Proverbs 23:26-27 commentary; a deep ditch and a narrow pit

26 My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. 27 For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit. 28 She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men.

Solomon pleads with his son to give him his heart, as in to pay attention, and for his eyes to look on the father’s ways. Are you living your life in such a way that your child, son or daughter, can look on you, observe your ways and grow in the grace of the Lord?

Here, Solomon warns, as he has warned other times about the danger of consorting with an immoral woman and a woman of another people, of another, a foreign religion. The Canaanite religion was filled with incest, child sacrifice, bestiality and all manner of wickedness. The worship of Baal was the worship of Satan. The Greek historian, Herodotus, tells us that Baal is the same god as Bel in Babylon and Zeus in Greece. We know him as Jupiter in Rome, Viracocha in Peru. Jesus calls him Beelzebub in Matthew 10:25 among other verses which Strong’s dictionary claims means “lord of the house”. This name, lord of the house, was also the name given to the god, Hubal, in the Arabian Kaaba from which we derive Allah which some scholars says means, “the one worshipped”, or “lord of the house”. So, Allah is, like Baal, Bel, Zeus, Viracocha, and others simply another name for Satan.

It’s important to note that in the Bible the word, whore, like the word, sodomite, carries with it a religious connotation. In Canaanite religion, according to Daniel Snell in his “Life in the Ancient Near East” a woman’s coming of age was to go into the temple to the goddess, Ishtar, and to wait for a stranger to drop a coin in her lap and to have sex with him. There were temple prostitutes of both heterosexual and homosexual variety, and a “dog” is still within certain parts of the gay community a reference to a male prostitute as it was in ancient Babylon. Thus we get this verse;

Deuteronomy 23:18 Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the LORD thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the LORD thy God.

And why we have curious religious practices that the apostate Israelites mixed in with their worship of the true God.

2Kings 23:7 And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.

Regardless of the historical context, these verses explain the danger of a young man being taken in by an immoral woman, particularly a young Christian man trapped by the allure of sex and pornography. Is it any wonder that the states that rate the highest usage of internet porn are in the so called Bible Belt of the United States?

The immoral woman, pornography, the vulgar pop star, the nasty movie diva, and all the other temptations thrown out in the modern world with regard to improper sexual behavior act almost like the proverbial lion and lie in wait for a man, as the lion would the prey he is about to devour. Many young Christian men have gone down to that house and never returned.

If you are addicted to pornography or improper sexual appetites you probably need to plead with God, not only for forgiveness but for deliverance from the devil that possesses you. Inordinate affections (obsessions), concupiscence, and other chains probably bind your heart and you need God’s saving mercy to retrieve you from the deep ditch and the narrow pit in which you have fallen. You must swim in God’s word, bathe yourself in it, and pray for Him to save you from being added to the list of transgressors which the strange woman, the whore, has made. Sex is a great and wonderful gift from God for a husband and wife to be enjoyed throughout their life without shame, or guilt, as the marriage bed is undefiled (Hebrews 13:4) but God will judge everything that is apart from that righteous bond.

In a culture that is broiling in sexual obsessions and perversion, this is a great struggle for many, particularly Christians, because Satan aims to destroy your testimony, your flesh seeks only that which pleases it now, and the world wants you to turn away from Christ. Be warned.