The Ant and the Sluggard
My son, keep your father’s commandment, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. Proverbs 6:20 · Berean Standard Bible
Now the teacher circles back to something foundational: honor and follow the wisdom your parents taught you—this is basic protection for your life.
After describing all the ways you can go wrong (through pledging for strangers, through laziness, through wickedness), the teacher returns to the fundamental guardrail: your parents' teaching. This isn't oppressive control; it's accumulated wisdom that protects you from the exact kinds of foolishness just described.
The wisdom teacher, speaking again as a parent figure to "my son," offering preventative wisdom.
This honors the fifth commandment (honor your father and mother) while showing its practical wisdom. Your parents' teaching isn't meant to restrict you; it's meant to save you from unnecessary pain and folly.
Keep your father's instruction and your mother's teaching as foundational principles—do not abandon or disregard them.
The dual-parent authority structure (father/mother) reflects the household's pedagogical structure in ancient Israel, where both parents bore responsibility for moral formation (though wisdom texts often emphasize the father's formal instruction and the mother's nurture). The verbs 'keep' (shamar) and 'forsake' (natashah) employ the language of covenantal obligation—these are not suggestions but binding commitments. The phrase 'your father's commandment' (mitzvat aviḳa) uses the same Hebrew word (mitzvah) employed for divine commandments, suggesting that parental instruction participates in the moral order. This is revolutionary: it grounds filial obedience not in social convention but in alignment with God's ordering.
The sage returns to direct address of 'my son' after the excursus on divine hatred.
This exemplifies the Fifth Commandment's theological logic: 'Honor your father and mother, that your days may be long in the land' (Exodus 20:12). The honor owed parents is not mere sentiment but covenantal obligation grounded in their role as mediators of divine wisdom. Jesus affirmed this principle even while radicalizing it: 'Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me' (Matthew 10:37)—the principle remains but is reordered under Christ's supremacy.
20My son, keep your father’s commandment, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
21Bind them always upon your heart; tie them around your neck.
22When you walk, they will guide you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; when you awake, they will speak to you.
Read all of Proverbs 6 — Go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise. Nature teaches what lectures can't.
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