There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky,  the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a young woman. This is the way of an adulterous woman: She eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’ – Proverbs 30:18-20

The Lord has been doing a deep and redeeming work on my heart, lately. We’re working through things as if I was a patient on his couch, recounting the last ten years of my life. I’ve had to ask for a lot of forgiveness, mercy, and grace. Thankfully, I serve a God who is overflowing with all three and has the power to overcome the shame that I carry from my long resume of sin. 

This morning, I was reading Proverbs 30 and I came across this section in verses 18-20. I read it and then  puzzled over it because of course, my first thought was, “What do an eagle, a snake, a ship, and a man loving a woman all have in common? And what’s wrong with an adulterous woman eating?” Obviously, the answer came from much smarter people than I.

I looked in the footnotes of my Bible –  which happens to be an English Standard Version study Bible, just for clarity’s sake – and I found the notes there to be immensely helpful. 

“The eagle, the serpent, and the ship leave no trail behind them. The relationship of a man and a woman, if it is chaste, likewise leaves no observable change in either of them. An alternative interpretation of what the items in verse 19 have in common is that they all make apparently effortless, almost instinctive, progress toward a goal.” 

Continuing on to the adulterous woman section, which is really the portion I want to focus on here, the notes said, “The adultress… eats and wipes her mouth, and says she has done no wrong. Taking the words literally, what she says is true; eating is no sin. But eating here is symbolic of her life of adultery – wiping the mouth after eating suggests cleansing herself after illicit sex. She is of the opinion that after she has washed up, nothing remains of the sexual encounter and there are no moral ramifications to her behavior.” 

After reading the notes, I went back to that section and circled it, highlighted it, and wrote my own notes because it hit me like a punch to the gut. 

Numerous times throughout the Bible, God’s people are compared to adulterous women or prostitutes. Take Hosea for example, God told the prophet to marry an adulterous woman, “for like an adulterous wife, this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.” (Hosea 1:2)

Isaiah makes the same comparison in the first chapter saying, “How the faithful city has become a whore, she who was full of justice!” (Isaiah 1:2)

It happens again and again, mostly in the Old Testament, where God’s chosen are likened to that of an unfaithful or promiscuous woman because of the way they constantly turn from God to pursue idolatry, fornication, and other sins. This happens so often that even when they are “righteous” it means absolutely nothing to God. Going back to Isaiah, he says, “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags.” ( Isaiah 64:6)

It’s hard to look down on the Israelites of the Old Testament when my own actions directly compare to them. How often have I turned from God to pursue my own passions apart from Him, making an idol of a new relationship or an addiction that I won’t let go of. If there was a scoreboard of my life to keep track of how many times I’ve chosen to live in continual, unrepentant sin over living for the God who created me and called me to follow Him, it wouldn’t even be close. 

Returning to the original passage, but mainly focused on verse 20, I seem to consistently find myself in league with the adulterous woman. Not just sinning but dwelling in it so much so that actively rebelling against God becomes as natural as eating. I get to a place where I can look at my own sin and say, “I have done no wrong.” 

Recently, I had a conversation with my mom – who is often my guiding light back to the Lord – and we were talking about following “feelings” from God. I explained to her that I’d recently been experiencing conviction in the moments before I was about to do something I shouldn’t. 

These “feelings” are not meant to shame us but to open our eyes to the wrongs we have committed against each other, against ourselves, and against God. That conviction is the difference between the unfaithful woman in Proverbs 30:20, who is sinning so often that it becomes her natural state of being, and the prostitute who washes Jesus’ feet with her tears, dries them with her hair, and anoints them with perfume. (Luke 7:36-38)

The difference is repentance. Turning from the things that are in opposition to God, asking for forgiveness, and accepting His grace. 

The last thing I will leave you with, dear reader, is an image that came to my mind the other night when I couldn’t sleep. Jesus and I were having a little therapy session about my life and the good and bad that led me to where I am today, when I got this image of a human heart in the hands of Jesus. He was stitching it up with a needle and thread but it was messy and painful and looked horrible. But the outcome would outweigh the pain because even if the healing is painful at times, that heart in His hands will become whole again. 

It was an image that so beautifully painted the picture of what I am feeling now. My heart is broken from so many years of turning away and turning back around. Like the footnotes from Proverbs 30:20 says, “She is of the opinion that after she has washed up… there are no moral ramifications to her behavior.” 

I’ve lived my life acting as if the things I’ve done in the past are washed away and in terms of salvation and grace, they are. But there are still ramifications for my actions. There are still shameful stories I will need to disclose to my future husband or to people in ministries I feel called to work in. Let me be clear, though, shame is not from God. 

Psalms 103:8-12 tells us, ‘The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”

Our souls are made whole in Jesus through faith, true repentance, and salvation. But our emotional brokenness remains until Jesus, the mighty healer and great physician, stitches us back together again. The only way to be truly whole again is through the one who knew no sin but became sin so that we may become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)