Parental Duties and Parental Joys.
This paragraph contains no subject upon which Solomon has not dwelt before, but their repetition shows the great importance which he attached to them.
I. He repeats the truth that corporal punishment is a necessary and salutary element of parental training. (see Homiletics on chap. [xiii. 24], page 234, and on chap. [xix. 18], page 573.)
II. He shows by example that appeals are also to be made to the higher and better nature of the child. Although the rod is to have its place, it is not to be the only force employed—a child is a reasoning and loving creature, and that training will miserably fail which does not take this fact into account. And in proportion as the child grows in years will the rod become less needful and effectual, and wise warning and loving entreaty will take its place. He is here besought to “give his heart to wisdom” and to live “in the fear of Jehovah”—1. Because of the exceeding joy that he will bring to his parents. (See verses 15, 24, and 25.) This is a thought that cannot fail to have weight with any son or daughter of good parents who is capable of grateful emotion. The consideration of the tender love and the unwearying patience that have surrounded them from their birth, and of the power that now lies in their hand to requite that long ministry of tenderness and long suffering, ought to be a powerful motive to dissuade from the evil path and allure into the good way. And it has been and ever will be, for many a child of godly parents has been kept in the hour of temptation by the remembrance of his father or his mother, even when he has not thought upon his God. (See also Homiletics on chap. [x. 1], page 137.) 2. Because of the temporal ruin of an opposite course. (See verses 21, 27, and 28.) All these subjects have been considered before. (See Homiletics on chap. [xxi. 17], page 609, and on chap. [vi. 6-11], page 79, and on chap. [vi. 24], page 89.) 3. Because of the rewards and punishments of the life to come. (See verse 18.) This verse (see [Critical Notes]) undoubtedly refers to the day of death and to the life beyond it, as do also chaps. [xi. 7], and [xiv. 32]. (See Homiletics on pages 201 and 391.)
outlines and suggestive comments.
Verse 13. The command is framed upon a supposition that parents often fail on the side of tenderness; the word is given to nerve them for a difficult duty. There is no ambiguity in the precept; both the need of correction, and the tremendous issues that depend on it, are expressed with thrilling precision of language.—Arnot.
Verses 15, 16. Now the proverb personates the father, and, instead of a roundabout speech, utters the temper that should inspire the beating. There will be no good unless the father shows the son that it will be his highest joy, if the son learns wisdom. If thou be really “wise.” That is the caution of the first clause. If it be no sham thing, but an affair of the “heart;” then “my heart shall rejoice,” down in the same depths. And then, as men are great actors, and may look virtue as they whip a child, when they do not feel it much, Solomon protests that it must be real. Each part of this sentence must be meant. Not,—Thou must be a good citizen, or a clever worker, or a moral actor, or a good gratifying son; but the boy must see, (and he surely will see it, if it is felt), that the yearning is that he become wise in heart, i.e., a good earnest Christian, and then on the other hand, that down in the same depths, not with outward expressions of pleasure, but in your very heart—not in your made-up heart, which you keep to show to others, but in your very self—the proverb echoes your feeling, “My heart shall rejoice, even mine.” The reduplication intensifies the sense. And then, unwilling to shake loose from the thought, he pushes it further. “Yea my reins shall rejoice.” That deepest, firmest, lastingest receptacle of joy, the patient reins shall rejoice or “exult”—the very highest feeling coming from the deepest depths. “When thy lips,” which are the best expounders of the heart, “speak right things.” The doctrine therefore is that a man will save his child if he disciplines him with these witnessed tokens of his manifest affection.—Miller.
Verse 17. This habitual fear of the Lord is nothing separate from common life. It gives to it a holy character. It makes all its minute details not only consistent with, but component parts of, godliness. Acts of kindliness are “done after a godly sort” (John iii. 5, 6). Instead of one duty thrusting out another, all are “done heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto man” (Eph. vi. 6, Col. iii. 23). Some professors confine their religion to extraordinary occasions. But Elijah seems to have been content to await his translation in his ordinary course of work (2 Kings ii. 1–12). An example that may teach us to lay the greater stress upon the daily and habitual, not the extraordinary service. Others are satisfied with a periodical religion; as if it were rather a rapture or an occasional impulse, than a habit. But if we are to engage in morning and evening devotions, we are also to “wait upon the Lord all the day” (Ps. xxv. 5). If we are to enjoy our Sabbath privileges, we are also to “abide in our weekly calling with God.” Thus the character of a servant of God is maintained—“devoted to His fear” (Ps. cxix. 38).—Bridges.
Verse 18. “Cut off,” as the worldling’s is. The worldling expects to be cut off. He toils with a hope, and that so vivid that he becomes aglow (see [Miller’s rendering], in verse 17) in worldly earnestness of purpose; and yet, ab imo, he knows that it will be cut off. . . . How can any intellect stand against such appeals? Work for something that will pay, for . . . there is something that shall never be “cut off.”—Miller.
Verse 19. The hinging pivot of this verse is the pronoun thou. Friends may do ever so much, but in the end it must be thyself. There is an eternal “way.” It is a way not for the feet but for the heart. The heart has some day to rise up and enter it. Once in, it will never wander any more out. My son, take that critical step. A man has a certain amount of strength, a certain amount of susceptibility let us call it, in matters of conversion. . . . Now the father, in his more immediate entreaties to his child, is to remember this.—Miller.