Proverbs 9:13

We have heard what Christ has to say, to engage our affections to God and godliness, and one would think the whole world should go after him; but here we are told how industrious the tempter is to seduce unwary souls into the paths of sin, and with the most he gains his point, and Wisdom's courtship is not effectual. Now observe,

I. Who is the tempter - a foolish woman, Folly herself, in opposition to Wisdom. Carnal sensual pleasure I take to be especially meant by this foolish woman (Pro 9:13); for that is the great enemy to virtue and inlet to vice; that defiles and debauches the mind, stupefies conscience, and puts out the sparks of conviction, more than any thing else. This tempter is here described to be, 1. Very ignorant: She is simple and knows nothing, that is, she has no sufficient solid reason to offer; where she gets dominion in a soul she works out all the knowledge of holy things; they are lost and forgotten. Whoredom, and wine, and new wine, take away the heart; they besot men, and make fools of them. (2.) Very importunate. The less she has to offer that is rational the more violent and pressing she is, and carries the day often by dint of impudence. She is clamorous and noisy (Pro 9:13), continually haunting young people with her enticements. She sits at the door of her house (Pro 9:14), watching for a prey; not as Abraham at his tent-door, seeking an opportunity to do good. She sits on a seat (on a throne, so the word signifies) in the high places of the city, as if she had authority to give law, and we were all debtors to the flesh, to live after the flesh, and as if she had reputation, and were in honour, and thought worthy of the high places of the city; and perhaps she gains upon many more by pretending to be fashionable than by pretending to be agreeable. "Do not all persons of rank and figure in the world" (says she) "give themselves a greater liberty than the strict laws of virtue allow; and why shouldst thou humble thyself so far as to be cramped by them?" Thus the tempter affects to seem both kind and great.

II. Who are the tempted - young people who have been well educated; these she will triumph most in being the ruin of. Observe, 1. What their real character is; they are passengers that go right on their ways (Pro 9:15), that have been trained up in the paths of religion and virtue and set out very hopefully and well, that seemed determined and designed for good, and are not (as that young man, Pro 7:8) going the way to her house. Such as these she has a design upon, and lays snares for, and uses all her arts, all her charms, to pervert them; if they go right on, and will not look towards her, she will call after them, so urgent are these temptations. (2.) How she represents them. She calls them simple and wanting understanding, and therefore courts them to her school, that they may be cured of the restraints and formalities of their religion. This is the method of the stage (which is too close an exposition of this paragraph), where the sober young man, that has been virtuously educated, is the fool in the play, and the plot is to make him seven times more a child of hell than his profane companions, under colour of polishing and refining him, and setting him up for a wit and a beau. What is justly charged upon sin and impiety (Pro 9:4), that it is folly, is here very unjustly retorted upon the ways of virtue; but the day will declare who are the fools.

III. What the temptation is (Pro 9:17): Stolen waters are sweet. It is to water and bread, whereas Wisdom invites to the beasts she has killed and the wine she has mingled; however, bread and water are acceptable enough to those that are hungry and thirsty; and this is pretended to be more sweet and pleasant than common, for it is stolen water and bread eaten in secret, with a fear of being discovered. The pleasures of prohibited lusts are boasted of as more relishing than those of prescribed love; and dishonest gain is preferred to that which is justly gotten. Now this argues, not only a bold contempt, but an impudent defiance, 1. Of God's law, in that the waters are the sweeter for being stolen and come at by breaking through the hedge of the divine command. Nitimur in vetitum - We are prone to what is forbidden. This spirit of contradiction we have from our first parents, who thought the forbidden tree of all others a tree to be desired. 2. Of God's curse. The bread is eaten in secret, for fear of discovery and punishment, and the sinner takes a pride in having so far baffled his convictions, and triumphed over them, that, notwithstanding that fear, he dares commit the sin, and can make himself believe that, being eaten in secret, it shall never be discovered or reckoned for. Sweetness and pleasantness constitute the bait; but, by the tempter's own showing, even that is so absurd, and has such allays, that it is a wonder how it can have any influence upon men that pretend to reason.

IV. An effectual antidote against the temptation, in a few words, Pro 9:18. He that so far wants understanding as to be drawn aside by these enticements is led on, ignorantly, to his own inevitable ruin: He knows not, will not believe, does not consider, the tempter will not let him know, that the dead are there, that those who live in pleasure are dead while they live, dead in trespasses and sins. Terrors attend these pleasures like the terrors of death itself. The giants are there - Rephaim. It was this that ruined the sinners of the old world, the giants that were in the earth in those days. Her guests, that are treated with those stolen waters, are not only in the highway to hell and at the brink of it, but they are already in the depths of hell, under the power of sin, led captive by Satan at his will, and ever and anon lashed by the terrors of their own consciences, which are a hell upon earth The depths of Satan are the depths of hell. Remorseless sin is remediless ruin; it is the bottomless pit already. Thus does Solomon show the hook; those that believe him will not meddle with the bait.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

13. A foolish woman] Rather, The foolish woman. Lit. A woman of folly. Some would render (e.g. R.V. marg.) Folly, as a personification, over against Wisdom (Pro_9:1), but the introduction of the word “woman” here, which is wanting there, and the language of Pro_9:17 seem to make it clear that one particular form of vice, and not vice in the abstract, is again in view.

clamorous] Comp. Pro_7:11, where the same Heb. word is used.

simple] Lit. simplicity. She is simplicity itself, in its worst aspect, entirely without safeguard or restraint, see Pro_1:4, note.

knoweth nothing] leaves entirely out of consideration the consequences of her action. Comp. “he knoweth not,” &c., Pro_9:18.

Pro_9:13-18. The Introduction, or first main division of the Book, ends with the contrasted picture of Folly. She too has her house, at the door of which she sits (Pro_9:14); she too, though the charm of secrecy is added to her enticements (Pro_9:17), is seen flaunting shamelessly, in the high places of the city (Pro_9:14), and bruits abroad her noisy invitation, not only to attract the vicious (Pro_9:16), but to beguile, if it may be, the passers by who are going right on their way (Pro_9:15).

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.

Pro 9:13 A foolish woman [is] clamorous: [she is] simple, and knoweth nothing.

Ver. 13. A foolish woman is clamorous.] This woman is "folly," as that woman sitting in the ephah is "wickedness." {Zec 5:7} Lavater is of the opinion, that as by wisdom is meant Christ, so by this foolish woman here is meant antichrist, to whom therefore he finally fitteth and applieth all the following words.

Is clamorous.] Folly is full of words, and of a lavish tongue; her factors are extremely talkative, and usually lay on more words than the matter will bear. A great deal of small talk you shall usually have from them. "A fool also is full of words," saith Solomon; {Ecc 10:14} and this fond custom of his is there expresscd by way of imitation in his vain tautologies, "A man cannot tell what shall be; and what shall be after him, who can tell?" {Ecc 10:14} The basest things are ever the most plentiful. Some kind of mice breed a hundred and twenty young ones in one nest; whereas the lion and elephant bear but one at once; so the least wit yields the most words. Aristophanes and Lucian, when they describe fools, they call them κεχηιοτας - gapers, or open-mouthed. Guiltiness is ever clamorous, and the most lewd are most loud. {Act 7:27-28}

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_9:13-15

A foolish woman is clamorous.

The foolish woman

This might be understood, in all truth, of the strange woman with her enticements; but I am strongly inclined to interpret the passage of Folly as an allegorical personage set in contrast with Wisdom--Folly under all the forms and phases which it assumes in the world; all being included under this personification that entices from the gates of that house where Wisdom receives and entertains her guests. The characteristics of this second personage are the reverse of those of Wisdom. They are ignorance and thoughtless emptiness: what is wanting in solid and substantial ideas is made up by loud clamour and noisy importunity. She, too, hath builded her house. She, too, hath provided her entertainment. She, too, invites her guests. The houses are over against each other--on opposite sides of the way. Wisdoms is on the right hand; Follys on the left. They are thus in the vicinity of each other; it being the very purpose of Folly to prevent, by her allurements, those who pass by from entering the doors of Wisdom. Each addresses her invitations, and uses--but from very different motives--every art of persuasion. Folly presents all her captivating allurements to the lusts and passions of corrupt nature; and she shows her skill in seduction by holding out, in promise, the secret enjoyment of forbidden sweets. There are pleasures in sin. It is from these that its temptations arise. Alas! Folly has the heart of man wholly on her side. (R. Wardlaw.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Pro 9:13. A foolish woman, &c. — “Here we have another allegorical picture, describing folly under the person of a harlot, who fascinates with her enticements, and offers also her dainties to her guests; but dainties tainted with the most subtle poison.” The Hebrew, אשׁת כסילות, is literally, the woman of folly, or folly herself compared to a woman, and bearing the character of a harlot. This is opposed to that wisdom of which he has been so long discoursing, and so may include all wickedness, whether in principle or practice. Is clamorous — Speaks loudly that she may be heard, and vehemently that persons may be moved by her persuasions. She is simple, and knoweth nothing — Namely, aright; nothing that is good, nothing for her good, though she be subtle in little artifices for her own wicked ends.

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

CONTRASTIVE PICTURE OF WISDOM’S OPPONENT — THE SEDUCTIVE HARLOT, Pro_9:13-18.

The foolish woman of this passage is vividly drawn in contrast with the hhokmah, Wisdom, and may be taken as the type or incarnation of carnal pleasure, or the immoderate and unlawful indulgence of the appetites and passions. As in the preceding verses Wisdom was represented as a pure and queenly woman, enthroned in a palace, inviting all uninstructed ones to enjoy with her a pure, intellectual, and spiritual feast, the result of which would give vigour, long life, and happiness; so the opposite, this “foolish woman,” who knoweth nothing at all that is useful or virtuous — this woman, אשׁת כסילות, (esheth kesilouth.) woman of follies — the representative of ignorant sensuality, is also placed upon her seat, כסא, (kisse,) a throne. She sits in state at the door of her house, (Jer_3:2; Gen_38:14,) and that house in the most public place; in the very places where the maidens of Wisdom invite men to the feast of knowledge. Pro_9:3. She sits there with her lascivious arts and speech to divert men from intellectual and moral culture, and to overwhelm them in sensual pleasures. Comp. Pro_7:11, seq.

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

CRITICAL NOTES.—

Pro_9:13. A foolish woman, rather, “the woman of folly,” an exact opposition of the personified wisdom of the former part of the chapter. Clamorous, “violently excited” (Zöckler).

Pro_9:15. Who go right on their ways. “Who are going straightforward in their paths” (Stuart).

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Pro_9:13-18

THE FEAST OF FOLLY

That which strikes one upon reading this description is the analogy and the contrast which it presents to the feast of Wisdom.

I. Its analogies.

1. Both appeal to elements in the nature of man. Man is a compound, a complex being. He possesses a moral nature, a conscience, which can be satisfied only with moral truth and goodness, to which Wisdom appeals with her wine and bread of God’s revelation, and whose cravings they alone are able to appease. And he has sinful inclinations and passions which hanker after forbidden things, to which Folly appeals when she sets forth the attractions of her “stolen waters” and her “bread eaten in secret” (Pro_9:17). God’s wisdom and love are shown in appealing to the first, and Satan’s cunning and malice are manifested in the adaptation of his appeal to the second.

2. Both invite the same kind of character, viz., the “simple,” the inexperienced, those who have not tasted the sweets of godly living, yet “know not” from experience that the “dead” are in the house of Folly, that “her guests are in the depths of hell (Pro_9:18). Two potters may be desirous of possessing the same lump of clay in order to fashion it each one after his own desire. It is now a shapeless mass, but they know its yielding and pliable nature renders it capable of assuming any form, of taking any impress, which they may please to impart to it. The inexperienced in the experimental knowledge of good and evil are very much like potter’s clay; and here Wisdom and Folly, God and the devil, holiness and sin, stand side by side bidding for the clay, the one desiring to fashion out of it a “vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the Master’s use” (2Ti_2:21), and the other anxious to make it a “vessel of wrath fitted to destruction” (Rom_9:22).

3. Both invite to the feasts through those who possess powers of persuasion. Though in the first Wisdom herself does not go forth, but sends her maidens, and in the second the woman herself goes out into the streets, yet they both belong to the sex which is, by common consent, allowed to be most skilled in the art of persuasion. History is full of instances of their power to influence for good and evil. There have been many Lady Macbeths, both in public and private life, and many “handmaids of the Lord” whose influence has been as mighty on the side of good. Both Wisdom and Folly possess ambassadors whose persuasive powers are mighty.

4. They utter their invitations in the same places. Wisdom “crieth upon the high places of the city” (Pro_9:3). Folly “sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city” (Pro_9:14). They both give invitations where they are most likely to obtain guests. In the places where many congregate are found the greatest variety of characters and those who have the most varied wants, and as in such places those who have wares of any kind to sell are sure of finding some to purchase, so the ambassadors of Divine wisdom and the emissaries of evil are certain, where the multitudes are gathered together, to find some to listen to their respective voices.

5. Both use the same words of invitation, and offer the same inducements. A feast is promised in both cases, i.e., both inviters promise satisfaction—enjoyment—to their guests. If a man coins bad money he must make it look as near as possible like the gold or he would not get anyone to accept it. It is only afterwards that his dupe finds that it lacks the ring of real gold. So the tempter to evil must make the advantages he professes to dispense look as much like real good as he possibly can. The false friend will often-times adopt the phraseology of the true, and will never be wanting in arguments to win his victim. The incarnate wisdom of God reminded His disciples that they might, in this respect and in others, learn something from the “children of this world,” who, in some matters, “are in their generation wiser than the children of light” (Luk_16:8).

6. Both make the invitation wide and free. “Whoso” is the word used by both. The kingdom of darkness, as well as the kingdom of light, is willing to gather of “every kind” (Mat_13:47). The only condition is “Enter in and partake of the banquet prepared.”

II. The Contrasts.

1. In the character of the inviters. In the one case they are “maidens,” emblematical (as we saw in considering the first feast) of purity; in the other she who invites is evidently a bold and wanton woman, identical with the one described in chapters 5 and 7 (compare Pro_5:6; Pro_7:11-12, with Pro_9:13-14). Each one who invites is an embodiment of the principles ruling in the house to which she invites; each one sets forth in her own deportment what will be the result of accepting the respective invitations. So that, although the words used may be similar, the simple might be warned from the difference in aspect and demeanour of those who use them.

2. In the place to which the simple are invited. “In the former case,” says Zöckler, “it is to a splendid palace with its columns, to a holy temple of God; in the latter to a common house, a harlot’s abode, built over an entrance to the abyss of hell.” The first invitation is to the abode of a righteous king, where law, and order, and peace reign; the second is to an abode of lawlessness and self-seeking, and consequently of incessant strife and misery. Those who dwell in the first are ever magnifying the favour by which they were permitted to enter; the inhabitants of the latter are eternally cursing those by whose persuasions their feet were turned into the path which leads to death.

3. Wisdom invites to what is her own; Folly invites to that which belongs to another. Wisdom hath killed her beasts and mingled her wine; she cries, “Come, eat of my bread” (Pro_9:2; Pro_9:5). Folly saith to her victim, “Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant” (Pro_9:17). The first is therefore a lawful meal: its dainties may be enjoyed with a full sense that there is no wrong done to oneself, or to any other creature in the universe, by participating in it. It may be eaten publicly; there is no reason for concealment—no sense of shame. But the guests of Folly are all wronging themselves, and wronging God, and wronging their fellow-men by sitting down at her table. And they feel that it is so even when the waters taste the sweetest, and the bread the most pleasant. Hence their banquet is a secret one, “for it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret” (Eph_5:12). Hence they “love darkness rather than light;” they “hate the light, lest their deeds should be reproved” (Joh_3:20-21).

4. The contrast in the results. There are poisonous fruits which are pleasant to the taste, but which lead to sickness and death. And there are bitter herbs which are not palatable, but which bring healing to the frame. Some of Wisdom’s dishes are seasoned with reproof and rebuke (Pro_9:8), but the outcome of listening to her call is an increase of wisdom and a lengthening of days and years (Pro_9:9-11). The feast of Folly is sweetened with “flattery” (chap. Pro_2:16; Pro_7:21). The lips of the tempter “drop as an honey-comb” (chap. Pro_5:2), but there is a deadly poison in the dish. Eating of her food brings a man down into a devil; the bread and wine of Wisdom nourishes and strengthens him until he becomes “equal unto the angels of God” (Luk_20:26).

OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS

Pro_9:1-18. The prototypical relation of the contents of this chapter to our Lord’s parables founded on banquets (Mat_22:1-14; Luk_14:16-24) is evident, and therefore its special importance to the doctrines of the call of salvation.—Lange’s Commentary.

Pro_9:13. “Clamorous,” that is, so bustling as to allow no time for repentance (see 5, 6), like Cardinal Mazarin, of whom it was said that the devil would never let him rest. The sinner is so hurried along in the changes of life, as apparently to unsettle any attempted reformation. “Knows nothing;” an expression grandly doctrinal. The impenitent is blankly dark. Ecc_6:5 represents the perishing as like an untimely birth. “He hath not seen the sun, nor known anything.” “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned” (1Co_2:14). “Where can Wisdom be found?” says the inspired man (Job_28:14-22). “The depth saith, It is not in me; and the sea saith., It is not with me.” The woman of folly is blankly ignorant; for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and if she has not the beginning, then mental light, if she have any, must be but as “darkness” (Mat_6:23).—Miller.

A foolish woman is clamorous, and hath many words, but they are words only, for she knoweth nothing; the folly of sin is clamorous, and maketh many promises of pleasure and contentment, but they are promises only, and she performeth nothing.—Jermin.

Pro_9:15. Her chief aim is to secure the godly, or those inclined to become so; for she is secure as to others, and therefore takes no great trouble in their case.—Fausset.

Even the highway of God, though a path of safety, is beset with temptation. Satan is so angry with none as with those who are going right on.—Bridges.

Pro_9:16. Wisdom sets up her school to instruct the ignorant: Folly sets up her school next door to defeat the designs of Wisdom. Thus the saying of the satirist appears to be verified:—

“Wherever God erects a house of prayer,

The devil surely builds a chapel there;

And it is found, upon examination,

The latter has the larger congregation.”—Defoe.

Adam Clark.

Folly does not invite the scorners, because she is secure of them, but only the “simple,” i.e., those who are such in the judgment of the Holy Spirit. Scripture expresses not what she says in outward words, but what is the reality. Whosoever turns in to her is a simpleton. Cartwright takes it that she calls the pious “simple.” Pro_9:15 favours this.—Fausset.

Pro_9:17. Folly shows her skill in seduction by holding out, in promise, the secret enjoyment of forbidden sweets. Alas! since the entrance of sin into the world, there has been among mankind a sadly strong and perverse propensity to aught that is forbidden, to taste what is laid under an interdict. The very interdiction draws towards it the wistful desires, and looks, and longings of the perverse and rebellious heart.—Wardlaw.

The power of sin lies in its pleasure. If stolen waters were not sweet, none would steal the waters. This is part of the mystery in which our being is involved by the fall. It is one of the most fearful features of the case. Our appetite is diseased.… Oh, for the new tastes of a new nature! “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness.” When a soul has tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious, the foolish woman beckons you toward her stolen waters, and praises their sweetness in vain. The new appetite drives out the old.—Arnot.

Many eat that on earth that they digest in hell.—Trapp.

Indirect ways best please flesh and blood. “Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence” (Rom_7:8). We take this from our first parents, a greedy desire to eat of the forbidden fruit. All the other trees in the garden, although the fruit were as good, would not satisfy them.… Such is the corruption of our nature, that we like best what God likes worst.—Francis Taylor.

Pro_9:18. Of course “he knows not.” If the sinner only knew that he were already dead, he might wake up with a bound to the work of his salvation.—Miller.

All sinful joys are damned up with a but. They have a worm that crops them, nay, gnaws asunder their very root, though they shoot up more hastily and spread more spaciously than Jonah’s gourd.… When all the prophecies of ill success have been held as Cassandra’s riddles, when all the contrary minds of afflictions, all the threatened storms of God’s wrath could not dishearten the sinner’s voyage to these Netherlands, here is a but that shipwrecks all; the very mouth of a bottomless pit, not shallower than hell itself.… As man hath his sic, so God hath His sed.—T. Adams.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

Wisdom’s free and gracious invitation has been before us. And we might almost ask — who could resist it? Now we have an allurement from the opposite quarter. For sin is no less earnest to destroy, than wisdom is to save. The distinct character of folly here alluded to, may be gathered from the pictures formerly given. (Proverbs 2. 5. 7.) Fleshly lusts are in open opposition to Divine wisdom. ’The delight of the soul fixed on anything but God and his grace, is but spiritual adultery.’†1 The woman of foolishness is clamorous (Pro 7:11 ), and, though "subtle in heart" (Pro 7:10 ) in the devices of Satan, she is simplicity itself in her utter ignorance of right. So fearfully do sensual pleasures darken the understanding, that the tempter, from the very habit of deceiving, becomes the victim of her own delusion! (Hos 4:11 . 2Ti 3:13 .) With a shameless front she dares to present herself in the highest places of the city (Gen 38:14, Gen 38:21 . Jer 3:2-3 . Eze 16:24-25, Eze 16:31 ), alluring, not only those who are "going the way to her house" (Pro 7:8 ), but the inexperienced who are going right on their ways. Thus even the highway of God, though a path of safety (Pro 10:9 ), is beset with temptation. Satan is so angry with none as with those, who are going right on. When Israel was in the straight path, quickly did he turn them aside by the golden calf. (Exo 24:7, with Exodus 32.) And now enticements or assaults wait on every step. The temptation to open sin would be revolting. But must you give up all your pleasures? May not some stolen waters (Pro 5:15-17 . 2Sa 11:2 ), some secret indulgences (Pro 20:17 . Job 20:12-14 ), be allowed? Ah! Sinner — there is no such thing as secret sin. All is naked and open as day before the eye of God. (Job 24:15 ; Job 34:21-22 .) All will soon be proclaimed before the assembled world. (Luk 12:1-2 .) But the strength of this temptation is, that they are forbidden pleasures. (Gen 3:1-6 .) Restraint provokes the dormant power of sin;†2 as children will do that which is forbidden, because it is forbidden. But what will be the end? Satan shows only the sparkling cup, and the glaring light. Ask to look into the inner chamber. The blinded fool hath willfully closed his eyes (Pro 7:22 . Isa 1:3 . 2Pe 3:5 ); else might he know that the dead are there; and that her guests — the willful despisers of wisdom, are in the very depths of hell. (Pro 2:18 ; Pro 7:27 .)

Reader — the wisdom of God, and the great deceiver of man — stand before you. Both are wooing thine heart; the one for life — the other for death. Both are intensely anxious for success. Wisdom crieth. The foolish woman is clamorous. (Pro 9:3 with Pro 9:13 .) Both take their station in the high places of the city. (Pro 9:3 with Pro 9:15 .) Both spread out their feast for the simple and ignorant (Pro 9:4 with Pro 9:16 ), smiling and happy on the brink of ruin. But how opposite their end? The one makes the simple wise unto eternal life. The other bears away her willing captive into unutterable misery. Which voice arrests thine ear, and allures thine heart? Which feast excites thine appetite? Whose guest art thou? Wilt thou not open thine eyes to the infatuation and pollution of this house of horror and death? Oh! remember that every listening to the enticement rivets thy chain, rejoices thy grand enemy, cheats thee out of thy present, no less than of thine eternal, happiness, and will banish thee for ever from the paradise reopened as thy home. Thou mayest sink into the grave and perish. But it will be with the Savior’s voice crying in thine ears, "How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity?" (Pro 1:22 .) The voice of mercy now warns thee against estranging thyself from thy God. But mercy is limited to time. Then justice, without mercy, will hold the scales with relentless severity, and the sentence of condemnation will bind thee in the lost and blasted kingdom of eternal death. What then is our heart’s desire and prayer, but the free grace and love of the Gospel may draw and fix thine heart; and that the Lord may preserve thee from the tempter’s snare, by keeping thee closely walking with himself.

Footnotes:

†1 Diodati.

†2 Rom 7:8. 1Co 15:56 . See Augustine’s description of his robbing the pear-tree — not for the gain of the fruit (the greater part of which he threw away), but for the mere pleasure of sin as sin — a breaking God’s law. Truly affecting also is it to see him, like the Psalmist (Psa 51:5 ) tracing the sin to its root — ’Behold my heart, O Lord, behold my heart, which thou hadst pity upon in the very bottom of the bottomless pit!’ — Confess. iii. 4, 6.

’Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata:

Sic interdictis imminet æger aquis.

Quidquid servatur, cupimus magis, ipsaque furem

Cura vocat, pauci, quod sinet alter, amant.’ — Ovid.

Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1846) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

9:13-18 The woman named Folly also invites the simple and those who lack good judgment to join her for the banquet she has prepared. Her invitation and advice are antithetical to Wisdom’s (9:1-6).

9:13 The woman named Folly is brash: Fools talk boldly and without shame but have nothing intelligent to say.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

By the foolish woman, some understand the wicked preachers, who counterfeit the word of God: as appeareth verse 16, which were the words of the true preachers, as verse 4, but their doctrine is but as stolen waters: meaning, that they are but men’s traditions, which are more pleasant to the flesh than the word of God, and therefore they themselves boast thereof.

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

foolish woman--or literally, "woman of folly," specially manifested by such as are described.

clamorous--or, "noisy" (Pro 7:11).

knoweth nothing--literally, "knoweth not what," that is, is right and proper.

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 13. A foolish woman is clamorous] Vain, empty women, are those that make most noise. And she that is full of clamour, has generally little or no sense. We have had this character already, see Pr 7:11. The translation of the Septuagint is very remarkable: Γυνη αφρων και θρασεια, ενδεης ψωμου γινεται, "A lewd and foolish woman shall be in need of a morsel of bread."

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

(13) A foolish woman.—Rather, the Foolish woman; Folly personified, in opposition to Wisdom described above.

Clamorous.—Not of dignified mien, as her rival.

Simple.—Heb., simplicity, i.e., she is simplicity itself.

And knoweth nothing.—And so leaves room for all evil to enter in and dwell with her (Mat_12:45); thus she perishes, like Israel, for “lack of knowledge” (Hos_4:6).

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

A foolish woman is clamorous,.... Some by this woman understand folly itself, as opposed to wisdom; others blind reason, ignorant of divine things; others carnal sensual pleasure, which entices and draws men to that which is evil; others heresy and superstition; others the old serpent, the devil; she seems to be the same with the strange woman and harlot before described, Pro 2:16, &c. and being set in direct opposition to Wisdom, or Christ, seems to design antichrist, who is described in the book of the Revelation as the great whore; and all the characters here agree with the same. Antichrist is represented as a "woman", Rev 17:3; and is "foolish"; for whatever worldly cunning and craft, and wicked subtlety, there may be in the Romish antichrist, yet he is destitute of all spiritual wisdom and knowledge; and is "clamorous" and noisy, has a mouth speaking great swelling words of vanity and blasphemy, boasting of infallibility, works of supererogation, merits, miracles, wealth, and riches; and very pressing and importunate to gain proselytes to his religion; the priests and Jesuits are compared to noisy, clamorous, croaking frogs, Rev 16:13;

she is simple, and knoweth nothing; a woman of follies, extremely foolish and simple, and most grossly ignorant; knows nothing that is good, as the Targum; that is, spiritually good; knows not God aright; is without the fear and love of him, and faith in him; nor knows Christ, and the way of righteousness and life by him; nor the Spirit of God, and the operations of his grace upon the heart; nor the Gospel, and the doctrines of it; nor the ways, worship, and ordinances of God. The Septuagint and Arabic versions are, "she knows not shame"; but is bold and impudent, having a whore's forehead, and on it written, "Mystery, Babylon, the mother of harlots, and abominations of the earth", Rev 17:5.

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

The picture of the harlot as the representative of the sensual life, the Folly between which and Wisdom the young man has to make his choice (Pro 9:3 note). “Simple,” in the worst sense, as open to all forms of evil. “Knoweth nothing,” ignorant with the ignorance which is willful and reckless.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

And full. Protestants, "she is simple and knoweth nothing." Septuagint, "is in want of a piece of bread." They have several verses before this, which are here omitted. (Haydock) --- Wisdom and pleasure are opposed to each other. (Calmet)

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).

A foolish woman; by which he understands, either,

1. Folly, which is opposite to that wisdom of which he hath been so long discoursing; and so it may include all wickedness, either in principle, as idolatry, heresy, &c., or in practice. Or,

2. The harlot; which, with submission, seems most probable to me, partly because all the following description exactly agrees to her, especially what is said Pro 9:17, as also Pro 9:18, which in effect was said of the harlot before, Pro 2:18; 5:5; and partly because such transitions from discoursing of wisdom, to a discourse of harlots, are frequent in Solomon, as we have seen, Pro 2:16; 5:3; 7:5.

Is clamorous; speaks loudly, that she may be heard; and vehemently, that persons might be moved by her persuasions.

Knoweth nothing; to wit, aright, nothing that is good, nothing for her good, though she be subtle in little artifices for her own wicked ends.

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

Vers. 13-18. This section contains the invitation of Folly, the rival of Wisdom, represented under the guise of an adulteress. (Pro_2:16 Pro_5:3 Pro_6:24, Pro_6:7)

I foolish woman; literally, the woman of folly, the genitive being that of apposition, so that this may well be rendered, in order to make the contrast with Wisdom more marked, "the woman Folly." She is regarded as a real person; and between her and Virtue man has to make his choice. Is clamorous; turbulent and animated by passion, (as Pro_7:11) quite different from her calm, dignified rival. She is simple; Hebrew, "simplicity," in a bad sense; she has no preservative against evil, no moral fibre to resist temptation. And knoweth nothing which she ought to know. Ignorance is the natural accompaniment of Folly: in this case it is wilful and persistent; she goes on her way reckless of consequences. Septuagint, "A woman foolish and bold, who knows not shame, comes to want a morsel.

Vers. 13-18. The invitation of Folly.

The picture to be taken in contrast with that at the beginning of the chapter.

I THE TEMPER OF FOLLY.

1. She is excitable and passionate (ver. 13), and may be fitly imaged as the harlot, the actress and mask of genuine feeling.

2. She is irrational, and knows not what is what. True love is not blind, either as to self or its objects.

3. She is like the harlot again in her shamelessness (ver. 14). Folly does not mind exposure, and rushes on publicity.

4. She is solicitous of company (ver. 15). Must have partners in guilt, and companions to keep her in countenance. Fools cannot be happy in solitude, cannot enjoy the sweet and silent charms of nature. Wisdom finds good both in the forest and the city, in the cloister or amidst the "busy hum of men.

5. Folly is gregarious. Wherever there is a crowd, there is something foolish going on (ver. 16). It may be safely said of habitual gatherings in taverns and such places, "mostly fools." The wise man goes apart to recover and strengthen his Individuality; the fool plunges into the throng to forget himself.

6. Folly is sly and secretive (ver. 17). The secret feast is here the illicit pleasure. (cf. Pro_30:20) The fact that people like what they ought not to like all the more because they ought not, is a complex phenomenon of the soul. The sweetness of liberty recovered is in it, and forms its good side. Liberty adds a perfume and spice to every pleasure, no matter what the pleasure may be. Augustine tells how he robbed an orchard as a boy, admitting that he did not want the pears, and arguing that it must therefore have been his depravity that led him to find pleasure in taking them! In the same way one might prove the depravity of the jackdaw that steals a ring. Let us repudiate the affectation of depravity, a great "folly" in its way; and rather draw the wholesome lesson that the love of liberty, of fun in short, of any healthy exercise of energy, needs direction. The instinct for privacy and liberty gives no less zest to legitimate than to illicit pleasures.

II THE END OF FOLLY. (Ver. 18)

1. It is represented under images of darkness and dread. Shadows, "children of death," dead men, departed ghosts, hover about the dwelling of Folly and the persons of her guests. And these, while even they sit at her table amidst feasting and mirth, are already, in the eyes of Wisdom the spectator, in the depths of hell. Thus the shadows of coming ill "darken the ruby of the cup, and dim the splendour of the scene.

2. The indefinable is more impressive in its effect than the definable. As e.g. Burke has felicitously shown in his treatise on "The Sublime and Beautiful." The obscure realities of the other world, the mysterious twilight, the chiaro-oscuro of the imagination: in this region is found all that fascinates the mind with hope or terror. If it be asked What precisely will be the doom of the wicked, the bliss of the righteous? the answer is Definite knowledge has not been imparted, is impossible, and would have less effect than the vague but positive forms in which the truth is hinted.

3. The indefinable is not the less certain. It is the definite which is contingent, uncertain. Our life is a constant becoming from moment to moment. This of its nature is as indefinable as the melting of darkness into day, or the reverse. J.

Vers. 13-18. The truth about sin.

Solomon, having told us of the excellency of Wisdom, and of the blessings she has to confer on her children, now bids us consider the consequences of listening to sin, when she, the foolish woman, utters her invitation. We learn

I THAT SIN IN ITS LATER DEVELOPMENTS IS A VERY ODIOUS THING. What a painful and repulsive picture we have here of the foolish woman, who, though utterly ignorant and unworthy (ver. 13), assumes a conspicuous position in the city, places herself "on a seat in the high places," speaks with a "clamorous" voice, and, herself unaddressed, calls aloud to those who are going on their way! When we present the scene to our imagination, we instinctively shrink from it as repelling and odious. All sin is hateful in the sight of God; to him it is "that abominable thing". (Jer_44:4) And to all the pure in heart it is also, though not equally, repulsive. In its later stages and final developments it is simply and thoroughly detestable.

II THAT TEMPTATION TO SIN BESETS THE UNWARY AS WELL AS THE EVIL MINDED. Folly addresses herself to "passengers who go right on their ways" (ver. 15). There are those who go wilfully and wantonly in the way of temptation. They seek the company of the profane, the attentions of the immoral. These walk into the net, and are ensnared. Then there are others who have no thought of evil in their heart; they are not "purposing to transgress;" but as they pass right on their way, the temptress throws her net at if not over them, that she may entangle them. The path of human life is beset with spiritual perils; it is necessary to be prepared against all forms of evil. We must not only be upright in intention, but wary and well armed also. "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary," etc. (1Pe_5:8)

III THAT TO UNSANCTIFIED HUMAN NATURE SIN IS SOMETIMES A TERRIBLY SEDUCTIVE THING. "The foolish woman," though she is said to "know nothing," yet knows enough to say truly, "Stolen waters are sweet," etc. (ver. 17). It is useless, because it is false, to deny that vice has its pleasures. Lasciviousness, revelry, avarice, usurpation, have their delights; and there is a peculiar pleasure in snatching unlawful gratifications rather than in accepting those which are honourable. When our nature is unregenerated and unsanctified, when passion is at its height, when in the soul there is the ardour and energy of youth, vice has powerful attractions. The young may well provide themselves against the dark hour of temptation with "the whole armour of God," or they may not be able to stand victorious.

IV THAT THOSE WHO HAVE ABANDONED THEMSELVES TO SIN ARE IN THE EMBRACE OF RUIN. "He knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell" (ver. 18). Not only is it true

(1) that those who yield themselves to guilty passion are on the high road to ultimate perdition; but it is also true

(2) that they are already in the depth of ruin. They are "dead while they live"; (1Ti_5:6) they are "in the depths of hell" (text). To be sacrificing manhood or womanhood on the altar of an unholy pleasure, or an immoral gain, or an enslaving lamination; to be sinning continually against God, and to be systematically degrading our own soul to be falling lower and lower in the estimation of the wise until we become the object of their pity or their scorn; this is ruin. No need to wait for judgment and condemnation; the guests of sin are in the depths of hell. If near the door, if on its step, if in its hall, "escape for thy life" (see Wardlaw, in loc. ). C.

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

The poet now brings before us another figure, for he personifies Folly working in opposition to Wisdom, and gives her a feminine name, as the contrast to Wisdom required, and thereby to indicate that the seduction, as the 13th proverbial discourse (chap. 7) has shown, appears especially in the form of degraded womanhood:

13 The woman Folly [Frau Thorheit] conducts herself boisterously,

Wantonness, and not knowing anything at all;

14 And hath seated herself at the door of her house,

On a seat high up in the city,

15 To call to those who walk in the way,

Who go straight on their path.

The connection of אשת כּסילוּת is genitival, and the genitive is not, as in אשׁת רע, Pro 6:24, specifying, but appositional, as in בת־ציון (vid., under Isa 1:8). הומיּה [boisterous] is pred., as Pro 7:11 : her object is sensual, and therefore her appearance excites passionately, overcoming the resistance of the mind by boisterousness. In 13b it is further said who and how she is. פּתיּוּת she is called as wantonness personified. This abstract פּתיּוּת, derived from פּתי, must be vocalized as אכזריּוּת; Hitzig thinks it is written with a on account of the following u sound, but this formation always ends in ijjûth, not ajjûth. But as from חזה as well חזּיון = חזיון as חזון is formed, so from פּתה as well פּתוּת like חזוּת or פּתוּת like לזוּת, רעוּת, as פּתיוּת (instead of which פּתיּוּת is preferred) can be formed; Kimchi rightly (Michlol 181a) presents the word under the form פּעלוּת. With וּבל (Pro 14:7) poetic, and stronger than לאו, the designation of the subject is continued; the words וּבל־ידעה מּה (thus with Mercha and without Makkeph following, ידעה is to be written, after Codd. and old editions) have the value of an adjective: and not knowing anything at all (מה = τὶ, as Num 23:3; Job 13:13, and here in the negative clause, as in prose מאוּמה), i.e., devoid of all knowledge. The Targ. translates explanatorily: not recognising טבתּא, the good; and the lxx substitutes: she knows not shame, which, according to Hitzig, supposes the word כּלמּה, approved of by him; but כלמה means always pudefactio, not pudor. To know no כלמה would be equivalent to, to let no shaming from without influence one; for shamelessness the poet would have made use of the expression ובל־ידעה בּשׁת. In וישׁבה the declaration regarding the subject beginning with הומיה is continued: Folly also has a house in which works of folly are carried one, and has set herself down by the door (לפּתח as לפי, Pro 8:3) of this house; she sits there על־כּסּא. Most interpreters here think on a throne (lxx ἐπὶ δίφρου, used especially of the sella curulis); and Zckler, as Umbreit, Hitzig, and others, connecting genitiv. therewith מרמי קרת, changes in 14b the scene, for he removes the "high throne of the city" from the door of the house to some place elsewhere. But the sitting is in contrast to the standing and going on the part of Wisdom on the streets preaching (Evagrius well renders: in molli ignavaque sella); and if כסא and house-door are named along with each other, the former is a seat before the latter, and the accentuation rightly separates by Mugrash כסא from מרמי קרת. "According to the accents and the meaning, מרמי קרת is the acc. loci: on the high places of the city, as Pro 8:2." (Fl.). They are the high points of the city, to which, as Wisdom, Pro 9:3, Pro 8:2, so also Folly, her rival (wherefore Ecc 10:6 does not appertain to this place), invites followers to herself. She sits before her door to call לעברי דרך (with Munach, as in Cod. 1294 and old editions, without the Makkeph), those who go along the way (genitive connection with the supposition of the accusative construction, transire viam, as Pro 2:7), to call (invite) המישּׁרים (to be pointed with מ raphatum and Gaja going before, according to Ben-Asher's rule; vid., Methegsetz. 20), those who make straight their path, i.e., who go straight on, directly before them (cf. Isa 57:2). The participial construction (the schemes amans Dei and amans Deum), as well as that of the verb קרא (first with the dat. and then with the accus.), interchange.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

The Banquet of Folly

v. 13. A foolish woman is clamorous, literally, "A simple, noisy woman is folly," devoid of sense, but raising all the more clamor, boisterous, excited, and wanton; she is simple and knoweth nothing, utter ignorance being characteristic of folly.

v. 14. For she sitteth at the door of her house, like a harlot watching for passers-by, Gen 38:14, on a seat In the high places of the city, the lofty throne of the city being named in irony to show what measures are adopted by folly to gain adherents for herself,

v. 15. to call passengers who go right on their ways, unwary travelers who are using the highways, intent upon their business:

v. 16. Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither, to partake of the banquet of her folly, to be steeped ever more thoroughly in foolishness; and as for him that wanteth understanding, lacking in this essential part of a proper life, she saith to him,

v. 17. Stolen waters are sweet, that is, forbidden pleasures, as praised by folly, especially in the form of immoral acts, illicit intercourse, seem pleasant enough for the time being, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant, literally, "bread of secrecy," because both the unjust gain and the forbidden enjoyment are emphasized, cf Pro 3:15-20.

v. 18. But he, the person who hearkens to the invitation of folly, knoweth not that the dead are there, the children of death, who are moving forward to the horrors of the realm of death and everlasting destruction, and that her guests are in the depths of hell. That is the end of folly and of all who accept her invitation, while the faithful, who follow the call of wisdom, will attain to true prosperity and live a life of true usefulness and happiness in the world.

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

General Information:

These verses begin to describe foolishness, which is also personified as a woman. (See: Personification)

The woman of foolishness

It is possible to translate "foolishness" as a description such as "A foolish woman." However, if a language allows wisdom to be personified, as in the previous part of this chapter, it may also allow foolishness to be personified. AT: "The woman Foolishness" (See: Personification)

she is untaught and knows nothing

These two expressions basically mean the same thing, which is repeated to show how useless the foolish woman is. AT: "she does not know anything at all" (See: Parallelism)

she is untaught

"she has not learned from experience" or "she is young and naive"

walking straight on their way

This seems to be an idiom for "thinking only of their own affairs" or "minding their own business." (See: Idiom)

translationWords

fool

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.