HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-14.-Meretricious pleasures and their results. I. GENERAL ADMONITION', (Vers. 1-3.) Similar prefaces to warnings against unchastity are found in eh. vi. 20, etc.; vii. 1, etc. The same forms of iteration for the sake of urgency are observed. A fresh expression is, "That thy lips may keep insight." That is, let the lessons of wisdom be oft conned over; to keep them on the lips is to "get them by heart." "Consideration" (ver. 2), circumspection, forethought, are peculiarly needed in facing o. temptation which wears a fascinating form, and which must be viewed in results, if its pernicious quality is to be understood. II. TnE FASCINATION OF THE HARLOT. (Ver. 3; comp. eh. ii. 16.) Her lips are honeyed with compliments and flattery (comp. Cant. iv.11). Her voice is smoother than oil. A temptation has no power unless it is directed to some weakness in the subject of it, as the spark goes out in the absence of tinder. The harlot's power to seduce lies mainly in that weakest of weaknesses, vanity-at least, in many cases. It is a power in general over the senses and the imagination. And it is the part of the teacher to disab~se these of their illusions. In the word "meretricious" (from the Latin word for 118 THE PROVERBS. [OH, V. 1-23.
"harlot"), applied to spurious a.rt, we have a witness in la.ngnago to the hollowness of her nttractions. . III. TrrE RESULTS OF vrorous PLEASURES. (Vers. 4-6.) They are ·acscribed in images full of expression. 1. As bitter like woi·mwood, which has a bitter, ~alt taste, and is regarded in the East in the light of poison. Or "like Dead-Sea fruits, which tempt the taste, and turn to ashes on the lips." 2. As of acute pain, under t.he image of a sword, smooth on the surface, with a keen double edge to wound. 3. As fatal. The harlot beckons her guests as it were down the deathful way, to sheol, to Hades, the kingdom of the dead. 4. They have no good result. Ver. 6, correctly rendered, says, "She measures not the path of life; her tracks a.re roving, she knows not whither." The picture of a life which can give no account of itself, cannot justify itself to reason, and comes to a brutish end. IV. TaE REMOTER CONSEQUENCES OF VICE. (Vers. 7-13.) A gloomy vista opens, in prospect of which the warning is urgently renewed (vers. 7, 8). 1. The exposure of the detected adulterer. (Ver. 9.) He exchanges honour and repute for public shame, loses bis life at the hands of the outraged husband, or becomes his slave (comp. eh. vi. 34). 2. The loss of property. (Ver. 10.) The punisbmei;it of adultery unde~ the Law ~ms stoning (Lev. x.x. 10; Deut. xxii. 22, sqq.). Possibly this might be commuted into the forfeiture of goods and enslavement to the injured husband. 3. Remorse. (Vers. 11-14.) Last and worst of all inflictions, from the Divine hand, immediately. In the last stage of consumption the victim of lust groans forth bis unavailing sorrow; Rrmorse, the fearful counterpart of self-respect, is the mind turning upori itself, internal discord replacing the harmony God made. The sufferer accuses himself of hatred to light, contempt of rebuke, of disobedience to voices that were authoritative, of deafness to warning. No external condemnation is ever passed on a man which his own conscience has not previously ratified. Remorse is the last witness to Wisdom and her claims. To complete the picture, the miserable man is represented as reflecting that he all but fell into the doom of the public condemnation and the public execution (ver. 14).-J.
Vers. 15-21.-Fidelity and bliss in marriage. The counterpart of the foregoing warni::ig against vice, placing connubial joys in the brightest light of poetic fancy. I. IMAGES OF WIFEHOOD. The wife is described: 1. As .e. spring, and as a cistern. Property in a spring or well was highly, even sacredly, esteemed. Hence e. peculiar force in the comparison. The wife is the husband's peculiar «ielight and property; the source of pleasures of every kind and degree; the fruitful origin of the family ( comp. Isa. li. 1; Cant. iv. 12). 2. As "wif~ of one'.s youth." (Cf. Deut. xxiv. 5; Eccles. iit. 9.) 0ne to whom the flower of youth and manhood has been devoted. The parallel description is "companion of youth" ( eh. ii. 17). Her imal?e, iu this case, is associated with the sunniest scenes of experience. 3. As a "lovely hind, or charming gazelle." A favourite Oriental comparison, and embodied in the names Tabitha and Dorcas, which denote "gazelle." There are numberless uses of the figure in Arabian and Persian poets. 'l'he beautiful liquid eye, delicate head, graceful carriage of the creature, all point the simile. Nothing can surpass, as a husband's description of a true wife, Wordsworth's exquisite stanza beginning- ,, She was a phantom of delight, When first she gleam'd upun my sight; A creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food; :For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles." IT. !MAGES OF THE HUSBAND'S BLISS. 1. It is like taking draughts from e. fresh and ever-runniD" stream. There is "continual comfort in a face, the lineaments of gospel books." 2. It is a pe,euliar, a private possession. Ver. 16 should be rendered interroaatively • it conveys the contrast of the profaned treasures of the unchaste woman7s love ;nd thus fits with ver. 17. The language of lovers finds a true zest in the word, 11 My own!" Life ?eco_mes brutish w~ere this feeli!lg does not_ exist: 3. Yet it attracts sympathy, admiration, and good will. Ver. 18 1s the blessmg W1Shed (lIJ. v. 1-23.] THE PROVERBS. 119