THE STRANGE WOMAN

CONTINUITY NOTE:
The present sentence started with:
‘My son if thou wilt receive my words . . .’
‘Then shalt thou understand the . . .’
‘For the Lord giveth wisdom . . . ‘
‘To deliver then from the evil man . . . ‘

Proverbs 2:16-17 To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words; (17) Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.

Hebrew biblical rhetoric, especially in the book of Proverbs works by twos. The expression of two antagonist statements teaches a complete principle. That is why every positive element in the Scriptures has an antithesis somewhere.

The previous verses taught us the character of the evil man. The evil man is not the antithesis of the strange woman; they are both evil. The evil man is the antithesis of the ‘good Man”: the Messiah.

The “strange woman is the antithesis’ of the virtuous woman (Proverbs 31): the Church. The powers of both Heaven and Hell vie for the control of the souls of man. As the forces of God seek to bring people to the freedom of Messiah, the enemy’s desire is to enslave the world to his perversions. God uses his ‘virtuous woman’ to do His work. The devil uses the ‘strange woman’, also called Babylon, to do his.

Again, the idea is not to pin an identity to the ‘strange woman’. Hebrew biblical literature cares little about the ‘who’s’. Above the identity of the ‘strange woman’, what we need to define is its character, and someone’s character is not defined by his rhetoric, but by his actions.

In this passage, our text tells us the most important elements by which to recognize if someone is trustworthy or not. We are told that this ‘strange woman’ flatters. Flattering has an element of insincerity in it; of false praise, of trying to please in order to gain affection. Flattering is also the sister of lying.

This ‘strange woman’ also forsakes her early commitments to the Lord. She used to belong to Him, but she made a conscious choice to depart from following her Lord, so now, she forgets the covenant, the marriage contract of her God. In essence, the ‘strange woman’ is like one who says, ‘I used to follow the Lord, but I got smart: now I am enlightened. Come and be smart with me, and we can create our own set of values, even our own religion separated from the Bible. You and I can be like God now.’ Does that sound familiar?

This principle can define individuals, churches and even countries. The question now is for us to find where does this ‘strange woman’ influence our lives and again, the answer to that question is found within our heart, when we receive God’s word and wisdom with sincerity of heart.