How to Guard Against Having an Affair (Proverbs 5)

A Few Thoughts to Consider

Since life is short, why not have an affair?

This is a challenge the online dating platform Ashley Madison poses to their nearly 75 million worldwide users who are looking for intimacy outside their marriages. While an infamous 2015 data breach threatened the survival of this company, it's since seen significant growth, as the desire to have affairs doesn't wane.

When asked why people cheat on their spouses, the director of communications for Ashley Madison replied, "Our members often tell us that marriage isn't all that they thought it would be, and after the honeymoon fades and kids come into the picture, things shift. The relationship becomes less about passion and sex between the couple and more about the everyday life of the family unit."^[1]

In Proverbs 5, Solomon speaks to this very issue. In verse 15, Solomon says, "Drink water from your own cistern, water flowing from your own well." Adding to our previous discussion on the importance of wells in the Bible on February 8^th, Robert Alter writes,

"The association of the well with female fertility and especially with the womb (or vagina) is reflected both in the Song of Songs and in the recurrent betrothal type-scene, where the young man encounters his future bride by a well. The pure waters of the well are an antithesis to the sweet honey and smooth oil of the seductress's mouth.”[2]

In other words, like any sin, affairs feel exhilarating at the moment but result in untold pain. 

Proverbs 25 is reminiscent of the story of Joseph. Noting this parallel, Bruce Waltke writes, “The son’s lips must speak the truth, as Joseph’s did with Potiphar’s wife, to fend off the malevolent, unctuous speech issuing from the lips (śiptê) of the unchaste wife.”^[3] He must fight for his marriage, even when every impulse he has is to do otherwise.