proverbs 6

Read Proverbs 6 at Bible Gateway.

Hebrew paragraph divisions:

Pro 6:1-5 {p} Deliver yourself if you have cosigned for someone else’s credit
Pro 6:6-11 {p} The wisdom of diligent labor
Pro 6:12-15 {p} A perverse mouth hides a wicked heart
Pro 6:16-19 {p} Seven abominations to the LORD
Pro 6:20-26 {p} Treasure the Torah; it will keep you from destruction wearing a beautiful face
Pro 6:27-35 {p} Adultery destroys a fool’s life

Chiastic structures uncovered to date:

Pro 6:1-5 {p}

1a) Pro 6:1-2, My son, if you become surety for your friend, you are snared by the words of your mouth;

1b) Pro 6:3a, So do this, my son, and deliver yourself;

1c) Pro 6:3b {n} For you have come into the hand of your friend;

central axis) Pro 6:3c, Go and humble yourself;

2c) Pro 6:3d-4, Plead with your friend: give no sleep nor slumber to your eyes;

2b) Pro 6:5a, Deliver yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter;

2a) Pro 6:5b {p} And like a bird from the hand of the fowler.

Pro 6:27-35 {p}

1a.1) Pro 6:27-29, Adultery is a fire which will burn a man/ he shall not be innocent;

1a.2) Pro 6:30-31, He who steals makes restitution;

1b) Pro 6:32a, Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding;

central axis) Pro 6:32b, He who does so destroys his own soul;

2b) Pro 6:33, The high price: wounds + dishonor + permanent reproach;

2a.1) Pro 6:34, A husband’s fury burns + he will not spare in the day of vengeance;

2a.2) Pro 6:35 {p} He who commits adultery can never make restitution.

The lack of understanding (1B pair) is expressed through inviting the permanent destruction of his own life (2B pair); for only a fool invites destruction.

The commandments together, when we keep them, preserve us, however, the Scripture makes a special case of Do not commit adultery. (Adultery, biblically defined, is any intimacy outside of the marriage covenant, and so it includes premarital as well as extramarital affairs.) That there is so much space devoted to it, not only in Deuteronomy, but also here in Proverbs, reveals that we must be on special guard against it.

Even though Solomon knew all of this about adultery, this sin was his downfall also, just as it had been David’s before him. He did not transgress with his neighbor’s wife, but he merely married woman after woman after woman (700 wives of royal birth, and 300 concubines), so that he did not learn faithfulness to the one woman YHVH provided for him (as His provision for Adam in the Garden is the pattern upon which biblical marriage is founded).

I know why this is a temptation for men. Wives “cool off” in their passion for their husband after a time, and in order to meet their needs, men are tempted with adultery (or in our internet age, as is very prevalent even among Christian men, p-rnography). But often, the wives cool off because their husbands have hurt their wives’ hearts. And God made women in such a way, that heart, mind, and body are all involved in intimacy, and a woman cannot divorce her heart and mind from her body in order to maintain passion and intimacy purely for physical reasons.

When a woman cannot resolve her heart hurts with her husband, because perhaps he defends himself instead of listening to her, or he becomes angry that she has an issue with him, or in any of the other unbiblical ways a husband can respond to his fellow believer’s (his wife’s) attempt to address sin and reconcile with him (Mat 18), then her body follows her heart and withdraws.

When this happens, this is a sign from God to the husband that he needs to humble himself and resolve matters with his wife’s heart, so that her passion can be restored. Unfortunately, most men, even believing men, do not go that route, and instead harden their hearts against their wives, which just continues the downward spiral.

Now I am not saying the husband is the cause of the wife’s cooling off in every instance. Sometimes the wife is in sin. However, in the majority of the cases, I do believe this is the dynamic, just as in the majority of the cases, the children rebel because the father has provoked them to wrath (but not in every case).