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Proverbs 5:15-17
He shifts to a water-and-well picture to frame sexual faithfulness as private, guarded, and belonging within one home.
Meaning in context
He shifts to a water-and-well picture to frame sexual faithfulness as private, guarded, and belonging within one home.
Section 4 of 6
A picture of faithful intimacy
He shifts to a water-and-well picture to frame sexual faithfulness as private, guarded, and belonging within one home.
Movement
Wisdom at the gate and table
Artifact
Wisdom for ordinary life
Biblical Timeline
Kingdom
Proverbs context: 1000 BC - 586 BC
Biblical Timeline
Kingdom
Proverbs context
Kingdom / 1000 BC - 586 BC
Proverbs context is set in the kingdom period, where Israel's monarchy from David and Solomon to exile.
Scripture Text
Thesis
He shifts to a water-and-well picture to frame sexual faithfulness as private, guarded, and belonging within one home.
Verse by Verse
A private, rightful source The listener is told to “drink water” from “your own cistern” and “your own well.” The picture emphasizes legitimate access and personal responsibility: what satisfies desire should come from what is properly yours, not from someone else’s supply.
A rhetorical push against public overflow The teacher asks whether “springs” should overflow “in the streets” and whether “streams” should run “in the public squares.” The question presses the listener to see how misplaced intimacy becomes exposed, uncontrolled, and shared beyond its proper setting.
Exclusivity stated plainly The conclusion commands that these waters “be for yourself alone” and explicitly denies sharing them “for strangers with you” (strangers). The image clarifies the intended boundary: intimacy is meant to be exclusive rather than mixed with outsiders.
Literary Context
These lines sit inside a longer warning against being drawn into an illicit relationship and then paying for it with loss, shame, and regret (the surrounding section speaks in vivid, bodily and economic images). The teacher does not only prohibit; he redirects desire toward a positive alternative: delight in what is rightly yours rather than chasing what will drain you. The water imagery works as an extended picture: a protected supply meant for the household, not an uncontrolled flow into public spaces. This unit continues the appeal that wisdom protects life in ordinary, embodied choices.
Historical Context
In an ancient Israel setting, water was precious and managed carefully. A cistern stored collected water; a well accessed a dependable source; both were tied to household survival and property. To “drink from your own” naturally suggests legitimate use and protected boundaries, while public streets and squares suggest exposure and loss of control. The social world assumed strong expectations about family stability, inheritance, and community reputation, so sexual behavior was not treated as purely private. Against that background, the passage uses everyday water-management imagery to commend exclusivity and restraint in intimate life.
Theological Significance
Questions
Keep Studying
These lines use everyday water imagery—cistern, well, springs, streams—to portray desire being satisfied from a protected, rightful source (v.15). The rhetorical question about water spilling into streets and public squares assumes the answer “no” (v.16). The closing line states the point in plain terms: what is pictured by these “waters” is meant to be exclusive (“for yourself alone”) and not shared with “strangers” (strangers) who are “with you” (v.17).
In the wider flow of Proverbs 5, this picture functions as a positive alternative within a warning against illicit intimacy. The text’s explicit claims are about exclusivity, boundaries, and not letting what should be protected become publicly spread.
Some readers take the water picture as a direct metaphor for sexual intimacy within marriage. Others think it can include broader household goods—one’s resources, family stability, or the “fruit” of one’s life—while still fitting the chapter’s sexual warning.
Another difference concerns v.16: “overflow in the streets” may be read mainly as promiscuity (sharing intimacy widely), or as the wider consequences of illicit sex becoming public—loss of privacy, reputation damage, and social fallout.
A smaller question is how to hear “for yourself alone” (v.17). Many understand it as spouse-exclusive access. Others stress that the phrase is about excluding outsiders (“strangers”), not denying that marriage has shared outcomes (like children), since the focus of the line is who is not included.
Why the disagreement exists The passage speaks through an extended picture rather than naming sex directly in these three verses. That leaves room for debate about how tightly each detail maps onto sexuality versus the spillover effects on one’s household and public life.
What this passage clearly contributes These verses add a clear wisdom theme: desire is meant to be satisfied within protected boundaries rather than dispersed into public, uncontrolled space. Explicitly, the teacher calls for an exclusive “yours” and denies sharing it with outsiders (vv.15, 17), using the “street/public squares” contrast to underline how misdirected intimacy becomes exposed and spread (v.16).
strangers (lə·zā·rîm)