outlines and suggestive comments.
The future may be imperative. We prefer this view. “Let a wise son make a glad father.” If a man has a good son, let it be his one all-sufficient gratification. . . . Men toil for their children, and give themselves pain in their behalf to an extent absolutely heroic, considering how they abnegate self, but to an extent altogether disproportioned, as between their temporal and eternal warfare. This is one way we destroy our children. If their temporal inheritance is threatened, we are all on thorns; but if they are doing well or ill in piety, we give it but little notice. The verb, therefore, as an imperative, means most. “Let a foolish son be the grief of his mother,” that is, an unconverted son. He may be all smiles and amiableness, and the father’s business may be doing well, but if he is a fool, spiritually, it should be his mother’s grief. And then follow the reasons—(For) “treasures of wickedness profit nothing,” etc.—Miller.
Perhaps this first sentence may have been placed in the front to point to the value of a godly education in the personal, social, national influence, connected both with time and eternity.—Bridges.
The father is specially said to be gladdened by a wise son as he is of a more severe nature, and not so likely to form a partial estimate, and therefore not so easily gladdened as the mother; so that it is the stronger praise of the wise son to say that not only the mother, but also the father, is gladdened by him. On the other hand, the mother is apt, through fondness, to ignore the errors of her son, and even to encourage them by indulgent connivance. The wise man admonishes here that she is laying up “heaviness” in store for herself.—Fausset.
After the previous general description of Wisdom, Solomon begins with what is uppermost in his own mind, What would be the character of his successor? What would become of his throne, his wealth, his people, after himself? See his melancholy forebodings in Proverbs xvii. 2–21, 25; xix. 13; Eccles. ii. 18, etc. Solomon has one son, and he is Rehoboam. This thought lies underneath many of the sayings in the Proverbs.—Wordsworth.
Every son should be an Abner, that is, his father’s light, and every daughter an Abigail, her father’s joy. Eve promised herself much in her Cain, and David did the like in his Absalom. But they were both deceived. Samuel succeeds Eli in his cross, though not in his sin. Virtue is not, as lands, inheritable. Let parents labour to mend by education what they have marred by propagation.—Trapp.
Do you hear this, young man? It is in your power to make your father glad, and God expects you to do it. Here is an object for your ambition, here is an investment that will ensure an immediate return. Come now, make your choice. Whether you will try to please these fools who banter you here, or to gladden your father’s heart that is yearning for you there? . . . These companions that come between you and him—what have they done for you, and what would they do for you to-morrow, if you were in distress? They have never lost a night’s rest by watching at your sick bed, and never will. But your father what has he done, and yet will do? The command of God is that you gladden your father and not grieve him. Your conscience countersigns that command now. Obey.—Arnot.
main homiletics of verse 2.
The Comparative Value of Righteousness and Riches.
I. Wealth when lawfully gotten is profitless for many very important things. Death is mentioned in the text, it has no power over that in any form. 1. Wealth will not deliver you from the daily dying, which is the lot of all men. It has been said that as soon as we are born we begin to die, and we know that it is certain that as soon as men have attained their prime, their outward man perisheth day by day (2 Cor. iv. 16). The richest man cannot purchase exception from this law with all his wealth. 2. Neither can wealth prevent the death which we call premature. Man of vast fortunes are often brought down to an early grave; the seeds of disease within them hasten the operation of the law of death which has passed upon the whole human race. A galloping consumption cannot be held in check even with golden reins. 3. Treasures of wealth will not insure a man against sudden death. The morning finds the rich man looking over his vast acres, or counting up his dividends, and saying “I have much good laid up for many years;” and before the sun sets another has entered into possession of all his riches. 4. Lawfully-gotten wealth will not only not deliver from premature death, but may sometimes bring it on. Wealth is very apt to produce very mistaken views in a man’s mind. When he has amassed a large portion of this world’s goods, and is in a condition of moral bankruptcy, he is very prone to imagine that he is secure in the enjoyment of all that he has acquired, and that nothing can come between his riches and himself. Then God may read him a lesson by saying, “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee” (Luke xii. 20). Had the man in the parable been a poor man he would not have died so soon; his wealth not only could not deliver him from death, but it hastened his end. And many men walking in his footsteps have been brought to their graves in a similar manner and for a similar reason even when the wealth has been honestly gained. We have no reason to think that the rich fool amassed his riches dishonestly; his sin consisted, not in his having riches, but in his trusting in them.