Don't Wear Yourself Out
May your father and mother be glad, and may she who gave you birth rejoice! Proverbs 23:25 · Berean Standard Bible
Living wisely and righteously brings joy not just to you but to your parents—they'll feel genuine gladness seeing the person you've become.
You need to understand that your choices aren't just about you. Your parents invested their lives in you; they experienced real anxiety about who you'd turn out to be. When you become wise and good, it answers their deepest prayers. This is reciprocal love—they gave you life, you give them joy.
The wisdom teacher, showing the connectedness of generations and how your growth brings blessing to those who love you.
Proverbs constantly emphasizes that we're not isolated individuals. We're part of a web of relationships and consequences. This verse shows the positive side of that—your virtue blesses others, just as your choices can wound them.
Pursue righteousness and wisdom so that your parents may experience the joy of seeing their life's work vindicated in your character and choices.
The subjunctive wishes (yišmḥû, yāgēl) turn the previous verse's statement into an exhortation: the student is being invited to understand that parental rejoicing is not automatic but contingent upon the child's choices. The specific mention of 'she who gave you birth' (yōldat'kā) personalizes the maternal dimension—perhaps acknowledging mothers' particular stake in a child's moral formation and social standing in contexts where their power was otherwise circumscribed.
The wisdom teacher, now addressing the student directly and affectively, appealing to filial love and the desire to bring honor to parents as motivation for pursuing wisdom.
This verse deepens the covenant theology implicit in the fifth commandment: honoring parents is not merely duty but reciprocal love that creates mutual flourishing. It anticipates Jesus's teaching on honoring father and mother as inseparable from loving God and neighbor.
23Invest in truth and never sell it— in wisdom and instruction and understanding.
24The father of a righteous man will greatly rejoice, and he who fathers a wise son will delight in him.
25May your father and mother be glad, and may she who gave you birth rejoice!
26My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes delight in my ways.
27For a prostitute is a deep pit, and an adulteress is a narrow well.
Read all of Proverbs 23 — Do not wear yourself out to get rich. Have the wisdom to show restraint. Riches sprout wings and fly away like an eagle.
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