Proverbs 7:10 Commentary and Bible Study

But back to the present – verse 10. If you have an Authorised Version you will notice that the ‘with’ is in italics. It is one of the glories of the Authorised Version. It is showing you that possibly that word may help you to get the sense but they are not absolutely sure that it should be there because it is not in the Hebrew and, indeed, the Hebrew will read something like this without the italic word: ‘And, behold, there met him a woman – the attire of an harlot.’ This is something that the modem versions find hard to understand. Sadly, they are seldom ready to see the depths in the literature and that is exactly what Solomon meant to say, as most of the old commentators observe, and it is brilliant. Behold, there met him a woman – the attire of an harlot.He is saying two things. There met him a woman – harlot's dress, prostitute's dress, in other words it is his way of saying, the woman is nothing. She does not come out as a human being with a woman's tender love and passions and desires. She does not come out as a genuine person. She comes out as an operator, a professional. She is just her clothing. There is not going to be any genuine relationship. There is not going to be any genuine human interaction. What you have got is a victim and a professional, and subsequently a client and a professional. You have not got a person operating here with genuine responses and genuine and sincere conduct - you have just got the uniform of a prostitute and that is exactly what Solomon means to say. He does not mean to say that she was dressed as a prostitute: ‘Here is a woman and the clothing she has got on.’ No, what he means to say is that all her true femininity was reduced to this single destructive function.