Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth.
Faithfulness is a command to drink deeply at home, not only to abstain outside.
Week 4 of 4
Your own cistern
The wife of your youth is not a starting point. She is the covenant.
Drink water out of your own cistern, running water out of your own well.
Proverbs 5:15
Proverbs does not whisper about desire. It tells a man to drink from his own well, to rejoice in the wife of his youth, to be intoxicated with her love, and to stay out of the street. Malachi says the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Loyalty is not only the absence of another woman. It is the presence of a man who comes home in his mind. God has no patience for treachery dressed up as a hard season.
Scripture
Formal study reading, written for this series
Formal study reading, written for this series
The Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one?
God was the witness at the wedding, and he still is.
So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.
What God joined, a man’s restlessness does not get to unmake.
NASB, the Amplified, and the ESV open on Bible Hub. The Legacy Standard Bible opens on its own reader. Close, Expanded, and Easy on this page are original study readings. WEB is the World English Bible, public domain.
Covenant is glad, not only grim
Proverbs 5 is often preached as a fence. It is also a feast. Drink. Rejoice. Be intoxicated with her love. A loyalty that is only clenched teeth will eventually go looking for water. The command is to cultivate desire toward the wife of your youth, not to starve and call the starvation holiness. That takes time, repentance, and a refusal to feed rivals.
Malachi’s word is treachery. The men were dismissing the wife of their youth, and God calls it violence against the covenant he witnessed. Jesus’ “what God has joined” stands over the moods of a hard decade. There are real sins that need counsel, safety, and sometimes the help of the church. None of them begin with a secret second well.
In the house
Come home on purpose. Put the day down. Learn again what rejoicing in her would require — attention, desire, repair. If the well feels dry, do not dig a new one. Tell the truth and get help together if she is willing.
End the small treacheries: the comparison, the fantasy, the emotional intimacy with someone who is not your covenant. Companion means you walk with her, not around her.
Seven days
At the table
- 1Where are you drinking outside the cistern, even with your body still at home?
- 2What would rejoicing in the wife of your youth require this month?
- 3Have you treated a hard season as permission to be half-married?
- 4Who was witness to your vow, and are you living as if he still is?
Your note
Stays on this device. No account.
A prayer
Father, you were the witness between me and the wife of my youth. Forgive the treachery, the thirst I took elsewhere, and the boredom I fed. Make me glad in her. Keep us one flesh. What you joined, I will not tear. I ask this through Jesus Christ, the faithful bridegroom. Amen.