, the chambers of death at the end of it.

Where am I being drawn by an invitation that dresses up its pleasure and hides its cost, and will I look, before the first step, at where the road actually ends?

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