John Gill Commentary Proverbs 6:32

"He that committeth adultery with a woman is void of understanding: He doeth it who would destroy his own soul." — Proverbs 6:32 (ASV)

[But] whoever commits adultery with a woman
Which is a greater degree of theft than the former, it being the stealing of another man's wife; lacks understanding ;
or "an heart" ^F20 ; the thief lacks bread, and therefore steals, but this man lacks wisdom, and therefore acts so foolish a part; the one does it to satisfy hunger, the other a brutish lust;

he [that] does it destroys his own soul ;
is liable to have his life taken away by the husband of the adulteress; so according to Solon's law ^F21 the adulterer taken in the act might be killed by the husband: or by the civil magistrate; for according to the law of Moses he was to die, either to be strangled or stoned, (See Gill on John 8:5);

and besides, he not only ruins the natural faculties of his soul, besotting, corrupting, and depraving that, giving his heart to a whore, but brings eternal destruction on it; yet so foolish is he, though it issues in the ruin of his precious soul; "he does this" ^F23 , for so the first part of this clause, which stands last in the original text, may be rendered.

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FOOTNOTES:

• F20: (bl rox) "deficit corde", Pagninus, Montanus; "caret corde", Mercerus, Gejerus; so Michaelis.
• F21: Plutarch. in Vita Solon. p. 90.
• F23: (hnvey awh) "ipse faeiet illud", Montanus; "ipse faciet hoc", so some in Vatablus; "is id faciet, sive facit", Cocceius; "ille facit id", Michaelis; "is patrabit illud", Schultens.