Proverbs 6
Big idea: Four warnings that look unrelated and share one nerve: things that bind you slowly. A pledge binds by your own handshake, and the counsel is undignified and immediate — go tonight, beg. The sluggard is bound by increments, each too small to refuse. The troublemaker is bound by habits so ingrained they show in his eyelids and fingers. And the adulterer is bound worst, because the chapter's closing comparison is an accounting one: a thief has a restitution schedule and this has none. Between them sits the list of seven things Yahweh hates, whose climax is not a violent crime but sowing discord.
Chapter 6 warns against the flattery of the wayward wife's tongue. Chapter 7 takes the father to a window and shows him a young man walking toward it.
6:1–11 — Go to the ant, you sluggard
Two ways to lose everything, paired because both arrive quietly. The pledge is reversible and the advice is startlingly undignified — no sleep, go and beg, get out like a bird from a snare — because tonight is the window and pride is the only thing in the way. The sluggard's ruin is not reversible in the same way, because no single morning caused it: the famous three phrases are each too small to refuse, and the arithmetic only shows up when poverty arrives armed.
1 My son, if you have become collateral for your neighbor, if you have struck your hands in pledge for a stranger, 2 you are trapped by the words of your mouth; you are ensnared with the words of your mouth. 3 Do this now, my son, and deliver yourself, since you have come into the hand of your neighbor. Go, humble yourself. Press your plea with your neighbor. 4 Give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids. 5 Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler. 6 Go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider her ways, and be wise; 7 which having no chief, overseer, or ruler, 8 provides her bread in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest. 9 How long will you sleep, sluggard? When will you arise out of your sleep? 10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep— 11 so your poverty will come as a robber, and your scarcity as an armed man.
6:12–19 — Six things Yahweh hates
A portrait, then a list, and the join between them is what makes the section work. The portrait is all body language — winking, signalling with the feet, motioning with the fingers — a man communicating constantly without ever saying anything you could quote. Then the numerical saying formalises it, and its seventh and climactic item is not murder or perjury, both of which appear earlier, but the thing the portrait opened with: sowing discord.
12 A worthless person, a man of iniquity, is he who walks with a perverse mouth, 13 who winks with his eyes, who signals with his feet, who motions with his fingers, 14 in whose heart is perverseness, who devises evil continually, who always sows discord. 15 Therefore his calamity will come suddenly. He will be broken suddenly, and that without remedy. 16 There are six things which Yahweh hates; yes, seven which are an abomination to him: 17 arrogant eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are swift in running to mischief, 19 a false witness who utters lies, and he who sows discord among brothers.
6:20–35 — Can a man scoop fire into his lap?
The father's last and most calculated argument on this subject, and it is built as an accounting comparison. He grants the sympathetic case first — a hungry thief is not despised — and then produces the schedule: sevenfold, everything in his house. Steep, and payable. The point is what happens when he turns to adultery and finds no schedule at all, because the injured party is not a creditor. The two fire questions in the middle assume their own answer, which is the father's whole complaint.
20 My son, keep your father’s commandment, and don’t forsake your mother’s teaching. 21 Bind them continually on your heart. Tie them around your neck. 22 When you walk, it will lead you. When you sleep, it will watch over you. When you awake, it will talk with you. 23 For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light. Reproofs of instruction are the way of life, 24 to keep you from the immoral woman, from the flattery of the wayward wife’s tongue. 25 Don’t lust after her beauty in your heart, neither let her captivate you with her eyelids. 26 For a prostitute reduces you to a piece of bread. The adulteress hunts for your precious life. 27 Can a man scoop fire into his lap, and his clothes not be burned? 28 Or can one walk on hot coals, and his feet not be scorched? 29 So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife. Whoever touches her will not be unpunished. 30 Men don’t despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he is hungry, 31 but if he is found, he shall restore seven times. He shall give all the wealth of his house. 32 He who commits adultery with a woman is void of understanding. He who does it destroys his own soul. 33 He will get wounds and dishonor. His reproach will not be wiped away. 34 For jealousy arouses the fury of the husband. He won’t spare in the day of vengeance. 35 He won’t regard any ransom, neither will he rest content, though you give many gifts.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).