Proverbs 5 is the first extended warning against the forbidden woman (ishah zarah), whom chapter 2 introduced briefly. The father warns his son that her lips drip honey but her end is bitter as wormwood (vv1-6). He commands the son to stay far from her door (vv7-14), then pivots dramatically to a celebration of marital love: 'Drink water from your own cistern' (vv15-20). The chapter closes with the theological declaration that God sees all paths and that the wicked are trapped by their own sins (vv21-23).
What Makes This Chapter Remarkable
The chapter's most striking feature is its pivot from warning to celebration. After fourteen verses of alarm about the forbidden woman, the father does not simply say 'avoid adultery.' Instead, he offers a positive alternative that is frankly erotic: 'Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; be intoxicated always with her love' (v19). Proverbs does not treat sexual desire as the enemy — it treats misdirected sexual desire as the enemy. The answer to the forbidden woman is not abstinence but the right woman. The water imagery of verses 15-18 (cistern, well, springs, streams) is deliberately ambiguous, functioning simultaneously as metaphor for sexual pleasure and for the exclusive, life-giving nature of faithful marriage. The 'spreading springs in the streets' of verse 16 may be a warning against scattering one's intimacy publicly rather than reserving it for one's own household.
Translation Friction
The chapter's focus on the male perspective — warning a son about a dangerous woman — can feel one-sided. No corresponding warning is given from a mother to a daughter about dangerous men. This reflects the patriarchal context of the text's composition, not a theological endorsement of the imbalance. Additionally, the forbidden woman is presented primarily as a threat to the man, with little attention to her own exploitation or suffering. Modern readers will want to read against the grain here, recognizing that the 'forbidden woman' is also a person with a story the text does not tell.
Connections
The honey-and-wormwood contrast (vv3-4) echoes the Song of Solomon's celebration of erotic love (Song 4:11, 'your lips drip honey') while inverting it — what Song celebrates as beautiful within commitment, Proverbs marks as lethal outside it. The water/cistern/well imagery connects to Song 4:12-15, where the beloved is a 'garden locked, a fountain sealed.' The theological conclusion (vv21-23) echoes Job 34:21 ('God's eyes are on the ways of a person') and anticipates Hebrews 4:13 ('nothing is hidden from His sight').
My son, pay attention to my wisdom;
incline your ear to my understanding,
KJV My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The father claims the wisdom as his own — chokhmatai ('my wisdom') and tevunati ('my understanding'). He does not present himself as merely relaying tradition but as one who has internalized it and now speaks from experience.
so that you may preserve foresight
and your lips may guard knowledge.
KJV That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
Mezimmot ('foresight, discretion, plans') must be guarded, and the lips must preserve da'at ('knowledge'). The mention of lips anticipates the chapter's theme: the forbidden woman's lips drip honey (v3), and the son's own lips must guard what is true rather than swallow what is sweet but deadly.
For the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey,
and her mouth is smoother than oil,
KJV For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The same word nofet ('dripping honey') appears in Song of Solomon 4:11 as a celebration: 'Your lips drip honey, my bride.' The identical language used positively in Song and negatively in Proverbs shows that the issue is not the sweetness itself but whether it belongs to a context of covenant faithfulness or covenant betrayal.
but her end tastes bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a double-edged sword.
KJV But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The acharitah ('her end, her outcome, her afterward') — the part you experience after the honey — is marah ka-la'anah ('bitter as wormwood'). La'anah (Artemisia absinthium) is the bitterest plant known in the region, used metaphorically throughout Scripture for the most extreme bitterness (Lamentations 3:15, 19; Amos 5:7). Her end is also chaddah ke-cherev piyyot ('sharp as a two-edged sword'). The sword piyyot ('of mouths') has edges on both sides — it cuts coming and going. From honey to wormwood, from oil to a blade: the trajectory of the forbidden woman's allure.
Her feet descend toward death;
her steps take hold of Sheol.
KJV Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The downward geography from 2:18 returns: ragleiha yordot mavet ('her feet descend to death') and she'ol tse'adeiha yitmokhu ('her steps grip Sheol'). The verb yitmokhu ('take hold, grasp, support') means her steps are anchored in Sheol — she is not sliding toward death but walking steadily into it, and taking her companions with her.
She does not ponder the path of life;
her ways wander, and she does not know it.
KJV Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The verse is ambiguous in Hebrew — the subject could be the forbidden woman or the young man she seduces. We read it as describing the woman herself: she does not palles ('make level, ponder, weigh') the orach chayyim ('path of life'). Her ma'geloteiha ('her tracks, her paths') na'u ('wander, stagger, sway'). The final lo teda ('she does not know') is devastating — she is unaware of her own wandering, stumbling in the same darkness as the wicked in 4:19.
So now, sons, listen to me,
and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth.
KJV Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The shift to plural banim ('sons') broadens the audience. The urgency of ve-attah ('and now, so then') marks the transition from description to direct command.
Keep your way far from her;
do not go near the door of her house,
KJV Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The command is geographic: harcheq ('make distant, keep far') your path from hers, and al tiqrav ('do not draw near') the petach beitah ('entrance of her house'). Proximity is the precondition for sin — the father does not trust the son's resolve at close range. Distance is the strategy.
or you will give your vigor to others
and your years to the merciless,
KJV Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
Hodekha ('your splendor, your vigor, your prime') given to acherim ('others, strangers') and shenoteykha ('your years') given to the akhzari ('the cruel, the merciless'). The consequences of sexual infidelity are not merely moral but economic and physical — the adulterer's best years and energy are consumed by those who have no loyalty to him.
or strangers will feast on your strength
and your toil will end up in a foreigner's house,
KJV Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The economic devastation continues: zarim ('strangers') will yisbe'u ('be satisfied, feast on') your koach ('strength, wealth, substance') and your atsavekha ('your toil, your painful labor') will enrich beit nokhri ('the house of a foreigner'). Adultery is not a private indulgence but a wealth transfer to those who do not love you.
and you will groan at the end,
when your flesh and body are consumed,
KJV And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The verb nahamta ('you will groan, roar, moan') describes anguished regret. The timing is be-acharitekha ('at your end, in your final days') — when the consequences have fully matured. The consumption of basar ('flesh') and she'er ('body, kin, flesh') may refer to disease, poverty, or simply the physical devastation that accompanies a wasted life.
and you will say, 'How I hated discipline!
How my heart despised correction!
KJV And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The imagined lament echoes the vocabulary of 1:7 — the fool despised (na'ats) musar and tokhachat. Now the son, in the aftermath of folly, recognizes his own resemblance to the fool he was warned about. Self-recognition arrives too late to prevent the consequences.
I did not listen to the voice of my teachers
or incline my ear to my instructors.
KJV And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The moray ('my teachers') and melammeday ('my instructors') are plural — the education was not from one source but from a community of wisdom teachers. The repetition of the ear-inclining language from verse 1 creates painful irony: what the father asked the son to do, the son refused.
I was on the verge of complete ruin
in the midst of the gathered assembly.'
KJV I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
Kim'at ('almost, nearly, on the verge of') hayiti bekhol ra ('I was in all evil') — the fool was nearly destroyed. The phrase betokh qahal ve-edah ('in the midst of the congregation and assembly') means his disgrace was public. The qahal and edah are the covenant community — his shame was witnessed by everyone who mattered.
Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
KJV Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The water/cistern/well imagery for sexual love appears also in Song of Solomon 4:12-15, where the beloved is 'a garden locked, a fountain sealed.' Both texts use water as a symbol of intimate exclusivity.
Should your springs overflow into the street,
your streams of water into the public squares?
KJV Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
This verse is best read as a rhetorical question expecting a negative answer: should your ma'yenotekha ('your springs, your fountains') — your procreative and intimate life — be scattered chutsah ('outside, in the street')? The barrechovot ('in the public squares') intensifies the exposure. The answer is implied: no, keep your water — your intimacy, your generative power — within your own household. Some interpreters read this as a positive wish for many children ('let your springs flow out'), but the context of sexual fidelity makes the rhetorical question reading more coherent.
Let them be for you alone,
and not for strangers alongside you.
KJV Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The exclusivity is absolute: lekha levaddekha ('for you alone') and ve-ein lezarim ittakh ('and not for strangers with you'). The zarim ('strangers') are outsiders to the marriage covenant. The water — the intimacy, the children, the life — belongs within the marriage, shared with no one else.
Let your fountain be blessed,
and take joy in the wife of your youth —
KJV Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
Meqorekha ('your fountain, your source') barukh ('blessed') — the father pronounces blessing on the son's sexual life within marriage. The imperative usemach ('and rejoice, and take joy') me-eshet ne'urekha ('from the wife of your youth') makes marital joy a command, not merely a permission. The 'wife of your youth' is the one married in young adulthood — the original covenant partner.
a graceful doe, a lovely deer.
Let her breasts satisfy you at all times;
be intoxicated always by her love.
KJV Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The verb shagah ('be intoxicated, go astray, reel') is the same verb used in verse 20 for going astray with the forbidden woman. The deliberate reuse is the theological key to the chapter: erotic intoxication is not the problem. The question is only: with whom?
Why then, my son, would you be intoxicated by a forbidden woman
and embrace the bosom of an outsider?
KJV And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The same verb tishgeh ('be intoxicated, go astray') from verse 19 now applies to the zarah ('forbidden woman'). The rhetorical question is devastating: given what you have at home, why would you seek intoxication elsewhere? The word cheq ('bosom, lap, embrace') makes the alternative graphic and personal.
For a person's ways are before the eyes of the LORD,
and He weighs all their paths.
KJV For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The theological ground beneath the entire chapter: nokhach eyne YHWH ('directly before the eyes of the LORD') are darkhe ish ('the ways of a man'). Nothing is hidden. The verb mefalles ('He weighs, He makes level, He examines') describes God's scrutiny as precise and thoroughgoing. The word that described human preparation of paths (4:26) now describes God's examination of them.
The wicked person's own iniquities will trap him,
and he will be held fast by the ropes of his sin.
KJV His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The punishment is self-inflicted: avonothav ('his own iniquities') yilkedunu ('will capture him, will trap him'). The word chavle ('ropes, cords') of his chatta'to ('his sin') describes sin as a binding agent. The wicked are not punished by an external force but ensnared by their own actions — the ropes they wove for others become the ropes that bind them.
He will die for lack of discipline,
and in the magnitude of his folly he will go astray.
KJV He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
Notes & Key Terms
Translator Notes
The chapter ends with the same verb: yishgeh ('he will go astray, he will stagger'). In verse 19, intoxication with the wife was commanded; in verse 20, intoxication with the forbidden woman was questioned; in verse 23, the fool staggers to death in his own ivvalto ('folly, foolishness'). The three uses of shagah trace the arc of the chapter: right intoxication, wrong intoxication, fatal intoxication. Death comes be-ein musar ('for lack of discipline, without correction') — the musar he refused in verse 12 was the one thing that could have saved him.