For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey:
The verse belongs to the account in chapter 7 of the strange woman and the young man void of understanding who under cover of darkness went the way to her house, part of verses 10-27 portraying her enticement of him toward adultery and destruction. In the verse the woman excuses herself by saying her husband is away on a long journey, showing the enticement of a prostitute who sells herself and not merely her time or labor. The woman is portrayed with the attire of a harlot and subtle of heart, still lying in wait at every corner, and chapter 7 gives a fuller description of her character as representing a class of women encountered by Solomon while seeking pleasure. The verse belongs to the warning in the first seven chapters of Proverbs against rejecting wisdom and following deception, urged as a warning about the path of sexual sin and the fate awaiting those who follow it.
Its plain speaking shows sexual sin as exceedingly sinful because it is fatal to the health of soul and body alike, painting vice and its dreadful consequences in their true colors without making vice attractive and without coarseness. To ignore its reproof and break spiritual laws brings spiritual disease and death, a ruined life, and bitter remorse, for her house is the way to hell going down to the chambers of death. It is deep instruction that should be read slowly and thought over, standing among parts of chapter 7 not well suited to be read aloud in a mixed assembly of men and women, yet its warning against condemned sin ought to take hold upon the heart of both men and women. Young men especially are warned to take warning in time and turn back to escape the grievous snares thick about their feet. It illustrates the moral dangers surrounding girls sent to great cities in dense ignorance of the great and sacred functions of the body, where a single false step commits them to a life of shame and swells the ranks of unhappy women through the silence and false modesty of unwise mothers who leave their daughters untaught. Its image is applied to morality enforced through political power as a harlot in disguise whose path is associated with death, violence, hatred, and division.
The verse belongs to the account in chapter 7 of the strange woman and the young man void of understanding who under cover of darkness went the way to her house, part of verses 10-27 portraying her enticement of him toward adultery and destruction. In the verse the woman excuses herself by saying her husband is away on a long journey, showing the enticement of a prostitute who sells herself and not merely her time or labor. The woman is portrayed with the attire of a harlot and subtle of heart, still lying in wait at every corner, and chapter 7 gives a fuller description of her character as representing a class of women encountered by Solomon while seeking pleasure. The verse belongs to the warning in the first seven chapters of Proverbs against rejecting wisdom and following deception, urged as a warning about the path of sexual sin and the fate awaiting those who follow it.
Its plain speaking shows sexual sin as exceedingly sinful because it is fatal to the health of soul and body alike, painting vice and its dreadful consequences in their true colors without making vice attractive and without coarseness. To ignore its reproof and break spiritual laws brings spiritual disease and death, a ruined life, and bitter remorse, for her house is the way to hell going down to the chambers of death. It is deep instruction that should be read slowly and thought over, standing among parts of chapter 7 not well suited to be read aloud in a mixed assembly of men and women, yet its warning against condemned sin ought to take hold upon the heart of both men and women. Young men especially are warned to take warning in time and turn back to escape the grievous snares thick about their feet. It illustrates the moral dangers surrounding girls sent to great cities in dense ignorance of the great and sacred functions of the body, where a single false step commits them to a life of shame and swells the ranks of unhappy women through the silence and false modesty of unwise mothers who leave their daughters untaught. Its image is applied to morality enforced through political power as a harlot in disguise whose path is associated with death, violence, hatred, and division.