Therefore hear me now, my children,
And do not depart from the words of my mouth.
Remove your way far from her,
And do not go near the door of her house,
Lest you give your honor to others,
And your years to the cruel one;
Lest aliens be filled with your wealth,
And your labors go to the house of a foreigner;
And you mourn at last,
When your flesh and your body are consumed,
And say:
“How I have hated instruction,
And my heart despised correction!
I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers,
Nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me!
I was on the verge of total ruin,
In the midst of the assembly and congregation.”
Proverbs 5:7-14 (NKJV).
I don't think that there is divine coincidence in that when you read scripture it's magically going to be exactly what you need to hear. I think that what's more likely the truth is that the Bible is jam packed with truth and, given the universal nature of truth, it's simply not going to take much effort to find something that is pertinent to what you're dealing with.
It's not that God is guiding you to a specific nugget of truth, it's that you're mining a huge vein of truth, so coming across it shouldn't be all that surprising. Shouldn't.
The reason I wanted to say this is because the world desires a demonic ideal called "globalism". The Neo-Babelism inherent in globalism is found in the lofty ideal that man-made systems of government could unite all the peoples on our planet to work towards a single goal, that they would all share the same identity, and that "peace" and "harmony" would exist between all humans.
This secular philosophy is demonic in the sense that it seeks to bring people together under the banner of human power, ignoring God. Whereas later in scripture we would see that "all are one in Jesus Christ", the powers of this world seek to create their own perverted unity among flesh.
Look at who Solomon says will benefit from those who follow the path of the "immoral woman": aliens, foreigners, and the "cruel". In other words, that the immoral woman will sell out her own people, seek to take them away from caring for and investing in their own interests, merely to serve her own.
Look at the political priorities in the United States under the influence of the "immoral woman". Illegal immigration is at an all time high, and billions of tax dollars, collected from legal citizens, are spent to subsidize the lifestyles and health of these foreigners. There are entire states who have prided themselves on their supposed altruism, their reallocation of resources away from the future of the people who those resources were collected from and to the benefit of the foreigner.
Even legal immigration paints no better a picture, with a majority of those who have rushed to gain entry into this country as a migrant, or a refugee, did not bring with them skills that could earn a living wage, and are themselves also significantly dependent on handouts from the government, resources stolen from those who are working hard to provide for their own families but also expected to carry the burden for others who can't or won't do it themselves.
The threat that Solomon sees is that it's not just the long-term consequences of the individual's life that giving in to temptation threatens, it's the legacy of a people. By the time that Solomon reigned, how many times had Israel come under judgment from God for chasing the gods of the people around them, the people they were supposed to put out of the promised land, the people who sacrificed children and practiced divination and sorcery?
How many times had Israel whored herself out, played the harlot, and had come under judgment of God?
The book of Judges alone recounts at least six times that this happened.
The temple was originally plated in gold, essentially floor to ceiling. Yet each time Israel abandoned God, the temple was sacked and pillaged and the glory they took for granted was stolen from them.
People who do not belong to your "tribe" will gladly take from you everything of actual value in exchange for providing you a fleeting pleasure, and this is the main sentiment behind Solomon's admonition. For the same reason that the adulterous woman steals from the wife of the man, so do nations that give in to the seductive claims of those who worship other gods find their own futures stolen away from them as well.
Solomon also makes a foreboding statement in that repentance will not come until near total destruction is upon those who have rejected sound advice. That it won't be until there's nearly nothing left to lose that an appreciation for what one already had can truly be found.
As with prior advice, Solomon wants the listener to avoid learning the "hard way", to not have to lose everything before its value can be understood, because the cost is more than any one generation can bear, let alone recover from. Throughout the Old Testament we see that Israel never goes through this cycle entirely in one generation, it's always across multiple, and we can see this dynamic play out now.
The costs of divorce do not just affect the parents and their children, but even on to the children of their children, and their children, and so on. While we live in a world abundant with resources due to human ingenuity, all we can do is effectively distract from the pain and suffering, we can't eliminate it, make it go away, or prevent its onset. The cost of sin, materially in our lives, the natural consequence of our disobedience, is terribly great, and we need to weigh that in our decisions.
Solomon did not want his offspring to follow in his footsteps in all things, only in wisdom. We'll see why as we continue in scripture, but know that Solomon is not just providing advice in a hypocritical "do as I say, not as I do", but instead from a "learn from my mistakes, so that you can avert the suffering and pain that I have brought upon myself."
Do not give up what belongs to you, your family, your "tribe" in the pursuit of temporary pleasures.
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