²³For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching is light; and reproofs for discipline are the way of life ²⁴to keep you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress. ²⁵Do not desire her beauty in your heart, nor let her capture you with her eyelids.

Continuing the grand metaphor of sexual allurement as the epitome of temptation to foolishness, Solomon emphasizes that the Lord’s commandments are given to guide us through the hazardous maze of enticements to act foolishly. Foolishness objectifies the object of temptation—in the case of the metaphor, the adulteress woman. It is the thing out there that is evil but conceals its nefarious purposes (“smooth tongue”) and presents itself as “beautiful.” Temptation carries weight and influence precisely because it overwhelmingly appears good. Satan, the epitome of foolish decision making, knows this truth and masquerades as something he is not, as the apostle Paul wrote: “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14). If temptation were ugly or obviously foolish, we would not be swayed! Seduction depends upon beauty, albeit a distortion of that which is good, but just enough imitation to draw a foolish person into its clutches.

If anyone knew wisdom, it was Solomon. He understood it from two sides, the intellectual and practical knowledge of wisdom on the one hand and the experiential knowledge of wisdom on the other hand—that is, the foolishness of rejecting wisdom. The illustration of a young man’s attraction to sin conveys the overlying principle of temptation’s pull to act foolishly in other areas of life. Always the temptation has traction with us because it seems to be the good way to act, at least in the moment. The temptation of Eve was enticing precisely because it seemed good to her to eat the forbidden fruit. The Scripture adroitly describes her attraction this way:

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. (Gen. 3:6)

The objective of Satan, the enemy of our souls, is to entice us to reject God, just as he did. And he uses the innate desire for beauty that we all have as being made in God’s image to reflect His glory. The desire for that which is good and beautiful is not bad, but it becomes foolish when that desire focuses on that which God says is not good. The book of Proverbs shows us that not all that seems beautiful and good for us is what it appears to be. Like with Eve, a foolish decision may look like a good thing, but it is a distortion. In the metaphor of Solomon, enticement to illicit sex may look good and pleasing and beautiful for the moment, but it distorts those very things when they are pursued outside of God’s will. So also, with all our decisions in life: “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Prov. 14:12, also 16:25).

Lord, help me resist the allure of foolishness in whatever form it takes in my life. Thank You for the guidance of Your Word that helps me see through temptations and instead choose the way of wisdom.