December 5

Dec 5 – Today from Proverbs 5 we look at verse 16
"Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?"

This question immediately follows an admonishment to the student to drink water only from his own personal resources, "Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well." (verse 15). Water was (and is), a primary basic staple of life in the Mid Eastern culture, and was crucially important to family life. So important was the family water supply to their health and security, that it was actually a crime to steal water from another person's well. Thus a man was not to dip into another’s well simply to satisfy his own desire. In doing so, he threatened the well-being of another’s family. Here the water is a metaphor for intimate relations, and the admonishment is to refrain from having intimate relations with the wives of others. Where verse fifteen warns against drinking from another’s well, today’s verse warns about liberally distributing your own water around town. It’s the same call to fidelity from a different perspective. Now the student is called to place the same value on his own household. If his water supply is critical to the health and security of his own family, why would he go about distributing it as if it were of little or no value to his loved ones? Why would he threaten the well-being of his own household?
"It’s my water, am I not free to do with it as I please?" No. You have committed your water supply to the care of only one household through a sacred covenant. It is in fact, no longer yours to do with as you please. If your values do not dictate it, your covenant commitment certainly does. When a couple marries, God reveals that the two have become one flesh (Genesis 2:24), and that their bodies no longer belong to themselves alone but to one another (1 Cor. 7:4).
Although this verse applies specifically to a married person, it does not let the single person off the hook. This is not all the Bible has to say about sexual relations, it is but one discourse of many. It is meant to teach the student about the values of fidelity in the marriage covenant, life the way God purposed it. To allow the cravings of the flesh to dictate one’s actions will bear certain consequence. It not only brings harm to one’s self, but to many others – most of whom are innocent victims. These victims may bear emotional scars for years to come, and often they are children.