My son, keep my words. Likewise, it says above (2:1), “If you receive my words and treasure my commandments with you,” as explained there.

Keep my commandments and live. A person performs the commandments and lives through them, while the Torah is the light of the eyes that shows him the way in which to walk. Therefore, keep my Torah like the pupil of your eye: just as a person guards the pupil of his eye from blindness, so must he guard the Torah, the intellectual eye through which he sees light.

Bind them upon your fingers, so that every deed you perform with your fingers accords with the Torah. Write them upon the tablet of your heart, so that every thought of the heart accords with the ways of wisdom. The heart is the ruling power of the soul, and the concepts of wisdom must be inscribed upon it as God’s writing engraved upon the tablets, to still the tumult of the images of desire that rise against the heart. That is, both your thoughts and the actions of your fingers should all follow the Torah’s counsel.

Say to wisdom, ‘You are my sister.’ Closeness to a sister comes through birth, whereas closeness to an intimate acquaintance comes through choice. As explained, a person does not discover the laws of wisdom on his own; they are given to him by God, just as love for a sister is given by God. The human soul is constituted with all the faculties that bear wisdom, and wisdom’s laws are implanted in the soul from its creation, like a sister whose kinship is by birth. Understanding, however, is generated by a person from his own knowledge, as he understands one thing from another. Therefore, it says, and call understanding your intimate, for this resembles an acquaintance whom he has drawn close by his own choice.

To guard you from a strange woman. A “strange” woman may even be an Israelite if she is not his wife, whereas a “foreign” woman is specifically from another nation. Ordinarily he will not love a foreign woman unless she entices him with smooth speech; therefore it says, from the foreign woman who makes her words smooth. Allegorically, studies foreign to the wisdom of Torah are called a strange woman. Nevertheless, what was foreign may conceivably become his wife through marriage, and these disciplines may likewise be used for Torah purposes. The foreign woman represents doctrines of heresy and idolatry, which are wholly alien to Torah, though they make their claims attractive through philosophical arguments that lead to heresy. The Torah will save him from both.

For at the window of my house, through my lattice, I looked out. Through a window one sees revealed things, while through a lattice one observes hidden matters. That is, I saw both in an open vision and in a concealed vision.

I saw among the simple. Through the window I saw the simple, who lack the sense to conceal their deeds; through the lattice, I discerned among the youths—those who are not simple and conceal their actions. By looking through the lattice I understood how he was a youth lacking a heart, meaning that he lacked the ruling power needed to restrain his desire.

Passing through the marketplace. I saw that at first he merely passed through the marketplace, but then inclined near her corner, the corner where she sat. Afterward, he strode on the way to her house, as the text explains.

At twilight. At first he passes through the marketplace at twilight, meaning at the beginning of night. Since dawn is also called twilight, it specifies in the evening of the day, meaning the twilight at day’s end. Afterward, he strides toward her house in the pupil of night and darkness.

And behold, a woman came to meet him. Just as he intended to take the road to her house, so she came out to meet him, dressed as a harlot: her nakedness and sexuality were naturally inclined toward promiscuity. She was guarded of heart, lacking the ruling power to master her desire, for her heart—the ruling faculty—was besieged, with thoughts of desire constantly surrounding it with images of sin, as in “her heart is snares and nets”; her heart was confined and guarded by them.

She is clamorous. Her entire nature and disposition depart from equilibrium. In her traits she is noisy and constantly angry. Do not suppose that she rages at rebellious maidservants; on the contrary, she herself is rebellious and provokes her husband and household. She also abandons modesty, for her feet do not remain in her house, but rather—

Sometimes outside, behind the house, and sometimes in the streets, in the public domain crowded with people; moreover, she lurks at every corner to hunt those walking off to the side.

She seized him. She advances in brazenness from one degree to the next: first she takes hold of him; then she grows still bolder—she kisses him, hardens her face even more, and says to him.

Peace-offerings were incumbent upon me. She tells him that she is inviting him to a mitzvah feast to eat the meat of peace-offerings, and that for her it is the joy of a mitzvah, for today I fulfilled my vows. The evil inclination begins with a mitzvah.

Therefore I came out. At first she says that because she saw him walking, she came out to meet him. She grows bolder and says that she went out to seek his face and look for him—that when she set out she did not know he would chance to meet her, but intended from the outset to seek him.

With spreads. She grows bolder, proposing that he lodge there in her house, and that her couch is spread with costly coverings upon which he may lie.

I have perfumed my bed. She grows bolder still, saying that he will lie upon her own bed. When she said, “I have spread my couch,” she had not specified that he would lie on her bed; he could lie on her couch while she slept elsewhere. But my bed means the place where she herself will lie.

Come, let us sate ourselves with love, and she adds, let us delight ourselves with lovemaking, for the term “lovemaking” explicitly denotes intercourse and union.

For he is not— so that he will not fear her husband, she says that the man is not in his house; and so that he will not fear that he may return, she says, he has gone on a distant journey. Lest he say that her husband may need money for commerce and return home, she says—

He took the money-bag in his hand. And lest he fear that the business will be completed quickly and her husband will return, she says, he will come home at the appointed day: he has a fixed time for returning and will not come before then.

She inclined him. Observe that at first he did not listen to her; only with her abundant persuasion did she incline him to turn toward her. Afterward, with the smoothness of her lips and flattering words, she drives him away from his place, so that he begins moving after her.

He suddenly follows her. Once displaced from his position, he suddenly begins to walk, for had he delayed and consulted his reason, he would have restrained himself. It therefore happens suddenly. Even so, at first his heart reproaches him and he goes under compulsion, like an ox led to slaughter, which does not go willingly but by force. Later he will go willingly; nevertheless, he goes like a jingling serpent to discipline a fool. Though the hissing serpent goes willingly to punish the fool, it still makes a sound warning the fool—who doubts everything—to beware its venom. So too, even as he goes willingly, his heart sounds a warning about the venom hidden there.

Until an arrow pierces his liver. The arrow of desire pierces his liver and makes his blood, whose source is in the liver, boil like a pot. Then he no longer goes unwillingly but willingly, as a bird hastens into a snare, moving swiftly, not knowing that it is at the cost of its life. So too, he now goes willingly, and his heart no longer reproaches him.

And now, sons, listen to me. First listen and understand why my words are correct; afterward, attend even to the words of my mouth without demanding any reason at all.

Let your heart not turn aside to her ways. A “way” is a public road, while a “path” is for an individual. Not only must your heart not turn toward her ways—that is, to commit adultery with her—but do not stray into her paths: do not err by entering even her small paths, such as speaking with her or looking at her. A person might tell himself that he is certain he will not sin and will earn a reward, as in, “Let us go past the door of the harlots, subdue our inclination, and receive a reward.” That too is a small path branching from her ways.

For— it explains that one must not turn to her broad ways, for she has felled many wounded. Nor should one trust his righteousness, supposing that he will not sin, and stray into her smaller paths, for mighty are all those she has slain: the people she killed were mighty and strong in Torah and fear of Heaven, yet they did not withstand the trial. Therefore, do not approach her at all, as stated above: “Do not draw near the entrance of her house.”

For her house is the ways to Sheol. Sheol is the deep pit, and one may fall into it even before dying. Thus, even one who merely walks by the way of her house is already walking on the ways to Sheol and will fall into a deep pit. It pictures death dwelling in Sheol’s deepest chambers; whoever enters Sheol descends from there to the chambers of death—meaning that he will come to commit the sin.