Proverbs 6:32

Here there is a contrast stated to Pro 6:30 : 32 He who commits adultery (adulterans mulierem) is beside himself, A self-destroyer-who does this. 33 He gains stripes and disgrace, And his reproach is never quenched. נאף, which primarily seems to mean excedere, to indulge in excess, is, as also in the Decalogue, cf. Lev 20:10, transitive: ὁ μοιχεύων γυναῖκα. Regarding being mad (herzlos = heartless) = amens (excors, vecors), vid., Psychologie, p. 254. משׁחית נפשׁו is he who goes to ruin with wilful perversity. A self-murderer - i.e., he intends to ruin his position and his prosperity in life - who does it, viz., this, that he touches the wife of another. It is the worst and most inextinguishable dishonouring of oneself. Singularly Behaji: who annihilates it (his soul), with reference to Deu 21:12. Eccl. 4:17, where עשׂה would be equivalent to בּטּל, καταργεῖν, which is untrue and impossible. (Note: Behaji ought rather to have referred to Zep 3:19; Eze 7:27; Eze 22:14; but there עשׂה את means agere cum aliquo, as we say: mit jemandem abrechnen (to settle accounts with any one).) נגע refers to the corporal punishment inflicted on the adulterer by the husband (Deu 17:8; Deu 21:5); Hitzig, who rejects Pro 6:32, refers it to the stripes which were given to the thief according to the law, but these would be called מכּה (מכּות). The punctuation נגע־וקלון is to be exchanged for קלונו נגע (Lwenstein and other good editors). מצא has a more active signification than our "finden" (to find): consequitur, τυγχάνει.

In this chapter we have, I. A caution against rash suretiship (Pro 6:1-5). II. A rebuke to slothfulness (Pro 6:6-11). III. The character and fate of a malicious mischievous man (Pro 6:12-15). IV. An account of seven things which God hates (Pro 6:16-19). V. An exhortation to make the word of God familiar to us (Pro 6:20-23). VI. A repeated warning of the pernicious consequences of the sin of whoredom (Pro 6:24-35). We are here dissuaded from sin very much by arguments borrowed from our secular interests, for it is not only represented as damning in the other world, but as impoverishing in this.

6:32-35 A thief might be punished severely even if he had a reason for his actions, but his punishment is nothing compared to an adulterer’s, who has no excuse for his crime. A jealous husband will seek the full punishment provided by law, which is death (Deut 22:22).