Bind them … fasten them (6:21). See comment on 3:3. Patrick Miller demonstrates that here the “bound commandment” has the function not only of admonishing the son but protecting him as a companion. There is an analogy in Egypt, where Maʿat’s image was worn around a person’s neck to protect him.40
Tablet of your heart (7:3). See comment on 3:3.
“You are my sister” (7:4). The reference to Woman Wisdom as “sister” must be understood in the context of ancient Near Eastern and biblical love poetry (“my sister, my bride,” Song 4:9), where the “sister” is actually the beloved. In other words, the father encourages his son to make Woman Wisdom his lover, his wife. One Egyptian love poem (Papyrus Chester Beatty I, #31) begins: “One alone is (my) sister, having no peer: more gracious than all other women.”41
Fellowship offerings (7:14). While some suggest these offerings are associated with a pagan ritual where the woman engages in cultic prostitution as well as the offering of sacrifice,42 it is best to understand the offerings in the light of Leviticus 3 and 7:11–21. The fellowship offering emphasizes communion between the worshiper and God as well as with fellow worshipers. The meat must be eaten on the same day as the sacrifice. Thus, the woman is trying to entice the man not only with her body but with a delicious meal. But her acts just accentuate the sinfulness of her acts, adding the misuse of holy things (the sacrifice) to adultery.
Myrrh, aloes and cinnamon (7:17). See Song of Songs 4:14, where these spices describe the woman’s garden, a euphemism for her private sexual parts.43 These spices would have been imported from exotic places like Arabia and India.44