Walking with the Wise #26: Delight as Defense

“Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
Should your springs be scattered abroad,
streams of water in the streets?
Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for strangers with you.
Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be intoxicated always in her love.”
—Proverbs 5:15-19

How do we keep ourselves from adultery? The best offense is a good defense. And the best way to defend ourselves against adultery is to fill ourselves up with our marital relationship. The proverb teaches us to “drink water from your own cistern.” A cistern was a well that was used to catch runoff water from a rainstorm. Since rain was infrequent in Israel, each home was set up with a cistern to catch the rain and satisfy the thirst of the members of the family. The proverb equates adultery with drinking from another’s cistern, something that shouldn’t be done. One should drink from his own cistern (v. 15, 17) and find satisfaction in his marital relationship. He wasn’t to share his wife with anyone, because she was to be with her husband and him alone. If he would keep himself for her and her for him, then his “fountain” would be blessed. “Fountain” is sometimes used as a euphemism for the female genitalia. And since the husband and wife are considered to be one flesh, the idea is that he finds his delight in his wife’s body and their sexual relationship. The more that he cultivates his relationship with his wife, the more enjoyable their sex life will be.

In today's passage the husband and his wife have been married for some time, since their youth (v. 18). She is described as a “lovely deer,” and a “graceful doe,” both images of beauty and grace. Aging has taken place and he is being warned to keep his eyes on the woman he fell in love with at the beginning. He was to enjoy his wife sexually, delighting in her breasts, and be intoxicated by her love.

Anyone who has ever been married knows that marriage takes work. It takes focus, good communication, a servant’s heart, and a large measure of sacrifice. Intimacy doesn’t just happen in marriage either; it takes work. TV shows and movies make us think that sex is an all-the-time electric, no-holds-barred (or consequences) thing. But the sexual relationship between a husband and wife must also be worked at.

There is no excuse for adultery, and here the man is warned to find satisfaction in his wife. While either the husband or wife could commit adultery, in this passage it is the man who is admonished to keep his focus (the wife must keep her focus as well). He must cultivate his love for her by reminding himself who she is and why he fell in love with her. And the more that he finds his delight and satisfaction in her, the less likely he will be to commit adultery.

If you are married, how is your marriage? Are you fostering communication? Are you nurturing the sexual relationship? Men, are you delighting in the wife of your youth? Are you intoxicated by her breasts? Ladies, are you keeping yourself for only Him? Are you giving him the respect that God calls you to give (cf. Ephesians 5:33)?

If you are unmarried, know that sex is a God-given gift to a husband and a wife. Make up your mind to keep any relationship you may enter into pure. Don’t “awaken love until it pleases” (cf. Song of Solomon 2:7, 3:5, 8:4). Find your satisfaction in the divine Son, make every effort to keep yourself sexually pure, and if you have fallen, go to Christ confessing your sins and asking for His forgiveness. His death on the cross in your place made that sin forgivable too.

May God enable us to be sexually pure. If we are single, may we be chaste. And if we are married, may we guard against adultery, making every effort to keep the marriage bed pure (cf. Hebrews 13:14) as we find delight and satisfaction in the spouse God has given us. Amen.