Proverbs 13:1

A wise son heareth his father's instruction: but a scorner heareth not rebuke.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

XIII.

(1) A wise son heareth his father’s instruction.—Or, is his father’s instruction, i.e., the result and embodiment of it.

A scorner.—See above on Proverbs 1:22.

Benson Commentary

Proverbs 13:1-3. A wise son, &c. — Houbigant translates this verse, “A wise son regardeth the instruction of his father; but a son who is a scorner heareth not rebuke.” A man shall eat good — Shall receive much comfort, credit, and benefit to himself; by the fruit of his mouth — By his wise and profitable discourses; but the soul — That is, the person, as the word soul often signifies; of the transgressors — Of those that transgress with their lips, which seems to be the meaning here; shall eat violence — Shall have that violence and injury returned upon themselves, which they have offered to others in word or deed. He that keepeth his mouth — Namely, shut; that speaks sparingly, and with due care and caution; keepeth his life —

Prevents many sins and mischiefs which others run into; but he that openeth wide his lips — That takes the liberty of speaking whatever he pleases, or all that comes into his mind; shall have destruction — From God or men.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

13:1 There is great hope of those that reverence their parents. There is little hope of any who will not hear those that deal faithfully with them. 2. By our words we must be justified or condemned, Mt 12:37. 3. He that thinks before he speaks, that suppresses evil if he have thought it, keeps his soul from a great deal both of guilt and grief. Many a one is ruined by an ungoverned tongue. 4. The slothful desire the gains the diligent get, but hate the pains the diligent take; therefore they have nothing. This is especially true as to the soul. 5. Where sin reigns, the man is loathsome. If his conscience were awake, he would abhor himself, and repent in dust and ashes.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Heareth - The verb of the second clause is inserted in the first, just as in the next verse that of the first is inserted in the second. Stress is laid upon the obstinacy of the scorner who refuses to hear, not only "instruction," but also the much stronger "rebuke."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

CHAPTER 13

Pr 13:1-25.

1. (Compare Pr 6:1-5; 10:1, 17). Heareth; which word is understood out of the next clause, as is frequent in the Hebrew text.

Instruction; or, rebuke or reproof.

Heareth not rebuke; he hateth reproof, either from his father or from any other man.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

A wise son heareth his father's instruction,.... As he should, and has good reason to do; since it must be cordial, faithful, and disinterested, as well as the effect of age and experience. He "asks for it" and "loves" it, as Jarchi supplies the text; he likes and approves of it, is well pleased with it, and delights in it; seeing it tends to his profit and advantage; he "receives" it, as the Targum, so Ben Melech; he listens to and obeys it, and acts agreeably to it, which shows him to be wise; and this is the way to be wiser and wiser. So one that is spiritually wise will attend to and receive the instruction of Wisdom or Christ; who stands in the relation of an everlasting fin, her to his children; whose instruction is the doctrine of the Gospel; which a wise man hears, so as to understand it; to love and like it, and approve of it; cordially to embrace and obey it, and put it in practice; see Matthew 7:24. The word also signifies "correction" (s), because instruction often comes by it; and he that is a wise man will hear the rod and him that has appointed it, and learn to know his mind by it, and receive instruction from it: or is "chastised by his father" (t), and takes it well, Micah 6:9;

but a scorner heareth not rebuke; that is, a son who is a scorner, as the Targum and Aben Ezra; one that makes a mock at sin, and scoffs at religion: such a man will be so far from hearing, attending to, and receiving the rebuke and reproof of his father, that he will scoff also at that; such as were the sons in law of Lot, and the sons of Eli and Samuel. So scornful men, that make a jest of everything that is sacred, will not hearken to the reproof of God's word, to the rebukes of Gospel ministers, or even to the rebukes of Providence, which will issue in their destruction, Proverbs 5:11.

(s) "obedivit castigationem", Baynus, so Gejerus. (t) "Castigatur a patre, vel castigatus patris", Scultens, so De Dieu.

Geneva Study Bible

A wise son heareth his father's instruction: but a scorner heareth not rebuke.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 1-ch. 15:19. Second section in this collection. Verse 1. - A wise son heareth his father's instruction. The Authorized Version introduces the verb from the second member. The Hebrew is elliptical, "A wise son, his father's discipline," i.e. is the object or the result of his father's education; he owes his wisdom to it. Septuagint, "A clever (πανοῦργος) son is obedient to his father." But a scorner (Proverbs 1:22) heareth not rebuke; one who mocks at goodness and despises filial piety will not listen to reproof. Septuagint, "A disobedient son is in destruction." Compare the case of Eli's sons, and their fate (1 Samuel 2:25; 1 Samuel 4:17). Proverbs 13:1

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The proverb PRomans 12:28 is so sublime, so weighty, that it manifestly forms a period and conclusion. This is confirmed from the following proverb, which begins like Proverbs 10:1 (cf. 5), and anew stamps the collection as intended for youth:

1 A wise son is his father's correction;

   But a scorner listens not to rebuke.

The lxx, which the Syr. follows, translate Ψἱὸς πανουργὸς ὑπήκοος πατρί, whence it is not to be concluded with Lagarde that they read נוסר in the sense of a Ni. tolerativum; they correctly understood the text according to the Jewish rule of interpretation, "that which is wanting is to be supplied from the context." The Targ. had already supplied שׁמע from 1b, and is herein followed by Hitzig, as also by Glassius in the Philologia sacra. But such an ellipse is in the Hebr. style without an example, and would be comprehensible only in passionate, hasty discourse, but in a language in which the representation filius sapiens disciplinam patris audit numbers among the anomalies is not in general possible, and has not even its parallel in Tacitus, Ann. xiii. 56: deesse nobis terra, in qua vivamus - in qua moriemur, non potest, because here the primary idea, which the one expression confirms, the other denies, and besides no particle, such as the ו of this passage before us, stands between them. Bttcher therefore maintains the falling out of the verb, and writes יבּין before בּן; but one says not בין מוסר, but שׁמע מוסר, Proverbs 1:8; Proverbs 4:1; Proverbs 19:27. Should not the clause, as it thus stands, give a sense complete in itself? But מוּסר can hardly, with Schultens and Ewald, be taken as part. Hoph. of יסר: one brought up by his father, for the usage of the language knows מוסר only as part. Hoph. of סוּר. Thus, as Jerome and the Venet. translate: a wise son is the correction of his father, i.e., the product of the same, as also Fleischer explains, "Attribution of the cause, the ground, as elsewhere of the effect." But we call that which one has trained (vegetable or animal) his Zucht ( equals παιδεία in the sense of παίδευμα). To the wise son (Proverbs 10:1) who is indebted to the מוסר אב (Proverbs 4:1), stands opposed the לץ (vid., Proverbs 1:22), the mocker at religion and virtue, who has no ear for גּערה, strong and stern words which awaken in him a wholesome fear (cf. Proverbs 17:10, Jde 1:23 : ἐν φόβῳ).