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Proverbs 5 Bible study: Drink from your own well
One Hebrew verb, shagah, runs through the chapter's close: "Be captivated always with her love" (5:19), "why should you, my son, be captivated with an adulteress?" (5:20), and "he will go astray" (5:23). And she "gives no thought to" the way of life (5:6), while the LORD "examines" every path (5:21): in Hebrew, one verb.
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“For the ways of man are before the LORD’s eyes. He examines all his paths.”
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“Proverbs 5 says the lips of an adulteress drip honey, but in the end she is as bitter as wormwood.”
Is that in Proverbs 5, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
Honey first, wormwood in the end
The father's warning starts with how she sounds: "For the lips of an adulteress drip honey. Her mouth is smoother than oil" (5:3). Then comes the other side: "but in the end she is as bitter as wormwood, and as sharp as a two-edged sword" (5:4). "Her feet go down to death. Her steps lead straight to Sheol" (5:5). A few verses later the chapter speaks of the son's own end: "You will groan at your latter end, when your flesh and your body are consumed" (5:11). In Hebrew in the end (5:4) and at your latter end (5:11) are one word, acharit (tap end). The chapter uses it first for her end and then for the son's.
Where it leads to Jesus
Keep your distance
Proverbs 5:8leads toMatthew 5:29-30
The father tells his son, "Remove your way far from her. Don’t come near the door of her house" (Proverbs 5:8). Just after his words on adultery (Matthew 5:27-28), Jesus said, "If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna" (Matthew 5:29), and said the same of the right hand (Matthew 5:30). Jesus doesn't cite Proverbs, so setting the two side by side is a reading. It rests on a shared subject, what a hearer does to keep from being led into sin, not on a shared word. Some read them together: both tell the hearer to deal firmly with what leads into sin, the father by keeping far from her door, and Jesus by throwing away what causes stumbling. Others read each in its own setting: the father speaks of one woman's house and of what his son could lose there (Proverbs 5:9-10), and Jesus spoke of a hearer's own eye and hand, not of another person. Proverbs 5 speaks of death and Sheol (Proverbs 5:5) and Jesus of Gehenna (Matthew 5:29-30), and this line doesn't make the one the other.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about Proverbs 5
That was a taste
The rest of Proverbs 5 is waiting in Favor
- Weighed, and not weighed
- Your own well
- Captivated, captivated, astray
- His own words, and chapter 1's
- Lips that drip honey
- 8 questions as you read
- 13 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
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The Hebrew word behind it
שָׁגָהshagahsay sha-GAH
Brown-Driver-Briggs: "go astray, err". Strong's: "to stray (causatively, mislead), usually (figuratively) to mistake, especially (morally) to transgress", and "by extension (through the idea of intoxication) to reel, (figuratively) be enraptured". The chapter has it three times: "Be captivated always with her love" (5:19), "For why should you, my son, be captivated with an adulteress?" (5:20), and "In the greatness of his folly, he will go astray" (5:23). Proverbs has it six times in Hebrew. One of the others is "Wine is a mocker and beer is a brawler. Whoever is led astray by them is not wise" (20:1).
For your group
Proverbs 5 Bible study questions
- 1At his latter end the man says, "I haven’t obeyed the voice of my teachers" (5:13). Whose wise voice have you been glad you listened to, and what helped you listen?
- 2"Remove your way far from her. Don’t come near the door of her house" (5:8). The father's advice is about distance, long before the door. Where in ordinary life does keeping your distance make it easier to do what is right?
- 3"For the ways of man are before the LORD’s eyes. He examines all his paths" (5:21). Does that feel more like a comfort or a weight to you this week? Why?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads Proverbs 5 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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Questions
What is Favor?
Favor is a Bible study app that explains every chapter as you read: the Hebrew and Greek behind the words, the details most readers miss, and how each part of the Bible leads to Jesus. Read on your own, or start a Bible study with friends, family or your church.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home