“For a harlot is a deep pit”: For “harlot” see 6.26, and for “deep pit” see 22.14. This line is figurative language, and the point of comparison between the “harlot” or “prostitute” and the “deep pit” is that both of them catch or trap a person, who is then unable to escape without help. The word for “pit” is rare in Hebrew; it is not the normal term for a pit used to trap animals but seems to have a similar sense here. In translation Good News Translation has the rendering “deadly trap,” and Contemporary English Version changes the figure to a simile, “like a deep pit—,” with the next verse explaining what this means.

“An adventuress is a narrow well”: This line is parallel to the previous line and very similar in meaning. “An adventuress” is literally “a strange woman”; see the comments at 2.16 and 6.24, where this term is used in parallel with another rendered “foreign woman” or “loose woman.” Since these terms were all used generally for prostitutes or immoral women, it is possible that “adventuress” has the same sense as “harlot” in the previous line. However, commentators suggest that in this case, “the two lines apparently introduce the two classes of unchaste women, the unmarried and the married” (Toy). So most versions have “prostitute” in the first line and say here something like “immoral women” (Good News Translation), “a loose woman” (Revised English Bible), or “a woman who . . . belongs to another” (New Jerusalem Bible). “A narrow well” has the same sense as “a deep pit” in the first line; in this case the well is difficult or impossible to escape from because it is narrow. To make this point clear in translation Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch says “. . . like a narrow well in which you get stuck.”

Since the figures in the two lines are very similar, it is possible to combine the two lines of this verse. Contemporary English Version “Bad women and unfaithful wives are like a deep pit” is one example; see also Good News Translation.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Proverbs. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .