Proverbs 5:3-4 (ESV)
For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey,
and her speech is smoother than oil,
but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a two-edged sword.
..."
In the Book of Proverbs Solomon uses the picture of an adulterous as an actual woman enticing young men to sin sexually and as a metaphor for folly or foolish living. In the above proverb you see the former and understand the application to the later. No adulterous uses foolish speech to warn her victim of what is their most certain death. No, she uses enticing words; words that drip like honey off the lip. But the end is bitter and cuts through a life and family like a sword. Satan’s bait in our lives is the same. He drips honey in front of us only to stab us with the sharp knife he holds behind his back.
The book of Proverbs is about the contrast between Wisdom and Folly. The first nine chapters are more pronounced in that message. Often, Wisdom and Folly are personified as a woman. In chapter 8 we will read of wisdom as a woman on the street soliciting passer-bys to turn to her. In chapter 7 we will read of folly as a prostitute doing the same thing on the corner of the street. In chapter five we see a similar graphic description of folly. In the above two proverbs we see the contrast between a person of wisdom, whose "lips" hold onto knowledge and the "lips" of the foolish women (again, an adulterous) who rather than "ponder" her path finds an "unstable" road and doesn't even know it. Those who fail to ponder will fail to even know they are in unstable areas. Wisdom (that which flows from God and is found in Christ ... 1 Corinthians 1:30) is available to those who wish to hold it or "reserve" it (verse 3). But to those who reject it (reject God and Christ ... Psalm 14:1) also reject safety and security. God will lead those who seek wisdom with discretion and clarity (see Proverbs 5:1-2). But reject it and instability and chaos takes over. Those who seek wisdom are warned to avoid this women of the street (folly) and turn to and trust God to supply their needs. Folly will pretend to supply what we want but only God via wisdom found in Christ can really provide stability and peace. Seek wisdom and avoid folly is the message of proverbs. When we meet folly we have to remember that her speech is like precious oil and fine wine. We might like the taste of folly but in the end it is like eating a wormwood, a sharp two-edged sword. The wormwood plant was known to be bitter and poisonous (see below). Therefore, Solomon is telling us that taking part with folly is like thinking you are having a dinner full of honey and oil, only to be later found dying from a meal laced with poison.
Wormwood: Proverbs 5:3-4 (ESV)
For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey,
and her speech is smoother than oil,
but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a two-edged sword.
..."
In the Book of Proverbs Solomon uses the picture of an adulterous as an actual woman enticing young men to sin sexually and as a metaphor for folly or foolish living. In the above proverb you see the former and understand the application to the later. No adulterous uses foolish speech to warn her victim of what is their most certain death. No, she uses enticing words; words that drip like honey off the lip. But the end is bitter and cuts through a life and family like a sword. Satan’s bait in our lives is the same. He drips honey in front of us only to stab us with the sharp knife he holds behind his back.
Wormwood (Pulpit Commentary)
Bitter as wormwood. The Hebrew, laanah, "wormwood," Gesenius derives from the unused root laan, "to curse." It is the equivalent to the absinthium of the Vulgate. So Aquila, who has ἀψίνθιον. The LXX. improperly renders χολή, "gall." In other places the word laanah is used as the emblem of bitterness, with the superadded idea of its being poisonous, also according to the Hebrew notion, shared in also by the Greeks, that the plant combined these two qualities. Thus in Deuteronomy 29:18 it is associated with rosh, "a poisonful herb" (margin), and the Targum terms it, agreeably with this notion, "deadly wormwood." The same belief is reproduced in Revelation 8:11, "And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter" (cf. Jeremiah 9:15; Amos 5:7: 6:12). The apostle, no doubt, has it in mind when he speaks of any "root of bitterness," in Hebrews 12:15. The herb is thus described by Umbreit: "It is a plant toward two feet high, belonging to the genus Artemisia (species Artemisia absinthium), which produces a very firm stalk with many branches, grayish leaves, and small, almost round, pendent blossoms. It has a bitter and saline taste, and seems to have been regarded in the East as also a poison, of which the frequent combination with rosh gives an intimation." Terence has a strikingly similar passage to the one before us
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