In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night:
The verse places a young man void of understanding in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night, on his way to the house of the strange woman. He approaches the place where temptation awaits, lured from the path of virtue by a woman who would entrap him, with the night as the setting for the temptation. The word evening here denotes the twilight time of deepening darkness at sunset, showing that the biblical evening is associated with sunset rather than beginning at three o'clock.
The cover of darkness shows that the vicious life seeks concealment for momentary pleasures that bring long years of bitter remorse. The verse belongs to a vivid and truthful portrayal of vice and its results, deliberately plain-spoken so that sins fatal to the health of soul and body appear exceedingly sinful. It points young men to the chapter as a warning about the downward path of sexual sin and its terrible end, that they may take warning in time and escape the grievous snares thick about their feet.
The instruction of the chapter holds deep philosophy and must be read slowly and thought over. Though not fit to be read in a mixed assembly of men and women, it must take hold on the heart of both men and women to warn them against the sins condemned there. The warning extends to those who knowingly profit by providing a place for such wrongdoing, for wealth gained by helping entice someone into sexual sin is not true success.
The verse describes the dangerous hour when girls sent to earn their living in great cities walk alone among moral dangers so perilous that a single false step commits them to a life of shame. They become unhappy women who sell themselves and not their time or labor. That fate is made more certain when children left to feel the tempestuous force of passion are kept in dense ignorance of its nature and of the great and sacred functions of the body. This ignorance comes from false modesty rooted in the heresy of the inherent vileness of the body and its appetites, leaving them to gain first knowledge surreptitiously in vulgar and corrupting forms.
The verse places a young man void of understanding in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night, on his way to the house of the strange woman. He approaches the place where temptation awaits, lured from the path of virtue by a woman who would entrap him, with the night as the setting for the temptation. The word evening here denotes the twilight time of deepening darkness at sunset, showing that the biblical evening is associated with sunset rather than beginning at three o'clock.
The cover of darkness shows that the vicious life seeks concealment for momentary pleasures that bring long years of bitter remorse. The verse belongs to a vivid and truthful portrayal of vice and its results, deliberately plain-spoken so that sins fatal to the health of soul and body appear exceedingly sinful. It points young men to the chapter as a warning about the downward path of sexual sin and its terrible end, that they may take warning in time and escape the grievous snares thick about their feet.
The instruction of the chapter holds deep philosophy and must be read slowly and thought over. Though not fit to be read in a mixed assembly of men and women, it must take hold on the heart of both men and women to warn them against the sins condemned there. The warning extends to those who knowingly profit by providing a place for such wrongdoing, for wealth gained by helping entice someone into sexual sin is not true success.
The verse describes the dangerous hour when girls sent to earn their living in great cities walk alone among moral dangers so perilous that a single false step commits them to a life of shame. They become unhappy women who sell themselves and not their time or labor. That fate is made more certain when children left to feel the tempestuous force of passion are kept in dense ignorance of its nature and of the great and sacred functions of the body. This ignorance comes from false modesty rooted in the heresy of the inherent vileness of the body and its appetites, leaving them to gain first knowledge surreptitiously in vulgar and corrupting forms.