Make Your Wife Blessed!

[Proverbs 5:15-23]

You may have heard the expression "a treasure" or "a blessing." Its meaning refers to something or someone that is very precious (according to the Naver dictionary). What is something or someone truly precious to you? In other words, who or what is your blessing? In today's passage, Proverbs 5:18, the Bible says, "Let your fountain be blessed." Here, "fountain" is a metaphor for the wife. In other words, the Bible commands us to make our wives blessed. How can we, you and I, make our wives blessed?

There are two ways to consider this:

First, we must regard our wives as a blessing that God has given us.

Look at Proverbs 18:22: "He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord." Of course, the writer of Proverbs, King Solomon, is not referring to just any wife. How do we know this? As we read Proverbs, we find him saying, "It is better to live in a corner of the roof than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife" (Proverbs 21:9). "It is better to live in the desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife" (Proverbs 21:19). Therefore, the "wife" Solomon is referring to is not a quarrelsome or angry woman, but rather an "excellent wife" (Proverbs 12:4), a "prudent wife" (Proverbs 19:14), or the "wife of noble character" described in Proverbs 31:10.

In Proverbs 12:4, we read: "A wife of noble character is her husband's crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones." In Proverbs 19:14, it says: "Houses and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the Lord." In Proverbs 31:10, it says: "A wife of noble character, who can find? She is worth far more than rubies." The Bible tells us that the one who finds a wise and virtuous wife is blessed and has received favor from God. In other words, a husband with such a wife is a blessed man. The reason is that such a wise, virtuous, and prudent wife is a blessing to him.

Do you regard your wife as a blessing? Or do you see her as a burden or curse? I ask this question because the Hebrew word for "blessed" in today's passage, Proverbs 5:18, also carries the meaning of "curse" (Vine). We must regard our spouses as blessings. The reason is that the "wife you took when you were young" is a wife given to you by God. And the wife God gives you is a blessing to you (Malachi 2:14) (Park Yun-Sun). Therefore, as husbands, we must not only regard our wives as "my blessed one" in our hearts but also express it with our words. However, if we do not regard our blessed wife as our blessing, it is the same as denying that she is the wife God has given us. This is a sin of unbelief and pride.

Perhaps some men might want to make an excuse, saying, "God did not give me a wise wife but gave me a quarrelsome and angry wife. How can I regard such a wife as a blessing?" Doesn’t that sound like a reasonable excuse? If I heard a brother say this, I would want to tell him, "God did not give you a quarrelsome and angry wife; you chose that woman, so take responsibility and raise her to be a wise wife." Too often, it seems that we men reject the wise, virtuous, and prudent wives God gives us, and instead, we choose a woman who is beautiful and attractive to us but later becomes quarrelsome and angry. If we have made such a choice, shouldn’t we take responsibility and commit to raising our wife to be a wise woman?

Too many men today are speaking and acting irresponsibly toward the wives they have chosen. They are not afraid to speak curses to their wives and even make their wives feel like a curse through their actions. In short, many wives today are living without receiving love from their husbands. How miserable is the life of a woman who is not loved by her husband?

We must regard our wives (spouses) as the blessings that God has given us. And we must faithfully and responsibly carry out our duties toward the wives we have chosen.

Second, in order to make our wives blessed, we must take delight in our spouses.

Look at Proverbs 5:18: "Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth." How exactly should we, as husbands, take delight in our wives? We, as husbands, must always be content with the embrace of our wives. Verse 19 says: "She is like a loving doe, a graceful deer; may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love." To "always be content with her embrace" means that we should be captivated by her love (we must be captivated by her love). Especially, our hearts should be captivated more by her virtues than her beauty. This is the meaning of the metaphor "loving doe" and "graceful deer" (Park Yun-Seon). When we do so, we will delight only in the love of our "well" and "fountain" (verse 15)—our wives—and will never forsake them or go to the house of an adulteress, as the verse warns us not to "let your fountain be spilled outside" (Park Yun-Seon). In other words, when we find satisfying refreshment, both sexually and affectionately, in the love of our wives (MacArthur), we will never long for the embrace or love of an adulteress (verse 20). King Solomon speaks in Proverbs 5:16-17: "Why should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers." But how many husbands today let their springs overflow outside their homes and share them with others? How many men abandon their wives and go to other women?

Today, many husbands do not take delight in their wives, do not cherish them, and, as a result, do not long for their wives' love (verse 19). Instead, they are enticed by adulteresses and embrace the chest of another woman (verse 20). Marriage counselor M. Gary Newman conducted a study analyzing why men cheat, surveying 200 men (both cheaters and non-cheaters), and the findings are as follows (internet source): 48% of men who cheat said the reason is that they do not feel emotional or mental love from their wives or partners. While it is commonly believed that men cheat because they do not receive physical affection from their wives, only about 8% of men agreed with that reason. In fact, men also desire emotional and mental intimacy, such as hearing "Thank you, honey" or "I love you," from their wives, much like women. However, unlike women, men have difficulty expressing these feelings. 77% of men know someone in their circle of friends who has cheated. 40% of men meet their affairs at work. Most men who cheat do so with women from their workplace, as they receive praise and respect from female colleagues or younger women. In other words, men become interested in women who acknowledge them.

When men abandon their wives and become interested in other women, they inevitably experience the consequences of their sinful choices (verses 7-14). The discipline for this is what we reflect on in verses 7-14: "loss of honor" (verse 9), "loss of time" (verse 9), "loss of wealth" (verse 10), "loss of health" (verse 11), and "suffering from a tormented conscience" (verses 12-14). Therefore, knowing the consequences of adultery, we should not long for the adulteress. But today, the Bible offers a higher motivation in verses 21-23. There are three reasons given in those verses (Walvoord).

(1) The fact that God is observing and examining everything we do.

Look at Proverbs 5:21: "For a man's ways are in full view of the LORD, and He examines all his paths." What does this mean? It means that God is alive and He examines all the actions of the wicked (the term "examines" here means that He makes them straight in the revised version). God observes all our secret actions. If our heart does not delight in the love of our wife and instead seeks the love of another woman, God knows that heart and will discipline us.

(2) Sin is like a trap that entangles us (1:17-18) and causes us to be bound by the cords of sin, so we must not desire the woman of another.

Look at Proverbs 5:22: "The wicked man is ensnared by his own sin, and he is held fast by the cords of his sin." Although we often talk about the freedom we have from sin, in reality, sin makes us slaves and prevents us from experiencing true freedom.

(3) The fact that living a morally undisciplined life and acting on our own will leads to death should make us avoid desiring the adulteress.

Look at Proverbs 5:23: "He will die for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he will be led astray." We should never be trapped by foolishness and fail to receive God’s correction, nor should we let our hearts be stolen by the adulteress. The reason is that the result of such actions is death.

I would like to conclude with a reflection on the Word of God. The wise children of God, who pay attention to His Word and wisdom, make their wives or spouses blessed. They consider the spouse that God has given them as a blessing. And they delight in their wives. They always consider her embrace as enough. This is a reflection of the relationship between Jesus, the Bridegroom, and the Church, His bride. In other words, the Church, as the bride of Christ, should consider Jesus, the source of all blessings, as their blessing. And we must delight in the Lord. We should always consider His embrace as enough. I pray that both you and I, with all our heart, soul, and strength, will love Jesus, our Bridegroom.