What does it mean to rejoice in the wife of your youth (Proverbs 5:18)?

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.

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).

"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.

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."

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

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.

Every right-minded man will look upon his wife as the only woman in the world for him, he will desire no other; and that not because he has chosen her for his wife, but because God has joined them together. He will look upon her as the very woman that God made for him; he will treat her as God's gift to him, and more, he will treat her as himself, for they twain have become one flesh; and that by no mere ordinance of man, but by God's own act and decree, hence "what God has joined together let not man put asunder."

Every right-minded man will look upon his wife as the only woman in the world for him, he will desire no other; and that not because he has chosen her for his wife, but because God has joined them together. He will look upon her as the very woman that God made for him; he will treat her as God's gift to him, and more, he will treat her as himself, for they twain have become one flesh; and that by no mere ordinance of man, but by God's own act and decree, hence “what God hath joined together let not man put asunder.”

The love of the marriage relationship, is an act of will under the guidance of our Master. An intelligent and permanent decision, which is taken in mature consideration of the issues involved and which will endure through every pressure and circumstance which might otherwise cause a couple to 'fall out of love'. The Lord has decreed that marriage is for life and if we want the Lord’s blessing we must follow his instructions. It is the lie of the devil that we can be happy with someone else. We must reject his subtle whispers.

In the ideal marriage of scripture, therefore, the wife becomes the enthralling object of her spouse's affection and devotion to a degree which deepens in intensity as the years pass. Self is set aside in the home-life, and he that is married is solicitous in everyday matters how he may please his wife rather than himself. And while he may forget his own little lordship in the absorbing self-sacrifice of his love, he finds that his wife does not forget his authority over her nor omit her ready obedience to him, just because he is so lavish in his love toward her.