Proverbs 5:11

And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(11) When thy flesh and thy body are consumed.—Ruin of health has followed ruin of property.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:1-14 Solomon cautions all young men, as his children, to abstain from fleshly lusts. Some, by the adulterous woman, here understand idolatry, false doctrine, which tends to lead astray men's minds and manners; but the direct view is to warn against seventh-commandment sins. Often these have been, and still are, Satan's method of drawing men from the worship of God into false religion. Consider how fatal the consequences; how bitter the fruit! Take it any way, it wounds. It leads to the torments of hell. The direct tendency of this sin is to the destruction of body and soul. We must carefully avoid every thing which may be a step towards it. Those who would be kept from harm, must keep out of harm's way. If we thrust ourselves into temptation we mock God when we pray, Lead us not into temptation. How many mischiefs attend this sin! It blasts the reputation; it wastes time; it ruins the estate; it is destructive to health; it will fill the mind with horror. Though thou art merry now, yet sooner or later it will bring sorrow. The convinced sinner reproaches himself, and makes no excuse for his folly. By the frequent acts of sin, the habits of it become rooted and confirmed. By a miracle of mercy true repentance may prevent the dreadful consequences of such sins; but this is not often; far more die as they have lived. What can express the case of the self-ruined sinner in the eternal world, enduring the remorse of his conscience!

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Yet one more curse is attendant on impurity. Then, as now, disease was the penalty of this sin.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

11. at the last—the end, or reward (compare Pr 5:4).

mourn—roar in pain.

flesh and … body—the whole person under incurable disease.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Thou mourn at the last; bitterly bewail thy own madness and misery when it is too late.

Thy flesh and thy body; thy flesh, even thy body; the particle and being put expositively.

Consumed by those manifold diseases which filthy and inordinate lusts bring upon the body, of which physicians give a very large and sad catalogue, and the bodies of many adulterers give full proof.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And thou mourn at the last,.... Or roar as a lion, as the word (s) signifies; see Proverbs 19:12; expressing great distress of mind, horror of conscience, and vehement lamentations; and yet not having and exercising true repentance, but declaring a worldly sorrow, which worketh death. This mourning is too late, and not so much on account of the evil of sin as the evil that comes by it; it is when the man could have no pleasure from it and in it; when he has not only lost his substance by it, but his health also, the loss of both which must be very distressing: it is at the end of life, in his last days; in his old age, as the Syriac version, when he can no longer pursue his unclean practices;

when thy flesh and thy body are consumed; either in the time of old age and through it, as Gersom; or rather by diseases which the sin of uncleanness brings upon persons, which affixes the several parts of it; the brain, the blood, the liver, the back, and loins, and reins; and even all the parts of it, expressed by flesh and body. This may express the great tribulation such shall be cast into that commit adultery with the Romish Jezebel, Revelation 2:22.

(s) "rugies", Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Baynus, Gejerus, Amama, Michaelis.

Geneva Study Bible

And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11–14. The pangs of remorse and the upbraidings of conscience form the terrible climax to the loss of honour and health and substance.

“ ‘Going down to the chambers of death,’ wise too late, the victim of his own sins remembers with unspeakable agony the voice of his teachers, the efforts of those who wished to instruct him.”—Horton.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 11. - The last argument is the mental anguish which ensues when health is ruined and wealth is squandered. And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed. The Hebrew v'nahamta is rather "and thou groan." It is not the plaintive wailing or the subdued grief of heart which is signified, but the loud wail of lamentation, the groaning indicative of intense mental suffering called forth by the remembrance of past folly, and which sees no remedy in the future. The verb naham occurs again in Proverbs 28:15, where it is used of the roaring of the lion, and the cognate noun naham is met with in Proverbs 19:12 and Proverbs 20:2 in the same sense. By Ezekiel it is used of the groaning of the people of Jerusalem when they shall see their sanctuary profaned, their sons and their daughters fall by the sword, and their city destroyed (Ezekiel 24:23). Isaiah (Isaiah 5:29, 30) applies it to the roaring of the sea. The Vulgate reproduces the idea in gemas, equivalent to "and thou groan." The LXX. rendering, καὶ μεταμεληθήσῃ, "and thou shelf repent," arising from the adoption of a different pointing, nikhamta, from the niph. nikham, "to repent," for nahamta, to some extent expresses the sense. At the last; literally, at thine end; i.e. when thou art ruined, or, as the teacher explains, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed. The expression, "thy flesh and thy body," here stands for the whole body, the body in its totality, not the body and the soul, which would be different. Of these two words "the flesh" (basar) rather denotes the flesh in its strict sense as such (cf. Job 31:31; Job 33:21), while "body" (sh'er) is the flesh adhering to the bones. Gesenlus regards them as synonymous terms, stating, however, that sh'er is the more poetical as to use. The word basar is used to denote the whole body in ch. 14:30. It is clear that, by the use of these two terms here, the teacher is following a peculiarity observable elsewhere in the Proverbs, of combining two terms to express, and so to give force to, one idea. The expression describes "the utter destruction of the libertine" (Umbreit). This destruction, as further involving the ruin of the soul, is described in ch. 6:32, "Whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding; he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul (nephesh)" (cf. Proverbs 7:22, 23). Proverbs 5:11

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The fut. ישׂבּעוּ and the יהיוּ needed to complete 10b are continued in Proverbs 5:11 in the consec. perf. נהם, elsewhere of the hollow roaring of the sea, Isaiah 5:30, the growling of the lion, Proverbs 28:15, here, as also Ezekiel 24:23, of the hollow groaning of men; a word which echoes the natural sound, like הוּם, המה. The lxx, with the versions derived from it, has καὶ μεταμεληθήσῃ, i.e., ונחמתּ (the Niph. נחם, to experience the sorrow of repentance, also an echo-word which imitates the sound of deep breathing) - a happy quid pro quo, as if one interchanged the Arab. naham, fremere, anhelare, and nadam, poenitere. That wherein the end consists to which the deluded youth is brought, and the sorrowful sound of despair extorted from him, is stated in 11b: his flesh is consumed away, for sensuality and vexation have worked together to undermine his health. The author here connects together two synonyms to strengthen the conception, as if one said: All thy tears and thy weeping help thee nothing (Fl.); he loves this heaping together of synonyms, as we have shown at p. 33. When the blood-relation of any one is called שׁאר בּשׂרו, Leviticus 18:6; Leviticus 25:49, these two synonyms show themselves in subordination, as here in close relation. שׁאר appears to be closely connected with שׁרירים, muscles and sinews, and with שׁר, the umbilical cord, and thus to denote the flesh with respect to its muscular nature adhering to the bones (Micah 3:2), as בּשׂר denotes it with respect to its tangible outside clothed with skin (vid., under Isaiah, p. 418).