Proverbs 7:22-
"22 Immediately he went after her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, Or as a fool to the correction of the stocks”
When we think about an ox going to the slaughter, if we have never spent time around livestock, we do not understand that getting an ox to go anywhere takes coercion. Oxen, like cattle, do what they want to do, when they want to do it. There are only two things that can lead animals of this size and strength. The first is food and the second is the proposition of intercourse with a female. The food is fairly easy to control as bait and will consistently yield results, the female as bait, however, has to be used at just the right time for both sexes to illicit the desired response. It is an interesting thing that the same two motivators are what direct most human males! That is exactly the point- the Word is telling us here that the natural urges of the human can be used against him as a trap if he does not utilize wisdom to make himself aware. Furthermore, later in the chapter we see that it is wiser to avoid the seductress {or seducer} all together than it is believe God for deliverance when one is already engulfed in the situation. In the same way that an ox would fight futily against his destroyers once he realized his life was threatened, a human in the same trap wages a winless war- without assistance of course.
As well, and conversely, it is understood that to punish oneself voluntarily is a foolish endeavor. A fool believes that punishment is a show of humility in an effort to display a form of self-control to the world. However, it is this complacent agreement that evokes in their fellow human a desire to punish the fool more extremely, after all, they are not resistant. This is a mirror of the role a seductress plays with a foolish man. The man will attempt to display humility by accepting whatever his plight maybe because he sees himself as guilty of adultery, which he is in this discussion. Instead of repenting and resisting, he will be more likely to embrace the notion that he has already made the choice and there is no point in stopping now and therefore will lose his life to his complacency. What is worse is that once punishment is doled out for a stock worthy sin, it is a foolish man who doesn’t fight for freedom based on the realization that he was wrong. Just because we make an error in judgement doesn’t mean we allow ourselves to be placed in a dangerous situation in order to exhibit “humility and acceptance.” We must still fight, after all, since God has forgiven us, who is he who would condemn us?
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