The Expositor's Bible: The Book of ProverbsHorton, Robert F. (Robert Forman)
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Proverbs
Horton, Robert F. (Robert Forman)
Bible. Proverbs -- Commentaries
And now comes the brief closing picture of Folly, to which again the
LXX. give a short addition. Folly is loud, empty-headed as her
victims, whom she invites to herself, not as Wisdom invites them, to
leave off their simplicity, but rather as like to like, that their
ignorance may be confirmed into vice, and their simplicity into
brutishness. She has had the effrontery to build her house in the most
prominent and lofty place of the city, where by good rights only
Wisdom should dwell. Her allurements are specially directed to those
who seem to be going right on in their wholesome ways, as if she found
her chief delight, not in gratifying the vicious, but in making
vicious the innocent. Her charms are poor and tawdry enough; seen in
the broad sunlight, and with the wholesome air all round her, she
would be revolting to every uncorrupted nature; her clamorous voice
would sound strident, and her shameless brow would create a blush of
shame in others; she naturally therefore seeks to throw a veil over
herself and a glamour over her proposals; she suggests that secrecy
and illicitness will lend a charm to what in itself is a sorry
delight. It is clandestine, therefore it is to be sweet; it is
forbidden, therefore it is to be pleasant. Could anything be more
sophistical? That which owes its attraction to the shadows of the
night must obviously be intrinsically unattractive. It is an argument
fit only for the shades of the lost, and not for those who breathe the
sweet air and behold the sun. Her house is indeed haunted with ghosts,
and when a man enters her portal he already has his foot in hell. Well
may the LXX. add the vehement warning, "Spring away from her clutches;
do not linger in the place; let her not have thy name, for thou wilt
traverse another's waters; from another's waters hold aloof, from
another's fountains do not drink, in order that thou mayest live long,
and add to thy years of life."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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