Proverbs 7:27

Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.

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

The house of the harlot is now likened to a field of battle strewn with the corpses of the many slain.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

26, 27. Even the mightiest fail to resist her deathly allurements.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

To hell; or; to the grave; for the word is used in both senses; and this sense seems better to agree both with the foregoing and following words. Although, without repentance, hell will certainly be their portion, and their first death will be followed by the second.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Her house is the way to hell,.... Or "ways" (p); the broad highway to it; either to the grave, as "sheol" often signifies; or to hell itself, the place of the damned: to go into her house, and commit wickedness with her, is to take a step to destruction, a large stride towards hell; and, if grace prevent not, will bring a man thither. Who would go into such a house, and much less dwell there, which is the very suburbs of hell?

going down to the chambers of death; to enter her chamber, to step into her bed, howsoever decked and adorned, entertaining and inviting it is, not only leads to the chambers of the grave, as the Targum; but to the lowest and innermost parts of hell; the apartments of the second death, the lot of all unclean and idolatrous persons, without repentance and faith. The Phoenicians called Pluto, the god of hell, by the name of Moth (q), a word similar to this used here; and so those chambers are no other than the chambers of hell. Plautus (r) also calls the gate of a whore's house the gate of hell; which agrees with the first clause of the verse.

(p) "viae", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, &c. (q) Sanchoniatho apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 1. p. 38. (r) "Januam hane orci", Bacchides, Acts 3. Sc. 1. v. 1.

Geneva Study Bible

Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

27. the way] Lit. the ways. The plural may perhaps be used here, and in the similar phrase, the ways of death (Proverbs 14:12, Proverbs 16:25), to denote that however the paths may differ, the end is the same.

hell] Heb. Sheol. See Proverbs 5:5, note, and comp. Proverbs 2:18.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 27. - Her house is the way to hell (sheol). A warning fontal in Proverbs 2:18 and Proverbs 5:5. Viae inferi domus ejus. The plural דַּרְכֵי is well expressed by Hitzig: "Her house forms a multiplicity of ways to hell." Manifold are the ways of destruction to which adultery leads; but they all look to one awful end. Going down to the chambers of death. Once entangled in the toils of the temptress, the victim may pass through many stages, but he ends finally in the lowest depth - destruction of body and soul Spiritual writers see here an adumbration of the seductions of false doctrine, and the late to which it brings all who by it are led astray.



Proverbs 7:27

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The admonition, having its motive in that which goes before, is now founded on the emphatic finale:

26 For many are the slain whom she hath caused to fall,

     And many are her slain.

27 A multiplicity of ways to help is her house,

     Going down to the chambers of death.

The translation "for many slain has she laid low" (Syr., Targ., Jerome, Luther) is also syntactically possible; for רבּים can be placed before its substantive after the manner of the demonstratives and numerals (e.g., Nehemiah 9:28, cf. אחד, Sol 4:9), and the accentuation which requires two servants (the usual two Munachs) to the Athnach appears indeed thus to construe it. It is otherwise if רבים here meant magni (thus e.g., Ralbag, and recently Bertheau), and not multi; but רבים and עצמים stand elsewhere in connection with each other in the signification many and numerous, Psalm 35:18; Joel 2:2; Micah 4:3. "Her slain" are those slain by her; the part. pass. is connected with the genitive of the actor, e.g., Proverbs 9:18; cf. (Arab.) ḳatyl âlmḥabbt, of one whom love kills (Fl.). With Proverbs 7:27 cf. Proverbs 2:18; Proverbs 9:18. In 27a, בּיתהּ is not equivalent to בביתה after Proverbs 8:2, also not elliptical and equivalent to דרכי ביתה; the former is unnecessary, the latter is in no case established by Psalm 45:7; Ezra 10:13, nor by Deuteronomy 8:15; 2 Kings 23:17 (see, on the other hand, Philippi's Status Constructus, pp. 87-93). Rightly Hitzig has: her house forms a multiplicity of ways to hell, in so far as adultery leads by a diversity of ways to hell. Similarly the subject and the predicate vary in number, Proverbs 16:25; Psalm 110:3; Job 26:13; Daniel 9:23, and frequently. If one is once in her house, he may go in this or in that way, but surely his path is to destruction: it consists of many steps to hell, such as lead down (דרך, fem. Isaiah 37:34, masc. Isaiah 30:21) to the extreme depths of death (cf. Job 9:9, "chambers of the south" equals its remotest regions veiling themselves in the invisible); for חדר (Arab. khiddr) is the part of the tent or the house removed farthest back, and the most private (Fl.). These חדרי־מות, cf. עמקי שׁאול, Proverbs 9:18, approach to the conception of גּיהנּם, which is afterwards distinguished from שאול.