Call Her Sister

The song

Call Her Sister is sung from the same place the father in Proverbs 7 stands: at the window of his house, looking out as the light goes and a young man drifts toward the wrong corner. The chorus turns the chapter’s central command (v. 4) into a plea: call Wisdom your sister, your kin, before the dark sets in. In the bridge Wisdom answers in her own voice. She offers nothing the woman in the street offers, no twilight kisses and no lullabies, only a morning meeting and a holy fear that teaches the hands to tremble. The last verse walks through the graveyard of strong men who each thought they would make it home, and the outro sends us back to the beginning: bind her name across your fingers, and learn the road by daylight.

The chapter at a glance

Proverbs 7 is the last of the father’s lectures in chapters 1–9, and the final warning about the adulterous woman (after 2:16–19, 5:1–23 and 6:20–35). The earlier warnings mostly reason and count costs. This one tells a story, and lets us watch the whole thing unfold from a window.

• Prologue (vv. 1–5): Keep my words close, as near as family, so they can guard you.
• The drama (vv. 6–23):
  • The young man (vv. 6–9): simple, empty-hearted, out at dusk near her corner.
  • The woman (vv. 10–12): dressed for the hunt, guarded in heart, restless.
  • Her approach (vv. 13–21): a grab and a kiss, a religious excuse, flattery, perfume, and a promise that no one will find out.
  • The fall (vv. 22–23): a sudden yes, then pictures of slaughter and snares.
• Epilogue (vv. 24–27): Now, sons, listen. Don’t go near her. Look at the bodies. Her house leads down to death.

The chapter also closes a loop. The very first warning about this woman (2:16–19) began with being rescued from her smooth words and ended with her house sinking down to death. Chapter 7 opens and closes the same way (7:5; 7:26–27). The series ends where it began, so the lesson can’t be missed.

Walkthrough

7:1–5 — Wisdom as family

The prologue gathers the father’s familiar verbs, keep, treasure, bind and write, and adds two vivid pictures. First, his teaching is to be guarded like “the apple of thine eye” (v. 2), the pupil, the part of the body you shield by reflex before you even think. Scripture uses the same picture for the way God guards his people (Deut. 32:10; Ps. 17:8). Second, the commands are to be tied on the fingers and written on the tablet of the heart (v. 3; compare 3:3; 6:21). That is truth carried in the hands and in the inner life at once.

The point is practical. Advice you meet for the first time in the moment of temptation is already too late. Only what has been absorbed ahead of time, until it is part of how you see, will hold when the pressure comes.

Then comes the line the song is built on: say to Wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call understanding your kinswoman (v. 4). “Sister” is a word of closeness and even of love; the Song of Songs uses it for a beloved bride (Song 4:9–10). The father is not only telling his son to admire Wisdom from a distance. He is offering a rival relationship, close and lasting enough to make the stranger’s offer look as thin as it is. Desire is not beaten by having nothing to love. It is beaten by a greater love. Verse 5 states the goal plainly: so that she may keep you from the woman whose words are smooth.

7:6–9 — The young man

The father now speaks as a witness, looking down through the lattice of his window. Whether he saw this exact scene or is painting a picture drawn from a hundred like it, the story is so vivid that we are meant to stand at the window with him.

Among the simple he notices a youth “void of understanding” (v. 7), literally lacking heart. In Proverbs the “simple” person is not stupid. He is open, unformed and easily moved. Watch his feet: he is passing through the street near her corner, walking the way to her house (v. 8). Nothing is decided yet, but every step leans one way. The time of day sharpens the danger: twilight, evening, then the black of night (v. 9). Place and time are working together against him. He has no plan. She does.

7:10–12 — The woman

“And, behold” (v. 10). She comes out to meet him, dressed like a prostitute, though she is in fact a married woman, and “subtle of heart.” Outwardly she seems to hold nothing back; inwardly she reveals nothing at all. It is not a fair contest.

Verses 11–12 sketch her character. She is loud and defiant, and her feet never stay at home. She is in the street, then the squares, lying in wait at every corner. Her restlessness mirrors his aimlessness, except that hers has a target. Notice, too, how she copies Wisdom, who also calls out in the streets and squares (1:20–21; 8:1–3). Two women work the same public spaces. Each has her own invitation, and chapter 9 will set them side by side.

7:13–21 — Her approach

Her method unfolds in a quick sequence, pressed home with a flood of words.

1. Shock (v. 13). She grabs him and kisses him with a bold face. There is no time to think.
2. A pious excuse (v. 14). She has just paid her vows and offered peace offerings. Under the law, the worshipper ate the meat of such an offering (Lev. 7:15–16), so there is a feast at home that must be eaten today. Religion becomes the cover story. It’s a special day, and it would seem rude to refuse.
3. Flattery (v. 15). “I came forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face.” She makes him feel chosen. He is not one of many; he is the one.
4. Sensual appeal (vv. 16–18). Colored linens from Egypt, a bed perfumed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon, and an invitation to take their fill of love until morning. The scene is luxurious and imported and expensive.
5. Reassurance (vv. 19–20). “The goodman is not at home.” He has gone on a long journey with a bag of money and won’t be back until the full moon. Nobody will know, and nobody will get hurt.

Verse 21 sums it up: with much fair speech she causes him to yield, and with the flattering of her lips she forces him along. Notice that she does all the talking. He never says a word.

7:22–23 — The fall

“He goeth after her straightway” (v. 22), all at once. That is how it usually happens: a long, slow drift, then a single moment of collapse.

The father’s pictures now answer hers. She offered a feast, perfume and a soft bed. He shows an ox walking to the slaughter, a man bound like a fool for punishment, an arrow striking through the liver, and a bird hurrying into a snare (vv. 22–23). The Hebrew of part of verse 22 is difficult and translations vary, but the sense is unmistakable. The last line is the saddest: he does not know that it is for his life. The song’s line “he went like oxen go — soft-eyed, down the killing track” catches it. The animal is not defiant. It is oblivious.

7:24–27 — The epilogue

“Now therefore, my sons, hearken unto me” (v. 24). The plural matters. Having watched the young man, we are made to see that any of us could play his part. The father’s defense comes in three moves:

• Guard the heart. Don’t let your heart turn aside to her ways (v. 25a; compare 4:23). The danger begins when the thoughts start to drift.
• Keep your distance. Don’t go astray in her paths, with your feet or your imagination (v. 25b).
• Look past her to the casualties. She has cast down many wounded, and all her slain are a mighty host (v. 26). Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death (v. 27).

Death is the last word of the chapter and of all the father’s warnings about her. In Proverbs “death” is more than the end of the body. It is ruin, being cut off from the life God gives. Then, in the very next breath, Wisdom herself steps forward and lifts her voice (8:1).

Living it

This chapter is not mainly about one woman on one street. It is about how temptation works on anyone who drifts.

• Aimlessness is a risk. The young man didn’t set out to sin. He just had nowhere in particular to be, at dusk, near her corner. Many falls begin with unplanned evenings, a phone unlocked at midnight, or a “just passing by.”
• Temptation tells a story. It rarely arrives as plain “do wrong.” It comes with reasons: it’s a special day, you deserve this, you’re the one, nobody will find out. Even religion can be pulled in as cover. Learn to recognize the script.
• Decide in daylight. The song’s line “learn the road by daylight” is the chapter’s strategy. Settle your convictions when you are calm, rested and among people you trust, so you’re not inventing them in the dark.
• Love is the real defense. “Call her sister” is a call to closeness. Rules held at arm’s length snap under pressure. A relationship with Wisdom, and finally with the God whose fear is wisdom’s beginning (1:7; 9:10), gives you something better to want.
• Count the cost honestly. The father makes his son look at the graveyard. That isn’t cruelty. It is love that refuses to let us believe the brochure.
• There is mercy for the fallen. Many who hear this chapter already know that room. The warnings are meant to save, and the same God who warns receives the one who confesses and turns back (28:13; 1 John 1:9).

Key verse

Proverbs 7:4 — “Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman.” (ASV)

Make Wisdom family, before the night comes.

Further reading

• Proverbs 2:16–19; 5:1–23; 6:20–35 — the earlier warnings this chapter completes.
• Proverbs 8:1–36 and 9:1–18 — Wisdom’s answering call, and the two tables.
• Deuteronomy 6:6–9 — words on the hands and the heart.
• Genesis 39 — Joseph, who ran.
• 1 Corinthians 10:12–13 — “let him that thinketh he standeth take heed,” and the way of escape.