Proverbs 7:13

So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:6-27 Here is an affecting example of the danger of youthful lusts. It is a history or a parable of the most instructive kind. Will any one dare to venture on temptations that lead to impurity, after Solomon has set before his eyes in so lively and plain a manner, the danger of even going near them? Then is he as the man who would dance on the edge of a lofty rock, when he has just seen another fall headlong from the same place. The misery of self-ruined sinners began in disregard to God's blessed commands. We ought daily to pray that we may be kept from running into temptation, else we invite the enemies of our souls to spread snares for us. Ever avoid the neighbourhood of vice. Beware of sins which are said to be pleasant sins. They are the more dangerous, because they most easily gain the heart, and close it against repentance. Do nothing till thou hast well considered the end of it. Were a man to live as long as Methuselah, and to spend all his days in the highest delights sin can offer, one hour of the anguish and tribulation that must follow, would far outweigh them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Loud and stubborn - Both words describe the half-animal signs of a vicious nature. Compare Hosea 4:16.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13-15. The preparations for a feast do not necessarily imply peculiar religious professions. The offerer retained part of the victim for a feast (Le 3:9, &c.). This feast she professes was prepared for him whom she boldly addresses as one sought specially to partake of it.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

So she caught him, and kissed him,.... The young man that went near her corner where she was plying, or in the way to her house, where she was sitting, or standing, waiting and watching for such an opportunity, for such a person, as a prey to fasten on; and no sooner she saw him, and come up to him, but, without any ceremony or address, she laid hold upon him, as the word (l) signifies, threw her arms about his neck, and embraced him in them; and, what is unusual for women to do, kissed him, in order to stir up wanton affections and impure desires in him;

and with an impudent face; or, "and she strengthened her face" (m); rubbed her forehead, put on a brasen face, a whore's front; see Jeremiah 3:3. And

said unto him; accosted him in the following manner, without shame or blushing.

(l) "apprehendit eum", Pagninus, Mercerus, Gejerus, Michaelis, Schultens. (m) "et roboravit facies suas", Montanus; "vultumque suum obfirmavit", Schultens, so Michaelis; "obfirmabat", Cocceius.

Geneva Study Bible

So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him,

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. with an impudent face] An excellent translation (Lit. she strengthened, or hardened her face, and said, A.V. and R.V. marg.), following the LXX. ἀναιδεῖ προσώπῳ, and the Vulg. procaci vultu.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - So she caught him and kissed him; being utterly lost to shame, like Potiphar's wife (Genesis 39:12). With an impudent face said; literally, strengthened her face and said; put on a bold and brazen look to suit, the licentious words which she spoke. Wordsworth quotes the delineation of the "strange woman" drawn by St. Ambrose ('De Cain. et Abel.,' 1:4): "Domi inquieta, in plateis vaga, osculis prodiga, pudore villis, amictu dives, genas picta; meretricio procax motu, infracto per delicias incessu, nutantibus oculis, et ludentibus jaculans palpebris retia, quibus pretiosas animus juveuum capit." Proverbs 7:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

After this digression the poet returns to the subject, and further describes the event as observed by himself.

And she laid hold on him and kissed him;

Put on a bold brow and said to him.

The verb נשׁק is here, after its primary signification, connected with the dat.: osculum fixit ei. Thus also Genesis 27:26 is construed, and the Dagesh in לּו is, as there, Dag. forte conj., after the law for which the national grammarians have coined the technical name אתי מרחיק (veniens e longinquo, "coming out of the distance," i.e., the attraction of a word following by one accented on the penult.). The penult.-accenting of נשׁקה is the consequence of the retrogression of the accent (נסוג אחור), which, here where the word from the first had the penult, only with Metheg, and thus with a half a tone, brings with it the dageshing of the לו following, as the original penultima-accenting of והחזיקה does of the בו which follows it, for the reading בּו by Lwenstein is contrary to the laws of punctuation of the Textus receptus under consideration here.

(Note: Vid., Baer's Torath Emeth, p. 29f., and Psalmen-Commentar under Psalm 52:5.)

As בו and לו have received the doubling Dagesh, so on the other hand, according to Ewald, 193b, it has disappeared from העזה (written with Raphe according to Kimchi, Michlol 145a). And as נשׁקה has the tone thrown back, so the proper pausal ותּאמר is accented on the ult., but without attracting the לו following by dageshing, which is the case only when the first of the two words terminates in the sound of ā (āh). העז פניו is said of one who shows firmness of hardness of countenance (Arab. slabt alwajh), i.e., one who shows shamelessness, or, as we say, an iron forehead (Fl.).