Proverbs 9:17
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Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.
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Reader! You have a choice - a sober choice with consequences. You can run to Lady Wisdom and enjoy her truly satisfying feast of meat, wine, and bread (9:1-5), or you can fall for lies of a foolish whore, who offers only stolen waters and risky bread (9:13-18).
Satan lied about sin in Eden. He told Eve she would not die and the forbidden fruit would make her as God. As she fatally looked at the tree, forgetting the most precious tree of life, she saw it as good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and to be desired to make one wise. She bought the lie! Her choice was horrible! The taste was bitter in seconds!
Sin is so perverse that if God had forbidden sex with wives, marriages would be glorious relationships of romantic love and intimacy! If something is put off-limits to the natural man, a sinful craving for that thing becomes a cruel monster that demands satisfaction.
Our context is the strange woman and her seduction and destruction of men (9:13-18). It is a simple and foolish man that believes her brazen lie (9:16; 30:20), so it is our privilege and duty to learn wisdom here, to save us from the certain hell and death of sexual sins.
The wise man taught his son to drink sexual waters from his own cistern - his own wife (5:1-23). See the comments on 5:15. He uses waters and bread as metaphors for sexual pleasure. He also describes deceit as bread, which turns to gravel in one's mouth (20:17).
Strange women generally do not say these words directly, but they imply them through their seductive wiles, and the lusts of the flesh and eyes say them as well to foolish men. In our nation, we have a proverb, "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." In these words we describe the discontentment of human nature and the fascination with forbidden things. This proverb does the same. The adulteress wickedly offers new and tempting sexual pleasures that will exceed any marital reality (7:10-21).
Sin has a thrill - especially for youth - that seduces them. But the aftertaste is never considered. The bitterness of the morsel in their belly is not measured. The folly of their inexperience blinds them to the future. Obsession with wine finds it pleasant initially, but its aftertaste is horrible (23:31-32)! So we have these words to warn us against sin's lie.
Hollywood never glamorizes marital sex. Never! That would be totally contrary to its master, its mission, the lusts of the flesh, and public appetite. Satan has Hollywood and America committed to the lie of this proverb - fornication, adultery, and sodomy are pleasures to be enjoyed without fear. Stolen waters are sweet! Secret bread is pleasant!
Because of this lie, the adulteress always has the advantage over the faithful wife. The sinful fantasy of the forbidden unknown creates a curious craving that wrecks the souls and lives of men. The strange woman always looks better, speaks better, kisses better, and makes love better ... until it is too late (7:10-27)! It is an illusion! It is the creation of Satan and a depraved heart! If she has this lying advantage, stay far away from her!
Ah, dear reader, see the lie! The grass only looks greener from this side of the fence. Once you enter the forbidden field, you find it no better than your own, but now you have committed a horrible crime that cannot be undone (6:20-35). Sin lies! Hell and death are waiting! Any pleasure in sin is momentary (Heb 11:25)! And it never equals the coming pain! The sweet waters and pleasant bread become bitter and painful in your belly!
What does wisdom teach? It chooses contentment with its own cistern and well - your wife and her love and breasts (5:15-20). Wise men choose and learn to be content (Phil 4:11), and they promote their marriages as a protective blessing (I Cor 7:1-5; Col 3:19).
It avoids fences and other grass - any unnecessary exposure to other women, for it knows God rightly placed the fence (Ex 20:17; Matt 5:27-30; Rom 13:14). With television and other media constantly singing the lie of this proverb, they must be strictly avoided.
Wisdom knows sin lies about its goodness (Ps 36:2), sexual sin has fatal consequences (2:18-19; 5:3-14; 7:27; 9:18), no sin is truly secret (II Sam 11:27; Luke 12:2; Heb 4:14), and to fear the God who enforces all sexual fences (5:21). See the comments on 5:21.
Don't ever think sin might be pleasant or better than God's holy word. Amnon craved his sweet sister, but the aftertaste of rape was horrible and deadly. Eli thought family dinners with his sons were pleasant, but his lack of discipline wiped out his family tree. Gehazi relished his money and garments for only a few moments (II Kings 5:20-27).
Satan told Judas that thirty pieces of silver was nice compensation and Jesus could deliver Himself from the Jews, but the aftertaste of his crime was so bitter that he returned the money and committed suicide in morbid guilt. Satan never told him this part of the deal! And he never tells young men the horrible consequences of sexual sin!
Christian woman, do not think you escape our proverb. It applies both ways in sexual sins, and it covers those temptations delicious to you - irreverence and defrauding in your marriage, whispering, pampering children, immodest apparel, and self-righteous pride.
Godliness with contentment is great gain (I Tim 6:6), and it certainly applies to marriage. Let the Lord Jesus Christ be the sweet and pleasant object for our souls more than anyone, or anything, else in heaven or earth (Ps 73:25-26; Heb 13:5). Love your wives!
Sin lies. Sexual sins lie more than most. Young fools buy the lie that sexual sins are specially sweet and pleasant. The prohibition of sin adds to its luster, and the risk of discovery enhances the act. Wicked women and our society present sexual sins as very pleasant things with few consequences. But death and hell are the horrible results (9:18).
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