14 The mouth of an adulteress is a deep pit: he who is under Yahweh's wrath will fall into it.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The fall of the man into the snare of the harlot seems to be the consequence of the abhorrence or wrath of Yahweh. That abhorrence is, however, the result of previous evil. The man is left to himself, and sin becomes the penalty of sin.
The mouth of strange women is a deep pit - In Proverbs 23:27, he says, A whore is a Deep Ditch:, oud a strange woman is a Narrow Pit.
The allusions in these three places are too plain to be misunderstood.
Virgil's hell has been adduced in illustration: -
- Sate sanguine Divum,
Tros Anchisiade, facilis decensus Averni;
Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis:
Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras,
Hoc Opus, hic Labor est.
Pauci quos aequus amavit
Jupiter, aut ardens evexit ad aethera virtus,
Dis geniti potuere.
Virg. Aen, lib. vi., ver. 125.
"O glorious prince of brave Anchises' line!
Great godlike hero! sprung from seed divine,
Smooth lies the road to Pluto's gloomy shade;
And hell's black gates for ever stand display'd:
But 'tis a long unconquerable pain,
To climb to these ethereal realms again.
The choice-selected few, whom favoring Jove,
Or their own virtue, rais'd to heaven above,
From these dark realms emerged again to day;
The mighty sons of gods, and only they.
Pitt.
The mouth of strange women [is] a deep pit: he that is abhorred by the LORD (k) shall fall in it.
(k) So God punishes one sin by another, when he suffers the wicked to fall into the acquaintance of a harlot.
The mouth of strange women is a deep pit,.... The mouth of harlots; the kisses of their mouth, their fair speech and flattering words, their amorous talk, and lascivious and wanton language, ensnare and draw unwary persons to commit lewdness with them, which bring them into a pit of ruin and destruction; a filthy one, and very deep, out of which it is not easy nor usual to be extricated: the allusion is to beasts taken in a pit dug for them; and these are as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed;
he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein; who has been guilty of other sins, and such as have caused the Lord to abhor him, and therefore leaves him to fall into this: one sin not only leads on to another, but is the punishment of another; men are seldom guilty of this sin of whoredom, but who have been first abandoned to other vices very provoking to. God; see Ecclesiastes 7:26. Jarchi interprets all this of idolatry; and it may be very well applied to the whore of Rome, and the harlots she is mother of; who, by her fair words and false doctrines, by her mouth speaking blasphemies and lies in hypocrisy, by her golden cup in her hand full of abomination and filthiness of fornication, and by her sorceries, have deceived many, and brought them into the pit of perdition and ruin: and these are such whose names are not written in the Lamb's book of life; but are rejected of God, and given up to believe a lie, that they might be damned, Revelation 17:4.
The vile sin of licentiousness commonly besots the mind beyond recovery.
The mouth--or flattering speeches (Proverbs 5:3; Proverbs 7:5) ensnare man, as pits, beasts. God makes their own sin their punishment.
14 A deep pit is the mouth of a strange woman;
He that is cursed of God falleth therein.
The first line appears in a different form as a synonymous distich, Proverbs 23:27. The lxx translate στόμα παρανόμου without certainly indicating which word they here read, whether רע (Proverbs 4:14), or רשׁע (Proverbs 29:12), or נלוז (Proverbs 3:32). Proverbs 23:27 is adduced in support of זרות (vid., Proverbs 2:16); זנות (harlots) are meant, and it is not necessary thus to read with Ewald. The mouth of this strange woman or depraved Israelitess is a deep ditch (שׁוּחה עמקּה, otherwise עמקה, as Proverbs 23:27, where also occurs עמוּקה
(Note: The text to Immanuel's Comment. (Naples 1487) has in both instances עמוּקה.)
namely, a snare-pit into which he is enticed by her wanton words; the man who stands in fellowship with God is armed against this syren voice; but the 'זעוּם ה, i.e., he who is an object of the divine זעם (Venet. κεχολωμένος τῷ ὀντωτῇ), indignation, punishing evil with evil, falls into the pit, yielding to the seduction and the ruin. Schultens explains 'זעום ה by, is in quem despumat indignabundus; but the meaning despumat is not substantiated; זעם, cf. Arab. zaghm, is probably a word which by its sound denoted anger as a hollow roaring, and like pealing thunder. The lxx has, after Proverbs 22:14, three tedious moralizing lines.
The mouth - Her fair and flattering speeches.
*More commentary available at chapter level.