More recently, my friend and I have been studying one chapter of Proverbs every night. More of a difficult book to “study” per se, but nice to read the wisdom and compare it to other Scriptures.
As we were reading, I got to thinking about how God loves to use metaphors in Proverbs for us to better understand something. Better yet? I ran into a metaphor inside a metaphor. Check this out:
Proverbs 5:14-20
15 Drink water from your own cistern,
running water from your own well.
16 Should your springs overflow in the streets,
your streams of water in the public squares?
17 Let them be yours alone,
never to be shared with strangers.
18 May your fountain be blessed,
and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
19 A loving doe, a graceful deer—
may her breasts satisfy you always,
may you ever be captivated by her love.
20 Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress?
Why embrace the bosom of another man's wife?
Often, commentaries will discuss that this is a passage of Scripture convincing the son that he needs to refrain from sexual immorality and adultery. And how true!
Here lies the first metaphor “Drink from your own cistern, running water from your own well.”
Water is necessary and the source of life. But in Scriptural times, getting your water was a difficult thing. You had to walk all the way to your family’s well (possibly the village you lived in) to retrieve your water. Then you had to pull it up and then carry it all the way back home. Often you would go early in the morning, before the day began. You had to be determined and devoted to working hard for your water every morning.
Now what if you weren’t determined or devoted? You just decided, “Oh today I’m not going to get water or work for it. I’ll go see if my neighbor next door has water later today, or maybe I’ll go to that closer well in the town of Samaria, even though we don’t go there because they are not our people.”
Now compare this to your sexual purity and devotion to your spouse. Everyday you live with your spouse. Everyday you have to work hard to keep that relationship growing – whether it be in communication, love, sex, and family. You can’t just wake up in the morning and say “I don’t have the time or effort to love my spouse today. I need a day off.” You can’t wake up and say, “I’m bored with my spouse today, so I’ll just go try another person to excite me.” No! You must be devoted to that water. You must not drink from another’s cistern. As the Proverb continues on – “May you ever be captivated by her love.”
EVER. always. CAPTIVATED. in awe. LOVE. commitment.
So I’m hoping you understand this metaphor, right?
Because, I believe there’s ANOTHER metaphor in this passage.
If you look at the first nine chapters of Proverbs, Solomon is continually reminding the son that he needs to stay focused on wisdom, on the knowledge of God, and to pay attention to instruction. He reminds the son never to turn away and follow the evil-doers. He says that Wisdom is best, and to never forsake HER. He instructs not to follow Deceit and her adulterous ways. So Solomon has been quietly working in another metaphor. (After the first 9 chapters, Solomon just gives little 1 sentence proverbs. I like to call these text proverbs because they’re usually 140 characters or less. :) hehe)
Chapters 1-9 are about wisdom and folly. We don’t even get to “avoid adultery” until Chapter 7. So why would Solomon throw the previous passage (Proverbs 5:15-20) right in the midst of discussing wisdom and evil? Why would he throw in Chapter 7 and choose “adultery” as the one sin to focus on?
It’s another metaphor.
We in our sinful nature have a choice to make everyday to “drink of our own cistern”. To follow God and God alone. To understand and seek His righteous ways and to put no other gods before us. It’s almost as if Solomon is saying “You can’t devote your time, love, energy, and life into another god or idol in your life…I want you to devote everything to your FIRST love. Your only Love.”
For the first nine chapters, there’s almost this insinuation that if we are not focusing and following God’s wisdom and yearning for His knowledge – we are just as sinful as one committing adultery. We follow sinful ways, we seek evil, and we may even do think things in our hearts that push God to the side. We put our love and passion toward other “lovers” and not God alone.
The point stands that this passage does use a water metaphor to say-- “Do not commit adultery. Be warned about adultery.”
But what do I see? A beautiful metaphor of marital faithfulness saying, “You are my love. I want you and you alone. You don’t even deserve my love, and yet I love you more than money, drugs, sex, television, and games could ever satisfy. Love Me only. For I am a jealous God.” (Deuteronomy 4:23-24)
“And may you ever be captivated by His love.”
EVER. always. CAPTIVATED. in awe. LOVE. commitment.
