Adultery and Debt

Proverbs 5-6

            These two chapters contain two warnings against a sexually wandering eye and a warning against debt.

            The first warning against adultery uses the image of intoxication, which I think is apt. The problem is love and its perceptions. We tend to equate the obsessive longing of infatuation for love. Many relationships start with that feeling; many successful marriages begin with that feeling. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) that feeling evolves over time. The Greeks had more words for love than we do, and they characterized that feeling as eros. At its best eros keeps a place in a long-lasting marriage. But more needs to be added. Greeks distinguish philia, affection or friendship, and that is an important aspect of lasting relationships. They also not agape, a kind of love that serves another and puts their needs first. That’s the kind of love that sustains a relationship for the long-term. The intoxication of infatuation is powerful in an immediate sense, but intoxication is a good description, because that buzz is usually followed by weariness and a headache.

            The second warning against adultery uses the image of fire, again an apt picture. Eros burns hot; lust burns hot. But if that fire burns for another’s wife, it does not provide warmth but burns and injuries.

            In an age like ours, warnings against debt are difficult, because debt is so much a part of our lives. We go into debt for cars, for cellphones on payment plans, for houses. Credit cards are endemic among us. (According to Capital One, a credit card company, the average American had almost $6,000 of credit card debt in 2022.) Solomon’s advice sounds a great deal like Dave Ramsey: get out of debt as soon as you can: Allow no sleep, no slumber (6:5). Solomon dislikes debt because one becomes trapped by it, losing one’s agency because he is beholden to another. And he dislikes debt because it seems to him like an easy way out. Now, as a typical American who has some debt, especially a mortgage, I can’t say I love Solomon’s condemnation, but I certainly do see his point. Maybe a re-evaluation of how we operate in a modern economy is called for.