Proverbs 6:24-26 To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman. Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids. For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.
‘To keep thee from the evil woman.’ Seven things to be kept from: The evil woman (6:24) and her flattery. Lust after her beauty (6:25). Captivity by her eyelids. Poverty through her (6:26). Death by sin with her. Sin with her (6:27-29).
‘Strange’ [Hebrew: nokriy] Solomon had suffered much by sinning with foreign women, so could give warnings from experience (1Kin. 11:1-13). He should have followed his own advice because he became an apostate and fell away from God’s grace because he went into idolatry with these women.
‘Eyelids’ – Modern makeup or lipstick was unknown in the East, but they did line the eyes with a preparation of antimony to give them lustre. We are to pay more attention to the inward man than to the outer man (1Pet. 3:3-4).
‘Piece of bread’ – Here it seems that a man is brought to poverty by a prostitute, but in the Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac, and Arabic versions it reads, “For the value of a harlot is as much as of one loaf.” There were so many prostitutes in the land that they hired themselves out for a bare living.
Living the Word 