The commentaries in this post clarify the meaning of yielding to Lady Folly in your own daily providences from God. It is good to know as much as possible about what it means to give in to temptation so that it stands out to you when it is happening. Thereafter, you might pray on the matter, develop strategies to fight against it….
The following foundational command of Jesus regarding the true Christian walk is the exact opposite of following Lady Folly: to follow her, you are seeking gratification of the ‘self;’ Jesus said: Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Self-gratification is on the opposite extreme of self-indulgence. [See the end of this post for more scripture references on Matthew 16:24.]
THE FOLLOWING SCRIPTURE REFERENCES ARE ABOUT PROVERBS 9:17 ONLY:
Proverbs 9:17 “Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”
Stolen:
James 1:14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
[All the following verses describe some aspect of the above statement beginning with ‘when;’ a few references have been pasted in for your convenience.]
when: Jas_4:1-2; Gen_6:5, Gen_8:21; Jos_7:21-24; 2Sa_11:2-3; 1Ki_21:2-4; Job_31:9; Job_31:27; Pro_4:23; Isa_44:20; Hos_13:9; Mat_5:28, Mat_15:18, Mat_15:20; Mar_7:21; Mar_7:22; Rom_7:11, Rom_7:13; Eph_4:22; Heb_3:13 [from Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, TSK, a Bible commentary that uses references to explain texts]
Genesis 6:5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Jos 7:20 And Achan answered Joshua, “Truly I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and this is what I did:
Joshua 7:21 when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and took them. And see, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”
1Kings 21:2 And after this Ahab said to Naboth, “Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house, and I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money.” 4 And Ahab went into his house vexed and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him, for he had said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” And he lay down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no food.
Proverbs 4:23 Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
Matthew 5:28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Ephsians 4:22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,
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 [see Hosea 4 and 5]; 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 [trendy] 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.
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. 2. 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 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, Pro_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.”
REFERENCES FROM TSK ON MATTHEW 16:24
… “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
If: Mat_10:38; Mar_8:34, Mar_10:21; Luk_9:23-27, Luk_14:27; Act_14:22; Col_1:24; 1Th_3:3; 2Ti_3:12; Heb_11:24-26
and take: Mat_27:32; Mar_15:21; Luk_23:26; Joh_19:17; 1Pe_4:1-2