Proverbs 5:8

Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) Remove thy way . . .—The great safeguard in such temptations, as all moralists with one mouth advise, is flight.

Benson Commentary

Proverbs 5:8-14. Come not nigh the door of her house — Lest thine eyes affect thy heart, and her allurements prevail over thee. Lest thou give thine honour — Thy dignity and reputation, the strength and vigour of thy body and mind; unto others — Unto whores, and their base attendants; and thy years — The flower of thine age, and thy precious time, unto the cruel — To the harlot, who, though she pretends love, yet, in truth, is one of the most cruel creatures in the world, wasting thy estate and body, without the least pity, and destroying thy soul for ever. Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth — Not only the strange women themselves, but others who are in league with them; and thy labours — Wealth gotten by thy labours; in the house of a stranger — Of a strange family, whose house and table are furnished with the fruit of thy care and labours. And thou mourn at the last — Bitterly bewail thy madness and misery, when it is too late; when thy flesh and thy body, or even thy body, are consumed — By those manifold diseases which the indulgence of fleshly lusts bring upon the body; And say, How have I hated instruction! — How stupidly foolish have I been in not considering all this sooner! How senselessly bent upon my own ruin! And my heart despised reproof — I am amazed to think how I hated the cautions that were given me to avoid such ways, and the just reproofs I received for inclining to them. And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers — Of my parents, friends, and God’s ministers, who informed me of my danger, and faithfully and seasonably warned me of those mischiefs and miseries in which I am now involved. I was almost in all evil — I gave myself up to follow my lusts, which, in a short time, engaged me in almost every kind of wickedness, from which the reverence of no persons could restrain me, not even a regard to the congregation and assembly of God’s people.

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

Or (with the Septuagint and Vulgate), Lest she should ponder (or "She ponders not") the way of life, her paths move to and fro (unsteady as an earthquake); she knows not. The words describe with a terrible vividness the state of heart and soul which prostitution brings upon its victims; the reckless blindness that will not think, tottering on the abyss, yet loud in its defiant mirth, ignoring the dreadful future.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8, 9. Avoid the slightest temptation.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Lest thine eyes affect thine heart, and her allurements prevail over thee.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Remove thy way far from her,.... The way of the mind, walk, and conversation; keep at the greatest distance from her; neither come where she is, nor look at her, nor converse with her; shun her, as one would the pest or a loathsome carcass; go a good way about rather than come near her, or be within sight of her, or so as to be in any danger of being ensnared by her;

and come not nigh the door of her house; not only not enter her chamber, but go not to her house; no, not over the threshold of the door, nor near the door; but avoid her house, as one would a house that has the plague in it. Men should not go in the way of temptation, trusting to their own strength; they may be entangled and overcome before they are aware; is good to keep out of the way of it. And as it becomes the children of Wisdom to wait at her gates, and at the posts of her door, to gain knowledge and understanding of divine things; so they should not go within the doors of false teachers, nor near them, nor admit them within theirs. It is a complaint against the church at Thyatira, that she suffered the woman Jezebel, the Romish harlot, to teach and seduce the servants of Christ, or connived at their attendance on her, Revelation 2:20.

Geneva Study Bible

Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - Remove thy way far from her. In other words, this is the same as St. Paul counsels, "Flee fornication" (1 Corinthians 6:14). From her (mealeyah; desuper ea). The term conveys the impression that the youth has come within the compass of her temptations, or that in the highest degree he is liable to them. The Hebrew meal, compounded of min and al, and meaning" from upon," being used of persons or things which go away from the place in or upon which they had been. And come not nigh the door of her house; i.e. shun the very place where she dwells. "Be so far from coming into her chamber as not to come near the door of her house" (Patrick). She and her house are to be avoided as if they were infected with some mortal disease. The old proverb quoted by Muffet is applicable -

"He that would no evil do
Must do nothing that 'longeth [i.e. belongeth] thereto." Proverbs 5:8

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In Proverbs 5:8, one must think on such as make a gain of their impurity. מעל, Schultens remarks, with reference to Ezekiel 23:18, crebrum in rescisso omni commercio: מן denotes the departure, and על the nearness, from which one must remove himself to a distance. Regarding הוד gn (Proverbs 5:9), which primarily, like our Pracht (bracht from brechen equals to break) pomp, magnificence, appears to mean fulness of sound, and then fulness of splendour, see under Job 39:20; here there is a reference to the freshness or the bloom of youth, as well as the years, against the sacrifice of which the warning is addressed - in a pregnant sense they are the fairest years, the years of youthful fulness of strength. Along with אחרים the singulare-tantum אכזרי (vid., Jeremiah 50:42) has a collective sense; regarding the root-meaning, vid., under Isaiah 13:9. It is the adj. relat. of אכזר after the form אכזב, which is formed not from אך זר, but from an unknown verb כּזר. The ancients referred it to death and the devil; but the אכזרי belongs to the covetous society, which impels ever anew to sin, which is their profit, him who has once fallen into it, and thus brings bodily ruin upon him; they are the people who stand far aloof from this their sacrifice, and among them are barbarous, rude, inexorably cruel monsters (Unmenschen) (Graecus Venetus, τῷ ἀπανθρώπῳ), who rest not till their victim is laid prostrate on the ground and ruined both bodily and financially.