A common misinterpretation treats the verse literally as advice on private water usage or hoarding personal resources selfishly, ignoring the surrounding context of Proverbs 5 which employs vivid imagery of cisterns and fountains as symbols for a wife's sexuality and the vitality of marital relations; others might distort it to endorse possessive control over a spouse without mutual commitment or apply it to non-sexual matters like finances, missing the core warning against the seductive dangers of immorality.
Proverbs 5:17
King James Version (1769)
17 Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.
Proverbs 5:17 urges marital exclusivity, using the metaphor of waters from one's own cistern to represent the intimate blessings and affections of one's spouse, instructing that these joys should be reserved solely for the marriage partner and not shared with outsiders, promoting faithfulness, satisfaction within the covenant of marriage, and the avoidance of adultery's destructive consequences.