Proverbs 7:18 Commentary and Bible Study

The old commentators leap on this wording, with their shrewdness. They all say in their different ways, ‘why does she call him the goodman, why doesn't she call him her husband?’ Well, it is not appropriate to say 'my husband'. 'My husband' would stick in the gullet, wouldn't it, when an act of loyalty and treachery is about to be committed, an act of adultery? So she says instead, ‘the goodman.’ She calls him something else. She does not want to call him by a title which suggests any bond or loyalty, which would highlight her sin, so she calls him something else. ‘For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey.’ She must do nothing to prompt this young fool’s conscience. Of course the significant thing being, we will get away with it; there will be no harm come from this, he will not come back and find us. This will never be discovered. ‘He hath taken a bag of money with him, and will come home at the day appointed.’ Relax, she says, he is not going to come home unexpectedly because he has got all he needs to keep him happy. Never mind the gross deception that she is perpetrating on her husband. There is no attempt made to pretend she does not have a husband. She is prepared to have the young man know that he is taking another man’s wife and she does not believe this will put him off, indeed, she believes this will add to the excitement of the situation. He is to join her in the secrecy that is required. It seems that she knows he does not need much reassurance to get him to proceed.Again the old commentators pick this up. It seems that this man could not trust his wife and he didn't tell her when he was going for longer than an hour or a day. The only way she knew is the fact that he had taken enough money to sustain him, for more than a night or two out, because he daren't tell her, so unfaithful is she, and he is aware of it.