The following are comments on Proverbs 9:17; some commentators addressed the entire passage, that is why it is pasted in below.
This section is about ‘enticement’ to sin and covers more than just ‘secret’ sins, therefore, it is relevant to all Christians regarding their daily struggle to trust and obey the Lord.
Comments from 7 different commentaries are pasted in below; also, a link to Bible Hub is supplied, for those who would like to explore these verses further or some other verses.
[I copied and pasted from the FREE Bible software, E-sword, but these commentaries are also at Bible Hub. E-sword costs $2.99 at the app store.]
[Some comments were divided into shorter paragraphs for ease of reading.]
The Way of Folly: Proverbs 9:13-18
13 A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing.
14 For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city,
15 To call passengers who go right on their ways:
16 Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: and as for him that wanteth [lacks] understanding, she saith to him,
17 Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.
18 But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell.
From Albert Barnes Notes on the Bible:
The besetting sin of all times and countries, the one great proof of the inherent corruption of man’s nature. Pleasures are attractive because they are forbidden (compare Rom_7:7).
From Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments:
Proverbs 9:16-18
“Whoso is simple” — Which title is not given to them by her; for such a reproach would not have allured them, but driven them away; but by Solomon, who represents the matter of her invitation in his own words, that he might discover the truth of it, and thereby dissuade and deter those whom she invited.
“Stolen waters are sweet” — A proverbial expression for unlawful pleasures, which are said to be sweet, partly from the difficulty of obtaining them, and partly because the very prohibition renders them more agreeable to man’s corrupt nature.
“But he knoweth not” — He doth not consider it seriously, (whereby he proves his folly,) that the dead are there — The dead in sin, the spiritually dead, and those who are in the high road to be eternally dead. In other words, she invites him to his utter ruin, both of soul and body: for her guests are in the depths of hell — She sinks all those who accept of her invitation down to the very bottom of that pit from whence there is no redemption.
“One of the profitable lessons to be learned from this chapter is, that there is nothing more inconsistent with wisdom than the service of those impure lusts which have been the ruin of all those who have been led by them; and therefore with this the wise man concludes his preface to the book of Proverbs, again repeating, Proverbs_9:10, that first principle on which all religion is built, and wherewith he began this preface, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Indeed there is no true wisdom but religion.”
From the MacArthur Bible Commentary:
Proverbs 1:8-9:18
This lengthy section features parental praise of wisdom in the form of didactic addresses. These chapters prepare the reader for the actual proverbs that begin in Pro_10:1 ff.
Proverbs 9:13-18
The feast of folly is described as offered by the foolish hostess. Note the contrast with lady wisdom in verses Pro_9:1-6 and similarities to the immoral woman in Pro_7:6-23.
Proverbs 9:17
Forbidden delights sometimes seem sweeter and more pleasant because of their risk and danger.
From John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible:
Proverbs 9:17
“Stolen waters are sweet,….” Wells and fountains of waters in those hot countries were very valuable, and were the property of particular persons; about which there were sometimes great strife and contention; and they were sometimes sealed and kept from the use of others; see Gen_26:18; now waters got by stealth from such wells and fountains were sweeter than their own, or what might be had in common and without difficulty, to which the proverb alludes.
By which in general is meant, that all prohibited unlawful lusts and pleasures are desirable to men, and sweet in the enjoyment of them; and the pleasure promised by them is what makes them so desirable, and the more so because forbidden: and particularly as adultery, which is a sort of theft (r), and a drinking water out of another’s cistern, Pro_5:15;
[The reference to Proverbs 5:15 is live in E-sword, just have to rest the cursor on it and it pops up, here it is for your convenience: Pro 5:15 Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.]
being forbidden and unlawful, and secretly committed, is sweeter to an unclean person than a lawful enjoyment of his own wife;
so false worship, superstition, and idolatry, the inventions of men, and obedience to their commands, which are no other than spiritual adultery, are more grateful and pleasing to a corrupt mind than the true and pure worship of God;
and bread eaten in secret is pleasant; or, “bread of secret places” (s); hidden bread, as the Targum, Vulgate Latin, and Syriac versions; that which is stolen and is another’s (t), and is taken and hid in secret places, fetched out from thence, or eaten there:
the sweet morsel of sin, rolled in the mouth, and kept under the tongue; secret lusts, private sins, particularly idolatry, to which men are secretly enticed, and which they privately commit, Deu_13:6; the same thing is designed by this clause as the forager.
(r) “Furtiva Verus”, Ovid de Arte Amandi, l. 1. “Furta Jovis, furtiva munuscula”, Catullus ad Mantium, Ep. 66. v. 140, 145. So Propertius, l. 2. eleg. 30. v. 28. γλυκυ τι κλεπτομενον μελημα κυπριδος, Pindar; for which he was indebted to Solomon, according to Clemens of Alexandria, Paedagog. l. 3. p. 252. (s) סתרים “latebraram”, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Michaelis. (t) “Quas habeat veneres aliens pecunia nescis”, Juvenal. Satyr. 13.
From Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible:
Proverbs 9:13-18
We have heard what Christ has to say, to engage our affections to God and godliness, and one would think the whole world should go after him; but here we are told how industrious the tempter is to seduce unwary souls into the paths of sin, and with the most he gains his point, and Wisdom’s courtship is not effectual. Now observe,
Who is the tempter – a foolish woman, Folly herself, in opposition to Wisdom. Carnal sensual pleasure I take to be especially meant by this foolish woman (Pro_9:13); for that is the great enemy to virtue and inlet to vice; that defiles and debauches the mind, stupefies conscience, and puts out the sparks of conviction, more than any thing else.
This tempter is here described to be, 1. Very ignorant: She is simple and knows nothing, that is, she has no sufficient solid reason to offer; where she gets dominion in a soul she works out all the knowledge of holy things; they are lost and forgotten.
Whoredom, and wine, and new wine, take away the heart [Hosea 4:11, see Bible Hub]; they besot men, and make fools of them. (2.) Very importunate. The less she has to offer that is rational the more violent and pressing she is, and carries the day often by dint of impudence.
She is clamorous and noisy (Pro_9:13), continually haunting young people with her enticements. She sits at the door of her house (Pro_9:14), watching for a prey; not as Abraham at his tent-door, seeking an opportunity to do good.
She sits on a seat (on a throne, so the word signifies) in the high places of the city, as if she had authority to give law, and we were all debtors to the flesh, to live after the flesh, and as if she had reputation, and were in honour, and thought worthy of the high places of the city; and perhaps she gains upon many more by pretending to be fashionable than by pretending to be agreeable.
“Do not all persons of rank and figure in the world” (says she) “give themselves a greater liberty than the strict laws of virtue allow; and why shouldst thou humble thyself so far as to be cramped by them?” Thus the tempter affects to seem both kind and great.
- Who are the tempted – young people who have been well educated; these she will triumph most in being the ruin of.
Observe, 1. What their real character is; they are passengers that go right on their ways (Pro_9:15), that have been trained up in the paths of religion and virtue and set out very hopefully and well, that seemed determined and designed for good, and are not (as that young man, Pro_7:8) going the way to her house.
Such as these she has a design upon, and lays snares for, and uses all her arts, all her charms, to pervert them; if they go right on, and will not look towards her, she will call after them, so urgent are these temptations.
(2.) How she represents them. She calls them simple and wanting understanding, and therefore courts them to her school, that they may be cured of the restraints and formalities of their religion. This is the method of the stage (which is too close an exposition of this paragraph), where the sober young man, that has been virtuously educated, is the fool in the play, and the plot is to make him seven times more a child of hell than his profane companions, under colour of polishing and refining him, and setting him up for a wit and a beau. What is justly charged upon sin and impiety (Pro_9:4), that it is folly, is here very unjustly retorted upon the ways of virtue; but the day will declare who are the fools.
III. What the temptation is (Pro_9:17): Stolen waters are sweet.
It is to water and bread, whereas Wisdom invites to the beasts she has killed and the wine she has mingled; however, bread and water are acceptable enough to those that are hungry and thirsty; and this is pretended to be more sweet and pleasant than common, for it is stolen water and bread eaten in secret, with a fear of being discovered.
The pleasures of prohibited lusts are boasted of as more relishing than those of prescribed love; and dishonest gain is preferred to that which is justly gotten. Now this argues, not only a bold contempt, but an impudent defiance, 1. Of God’s law, in that the waters are the sweeter for being stolen and come at by breaking through the hedge of the divine command. Nitimur in vetitum – We are prone to what is forbidden. This spirit of contradiction we have from our first parents, who thought the forbidden tree of all others a tree to be desired.
- Of God’s curse. The bread is eaten in secret, for fear of discovery and punishment, and the sinner takes a pride in having so far baffled his convictions, and triumphed over them, that, notwithstanding that fear, he dares commit the sin, and can make himself believe that, being eaten in secret, it shall never be discovered or reckoned for.
Sweetness and pleasantness constitute the bait; but, by the tempter’s own showing, even that is so absurd, and has such allays, that it is a wonder how it can have any influence upon men that pretend to reason.
- An effectual antidote against the temptation, in a few words, Pro_9:18. He that so far wants understanding as to be drawn aside by these enticements is led on, ignorantly, to his own inevitable ruin: He knows not, will not believe, does not consider, the tempter will not let him know, that the dead are there, that those who live in pleasure are dead while they live, dead in trespasses and sins.
Terrors attend these pleasures like the terrors of death itself. The giants are there – Rephaim. It was this that ruined the sinners of the old world, the giants that were in the earth in those days. Her guests, that are treated with those stolen waters, are not only in the highway to hell and at the brink of it, but they are already in the depths of hell, under the power of sin, led captive by Satan at his will, and ever and anon lashed by the terrors of their own consciences, which are a hell upon earth The depths of Satan are the depths of hell.
Remorseless sin is remediless ruin; it is the bottomless pit already. Thus does Solomon show the hook; those that believe him will not meddle with the bait.
From the Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary:
Pro_9:13. A foolish woman, rather, “the woman of folly,” an exact opposition of the personified wisdom of the former part of the chapter. Clamorous, “violently excited” (Zöckler).
Pro_9:17. Folly shows her skill in seduction by holding out, in promise, the secret enjoyment of forbidden sweets. Alas! since the entrance of sin into the world, there has been among mankind a sadly strong and perverse propensity to aught that is forbidden, to taste what is laid under an interdict [prohibition]. The very interdiction draws towards it the wistful desires, and looks, and longings of the perverse and rebellious heart.—Wardlaw.
The power of sin lies in its pleasure. If stolen waters were not sweet, none would steal the waters. This is part of the mystery in which our being is involved by the fall. It is one of the most fearful features of the case.
Our appetite is diseased.… Oh, for the new tastes of a new nature! “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness.” When a soul has tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious, the foolish woman beckons you toward her stolen waters, and praises their sweetness in vain. The new appetite drives out the old.—Arnot.
Many eat that on earth that they digest in hell.—Trapp.
Indirect ways best please flesh and blood. “Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence” (Rom_7:8). We take this from our first parents, a greedy desire to eat of the forbidden fruit. All the other trees in the garden, although the fruit were as good, would not satisfy them.… Such is the corruption of our nature, that we like best what God likes worst.—Francis Taylor.
Lastly,
From Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge:
[This commentary only provides cross-references for a verse under consideration, from other places in the Bible; thereby, it gives clarity and increases understanding. I only pasted in a few of the verses it listed.]
For ‘stolen:’
Gen 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
Rom 7:8 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.
Jas 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. 15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
‘Bread eaten in secret:’
Pro 7:18 Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves. 19 For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey: 20 He hath taken a bag of money with him, and will come home at the day appointed.
Pro 30:20 Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.
2Kings 5:24 And when he came to the tower, he took them from their hand, and bestowed them in the house: and he let the men go, and they departed. 25 But he went in, and stood before his master. And Elisha said unto him, Whence comest thou, Gehazi? And he said, Thy servant went no whither.
26 And he said unto him, Went not mine heart with thee, when the man turned again from his chariot to meet thee? Is it a time to receive money, and to receive garments, and oliveyards, and vineyards, and sheep, and oxen, and menservants, and maidservants?
27 The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever. And he went out from his presence a leper as white as snow.
[The following link is to Bible Hub, Proverbs 9:17 where there are about 15 more commentaries to explore for those who would do so. https://biblehub.com/commentaries/proverbs/9-17.htm
Some of the commentaries are opened, the others are directly under the large words ‘Proverbs 17’ at the top of the page. ]