[ 1 minutes to read ]

Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.
– Proverbs 5:5

[F]eet and steps continue the theme of a path or way, which stands for the course of life. These are continually contrasted in this first section of Proverbs. The strange woman presents a companion picture to the way of the evil man warned against earlier (Proverbs 2:12). Death and hell continue the death symbol from the sword in the previous verse. The warning of death is pointed and has two main senses. First, it is hyperbole for a life that is destroyed through adultery. Rarely does adultery end in physical death, but it certainly ends in destroying lives. Second, death in Proverbs is often in consideration of the spiritual and contrasting from the eternal life of wisdom. The strange woman’s is not a good way and the wise will not begin in it.

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