Proverb 9:17
“Stolen water is sweet,
And bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”
She makes these claims to those who lack understanding (are weak), because she knows they are vulnerable. Her chances at infiltration are greater and so she attacks her victim with lies:
She wants her victim to believe the thing that God commands us against is good. Stolen water is sweet, she says. But she doesn’t disclose the part where your insides will rot with guilt and shame. How you may get caught and the law will reprimand you, sometimes with punishment too harsh for the crime. She doesn’t explain how you may become a target of vengeance by not only the law, but the one you stole from, or their kin.
The clamorous woman uses her jargon to keep us hyper-focused on our desire: water in this instance. When we thirst, she wants to make us believe she has a drink to offer. Not just any drink, though—a drink that is to be excessively desired. One that is pleasing and good. Sweet, in fact. And yet it will destroy you from the inside out. It’s a stark contrast to the Living Water that Lady Wisdom gently leads us to.
She tries to convince that bread eaten in secret is pleasant. She targets another basic desire, here: food. I don’t think this is coincidental or happenstance. Bread and water are indicative of so much more than the basic needs they represent. They are symbolic of our basic spiritual needs and representative of the one who claims that he is the Bread of Life and offers Living Water.
It’s not about bread and water at all, but about anything in this world that takes the place of actual Bread of Life and Living Water. It can literally be anything on the face of this earth that overwhelm our desires and throw a shadow over our Godly pursuit. Sex, drugs, exercises, self-image, over-eating, under-eating, work, children, spouse, the list goes on and on and on. And when we place that thing—whatever it is for us—in the Genesis story as the thing that Eve consumes—the one thing God told her not to partake of, we see that it is both stolen (not ours to take) and immediately covered up in secrecy.
It’s the very nature of sin that is being illustrated through the picture here. But we all know the story and it is neither pleasant or sweet when we partake. The clamorous woman will do everything she can to convince us otherwise. We just have to learn how to tune out her noise and remind ourselves of truths; like only the bread of life and Living Water truly satisfies. That’s what our souls were created to be nourished and fed by. Just like cars can’t run on anything but gas, we must remember that anything other than the Bread of Life and Living Water will wreck the vehicle, in this case, our soul.