Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be intoxicated always in her love.
Is this about actual women and their breasts or is wife a metaphor for Church/Wisdom or something else?
Both.
Breasts/bossom means a cuddle/hug.
Get your mind out the gutter
Previous verses are about not letting other men have sex with your wife
Yes. There's nothing wrong with loving and enjoying being with your wife.
Just taking a guess here, but is the verse actually trying to fetishize breasts? The ancients could have seen breasts as simply what are used to nourish children, so using breasts here is poetic. A mother's breasts are the means through which she nourishes a child. A child relies on its mother for nourishment. So in the same way a child seeks food from its mother, a husband should seek delight from his wife.
Cuddling/Hugging involves pressing against their breasts. Specially if they are big.
You're the only one here who has got this right. Moderns need to leave their degeneracy at the door when it comes to Scripture.
Which is why its called breast.
There is literally 0 sexual conatation here
Breasts are definitely sexual when it comes to how grown men relate to them in their "youthful wives". But that verse is about husbands and wives, so it's a good sexuality.
Don't be a prude.
Yes a husband seeks delight in his wife's breasts in a very different way than an innocent child does. Good point.
Better to be a prude than a sinner. In any case, I agree it's a celebration of marital conjugation, yet most explicitly sexual stuff in sacred scripture is metaphor. Drop the modernism at the door.
smdh
...
That's what heretics do to justify their beliefs.
And Christianity never used the literal argument against heathens. Especially sapiential books since you can't read literally a proverb. And if you thing if someone says female breasts is talking about your sick fetish you are very wrong.
Don't forget the devil also quoted scripture.
What
Yes it is poetry, but the proverb itself is about taking joy in the physical beauty of one's wife as has pointed out. The Bible has much to say in regards to the marriage relationship and it is never shy about this. I mean, look at the Song of Solomon for example. Taken at the most literal form it is about a man and a woman and their desire, both physical and emotional for each other.
Why is this treated like something that is bad? "Oh no, I had lustful thoughts about my wife, I am a sinner! How dare I lust for that which God has given to me, to be pleased by and to please. God forgive me for thinking about my wife, my WIFE, in a sexual way."
I've yet to understand where this view comes from.
Are you Ned Flanders?
Cucks and feminists. Pastorbators, as I've heard them called.
I don't know, I think this idea of sex being shameful goes back much further than that. I know for myself, even being raised in a Christian household sex was never much talked about, I mean I never really got "the talk" from a Christian perspective, even during Bible studies as a teenager and, well, one thing led to another and I wandered astray, came back though eventually.
Honestly I never really got a solid foundation of a Biblical view of sex until I went to preaching school.
I'm curious, from the Catholic bros here, what the traditions of your church fathers say on the matter. Huh, you know I've got the writings of the Ante-Nicean fathers, should really look this up.
Oh, it goes back further for sure. I just mean where it comes from now.
Read about Dalrock and "cuckshivalry". He goes back to the medieval period with it.
Thanks for that link. This is a pretty interesting topic, I think. So where then, do you, or any others, suppose the idea, or the perversion of marriage, and the passion of the marriage bed, began to go astray? Hah, likely we can point back to when everything went awry, in the Garden, but it is interesting what effect Western thought has had on the Christian view of sex within the confines of marriage.
Moral Oral satirized this best I think with the "lost commandment" of "face to face, man on top" only, and the modesty screen between Oral's parents.
On the whole, I think the topic of where the Christian world view has gone wrong in regards to sex and marriage rather interesting.
Saw this in the comments at Dalrock's blog. The comment section is almost always just as insightful as the blog posts.
newadvent.org
St. Jerome:
I assume this is why some Catholics, even some I've seen here on this board, object to passionate and sexful marriages.
That's interesting. C.S. Lewis, in his essay/talk on the four loves does bring out the point about Eros having the possibility of leading to such idolatry when it comes to love, that the passion of eros, the emotion of it, can cause it to be a thing of worship, but that need not be the case.
As with all things, through Jesus we have a renewed life with God, and should have a renewed understanding of all relationships, and for having a marriage that is lacking passion, are we, as men, not told to love out wives as Christ loved the church, willing even to die for her? If that is not a passion then what is? And it was also Paul who, by God's Spirit, instructs us that it is better to be married than to burn with lust. The object of course being, instead of having nothing to focus that physical passion on, it is better to marry and have someone to share the physical bliss of marriage, than to burn with such lust and either have no outlet for it, or worse still, to engage in immoral relationships or fornication by itself.
Indeed. The Song of Solomon is very explicit. Lust within marriage, directed to one's spouse is biblical. Idolatry is much more likely the other way around, at least in my experience. Most sexless men worship that which they don't have.
Ned Flanders is a better Christian than anyone here
If you want to talk about cartoons there is /co/ and /tv/ but don't pretend like the media can ever be a good representation of Christianity again.
I've not been through the entire book since the renewal of my faith.
However, this is actually the book I'm studying right now. And a passage I read in context yesterday.
Proverbs is not literally a list of proverbs, in the English language sense. It is a continual work pertaining to the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, expressed here as "Wisdom."
The section you are drawing from compares the fruits if The Spirit with those of lesser "gods." God's gifts are compared to your wife, who is by custom given at a young age. The lesser are compared to a prostitute. Throughout several chapters, the two depictions are directly contrasted to better understand the nature of both underlying messages.
The specific passage implores the learner to seek and treasure the Spirit. The fountain is seeking the procession from Father to Son to you. Your wife is fidelity to The Lord. She comes from your youth because it was God who made you. The spirit is bountiful, like a good pair of tits, and you should be attentive to it.
The metaphors are couched in sound marital advice. Because this is a universal concept to the men of the age.
Furthermore, lust is not the basis of a Holy marriage. Love is. To see a more illuminating example of an ideal union, read Tobit.
Or, and here's a crazy thought so bear with me,
the writer of this proverb is actually writing about without thought to allegory.
This is just me, but trying to find allegory in every page of the Bible has, I fear, actually set Biblical understanding back, not pushed it forward. Solomon, who wrote most of the book is actually writing proverbs, short, concise wise sayings. Certainly, there is poetry and poetic expression within the proverbs, but the proverb, the wisdom here, is to simply rejoice in your wife (physical, real, literal) and delight in her body and in her love so that you will not sin and seek after another woman.
Well, the book has dual dedication. For those who have Wisdom but want more, and for those only starting the journey.
… actually, if that's not clear enough, let me be blunt.
Yes. It is sound marital advice. For the purpose of avoiding sin.
Avoiding sin allows for repentance.
Repentance empties yourself.
Fear of the Lord fills this void.
Fear of the Lord (humility) is the beginning of Wisdom.
With Wisdom (The Spirit) and understanding, you can reread the book and see what I'm talking about.
Originally Flanders was just a nice guy who was better than homer, and the joke was that homer hated him for it. Over time he became an exaggerated sterotype
No, I see what you are talking about, I just think you are looking for allegory where none exists. But I could always be wrong.
Captain Catholic come to tell us everything is a metaphor or allegory. Why is there such an aversion to treat anything literal with you folk?
There are chapters and verses for wisdom and there are chapters about women in the literal sense. Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 9 are about real literal women, and real literal whores. With whores, it is the way to death and shame. With your wife it is the way to life and the enjoyment thereof.
See
it's kind of ironic, since Catholics have so much art of Mary lactating into bishops' mouths, with her breasts. Not gonna post them, too inappropriate, but it's fine for their cathedrals and museums I guess
Ned Flanders, in an early episode, called the reverend because he was "afraid he was lusting after his wife". I guess you missed the reference. Enjoying your wife's breasts is not a "sick fetish".
>and rejoice in the wife of your youth
Literally who?
Proverbs 5:1-13 I especially take note of this statement: For the lips of an adulteress drip honey And smoother than oil is her speech;4 But in the end she is bitter as wormwood,Sharp as a two-edged sword.5 Her feet go down to death,Her steps take hold of Sheol. (OUCH!!!!)
Ecclesiastes 7:26-28 – 26 And I discovered more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are chains. One who is pleasing to God will escape from her, but the sinner will be captured by her.
27 “Behold, I have discovered this,” says the Preacher, “adding one thing to another to find an explanation, 28 which I am still seeking but have not found. I have found one man among a thousand, but I have not found a woman among all these. (Slam dunk by Solomon, he basically says out of 1000 women, he has not found one who is upright. LMAO)
I Corinthians 7:8 – 8 But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I.(Paul wasn’t married)
I Corinthians 7:32-34 – 32 But I want you to be free from concern. One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; 33 but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, 34 and his interests are divided.
I Corinthians 7:38 – 38 So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better. (Notice the last statement, “will do even better”)
Proverbs 21:9 – It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife. (can’t get much clearer than that)
Proverbs 27:15-16 – A continual dripping on a rainy day and a quarrelsome wife are alike; 16 to restrain her is to restrain the wind or to grasp oil in one’s right hand. (in other words, it’s (restrain) impossible, so avoid even going there, it’s a recipe for failure)
Proverbs 30:20 – This is the way of an adulteress:she eats and wipes her mouth and says, “I have done no wrong.”
If that is your calling, then don't. Most men will sin with passion unto their deaths if they don't marry. I would never marry a Western woman, but I don't write off marriage altogether.
Paul and people like him are unique and few will be called for that. You shouldn't tell others not to marry outright. And you shouldn't ignore verses while shilling your own mantra. Everyone should pray and reflect deeply on what God has planned for them.
1 Timothy 3:1-5
This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.
A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;
One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;
(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)
Matthew 19:11-12
But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.
For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.
1 Corinthians 7:2, 6-9
Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment.
For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.
I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I.
But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.
Why cant you people just agree that being with your wife is a good thing without these mental gymnastics?
They refuse to take Scripture literally, for whatever reason. You cannot go wrong by obeying Scripture. It is a static baseline through which everything else should be judged.
