“That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words.”
My Notes
What Does Proverbs 7:5 Mean?
"That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words." Solomon warns his son about the seductive power of flattery — specifically from the "strange woman" (zar — foreign, outside the covenant) who uses words as weapons of attraction. The flattery isn't random compliments. It's strategic verbal seduction: words carefully chosen to make the target feel special, desired, and uniquely understood.
The word "flattereth" (chalaq — to make smooth, to divide) literally means to smooth with words — to create a frictionless verbal path that leads the listener exactly where the speaker wants them to go. Smooth words remove the resistance that wisdom provides. They make the wrong path feel effortless.
Reflection Questions
- 1.What 'smooth words' in your life are removing the healthy friction that wisdom provides?
- 2.How do you recognize flattery designed to seduce versus genuine encouragement?
- 3.What voice outside your covenant is making you feel 'uniquely special' in ways that bypass your judgment?
- 4.Where do you need to reintroduce friction — slow down, think critically — that smooth words have removed?
Devotional
Flattery from the stranger. Words so smooth they remove every friction between you and the trap. Solomon warns his son: the most dangerous seduction isn't physical. It's verbal. The strange woman's weapon isn't her body. It's her words.
The Hebrew word for flattery means to make smooth. To remove all the rough edges, all the resistance, all the healthy friction that would normally make you stop and think. Smooth words create a frictionless path — you slide toward the destination without ever making a conscious decision to go there. By the time you realize where you are, the resistance that would have stopped you is already behind you.
Solomon specifies the source: the strange woman. The stranger. Someone outside your covenant. Someone who has no stake in your wellbeing, no commitment to your future, no investment in the consequences of what they're inviting you into. Their words are crafted for one purpose: to get you where they want you. And the smoothness is how they do it.
This applies far beyond sexual temptation. Any voice that flatters you — that makes you feel uniquely special, uniquely understood, uniquely exempt from the rules — is using the strange woman's technique. The business deal that sounds too good. The ideology that tells you what you want to hear. The leader who makes you feel chosen. Smooth words that remove friction are seduction regardless of the content.
Wisdom creates friction. It slows you down. It makes you think before you move. It introduces resistance at the exact point where the smooth words are trying to remove it. That's why Solomon says: hold onto wisdom (v. 4). Because wisdom is the rough surface that keeps you from sliding into the trap the smooth words prepared.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
That they may keep thee from the strange woman,.... Nothing has a greater tendency than Christ and his Gospel, and an…
These verses are an introduction to his warning against fleshly lusts, much the same with that, Pro 6:20, etc., and…
strange woman … stranger See Pro 2:16, note.
flattereth with "Heb. maketh smooth her words," R.V. marg.