vii. 26, says, "There are strong grounds for thinking that the woman

of the Proverbs is the personification of heathenish folly, putting on the airs of wisdom and penetrating into the territory of the Israelites. . . . The key to Prov. ii. 16, 17, is Jeremiah iii. 4-20. In Prov. v. the evil woman must needs be regarded as an ideal person, because of the opposition in which she is set to the _good_ woman, Wisdom. If Wisdom in chap. vii. 4, 5 is an ideal person, her opponent must be also. . . . In chap. ix. again, the evil woman is put in contrast with Wisdom; . . . the explanation is, in fact, plainly given in verse 13. Last of all, in chap xxii. 14, we read, 'the mouth of a foreigner is a deep pit,' etc. That the writer here treats of false doctrine is clear from the mention of the mouth. Nahum iii. 4, presents an analogous instance of such a personification. . . . To the woman here, corresponds in Rev. ii. 20: 'the woman Jezebel,' a symbolical person." Miller, as will be seen in the suggestive comments on chap. ii. 16, looks upon this woman as an emblem of _impenitence._

The following comment is by Professor Plumptre: "The strange woman, the 'stranger,' may mean simply the adulteress, as the 'strange gods' the 'strangers' (Deut. xxxii. 16; Jer. iii. 13), are those to whom Israel, forsaking her true husband, offered an adulterous worship. But in both cases there is implied also some idea of a foreign origin, as of one who by birth is outside the covenant of Israel. In the second word used, this meaning is still stronger. It is the word used of the strange wives of Solomon (1 Kings xi. 1-8), and of those of the Jews who returned from Babylon (Ezra x.), of Ruth, as a Moabitess (Ruth ii. 10), of heathen invaders (Isa. ii. 6). Whatever form the sin here referred to had assumed before the monarchy (and the Book of Judges testifies to its frequency), the intercourse with Phœnicians and other nations under Solomon had a strong tendency to increase it. The king's example would naturally be followed, and it probably became a fashion to have foreign wives and concubines. At first it would seem this was accomplished by some show of proselytism. The women made a profession of conformity to the religion of their masters. But the old leaven breaks out. They sin and 'forget the covenant of their God.' The worship of other gods, a worship in itself sensual and ending in the foulest sin, leads the way to a life of harlotry. Other causes may have led to the same result. The stringent laws of the Mosaic code may have deterred the women of Israel from that sin, and led to a higher standard of purity than prevailed among other nations. Lidonian and Tyrian women came, like the Asiatic hetaeræ at Athens, at once with greater importunity and with new arts and fascinations to which the home-born were strangers."

_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 1-4.

THE SOURCE OF TRUE LIFE, ETC.

+I. The true life of man depends upon his relation to the Word of God.+ "Keep my commandments, and live" (verse 2). The life which is given to man upon his entrance into this world is not life in its highest sense, but an existence in which he is to obtain life. "It is not all of life to live." Those who do not keep God's commandments are living existences, but in the moral signification of the word they are _dead._ It was said by the highest authority--by the Son of God Himself--that "it had been good for Judas Iscariot if he had not been born" (Matt. xxvi. 24). Existence is not a blessing, oftentimes a curse, unless a man is "born again," "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John i. 13). Christ taught the same truth when He said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God" (Luke iv. 4). Man is not flesh and blood only, he has not a mere animal existence, but moral capabilities and needs, which must be nourished by the thoughts of God. If this is not done, he has no life worth the name.

+II. The relation that a man should have to the Word of God is like that which a rich man has to his banked money.+ "Lay up my commandments with thee." The best place for money which the merchant wishes to use constantly is a safe bank, from which he can draw out at any time of need. So the Word of God must be laid up in the mind ready for constant use. The Word of God must "dwell in us" (Col. iii. 16). It must be stored up to furnish us with encouragement and admonition in the unceasing warfare with temptation which we are called upon to wage. It must be at hand at the moment of need.

+III. It is to be guarded with the same care as the eye is guarded by the eyelid.+ "As the apple of thine eye." The eye is carefully protected by nature because it is the organ of a most precious sense--of a sense of which we stand in the greatest need--without which we walk through the world in darkness. The revelation of God in the Holy Scriptures is the only light which enlightens us amid the darkness of ignorance and mystery by which we are surrounded. Without it all our future would be darkness indeed. Hence its preciousness, and hence the value we ought to set upon it.

+IV. It is to hold to us a relation like that of a pure, and tender, and beloved sister.+ "Say unto Wisdom, Thou art my sister." The Word of God is the highest wisdom. The relationship of brother and sister, where it is what God intended it to be, is a very tender and pure relationship, involving willingness to undergo self-denial for the sake of her who is loved, to listen to her advice, to seek her welfare. In this light we must regard the wisdom of God as revealed in the Word of God if existence is to become _life_ to us. We must exercise self-denial for her sake. "I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried: I hoped in Thy word" (Psa. cxix. 147).

_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._

Verse 2. As God would have us keep His law as the apple of our eye, so He keeps His people (Deut. xxxii. 10), in answer to their prayer, as the apple of His eye (Zech. ii. 8). We guard the eye as our most precious and tender member from hurt, and prize it most dearly. As we guard the pupil of the eye from the least mote, which is sufficient to hurt it, so God's law is so tender and holy a thing that the least violation of it in thought, word, or deed, is sin; and we are so to keep the law as to avoid any violation of it. The law resembles the pupil of the eye also in its being spiritually the organ of light, without which we should be in utter darkness.--_Fausset._

The instruction of the Word is the same to the soul which the eye is to the body. For as the body without the sight of the eye runneth upon many things that hurt it, and falleth at every little stumbling-block, so the soul most fearfully runneth into sins if it want the light and direction of the Word.--_Muffet._

Man are off and on in their promises: they are also slow and slack in their performances. But it is otherwise here: the very "entrance of Thy Word giveth light" (Psa. cxix. 130), and the very onset of obedience giveth life. It is but "_Hear,_ and your soul shall live" (Isa. lv. 3). Sin is homogeneous, all of a kind, though not all of the same degree. As the least pebble is a stone as well as the hugest rock, and as the drop of a bucket is water as well as the main ocean, hence the least sins are in Scripture reproached by the names of the greatest. Malice is called manslaughter, lust, adultery, etc. Concupiscence is condemned by the law; even the first motions of sin, though they never come to consent (Rom. vii. 7). Inward bleeding may kill a man. The law of God is spiritual, though we be carnal. And as the sunshine shows us atoms and motes that till then we discerned not, so doth the law discover and censure smallest failings. It must therefore be kept curiously, even "as the apple of the eye," that cannot be touched, but will be distempered. Careful we must be, even in the punctilios of duty. Men will not lightly lose the least ends of gold.--_Trapp._

In some bodies, as trees, etc., there is life without sense, which are things animated, but not so much with a soul as with a kind of animation; even as the wicked have some kind of knowledge from grace, but are not animated by it. Or rather the wicked do not live, indeed, for life consisteth in action, and how can he be said truly to live whose words are dead? But keep God's commandments, and live indeed, live cheerfully with the comfort of this life, which makes life to be life; live happily in the life of glory hereafter, which is the end for which this life is lent us.--_Jermin._

Verse 4. Since, O youth, thou delightest in the intimacy of fair maidens, lo! here is by far the loveliest one, Wisdom.--_Cartwright._

Wisdom has been represented as a wife, and here she is called a sister. As Didymus says (in _Catenâ,_ p. 104), "Wisdom is called a mother, a sister, and a wife." She is a mother, because, through her, we are children of Christ; she is a wife, because, by union with her, we ourselves become parents of that which is good; she is our sister, because our love to her is chaste and holy, and because she, as well as ourselves, is the offspring of God. Such is the love of Christ, who is the true Wisdom, and who is all in all to the soul. Compare His own words, applied to every faithful and obedient soul: "The same is my brother, and my sister, and mother" (Mark iii. 35). "Do thou love the true faith with sisterly love, it shall keep thee from the impure love of the strange women of false doctrine" (Bede).--_Wordsworth._

Holiness is positive. Sin is negative. The one is to love God, and also our neighbour. The other is not to love God or our neighbour. The one shows itself in a positive delight in the abstract holiness; the other not in a positive delight in the opposite, viz., in an abstract sin, but a delight in women, a delight in money, a delight in praise, a delight in everything except moral purity, and therefore a delight in things which are innocent when in limits, and that are only guilty when the soul is let in upon them without curb of superior affection. If a man calls Wisdom his kinswoman, then he may love wine or love without moral danger.--_Miller._

_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 5-27.

A PICTURE DRAWN FROM LIFE.

The woman depicted here has been before us twice before. (See on chap. ii. 16-19 and vi. 24.) We will therefore confine ourselves in this chapter to the picture of her dupe. He fully justifies his right to the title here given to him, viz., "a young man void of understanding."

+I. Because he did not wait for temptation to seek him, but went where he knew it would meet him.+ Those who carry gunpowder upon their persons ought never to go into a blacksmith's forge, ought never even to approach the door lest some sparks fall upon them. How much more foolish is he who, knowing that there is a tendency to sin within him, seeks out the place where the spark will be fanned into a flame. This young man is found "near the corner" of the house of his temptress, "he went the way to her house."

+II. He goes to ruin with his eyes wide open.+ The woman's character is plainly written upon her dress and upon her face. There is no pretence at disguise. She boasts of her infidelity to her husband. Yet he yields to her invitation; yet he believes her professions of attachment to himself. The most silly fish that swims will not bite if the steel hook gleams through the bait, but this simpleton takes the hook without any bait. The ox resists when he feels that he is being driven to death, but this fool goes deliberately to the house of death. He walks into the snare which he knows has been the death of myriads of his fellow creatures. The remedy for this folly is found in vers. 1-4.

_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._

Verses 5-27. From the earlier and copious warnings against adultery the one now before us is distinguished by the fact, that while