Proverbs 23:33

Pro 23:33 Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.

Ver. 33. Thine eyes shall behold strange women.] {See Trapp on "Pro 23:29"} Venter aestuans mero, spumat in libidinem, saith Jerome. A belly filled with wine, foameth out filthiness. Wine is the milk of Venus, {a} saith another. Drunkenness is the gallery that lechery walketh through, saith a third. {b}

Thine heart shall utter perverse things.] Preposterous, distorted, dislocated matters: soliciting thy neighbour’s wife to wickedness; or otherwise vomiting out that which God hateth, and godly men abhor.

{a} Aφροδιτης γαλα. - Arist.

{b} Vina parent animos Veneri. - Ovid.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Pro 23:33-34. Thine eyes shall behold strange women — With evil intent: lustful, nay, adulterous desires will be excited in thee, which thou wilt neither have inclination nor power to restrain and govern; and thy heart shall utter perverse things — Will discover its wickedness by unseemly and perverse, perhaps, even by filthy, scurrilous, and blasphemous speeches. Thou shalt be as he that lieth down — To sleep; in the midst of the sea — That is, in a ship in the midst of the sea; as he that lieth upon the top of the mast — The worst part of a ship to lie down upon, because of its perpetual tossings, and the hazard of him that sleeps upon it. “Thou wilt grow so perfectly senseless, that not only thy most important business will be neglected, but thou wilt un-thinkingly run thyself into the extremest hazards, without any apprehension of danger: being no more able to direct thy course, than a pilot who sleeps when a ship is tossed in the midst of the sea; or to take notice of the peril thou art in, than he that falls asleep on the top of a mast, where he was set to keep the watch.”

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That is, drunkenness shall bring thee to whoredom.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

The moral effects: it inflames passion (Gen 19:31, Gen 19:35), lays open the heart, produces insensibility to the greatest dangers, and debars from reformation, under the severest sufferings.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 33. Thine eyes shall behold strange women] Evil concupiscence is inseparable from drunkenness. Mr. Herbert shows these effects well: -

He that is drunken may his mother kill,

Big with his sister: he hath lost the reins;

Is outlawed by himself. All kinds of ill

Did, with his liquor, slide into his veins.

The drunkard forfeits man; and doth divest

All worldly right, save what he hath by beast.

HERBERT'S Poems. - The Church Porch.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(33) Thine eyes shall behold strange women.—i.e., look out for them, impurity being the constant attendant of drunkenness. Or, the word may be translated “strange things,” referring to the strange fancies of a drunkard, the horrible and fantastic visions present to his disordered brain.

Perverse things.—His notions of right and wrong being completely distorted.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

33. strange women] This rendering, which is retained in R.V. marg. (comp. ἀλλοτρίαν, LXX.; extraneas, Vulg.), is in keeping with the usage of the word in this Book, and with the undoubted connection between excess of wine and lust; but strange things, R.V. text, preserves the parallelism better: the eye of the drunkard is haunted by strange visions; his mouth utters perverse words.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Thine eyes shall behold strange women,.... Being inflamed with wine, shall look upon women, other men's wives, and lust after them; or harlots, whom seeking after or meeting with, when in their cups, are drawn into their embraces; excess of wine leads to whoredom (w). So Aben Ezra supplies the word "women", and Jarchi interprets it to this sense; but the Targum renders it, "strange things"; and so many others: a drunken man, through the lunges and vapours that ascend into his brain, fancies he sees strange sights; he sees things double; imagines that he sees trees walk, and many such like absurd and monstrous things;

and thine heart shall utter perverse things; or the mouth, from the abundance of the heart, and imagination of it, shall utter things contrary to sense and reason, contrary to truth and righteousness, contrary to chastity and good manners, contrary to their own honour and credit, contrary to God and men; the mouth then utters all that is in the heart, which it at other times conceals. It may have a particular respect to the unchaste, filthy, and obscene words, uttered to strange women, into whose company men fall when in liquor.

(w) "Vina parant animos Veneri", Ovid. de Arte Amandi, l. 1.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Women. Wine excites to lust. (Calmet) See chap. xx. 1. --- Shall. Septuagint, "shall these." (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Behold, with evil intent, or lustfully, which is the effect of drinking much wine, as is noted in Scripture, Gen 19:31,35; Ho 4:18, and other authors.

Thine heart shall utter perverse things; thine heart, which, when thou hadst the use of thy wit, concealed, will then discover its wickedness by filthy and perverse speeches.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

33. Eyes… heart — Intoxicating drinks inflame lust, and produce all manner of improper language. Zockler renders: “Thine eye shall see strange things; not strange women, but strange things, the objects of a drunken man’s vision, as the doubling of certain objects, their inversion, their tremulous or swaying motion,” etc. So, also, Miller. Is there here a reference to the delerium tremens, which Miller calls “the nightmare of the vice?” — the horrible imagery and spectral terrors conjured up under the influence of mania a potu!

34

Lieth down… top of a mast — Like the sailor who goes to sleep at the masthead, he is in imminent peril but knows it not. It may be questioned whether ראשׁ חבל, (rosh hhibbel,) means “masthead,”

especially as on eastern ships men do not mount aloft,but work the sails by ropes from the deck.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The excitement occasioned by wine is now described. Thine eyes shall behold strange women. Ewald, Delitzsch, and others take twOdz to mean "strange things," as affording a better parallel to the "perverse things" of the next clause. In this case the writer intends to denote the fantastic, often dreadful, images produced on the brain by the feverish condition of the inebriated. But the often denounced connection between drunkenness and incontinence, the constant reference to "strange women" in this book, and the general consensus of the versions, lead one to uphold the rendering of the Authorized Version. It seems, too, somewhat meagre to note these illusions as one of the terrible effects of intemperance, omitting all mention of the unbridling of lust, when the eyes look out for and rove after unchaste women. Thine heart shall utter perverse things. (comp Pro_15:28 Mat_15:19) The drunkard"s notions are distorted, and his words partake of the same character; he confuses right and wrong; he says things which he would never speak if he were in full possession of his senses. Septuagint, "When thine eyes shall see a strange woman, then thy mouth shall speak perverse things."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

v. 33. Thine eyes, under the influence of the liquor, as it clouds the senses, shall behold strange women, rather, strange things, all objects being doubled, or uncertain, or swaying, in the vision of the drunken man, and thine heart shall utter perverse things, foolish talk.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Your eyes will see strange women When you will become drunk, they will burn in you and entice you to ogle harlots.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.