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Verses 1-27. - 13. Thirteenth admonitory discourse, containing a warning against adultery, treated under a different aspect from previous exhortations, and strengthened by an example. In this chapter and the following a contrast is drawn between the adulteress and Wisdom. Verse 1. - My son, keep my words. The teacher enjoins his pupil, as in Proverbs 2:1, to observe the rules which he gives. Lay up, as a precious treasure (see on Proverbs 2:1 and 7). The LXX. adds here a distich which is not in the Hebrew or in any other version, and is not germane to the context, however excellent in itself: "My son, honour the Lord, and thou shalt be strong, and beside him feat no other." With this we may compare Luke 12:5 and Isaiah 8:12, 13.

Verse 2. - Keep my commandments, and live (see on Proverbs 4:4). As the apple of thine eye; literally, the little man (ishon, diminutive of ish) of the eye; so called from the miniature reflection of objects seen in the pupil, specially of the person who looks into another's eye. It is a proverbial expression for anything particularly precious and liable to be injured unless guarded with scrupulous care (comp. Psalm 17:8, Zechariah 2:8). Similarly the Greeks called this organ κόρη, "damsel" or "puppet," and the Latin, pupilla.

Verse 3. - Bind them upon thy fingers. Wear my precepts like a ring on thy finger, so that they may go with thee, whatever thou takest in hand. Others think that the so called tephillin, or phylacteries, are meant. These were worn both on the hand and the forehead, and consisted of a leather box containing strips of parchment, on which were written four texts, viz. Exodus 13:1-10; Exodus 11-16; Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Deuteronomy 11:13-21. The box was attached to a leather strap wound seven times round the arm three times round the middle finger, and the remainder passed round the hand (see (Exodus 13:9, 16; Jeremiah 22:24). Write them upon the table of thine heart (see on Proverbs 3:3 and Proverbs 6:21; and comp. Deuteronomy 6:9). Vers. 4 and 5 contain earnest admonitions to the pursuit of Wisdom, which is worthy of the purest love.

Verse 4. - Say unto Wisdom, Thou art my sister. Wisdom is personified, and the connection with her indicated by the relationship which best expresses love, purity, confidence. In the Book of Wisdom 8. she is represented as wife. Christ calls those who do God's will his brother, and sister, and mother (Matthew 12:50). Call Understanding thy kinswoman; moda, "familiar friend." Let prudence and sound sense be as dear to thee as a close friend.

Verse 5. - That they may keep thee from the strange woman (see on Proverbs 2:16 and Proverbs 6:24). When the heart is filled with the love of what is good, it is armed against the seductions of evil pleasure or whatever may entice the soul from God and duty. Septuagint, "That she (Wisdom) may keep thee from the strange and evil woman, if she should assail thee with gracious words."

Verses 6-23. - To show the greatness of the danger presented by the seductions of the temptress, the writer introduces no mere abstraction, no mere personification of a quality, but an actual example of what had passed before his own eyes. Verse 6. - For. The particle introduces the example. At the window of my house. He gives a graphic delineation of a scene witnessed outside his house. I looked through my casement; eshnab, "the lattice," which served the purpose of our Venetian blinds, excluding the sun, but letting the cool air pass into the room (comp. Judges 5:28). A person within could see all that passed in the street without being himself visible from without (Song of Solomon 2:9). The Septuagint reads the sentence as spoken of the woman: "For from the window glancing out of her house into the streets, at one whom she might see of the senseless children, a young man void of understanding."

Verse 7. - And beheld among the simple ones. Though it was night (ver. 9), there was light enough from moon or stars or from illuminated houses to show what was passing. "The simple" are the inexperienced, who are easily led astray (see on Proverbs 1:4). Looking forth into the street on the throng of young and thoughtless persons passing to and fro, among them I discerned... a young man void of understanding; a fool, who, without any deliberate intention of sinning, put himself in the way of temptation, played on the borders of transgression. The way of escape was before him, as it is in all temptations (1 Corinthians 10:13), but he would not take it. Such a one may well be said to lack understanding, or heart, as the Hebrew expresses it (Proverbs 6:32, where see note).

Verse 8. - Near her corner. He kept near the corner of the house of the woman for whom he waited. Another reading gives, "near a corner;" juxta angulum. Vulgate; παρὰ γωνίαν, Septuagint; i.e. he did not take to the broad, open street, but sneaked about at corners, whence he could watch the woman's house without being observed by others. He went the way to her house. He sauntered slowly along, as the verb signifes. Septuagint, "Passing by a corner in the passages of her house (ἐν διόδοις οἴκων αὐτῆς)."