"For many are the victims she has cast down, and numerous are all her slain"
Solomon is trying to give us a bigger perspective because when you are under the influence of adultery, it feels like it is love and it is different and your feelings are unique and it is an exception to the normal moral boundaries. But it is not different and this is how millions of people have destroyed their life.
Solomon talks about the sin of adultery as through it were a spirit inhabiting a new woman and luring a new man but aiming at the same destructive goal. You don't have to give into the pull of this temptation. Don't allow yourself to become a victim.
victims
This is the Hebrew word halal which means fatal wound. The idea is clearly that the sin of adultery or unlicensed sexual involvement results in a fatal wound. Giving in to lust in a physical action results in things changing. Our culture has tried to make sexual unfaithfulness an action of no consequence – something that happens all the time. But that is not how God treats it. It is giving into an impulse that needs to be contained in a lifetime commitment called marriage. Adultery changes a person; it kills things.
slain
This is the Hebrew word harag which means destroy, kill, murder, slay. Adultery begins stabbing those who engage in it and keeps stabbing them until much about their present life dies. It corrupts and destroys. Very few find their way out of the grip of this sin; most are slain by it.
Solomon is doing everything he can to bring the power and destruction of this sin into the open. It destroyed his life and he felt its power first-hand. Do not let this sin begin stabbing you. It will take everything you have and a deep connection to the grace of God, but you can resist. You do not have to give in to the temptation to lust, adultery, and sexual escapades.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz