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Proverbs 7:16 · World English Bible

Proverbs 7:16 Meaning I Have Spread My Couch with Carpets

I have spread my couch with carpets of tapestry, with striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt.

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What does Proverbs 7:16 mean?

The bed is spread with every finery to make separation look inviting, for temptation must be beautiful or no one would follow it. Tapestry, carved work, imported linen: these are the ego's decorations, the elaborate appeal by which lack is made to shimmer like fulfillment.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Proverbs 7:16 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

The bed is spread with every finery to make separation look inviting, for temptation must be beautiful or no one would follow it. Tapestry, carved work, imported linen: these are the ego's decorations, the elaborate appeal by which lack is made to shimmer like fulfillment. The more richly the surface is dressed, the emptier the thing it covers.

All this ornament is a covering in the plainest sense, laid over a place that offers no rest. A mind drawn by the display can look at what the finery hides, and see that no arrangement of beautiful things can make a bed of separation into a home.

Bed: the place the mind is invited to lie down in separation, the seat of the choice for the ego dressed to look like rest Coverings of tapestry: the ego's ornament, the rich surface laid over emptiness to make lack shimmer like fulfillment Linen of Egypt: the imported allure of the world, borrowed beauty used to dress division as though it were a gift

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Christian Psychology lens

Live Proverbs 7:16 today

  1. When a beautifully designed page makes something look like exactly the life you want, scroll past the pictures and read what it actually delivers. Good design is not a promise.
  2. Before saying yes to a plan someone has made sound wonderful, ask the plain question of how it will actually go. One honest detail is worth more than the whole pitch.
  3. Under pressure, when a polished option and a plain honest one are on the table, pick by what each one gives you a week from now. Polish wears off on about that schedule.

What am I choosing for how it looks rather than for the rest it would actually give me?

The same truth in other traditions

Tao Te Ching 12

The five colors blind the eye. Beauty piled high stops being something you see and becomes something that handles you.

Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius

Take the gilding off a thing and look at the bare material. Most of what impresses us is finish, not substance.

Buddhism · Dhammapada

A bright surface can cover a house of decay. What is inside is what you will have to live in.

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