Proverbs 7 in MT and LXX: Form and Content

Proverbs 7 MT and LXX 141
the following cases in which he created a different structure are not
ideologically motivated but rather are literary and translational moves.
Who is this / ?Who is the strange woman that is going to be
the subject of the wisdom-teacher’s fierce speech? At this point in the
speech, the meaning of or is not transparent. The translator,
too, does not offer a solution: he uses the quite neutral term & ,
although he makes it clear that she is evil. She is said to master smooth talk
and to have the appearance of a whore, but it is not until the end of her
words (vv. 19–20)—where she assures the lad that her husband is not
expected home for a long time—that the terminology used in the
introduction becomes entirely clear. She is termed / since she is
‘another man’s wife’. 27 This meaning is supported by the rest of the
speeches throughout chs. 1–9. In ch. 2, the strange woman (v. 16) is
described as a woman “Who forsakes the companion of her youth” (v. 17).
In ch. 5, men are urged to keep away from a strange woman: “Keep yourself
far away from her; Do not come near the doorway of her house” (v. 8),
“Lest strangers eat their fill of your strength, And your toil be for the house
of another” (v. 10); instead, men are advised to find joy in the wife of their
youth (v. 18). In ch. 6 the strange woman (v. 24) is straightforwardly called
“a married woman” (v. 26), and “his fellow’s wife”
(v. 29), and the relationship with her is defined as adultery (v. 32). The
strange woman, then, is someone else’s wife. 28
27 Modern translators are quite at a loss in their attempts to render these terms.
RSV: loose woman; NJPS: forbidden woman; Cook, , speaks of ‘a loose
woman’ (458), but he also defines her as a ‘harlot’ (458, 465) or a ‘strange woman’
(466); Hamonville, Proverbes, 200, renders the phrase as ‘femme étrangère’, and
refers to her as ‘femme adultère’ (199), ‘séductrice’ (201).
28 Fox, Proverbs, 139.