What does it mean to "drink water from your own cistern" (Proverbs 5:15)?

These were extensively used in Palestine for the collection of rain water. In Jerusalem every house has its cistern, and some have more than one. Solomon also brought water from long distances to be stored in cisterns, of which there are many under the Temple area. Some were really pits, for we read of the 'wheel' being broken. Ecc. 12:6. There were also many cisterns in fields or by the road side as reservoirs for the irrigation of the land. For every man to be able to drink water out of his own cistern, was held out as a boon. 2 Kings 18:31; Isa. 36:16. This is also used as a symbol not to indulge in illicit desires. Prov. 5:15. Israel is charged with forsaking God, the fountain of blessing, and making for themselves cisterns which could hold no water. Jer. 2:13.

The character of the woman is here (v. 3) "a strange woman." "Strange" is a word a good deal used and important. All gods not Jehovah are strange gods; fire not from the altar was strange fire. It is that which does not belong to us, not in the divinely given relationship in which we are, or the thing spoken of stands. Any but Jehovah was a stranger; any but the consecrated fire was strange; any but the shepherd even was a stranger. God made them male and female, "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh," the utmost intimacy of relationship as belonging to him: the expression of that was right. This was mere corrupt lust; the woman, a stranger to this divinely formed relationship. It spent the nature and heart, and ended in death. The heart, allured by evil, is turned into another channel, from pondering "the path of life," following the path of lust to death. What is right is not weighed in the soul. The special warning (v. 8) is withdrawal, not coming near the door of her house; living away in another scene of thought and being where will does not go in the path of lust, nor lust have occasion to seize hold of the will. Disaster and ruin follow in that path; but on that I need not insist. It is a giving up of self and self-government to fruitless sin. Hence what he recalls when ruined is not that he had not followed in a right way, but that will had been at work and warning despised. He had hated being set right, the exercise of moral discipline and just chastening, what arrested his will morally or even externally. There was the will which did not like to be checked, and the pride of heart which slighted corrective warnings. There was no obedience (he did not listen); no inclining the ear to that influence morally above us, which we have seen spoken of. It is to be noticed how this letting loose of the will and refusal to listen led or let loose to all iniquity and evil. The evil too, as it was reckless, was shameless. He was all but in every evil, in the midst of the congregation and assembly; v. 14. He was almost as bad as Zimri, the son of Salu. But what takes away the heart takes away shame, and puts the effrontery of evil into the will.

245 The verses which follow (v. 15, etc.) look at corruption in another character - the breach of the relationship divinely formed. What preceded has judged the will, let loose in corruption, and shewn its debasing influence, and how it cast out all good in the heart and made selfishness the rule of life. Here it is another aspect of good and evil. The father insists on the close maintenance of the relationship itself as contrasted with the breach of it. God has formed it as a bond and centre of affections. And even in human affections it is a great thing to have a centre, so that the heart is united in itself there; and it is affection in righteousness according to God's mind, so as that conscience does not war against the heart and make it evil and will, but God's authority and creative will puts its sanction on it, so that His blessing can be enjoyed in it. Every way due and right affection is thus in the heart. We may go out in expansive kindness to objects outside of it - all right but here affections are centred; and there is a bond; and duty puts its seal on it. But if the heart thus has its centre in a help - meet for it, where it was not good according to creation to be alone, man was formed to be a centre; and this was through his children. He multiplies himself. With illegitimate love this evidently cannot be; but living in his family (the first circle of divine order, formed by God Himself in paradise), drinking waters out of his own cistern - the concentration of affection by which it is his own, his fountains are dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. That is, he is fully represented by his children, and has his importance everywhere through them. He is dispersed abroad in them. But there is unity in the whole family thus. His fountain is his own; that is, the whole family circle in its source. Fountain is so used in the Hebrew scriptures, as "the fountain of Jacob."

"Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Should thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of water in the broadways? Let them be only thine own, and not for strangers with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed; rejoice in the wife of thy youth. A lovely hind and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; with her love be ravished continually. And why shouldest thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? For the ways of man are before Jehovah's eyes, and he ponders all his paths. His own iniquities shall take the wicked, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sin. He shall die for lack of discipline; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray." vv. 15-23.

Two things become man that fears God. There is the outgoing of heart that loves his neighbour, or, as we Christians add, that loves our enemies in the spirit of the gospel. There is also the centring of the affections within the family. This last the father here would impress on his son. Here therefore the due place of the wife comes before us. It is the human relationship that survives from the beginning when sin was not; it is quite as essential now that the offence abounds. Wandering affections are selfish, carry their own shame, and have a permanent sting. As Jehovah instituted the sacred enclosure of the family round the parents, so He sanctions and enjoins warm affections in the head toward his counterpart. It is the most intimate bond of society at large as of the home circle. Heathenism, as we know, conceived its deities jealous of human happiness; it is easily understood; for as the Apostle tells us, they were but demons, fallen spiritual creatures that sought to drag the human race into their sin and misery, and to keep their victims from the love that delights in reconciling and saving them. There is but one that is good, even God; and He has now fully shown His best good, His grace, in His only-begotten Son for eternity as well as the life that now is. But even before divine love thus shone out, the unmistakable goodness of Jehovah appears in these home precepts. "Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well"; and all that follows is in keeping.

Well might we be admonished, "Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well." (v. 15). How important to make the truth of God our own! — and not to borrow from others what may be contaminated and harmful. "Buy the truth, and sell it not" (Proverbs 23::23). If we buy it, it becomes our own, not merely borrowed. It may cost us our own pride or our own fleshly comfort. Our fountains must certainly be for our own benefit to refresh our own souls in communion with the Lord (v. 16). Only when the truth becomes in reality our own shall we be fitted to use it also for the true benefit of others. "Streams of water in the streets" is a misuse of that with which God entrusts us, similar to casting our pearls before swine. For "strangers." that is, unbelievers (v. 17) are in no condition to enjoy the precious truth of God as are those redeemed by the blood of Christ. This is like Hezekiah showing all the treasures of his kingdom to the visitors from Babylon (2 Kings 20:12-18).

But the fountain of the individual believer is to be blessed. Marriage is "honorable among all" (Heb. 13:4), a normal blessing that God has provided in creation, though some may be greatly blessed by remaining single for the glory of God. However, it is a wonderful blessing from God that believers may rejoice with the wife of your youth" (v. 18). And the wife is likened to "a loving deer and a graceful doe," gentle, sensitive animals that are lovely to observe.

How gracious is God to give to a believer a wife whose breasts satisfy him at all times, whose love gives him rapturous joy (v. 19), so that no other would attract him at all; and certainly not one who is destitute of moral worth (v. 20). Above all, one is to realize that his ways are before the eyes of the Lord, who considers all his paths. In contrast to this, the wicked man is entrapped by his own iniquities, and caught with the cords of his sin (v. 22). If he would properly consider that the Lord weighs all his actions, he would be preserved from being so trapped; but if not, "he shall die for lack of instruction," that is, lacking the instruction that is fully available to him, he will reap the fruit of his willing ignorance. In the greatness of his folly he goes astray (v. 23).

"And it came to pass, after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac, and he dwelt by the well Lahai-roi." These dwelling-places are certainly characteristic and distinctive, as Abraham's at Hebron, and Lot's in the valley of Jordan or at Sodom. A well, too, was a natural and suitable accompaniment for the tent of a pilgrim: water is a first necessity for the maintenance of life, and so is for us the "living water" — the Spirit acting through the Word. "The words that I speak unto you," says the Lord, "they are spirit and they are life."

The way that water ministers to life and growth is indeed a beautiful type of the Spirit's action. Without water, a plant will die in the midst of abundance of food in actual contact with its roots. Its office is to make food to be assimilated by the organism, and to give power to the system itself to take it up. Although the word may sometimes be otherwise used, yet in Proverbs 5:15 the well is distinct from the cistern as the place of "running," or "living," water. Such wells were those that Isaac digged, not mere artificial cisterns, as we find in Genesis 26, "And Isaac's servants digged in the valley, and found there a well of springing water." Such wells should not all the children of God covet to dwell by? where not only our energy is manifest, but much more — the energy of the Spirit of God. Our diligence depending absolutely on God for its success, but where nevertheless He meets without fail the heartfelt diligence that craves for its urgent need the living water. May not and should not every one of God's Isaacs be, in his measure and way, a well-digger? What blessedness for him who has thus not simply the ministry of others, but his own springing well!

Then the passage becomes more narrowed to the partners of life. And very impressive it is that he who erred publicly in adding so many wives and concubines should be the one inspired to commend a single object of wedded love. "Let thy fountain be blessed; and rejoice in the wife of thy youth." The words supplied by translators to introduce verse 19 are not only uncalled for, but enfeebling to the sense. To be cheerful abroad and morose at home, is to be thankless and unholy. "Let marriage," exhorts the Apostle, "be honourable in all things." As the A.V. stands, the words read as a stamp of warrant. It is really a call to hold the tie in honour, and this in every respect; and the warning follows there in accordance with verse 20 here.

Nor are the verses that succeed (21-23) to be disconnected. It is wholesome to remember that Jehovah not only honours His own institution for man, but watches over every transgression against it. Very grave is the admonition on His part in verse 21, too surely descriptive is the sketch in 22-23 of the sinful folly that goes astray in this. It has been pointed out that the word "shall go astray" is the same word translated "ravished" in a good sense in verse 19 and in a bad sense in verse 20. This last prepares for what verse 23 requires, especially when we compare it with Proverbs 26:11, "a fool repeats his folly." It is a departure, ever going on from bad to worse.

Prov. 5 warns a man against leaving the wife of his youth (the lawful connection) for the strange woman, which leads to utter demoralisation.

Prov. 6 enjoins one not to be surety for another. Wisdom is not slothful, violent, nor deceitful. There are seven things which are an abomination to the Lord. The strange woman is again pointed out to be avoided as fire: there is no ransom for adultery.

Proverbs 5 returns in detail to the corruption of heart that leads a man to forsake the wife of his youth for another. This path demoralises the whole man. But the eyes of Jehovah are upon the ways of man.

In Proverbs 6 wisdom will not be surety for another. It is neither slothful, nor violent, nor deceitful. The strange woman should be avoided as fire: there is no reparation for adultery. In Proverbs 7 the house of the strange woman is the path to the grave. To curb oneself, to be firm in resisting allurements, looking to Jehovah and hearkening to the words of the wise — such are the principles of life given in these chapters.

"And why shouldest thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?" Prov. 5:20.

In this short section we are warned against the danger of our affections going astray. In the verses preceding this exhortation, we are encouraged to give our whole affection to the One who has a right to it. This strange woman will make a bid to secure our affections, to which Christ only has a right. In the latter part of this book we meet with this appeal, "My son, give Me thy heart," Prov. 23:26. This woman evinces another mark of the false bride, seeking the affection which only Christ has a right to, and we are wise when we give Him the chief place. In view of this, one can understand the spiritual jealousy of the apostle Paul when, writing to the Corinthians, he said he wished to present them "a chaste virgin to Christ," 2 Cor. 11:2. It is imperative that we avoid this woman if our affections are to be kept for Christ.

"For the commandment is a lamp, and the teaching a light, and reproofs of instruction are the way of life; to keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of the strange woman. Lust not after her beauty in thy heart, neither let her take thee with her eyelids; for by means of a whorish woman (a man is brought) to a loaf of bread, and another's wife doth hunt for the precious soul," Prov. 6:23-26.

The entire chapter is a continuation of the strange woman and the warning against her. The Word and the law of the Lord will keep the obedient son from her. If Solomon had obeyed the Word of God, not to multiply wives (Deut. 17:17) his end would not have been spent in the degrading fellowship with the harlots of other nations. The description is very graphic. What the word pictures is as prominent in the great centers of Christendom as it was thousands of years ago in Babylon and Egypt. And so it is still true: