I've always known that Proverbs includes Lady Wisdom and Woman Folly as personifications of ideas. They each represent a way of thinking. You also can't miss that Proverbs talks a lot about "the adulteress," but I always viewed that as just describing real women. What if it's not?
It always seemed a little harsh how the book has so much warning about the dangerous seduction of the adulteress. It makes it sound like immoral women (apparently married women at that) will just be throwing themselves at you left and right, so you need to be on your guard at all times. Maybe someone as impressive as Solomon dealt with that, but I can certainly say that hasn't been my experience in 40+ years of life.
What if "the adulteress" is primarily another personification? The Bible frequently describes wandering away from pure faith in God as adultery. Old Testament prophets repeatedly speak to "adulterous Israel," and God uses a marriage covenant as a metaphor for the people forsaking His covenant. Jeremiah even brings back the metaphor of fictitious women, this time representing Israel and Judah, and says a lot about their adultery.
Sometimes Proverbs clearly speaks of real wives, both your own and someone else's, such as at the ends of chapters 5 & 6 (I could go either way with the whole narrative in chapter 7). But if you interpret "the adulteress" as personifying the lifestyle and way of thinking that is unfaithful to God, then the sheer abundance of warnings makes more sense.
The good news is you can safely read it this way without losing anything. If you take God and His Word seriously, then literal adultery is clearly out of bounds. Trying to justify it is the very mindset we're talking about. But I think it makes sense to be on guard for anything that pulls you away from genuine devotion to the one true God rather than drastically overrepresenting one particular type of temptation.
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