Your Own Private Well Text: Proverbs 5:15-20
Introduction: The War for the Wellspring
The book of Proverbs is intensely practical. It is a father teaching his son how to navigate the world as it actually is, a world filled with wisdom and folly, righteousness and ruin. And a central arena where this battle between wisdom and folly is fought is the realm of our sexuality. Our modern world treats sex in one of two foolish ways. It either treats it as a trivial recreational activity, like bowling, or it treats it as the ultimate source of personal identity and meaning. Both are idolatrous, and both are ruinous.
The first way, the trivial approach, says that sex is just a physical act with no inherent meaning beyond momentary pleasure. This is the lie of the hookup culture, a sterile and joyless transaction that leaves souls empty and bodies used. It promises freedom but delivers bondage. The second way, the therapeutic approach, says that our sexual desires are the very core of who we are. To deny them is to deny our true selves. This is the lie that has launched a thousand rainbow flags, and it is a cruel god that demands total allegiance and offers no grace.
Scripture, as always, cuts through both of these follies with glorious, earthy wisdom. God is the one who invented sex, and He is not embarrassed by what He made. He designed it to be a powerful, delightful, and exclusive bond within the covenant of marriage. It is not trivial; it is a profound one-flesh union that pictures the mystery of Christ and the Church. And it is not ultimate; it is a gift from God, to be enjoyed according to His design, for His glory. To treat it as anything else is to turn a good gift into a demanding idol.
In this passage, Solomon uses a series of potent metaphors centered on water, a cistern, a well, springs, and a fountain, to instruct his son on the nature of marital fidelity. He is teaching him that sexual joy is not something to be found by sampling every public water source, but by digging your own well deep and drinking faithfully from it. This is not a call to prudish restriction, but to profound and exclusive pleasure.
The Text
Drink water from your own cistern And fresh water from your own well. Should your springs be dispersed abroad, Streams of water in the streets? Let them be for you alone, And not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, And be glad in the wife of your youth. As a loving hind and a graceful doe, Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; Be intoxicated always with her love. So why should you, my son, be intoxicated with a strange woman And embrace the bosom of a foreign woman?
(Proverbs 5:15-20 LSB)
Your Exclusive Cistern (v. 15)
The instruction begins with a simple, direct command.
"Drink water from your own cistern And fresh water from your own well." (Proverbs 5:15)
In the ancient world, water was life. A private cistern or well was a valuable, life-sustaining possession. It was a source of refreshment and security that belonged to you and your household. Solomon is using this imagery to speak of a wife. Your wife is your cistern, your well. The sexual intimacy you share with her is the water. The command is to find your satisfaction, your refreshment, and your pleasure within the exclusive covenant of your marriage.
This is a direct assault on the wandering eye and the discontented heart. The temptation is always to think that water from some other well must be sweeter. The adulterous woman, described earlier in this chapter, offers stolen waters, and the fool thinks they are sweet (Prov. 9:17). But wisdom says that the best water is the water you have been given, the water that is yours by covenant. The world says, "Variety is the spice of life." God says, "Fidelity is the wellspring of life."
Notice the possessive language: "your own." Marriage is a covenant of exclusive ownership. The apostle Paul says the husband's body belongs to his wife, and the wife's body belongs to her husband (1 Cor. 7:4). This is not the language of oppressive possession, but of mutual, glad, and total self-giving. You belong to her, and she belongs to you. Therefore, to seek sexual satisfaction elsewhere is not just foolishness; it is theft. You are stealing from your wife what is rightfully hers, and you are stealing from another man what is his. And you are attempting to drink from a cistern that God has not given you.
The Folly of Dissipation (v. 16-17)
Solomon then asks a rhetorical question to show the absurdity of infidelity.
"Should your springs be dispersed abroad, Streams of water in the streets? Let them be for you alone, And not for strangers with you." (Proverbs 5:16-17)
The imagery shifts slightly from drinking (receiving) to springs (giving). A man's sexual vigor and procreative power are his "springs." The question is stark: Should this powerful, life-giving force be scattered indiscriminately in the public square? Should your potency be dissipated in the streets? The answer is an emphatic no. To do so is to devalue it completely. Water in a well is precious. Water spilled in a muddy street is worthless; it becomes part of the filth.
A man who is unchaste diffuses his strength. He scatters his focus and dissipates his ethical core. His glory is his strength, but when he gives that strength to strange women, he gives away his glory. This is what happened to Samson. He played games with Delilah and ended up blind, grinding grain like an animal for his enemies. He scattered his strength abroad, and it destroyed him.
Verse 17 provides the clear alternative. "Let them be for you alone." Your sexual affections, your passion, your procreative power, are to be channeled exclusively toward your wife. They are not for public consumption. They are not for strangers. The marriage bed is a private garden, a locked spring, a sealed fountain (Song of Solomon 4:12). This exclusivity is what makes it precious. A man who shares his sexual intimacy with women other than his wife is like a man who leaves his front door wide open and invites strangers to take whatever they want. He is a fool who does not understand the value of what he possesses.
A Blessed and Intoxicating Fountain (v. 18-19)
The alternative to the dissipated life of folly is the blessed life of faithfulness.
"Let your fountain be blessed, And be glad in the wife of your youth. As a loving hind and a graceful doe, Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; Be intoxicated always with her love." (Proverbs 5:18-19)
Your "fountain" is your wife, the source of your legitimate pleasure and the mother of your children. The command is to let this fountain be blessed. This means you are to treat her as a blessing from God. You are to protect her, honor her, and cherish her. A man who commits adultery curses his own fountain. He defiles the source of his own blessing.
And the result of this blessing is joy. "Be glad in the wife of your youth." This points to a lifelong, covenantal delight. The "wife of your youth" is the one you committed yourself to at the beginning. As the years pass, temptations may arise to look at younger, newer models. But God's command is to continue to rejoice in the one with whom you have built a life, the one who has shared your joys and sorrows, the one who has borne your children. True marital joy is not found in chasing novelty, but in cultivating a deep, lasting, and seasoned love.
Verse 19 is remarkably frank and physical. This is not some sterile, Victorian manual. This is the Word of God, and it is robustly earthy. The wife is compared to a "loving hind and a graceful doe," animals known for their beauty and grace. The husband is commanded to find his satisfaction in her body: "Let her breasts satisfy you at all times." This is a command to be a lover, to be fully engaged in the physical delights of marriage. The word "satisfy" here means to be saturated, to be drenched. This is the antidote to pornography and lust. The man who is joyfully and regularly saturated with the love of his wife will not be thirsty for the polluted waters of a strange woman.
The final command is even stronger: "Be intoxicated always with her love." The word for intoxicated here is the same word used for being drunk with wine. It means to be ravished, to be enraptured, to be carried away. God is commanding a husband to be continually swept up in a passionate, all-consuming love for his wife. This is not a suggestion for the honeymoon. This is the command for the entire marriage. This kind of joyful intoxication is a gift from God, but it is also a duty to be pursued.
The Unanswerable Question (v. 20)
Solomon concludes this section with a final, piercing question that exposes the sheer irrationality of adultery.
"So why should you, my son, be intoxicated with a strange woman And embrace the bosom of a foreign woman?" (Proverbs 5:20)
In light of the blessed, satisfying, intoxicating joy that is available within the covenant of marriage, why would any man choose the alternative? Why trade a private, pure, life-giving well for a polluted public sewer? Why trade the satisfaction of a loving wife for the fleeting and destructive embrace of a stranger? The question hangs in the air because there is no good answer. There is no rational reason. Adultery is not just a sin; it is a form of spiritual insanity.
To be intoxicated with the "strange woman" is to be drunk on poison. Her path leads to death, her steps go down to Sheol (Prov. 5:5). To embrace her is to embrace ruin, shame, and the judgment of God. The choice presented in Proverbs is stark. You can be intoxicated with the pure love of your wife, which leads to life, blessing, and honor. Or you can be intoxicated with the fleeting lust for a strange woman, which leads to death, curse, and shame.
This is the choice between wisdom and folly, between life and death. And every man must choose which well he will drink from.
Conclusion: The Fountain of Living Water
This passage is a beautiful portrait of God's design for marriage. But like every part of God's good creation, it has been marred by our sin. We are all, by nature, adulterers. We have all forsaken the fountain of living waters, the Lord Himself, and have dug for ourselves broken cisterns that can hold no water (Jer. 2:13). Our hearts are prone to wander, to seek satisfaction in forbidden places.
The ultimate fulfillment of this passage is found in the gospel. Jesus Christ is the true and faithful bridegroom, and the Church is His bride. He does not have a wandering eye. He has set His covenant love upon His people, and He will never forsake them. He invites us to drink freely from Him, the fountain of living water (John 4:14). When we drink from Him, we find a satisfaction that no earthly pleasure can provide.
And as we are satisfied in Him, He empowers us to be faithful in our earthly covenants. A husband's ability to rejoice in the wife of his youth flows directly from his joy in Christ. A wife's ability to be a blessed fountain for her husband flows from her being satisfied in her Savior. The gospel does not abolish the commands of Proverbs; it fulfills them and makes them possible. It is only through the grace of God in Christ that we can turn from the broken cisterns of this world and learn to drink with joy from the wells of salvation, and from the wells of our own blessed marriages.