The Cost of Foolishness
Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. Proverbs 5:17 · Berean Standard Bible
Keep these intimate pleasures exclusive—they're meant just for you and your wife, shared with no one else.
The exclusivity isn't about shame or secrecy; it's about the precious nature of the marital bond. In a culture with low privacy, the insistence that sexual intimacy be reserved for your spouse was radical—it meant that what you share with your wife is uniquely hers and yours.
The father, reinforcing the principle of exclusivity
Throughout the Bible, fidelity in marriage is treated as sacred not because pleasure is bad, but because the covenant between husband and wife mirrors God's covenant with His people. What's exclusive is protected and honored.
The commitment to marital exclusivity is absolute: the marriage bond is not to be compromised or shared with anyone outside it.
The imperative 'Let them be yours alone' (יִהְיוּ לְךָ לְבַדְּךָ, yihyu lecha lebadecha) employs emphatic singular and possessive forms to underscore exclusivity. The prohibition against sharing 'with strangers' (עִם־זָרִים, im-zarim) returns to the term used for the forbidden woman—strangers represent everything outside the covenantal bond of marriage. This is not possessiveness but covenant language: just as Israel is to be exclusively devoted to God (the Shema prayer), the wife and her husband are to be exclusively devoted to one another. The medieval commentator Ibn Ezra understood this as a reciprocal vow, applicable to both spouses.
The father-teacher, now stating the requirement for marital fidelity in absolute terms.
This connects to the doctrine of the marriage covenant as established in Genesis 2:24 ('Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh') and reinforced throughout New Testament teaching on sexual ethics (1 Corinthians 7:1-5).
15Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well.
16Why should your springs flow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?
17Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.
18May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:
19A loving doe, a graceful fawn— may her breasts satisfy you always; may you be captivated by her love forever.
Read all of Proverbs 5 — The lips of a forbidden woman drip honey — but her end is bitter as wormwood. A warning that sounds ancient but arrives fresh every generation.
This page covers one. BibleKey does all 31,102 — tap any verse for its meaning, any word for its Hebrew or Greek root, and keep reading without leaving the chapter.
Not just the famous ones. BibleKey is free on iPhone and iPad.
Download on the App StoreFree on iPhone & iPad